what was absolutely necessary. "We accordingly took a
blanket each, and divided our food and other articles among
us, and went on with only the old Malay and his son.
After descending into the saddle between the two peaks
we found the ascent very laborious, the slope being so steep
as often to necessitate hand-climbing. Besides a bushy
vegetation the ground was covered knee-deep with mosses
on a foundation of decaying leaves and rugged rock, and it
was a hard hour’s climb to the small ledge just below the
summit, where an overhanging rock forms a convenient
shelter, and a little basin collects the trickling water.
Here we put down our loads, and in a few minutes
more stood on the summit of Mount Ophir, 4,000 feet
above the sea. The top is a small rocky platform
covered with rhododendrons and other shrubs. The
afternoon was clear, and the view fine in its way—ranges
of hill and valley everywhere covered with interminable
forest, with glistening rivers winding among them. In a
distant view a forest country is very monotonous, and no
mountain I have ever ascended in the tropics presents a
panorama equal to that from Snowdon, while the views in
Switzerland are immeasurably superior. When boiling
our coffee I took observations with a good boiling-point
thermometer, as well as with the sympiesometer, and we
then enjoyed our evening meal and the noble prospect that
lay before us. The night was calm and very mild, and
having made a bed of twigs and branches over which we
laid our blankets, we passed a very comfortable night. Our
porters had followed us after a rest, bringing only their rice
to cook, and luckily we did not require the baggage they
left behind them. In the morning I caught a few butterflies
and beetles, and my friend got a few land-shells ; and
we then descended, bringing with us some specimens of
the ferns and pitcher-plants of Padang-batu.
The place where we had first encamped at the foot of the
mountain being very gloomy, we chose another in a kind
of swamp near a stream overgrown with Zingiberaceous
plants, in which a clearing .was easily made. Here our
men built two little huts without sides, that would just
shelter us from the rain ; and we lived in them for a week,
shooting and insect-hunting, and roaming about the forests
at the foot of the mountain. This was the country of the
great Argus pheasant, and we continually heard its cry.
On asking the old Malay to try and shoot one for me, he
told me that although he had been for twenty years shooting
birds in these forests he had never yet shot one, and had
never even seen one except after it had been caught. The
bird is so exceedingly shy and wary, and runs along the
ground in the densest parts of the forest so quickly, that it
is impossible to get near it f and its sober colours and rich
eye-like spots, which are so ornamental when seen in a
museum, must harmonize well with the dead leaves among
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