hydrangea, and vines. The inosculating ones are
almost all figs and Wightia, a plant allied to Bignonia:
the latter is the most remarkable, and I give a cut of
its grasping roots, sketched at our encampment.
Except for the occasional hooting of an owl, the
night was profoundly still during several hours after
dark—the cicadas at this season not ascending so high
on the mountain. A dense mist shrouded every thing,
and the rain pattered on the leaves of our hut. At
midnight a tree-frog broke the silence with his curious
metallic clack, and others quickly joined the chorus,
keeping up their strange music till morning. Like
many Batrachians, this has a voice singularly unlike
that of any other organised creature. The cries of
beasts, birds, and insects are all explicable to our
senses, and we can recognise most of them as belonging
to such or such an order of animal; but the voices of
many frogs are like nothing else, and allied species
utter totally dissimilar notes. In some, as this, the
sound is like the concussion of metals; in others, of
the vibration of wires or cords; anything but the
natural effects of lungs, larynx, and muscles.*
On the following morning we proceeded upwards,
though our prospect was more gloomy than ever. The
path, which still led up steep ridges, was very slippery,
owing to the rain upon the clayey soil, and was only
passable from the hold afforded by the interlacing roots
of trees.
A large tick infested the small bamboo, and a more
* A very common Tasmanian species utters a sound that appears to ring
in an underground vaulted chamber, beneath the feet.
hateful insect I never encountered. The traveller
cannot prevent these insects coming on his person
(sometimes in great numbers) as he brushes through
the forest; they get inside his dress, and insert their
proboscis deeply without pain. Buried head and
shoulders, and retained by a barbed lancet, the tick is
only to be extracted by force, which is very painful. I
have devised many tortures, mechanical and chemical,
to induce these disgusting intruders to withdraw their
proboscis, but in vain. Leeches also swarm below
7000 feet; a small black species above 3000 feet, and
a large yellow-brown solitary one below that elevation.
Our ascent to the summit was by the bed of a watercourse,
now a roaring torrent, from the heavy and
incessant rain. The top of the mountain is another
flat ridge, with depressions and broad pools. The
number of additional species of plants found here was
great, and all betokened a rapid approach to the alpine
region of the Himalaya. The trees were principally
—the scarlet Rhododendron arhoreum and harhatum,
large bushy luxuriant trees, loaded with beautiful
flowers; R. Falconeri, in point of foliage the most
superb of all the Himalayan species, with trunks thirty
feet high, and branches bearing at their ends only
leaves eighteen inches long: these are deep green
above, and covered beneath with a rich brown down.
There were still a few purple Magnolias, very large
Pyri, like mountain ash, and the common English yew,
eighteen feet in circumference, the red bark of which
is used ks a dye, and for staining the foreheads of the
Brahmins in Nepal. An erect white-flowered rose