s well known that there
was a spring close to the summit, so we determined to go on without
them, and carry with us only 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; 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 Argu