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 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; 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