Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tropical) parts of the tropical regions. How is it then, that the descriptions of travellers gen-
erally give a very different idea? and where, it may be asked,
are
the glorious flowers that
we know do exist in the tropics? These questions can be easily answered. The fine tropical
flowering-plants cultivated in our hothouses, have been culled from the most varied regions,
and therefore give a most erroneous idea of their abundance in any one region. Many of
them are very rare, others extremely local, while a considerable number inhabit the more ar-
id regions of Africa and India, in which tropical vegetation does not exhibit itself in its usual
luxuriance. Fine and varied foliage, rather than gay flowers, is more characteristic of those
parts where tropical vegetation attains its highest development, and in such districts each
kind of flower seldom lasts in perfection more than a few weeks, or sometimes a few days.
In every locality a lengthened residence will show an abundance of magnificent and gaily
blossomed plants, but they have to be sought for, and are rarely at any one time or place so
abundant as to form a perceptible feature in the landscape. But it has been the custom of
travellers to describe and group together all the fine plants they have met with during a long
journey, and thus produce the effect of a gay and flower-painted landscape. They have rarely
studied and described individual scenes where vegetation was most luxuriant and beautiful,
and fairly stated what effect was produced in them by flowers. I have done so frequently,
and the result of these examinations has convinced me, that the bright colours of flowers
have a much greater influence on the general aspect of nature in temperate than in tropical
climates. During twelve years spent amid the grandest tropical vegetation, I have seen noth-
ing comparable to the effect produced on our landscapes by gorse, broom, heather, wild hy-
acinths, hawthorn, purple orchises, and buttercups.
The geological structure of this part of Celebes is interesting. The limestone mountains,
though of great extent, seem to be entirely superficial, resting on a basis of basalt which in
some places forms low rounded hills between the more precipitous mountains. In the rocky
beds of the streams basalt is almost always found, and it is a step in this rock which forms
the cascade already described. From it the limestone precipices rise abruptly; and in ascend-
ing the little stairway along the side of the fall, you step two or three times from the one
rock on to the other,—the limestone dry and rough, being worn by the water and rains into
sharp ridges and honeycombed holes,—the basalt moist, even, and worn smooth and slip-
pery by the passage of bare-footed pedestrians. The solubility of the limestone by rain-water
is well seen in the little blocks and peaks which rise thickly through the soil of the alluvial
plains as you approach the mountains. They are all skittle-shaped, larger in the middle than
at the base, the greatest diameter occurring at the height to which the country is flooded in
the wet season, and thence decreasing regularly to the ground. Many of them overhang con-
