It was bitterly cold at night, as the hut was merely of
plaited bamboo, like a sieve, so that the wind came in on all sides. I
had flannel jackets and blankets and still was cold, and my poor men,
with nothing but their usual thin cotton clothes, passed miserable
nights lying on a mat on the ground round the fire which could only warm
one side at a time. The highest peak is an extinct volcano with the
crater nearly filled up, forming merely a saucer on the top, in which
is a good house built by the Government for the old Dutch naturalists
who surveyed and explored the mountain. There are a lot of strawberries
planted there, which do very well, but there were not many ripe. The
common weeds and plants of the top were very like English ones, such as
buttercups, sow-thistle, plantain, wormwood, chickweed, charlock, St.
John's wort, violets and many others, all closely allied to our common
plants of those names, but of distinct species. There was also a
honey-suckle, and a tall and very pretty kind of cowslip. None of these
are found in the low tropical lands, and most of them only on the tops
of these high mountains.
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