The conical hills of the white ants were very abundant. The structure appears to me not an independent one, but the debris of clumps of bamboos, or of the trunks of large trees, which these insects have destroyed. As they work up a tree from the ground, they coat the bark with particles of sand glued together, carrying up this artificial sheath or covered way as they ascend. A clump of bamboos is thus speedily killed; when the dead stems fall away, leaving the mass of stumps coated with sand, which the action of the weather soon fashions into a cone of earthy matter. Ascending again, the path strikes up the hill, through a thick forest of Sal (_Vateria robusta_) and other trees, spanned with cables of scandent _Bauhinia_ stems. At about 3000 feet above the sea, the vegetation becomes more luxuriant, and by a little stream I collected five species of ferns and some mosses,--all in a dry state, however. Still higher, _Clematis, Thalictrum,_ and an increased number of grasses are seen; with bushes of _Verbenaceae_ and _Compositae._ The white ant apparently does not enter this cooler region. At 3500 feet the vegetation again changes, the trees all become gnarled and scattered; and as the dampness also increases, more mosses and ferns appear. We emerged from the forest at the foot of the great ridge of rocky peaks, stretching E. and W. three or four miles. Abundance of a species of berberry and an _Osbeckia_ marked the change in the vegetation most decidedly, and were frequent over the whole summit, with coarse grasses, and various bushes. At noon we reached the saddle of the crest (alt. 4230 feet), where was a small temple, one of five or six which occupy various prominences of the ridge. The wind, N.W., was cold, the temp. 56 degrees. The view was beautiful, but the atmosphere too hazy: to the north were ranges of low wooded hills, and the course of the Barakah and Adji rivers; to the south lay a flatter country, with lower ranges, and the Damooda river, its all but waterless bed snowy-white from the exposed granite blocks with which its course is strewn. East and west the several sharp ridges of the mountain itself are seen; the western considerably the highest. Immediately below, the mountain flanks appear clothed with impenetrable forest, here and there interrupted by rocky eminences; while to the north the grand trunk road shoots across the plains, like a white thread, as straight as an arrow, spanning here and there the beds of the mountain torrents.