On the following day I botanized in the neighbourhood, with but poor success. An oblique-leaved fig climbs the other trees, and generally strangles them: two epiphytal _Orchideae_ also occur on the latter, _Vanda Roxburghii_ and an _Oberonia._ Dodders (_Cuscuta_) of two species, and _Cassytha,_ swarm over and conceal the bushes with their yellow thread-like stems. I left Belcuppee on the 8th of February, following Mr. Williams' camp. The morning was clear and cold, the temperature only 56 degrees. We crossed the nearly dry broad bed of the Burkutta river, a noble stream during the rains, carrying along huge boulders of granite and gneiss. Near this I passed the Cholera-tree, a famous peepul by the road side, so called from a detachment of infantry having been attacked and decimated at the spot by that fell disease; it is covered with inscriptions and votive tokens in the shape of rags, etc. We continued to ascend to 1360 feet, where I came upon a small forest of the Indian Olibanum (_Boswellia thurifera_), conspicuous from its pale bark, and spreading curved branches, leafy at their tips; its general appearance is a good deal like that of the mountain ash. The gum, celebrated throughout the East, was flowing abundantly from the trunk, very fragrant and transparent. The ground was dry, sterile, and rocky; kunker, the curious formation mentioned at Chapter 1, appears in the alluvium, which I had not elsewhere seen at this elevation. Descending to the village of Burshoot, we lost sight of the _Boswellia,_ and came upon a magnificent tope of mango, banyan, and peepul, so far superior to anything hitherto met with, that we were glad to choose such a pleasant halting-place for breakfast. There are a few lofty fan-palms here too, great rarities in this soil and elevation: one, about eighty feet high, towered above some wretched hovels, displaying the curious proportions of this tribe of palms: first, a short cone, tapering to one-third the height of the stem, the trunk then swelling to two-thirds, and again tapering to the crown. Beyond this, the country again ascends to Burree (alt. 1169 feet), another dawk bungalow, a barren place, which we left on the following morning. So little was there to observe, that I again amused myself by watching footsteps, the precision of which in the sandy soil was curious. Looking down from the elephant, I was interested by seeing them all in _relief,_ instead of _depressed,_ the slanting rays of the sun in front producing this kind of mirage. Before us rose no more of those wooded hills that had been our companions for the last 120 miles, the absence of which was a sign of the nearly approaching termination of the great hilly plateau we had been traversing for that distance.