We ascended, by way of one of the two villages known as Foula, for four hours, the climb being all the way through dense forest soaking with the humidity of the atmosphere. Even the hot sun seemed scarcely to affect the prevailing damp. The rocks which beset our path were covered with lovely-shaded begonias, ferns, and trailing creepers, intermingled in richest profusion of golden tints. In the early morning the forest is alive with bird-life. The trees are of strange magnificence, particularly the mountain Pandanus, with its aërial roots, which cover an immense space and all converge into one stem 60 feet above the ground, whence the trunk runs up perfectly straight. Around us everywhere were also tree ferns, some of them rising to 30 feet in height, and besides these there were the enormous _Lycopodiums_ with leaves 10 feet long. These luxuriant forms of vegetation were thickly clustered upon the trees, and some of the masses must have been of enormous weight. They displayed a glorious profusion of scarlet, which had taken full possession of its supporting tree, for far above the domed mass of this superb parasite one could see occasionally large clusters of brilliant blossom here and there. More humble, but still very beautiful, was a little fern, similar to our Parsley Fern, which was distinguished by an exquisite iridescent blue all over the upper side of the leaf, while on the under side those fronds that were in seed showed a most brilliant golden yellow. Parrots great and small flashed about us, and now and then we caught a glimpse of the white cockatoo with the yellow crest that is found all over New Guinea. As we passed among the feathered colony, all these birds set up a tremendous screeching. The cockatoo, as I had occasion to know at a later period, can, when wounded, bite most cruelly. Of animals we saw little, for the inhabitants of this region are mostly arboreal and nocturnal. There are several species of the smaller animals, including the tree kangaroo, of which I wished I could have secured some specimens. These are born very imperfect, and are placed in the pouch; when they are once there the mother squeezes the milk into their mouths.