We accordingly took a blanket each, and divided our food and other articles among us, and went on with only the old Malay and his son.
After descending into the saddle between the two peaks we found the ascent very laborious, the slope being so steep, as often to necessitate hand-climbing.

Besides a bushy vegetation the ground was covered knee-deep with mosses on a foundation of decaying leaves and rugged rock, and it was a hard hour's climb to the small ledge just below the summit, where an overhanging rock forms a convenient shelter, and a little basin collects the trickling water.

Here we put down our loads, and in a few minutes more stood on the summit of Mount Ophir, 4,000 feet above the sea.

The top is a small rocky platform covered with rhododendrons and other shrubs.

The afternoon was clear, and the view fine in its way--ranges of hill and valley everywhere covered with interminable forest, with glistening rivers winding among them.
In a distant view a forest country is very monotonous, and no mountain I have ever ascended in the tropics presents a panorama equal to that from Snowdon, while the views in Switzerland are immeasurably superior.
When boiling our coffee I took observations with a good boiling-point thermometer, as well as with the sympiesometer, and we then enjoyed our evening meal and the noble prospect that lay before us.