ds of monkeys. Both agreed that
it was a pretty trait in the character of the lower animals, and proved
even the most savage of them capable of tender affection.

It chanced that upon that same day they had another illustration of this
very nature, and one that by good fortune did not have so tragical an
ending.

They had finished their day's journey, and were reclining under a great
_talauma_ tree--a species of magnolia, with very large leaves--by the
edge of a little glade. They had not yet made any preparations for
their camp. The day's march had been a severe one, for they were now
among the foot-hills of the great Himalaya chain; and though they
appeared to travel as much down hill as up they were in reality
ascending, and by evening they were really more than five thousand feet
above the plains of India. They had arrived in a new zone of
vegetation, among the great forests of magnolias which gird the middle
parts of the mountains. It is in this part of the world that the
remarkable genus of magnolia is found in its greatest vigour and
variety; and many species of these trees, in forests of vast extent,
cover and adorn the declivities of the lower Himalayas. There are the
white-flowered magnolias, at an elevation of from four thousand to eight
thousand feet, which are then replaced by the still more gorgeous purple
magnolia (_Magnolia Campbellia_)--the latter being the most superb
species known, its brilliant corollas often arraying the sloping sides
of the hills as with a robe of purple. Here, too, our travellers
observed chestnut-trees of rare species, and several kinds of oak--
laurels also, not in the form of humble shrubs, but rising as tall
trees, with straight smooth boles, to the height of the oaks themselves.
Maples, too, were seen mingling in the forest, and the tree
rhododendrons growing forty feet high!

What appeared singular to the eyes of the botanist, was the mingling of
many European forms of plants among those of a strictly tropical
character. For instance, there were birches, willows, alders, and
walnut-trees, growing side by side with the wild plantain, the Wallich
palm, and gigantic bamboos; while the great _Cedrela Toona_, figs of
several species, _melastomas_, balsams, _pothos_ plants, peppers, and
gigantic climbing vines and orchids, were intermixed with speedwell,
common bramble, forget-me-not, and stinging-nettles, just such as might
have been met with in a European field! Tree