On the slate rocks of Buttencote Kochia recurs, Heliotropium luteum, Nerioides, and Lycioides of Shikarpore are found.

Near Hizarnow, Serissa, Acaciae sp., which is the black wood of Madras; Sissoo, and Bheirs.  Hizarnow is a large place, curiously occupying receding slopes of the base of a low range of hills, but it must be dreadfully hot.  We passed several Kaburistans with pollarded, stunted, excavated Furas trees.  One mile before Hizarnow, a curious hill of slate occurred, covered with boulders.

The road is very winding in consequence of its following the bases of the hills forming the southern boundary of the valley.  The Cabul river is visible almost throughout the whole march.

All houses in the villages are now roofed in this part of the country with straw.  Starlings observed in swarms.

31st.—­Halted at Lalpore, this is a very busy large place:  the houses are one-storied, and flat-roofed.  The only peculiarity being occasional square towers.  The river is here quite open for commerce downwards, and is well adapted to small canoes:  the stream is rapid and crossed by a ferry.

On rocks under which the river flows near this, a species of Fissidens occurs, where the rocky surface has passed into sand.  Glycyrrhiza, Rubus, Artemisia, Asparagus, Pommereulla, Andropogon albus, Arundo, Cyrthandracea, an Hyoscyamus of the Bolan Pass, Beebee Nanee, Heliotropium flavum.

It would be curious to enquire why the powers of variation change so completely in the different families?  Thus for instance in Orchideae, no character can be taken from the vegetation with some limitations, and none from the fruit or seeds; two products in most orders very fruitful in discriminating marks.  This leads one to the idea that in monocotyledonous plants, the fruit is very generally of limited powers of variation; witness Orchideae, Gramineae, Smilacineae, etc. this idea deserves to be followed out as much as possible.  The river at the ferry is 100 yards wide, and twelve feet in the deepest part, the current five miles an hour, but confined to one and a half towards its centre.

November 1st.—­Marched ten miles:  the road from the camp extended up an acclivity, the ground becoming more broken than usual to the mouth of the ghat, which is four miles distant; thence up to the ghat which resembles much the Bolan Pass, it extends up an inclined plane over a shingly road.  The ghat is rather wide throughout, and all the features are the same as the Bolan Pass, slate rocks most common.  We passed on the way a large and a deep but dry well, ascribed to the kafirs; and near it the ruins of a fort built half-way up a small mountain, the top of which is level with the ghat.

Vegetation to the ghat unchanged.  In the ghat Capparis as before, Lycioides, Chamaerops, Andropog. albus, Schaenanthus, Bheir, Nerioides, Pommereullioid, Andropogonea, appear at once, AErua, Asparagus.