Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/128

118 it preents when een at a ditance by ea, is very unfavourable to vegetation. It is almot every where covered, even as far as the ea-ide, with hard teatites of a greyih colour, and o barren that I carried home with me but very few pecimens of plants. On the following day I viited the Devil's Mountain. It well deerves its appellation, on account of the violence of the outh-eat winds, which is much greater at the declivity of this mountain, than in any other part of the country. The delightful vale, which eparates this mountain from the Lion's Mountain, is adorned with the beautiful pecies of the protea, named by Linn. protea argentea, the tufted tops of which reit the violent blats of wind from the urrounding mountains. The leaves of this tree are covered with a ort of down, which grows the thicket on the parts mot expoed to the wind. This circumtance may here be remarked in mot of the plants liable to be beaten by the winds, which renders it probable, that their down erves them as a defence from the injury they might otherwie receive from them.

The fertility of this valley afforded a remarkable contrat with the barrennes of the Lion's Mountain. The vegetable kingdom appeared here in its highet luxuriance. Where the grounds roe with an eay acent, they were bepangled with