15348	----	[Illustration: Blown to Bits or The Lonely Man of Rakata] [Illustration: CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE 112.--(_Frontispiece_.)] BLOWN TO BITS OR THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA. A Tale of the Malay Archipelago. BY R.M. BALLANTYNE, AUTHOR OF "BLUE LIGHTS, OR HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN;" "THE FUGITIVES;" "RED ROONEY;" "THE ROVER OF THE ANDES;" "THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST;" "THE RED ERIC;" "FREAKS ON THE FELLS;" "THE YOUNG TRAWLER;" "DUSTY DIAMONDS;" "THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER;" "POST HASTE;" "BLACK IVORY;" "THE IRON HORSE;" "FIGHTING THE FLAMES;" "THE LIFEBOAT;" ETC. ETC. With Illustrations by the Author. _EIGHTH THOUSAND_. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 1894. [_All rights reserved_.] PREFACE. The extremely violent nature of the volcanic eruption in Krakatoa in 1883, the peculiar beauty of those parts of the eastern seas where the event occurred, the wide-spread influences of the accompanying phenomena, and the tremendous devastation which resulted, have all inspired me with a desire to bring the matter, in the garb of a tale, before that portion of the juvenile world which accords me a hearing. For most of the facts connected with the eruption which have been imported into my story, I have to acknowledge myself indebted to the recently published important and exhaustive "Report" of the Krakatoa Committee, appointed by the Royal Society to make a thorough investigation of the whole matter in all its phases. I have also to acknowledge having obtained much interesting and useful information from the following among other works:--_The Malay Archipelago_, by A.R. Wallace; _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_, by H.O. Forbes; and Darwin's _Journal of Researches_ round the world in H.M.S. "Beagle." R.M. BALLANTYNE. HARROW-ON-THE HILL, 1889. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAP. I.--THE PLAY COMMENCES, 1 II.--THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING, 9 III.--INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS, 19 IV.--NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES, 33 V.--CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE, 47 VI.--THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED, 58 VII.--WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND, 72 VIII.--PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT, 89 IX.--DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES, 99 X.--A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN, 111 XI.--CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT, 123 XII.--WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA, 140 XIII.--FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES, 153 XIV.--A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND NEW HOPES DELAYED, 173 XV.--HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY, 189 XVI.--BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT, 204 XVII.--TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED, 217 XVIII.--A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON, 230 XIX.--A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION, 243 XX.--NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL, 259 XXI.--IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF, 276 XXII.--A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED, 297 XXIII.--TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN "HOME," 307 XXIV.--AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING, 324 XXV.--ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION, 343 XXVI.--A CLIMAX, 361 XXVII.--"BLOWN TO BITS," 371 XXVIII.--THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE," 377 XXIX.--TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD AT LARGE, 385 XXX.--COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES AMONG THE ISLANDS, 401 XXXI.--ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY, 414 XXXII.--THE LAST, 425 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VIGNETTE TITLE. "HE CAME UNEXPECTEDLY ON A CAVERN."--PAGE 112, _Frontispiece_. ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS, _facing page_ 36 THEY DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC, 164 "DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY, 187 BLOWN TO BITS 342 BLOWN TO BITS A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. CHAPTER I. THE PLAY COMMENCES. Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so "microscopically" small that--but let us not anticipate. About the darkest hour of a very dark night, in the year 1883, a large brig lay becalmed on the Indian Ocean, not far from that region of the Eastern world which is associated in some minds with spices, volcanoes, coffee, and piratical junks, namely, the Malay Archipelago. Two men slowly paced the brig's quarter-deck for some time in silence, as if the elemental quietude which prevailed above and below had infected them. Both men were broad, and apparently strong. One of them was tall; the other short. More than this the feeble light of the binnacle-lamp failed to reveal. "Father," said the tall man to the short one, "I do like to hear the gentle pattering of the reef points on the sails; it is so suggestive of peace and rest. Doesn't it strike you so?" "Can't say it does, lad," replied the short man, in a voice which, naturally mellow and hearty, had been rendered nautically harsh and gruff by years of persistent roaring in the teeth of wind and weather. "More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way." The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with the scene and hour. "Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences of nature." "Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry." The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn. "Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all." "What was it, then?" "It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't object to poetry in _her_." "Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother _is_ poetry, an' she can _do_ it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything that Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name--ever put pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you needn't go an' shelter yourself under _her_ wings, wi' your inflated, up in the clouds, reef-point-patterin', balloon-like nonsense." "Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again. Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned." "What other matter?" demanded the sire. "My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a sailor. After all your trouble, and my own efforts during this long voyage round the Cape, I'm no better than an amateur. I told you that a youth taken fresh from college, without any previous experience of the sea except in boats, could not be licked into shape in so short a time. It is absurd to call me first mate of the _Sunshine_. That is in reality Mr. Moor's position--" "No, it isn't, Nigel, my son," interrupted the captain, firmly. "Mr. Moor is _second_ mate. _I_ say so, an' if I, the skipper and owner o' this brig, don't know it, I'd like to know who does! Now, look here, lad. You've always had a bad habit of underratin' yourself an' contradictin' your father. I'm an old salt, you know, an' I tell 'ee that for the time you've bin at sea, an' the opportunities you've had, you're a sort o' walkin' miracle. You're no more an ammytoor than I am, and another voyage or two will make you quite fit to work your way all over the ocean, an' finally to take command o' this here brig, an' let your old father stay at home wi'--wi'--" "With the Poetess," suggested Nigel. "Just so--wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now it seems to me--. How's 'er head?" The captain suddenly changed the subject here. Nigel, who chanced to be standing next the binnacle, stooped to examine the compass, and the flood of light from its lamp revealed a smooth but manly and handsome face which seemed quite to harmonise with the cheery voice that belonged to it. "Nor'-east-and-by-east," he said. "Are 'ee sure, lad?" "Your doubting me, father, does not correspond with your lately expressed opinion of my seamanship; does it?" "Let me see," returned the captain, taking no notice of the remark, and stooping to look at the compass with a critical eye. The flood of light, in this case, revealed a visage in which good-nature had evidently struggled for years against the virulent opposition of wind and weather, and had come off victorious, though not without evidences of the conflict. At the same time it revealed features similar to those of the son, though somewhat rugged and red, besides being smothered in hair. "Vulcan must be concoctin' a new brew," he muttered, as he gazed inquiringly over the bow, "or he's stirring up an old one." "What d' you mean, father?" "I mean that there's somethin' goin' on there-away--in the neighbourhood o' Sunda Straits," answered the Captain, directing attention to that point of the compass towards which the ship's head was turned. "Darkness like this don't happen without a cause. I've had some experience o' them seas before now, an' depend upon it that Vulcan is stirring up some o' the fires that are always blazin' away, more or less, around the Straits Settlements." "By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the Malay Archipelago has become active," said Nigel; "but are we not some five or six hundred miles to the sou'-west of Sunda? Surely the influence of volcanic action could scarcely reach so far." "So far!" repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to indicate mild contempt; "that shows how little you know, with all your book-learnin', about volcanoes." "I don't profess to know much, father," retorted Nigel in a tone of cheery defiance. "Why, boy," continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck, "explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay _hundreds_, of miles. I thought I heard one just now, but no doubt the unusual darkness works up my imagination and makes me suspicious, for it's wonderful what fools the imag--. Hallo! D'ee feel _that_?" He went smartly towards the binnacle-light, as he spoke, and, holding an arm close to it, found that his sleeve was sprinkled with a thin coating of fine dust. "Didn't I say so?" he exclaimed in some excitement, as he ran to the cabin skylight and glanced earnestly at the barometer. That glance caused him to shout a sudden order to take in all sail. At the same moment a sigh of wind swept over the sleeping sea as if the storm-fiend were expressing regret at having been so promptly discovered and met. Seamen are well used to sudden danger--especially in equatorial seas--and to prompt, unquestioning action. Not many minutes elapsed before the _Sunshine_ was under the smallest amount of sail she could carry. Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was tearing up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale soon raised into raging billows. The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged. Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the back-stays of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and the fore-top-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot, went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear along with it. CHAPTER II. THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING. It seemed as if the storm-fiend were satisfied with the mischief he had accomplished, for immediately after the disaster just described, the gale began to moderate, and when the sun rose it had been reduced to a stiff but steady breeze. From the moment of the accident onward, the whole crew had been exerting themselves to the utmost with axe and knife to cut and clear away the wreck of the masts and repair damages. Not the least energetic among them was our amateur first mate, Nigel Roy. When all had been made comparatively snug, he went aft to where his father stood beside the steersman, with his legs nautically wide apart, his sou'-wester pulled well down over his frowning brows, and his hands in their native pockets. "This is a bad ending to a prosperous voyage," said the youth, sadly; "but you don't seem to take it much to heart, father!" "How much or little I take it to heart you know nothin' whatever about, my boy, seein' that I don't wear my heart on my coat-sleeve, nor yet on the point of my nose, for the inspection of all and sundry. Besides, you can't tell whether it's a bad or a good endin', for it has not ended yet one way or another. Moreover, what appears bad is often found to be good, an' what seems good is pretty often uncommon bad." "You are a walking dictionary of truisms, father! I suppose you mean to take a philosophical view of the misfortune and make the best of it," said Nigel, with what we may style one of his twinkling smiles, for on nearly all occasions that young man's dark, brown eyes twinkled, in spite of him, as vigorously as any "little star" that was ever told in prose or song to do so--and much more expressively, too, because of the eyebrows of which little stars appear to be destitute. "No, lad," retorted the captain; "I take a common-sense view--not a philosophical one; an' when you've bin as long at sea as I have, you'll call nothin' a misfortune until it's proved to be such. The only misfortune I have at present is a son who cannot see things in the same light as his father sees 'em." "Well, then, according to your own principle that is the reverse of a misfortune, for if I saw everything in the same light that you do, you'd have no pleasure in talking to me, you'd have no occasion to reason me out of error, or convince me of truth. Take the subject of poetry, now--" "Luff," said Captain Roy, sternly, to the man at the wheel. When the man at the wheel had gone through the nautical evolution involved in "luff," the captain turned to his son and said abruptly-- "We'll run for the Cocos-Keelin' Islands, Nigel, an' refit." "Are the Keeling Islands far off?" "Lift up your head and look straight along the bridge of your nose, lad, and you'll see them. They're an interesting group, are the Keelin' Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin', so to speak. Sit down here an' I'll tell 'ee about 'em." Nigel shut up the telescope through which he had been examining the thin, blue line on the horizon that indicated the islands in question, and sat down on the cabin skylight beside his father. "They've got a romantic history too, though a short one, an' are set like a gem on the bosom of the deep blue sea--" "Come, father, you're drifting out of your true course--that's poetical!" "I know it, lad, but I'm only quotin' your mother. Well, you must know that the Keelin' Islands--we call them Keelin' for short--were uninhabited between fifty and sixty years ago, when a Scotsman named Ross, thinking them well situated as a port of call for the repair and provisioning of vessels on their way to Australia and China, set his heart on them and quietly took possession in the name of England. Then he went home to fetch his wife and family of six children, intendin' to settle on the islands for good. Returning in 1827 with the family and fourteen adventurers, twelve of whom were English, one a Portugee and one a Javanee, he found to his disgust that an Englishman named Hare had stepped in before him and taken possession. This Hare was a very bad fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with lots o' native wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince. Of course he was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that things were going badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people to the agreement which was made when he thought the whole group was his own, so he offered to release them. They all, except two men and one woman, accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that chanced to touch there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival lived there--the one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but the English did it at long-last--in 1878--and annexed the islands to the Government of Ceylon. "Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the 'King of the Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years--chiefly through the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout all the Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of Batavia. As these men were fit for anything--from pitch-and-toss to murder--and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the Malays are sometimes liable to have the spirit of _amok_ on them, which leads them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death, from which we get our sayin'--_run amuck_. An' when a strong fellow is goin' about loose in this state o' mind, it's about as bad as havin' a tiger prowlin' in one's garden." "Well, sometimes two or three o' these coolies would mutiny and hide in the woods o' one o' the smaller uninhabited islands. An' the colonists would have no rest till they hunted them down. So, to keep matters right, they had to be uncommon strict. It was made law that no one should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island without permission. Every man was bound to report himself at the guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time. So they went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a considerable change--at first for the worse, but for the better in the long-run. Provin' the truth, my lad, of what I was--well, no--I was goin' to draw a moral here, but I won't! "It was a cyclone that did the business. Cyclones have got a free-an'-easy way of makin' a clean sweep of the work of years in a few hours. This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin' Islanders, and Ross--that's the second Ross, the son of the first one--sent home for _his_ son, who was then a student of engineering in Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights. Ross the third obeyed the call, like a good son,--observe that, Nigel." "All right, father, fire away!" "Like a good son," repeated the captain, "an' he turned out to be a first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after, leavin' him to do the work alone. An' well able was the young engineer to do it. He got rid o' the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none but men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills, circular saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general education with a younger brother as head-master--an' tail-master too, for I believe there was only one. He also taught the men to work in brass, iron, and wood, and his wife--a Cocos girl that he married after comin' out--taught all the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the house. In short, everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till the year 1876, when the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as contented and happy as could be. "In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit. The barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor. All the boats were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th--worse than they had expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away, leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't speak of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath. "About midnight of the 28th the gale was at its worst. Darkness that could be felt between the flashes of lightning. Thunder that was nearly drowned by the roaring of the wind an' the crashing of everything all round. To save their lives the people had to fling themselves into ditches and hollows of the ground. Mr. Ross and some of his people were lying in the shelter of a wall near his house. There had been a schooner lying not far off. When Mr. Ross raised his head cautiously above the wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin' straight for him on the top of a big wave. 'Hold on!' he shouted, fell flat down, and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave burst right over the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above highwater mark, and swept his house clean away! By good fortune the wall stood the shock, and the schooner stuck fast just before reachin' it, but so near that the end of the jib-boom passed right over the place where the household lay holdin' on for dear life and half drowned. It was a tremendous night," concluded the captain, "an' nearly everything on the islands was wrecked, but they've survived it, as you'll see. Though it's seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all right and goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened." "And is Ross III. still king?" asked Nigel with much interest. "Ay--at least he was king a few years ago when I passed this way and had occasion to land to replace a tops'l yard that had been carried away." "Then you won't arrive as a stranger?" "I should think not," returned the captain, getting up and gazing steadily at the _atoll_ or group of islets enclosed within a coral ring which they were gradually approaching. Night had descended, however, and the gale had decreased almost to a calm, ere they steered through the narrow channel--or what we may call a broken part of the ring--which led to the calm lagoon inside. Nigel Roy leaned over the bow, watching with profound attention the numerous phosphorescent fish and eel-like creatures which darted hither and thither like streaks of silver from beneath their advancing keel. He had enough of the naturalist in him to arouse in his mind keen interest in the habits and action of the animal life around him, and these denizens of the coral-groves were as new to him as their appearance was unexpected. "You'll find 'em very kind and hospitable, lad," said the captain to his son. "What, the fish?" "No, the inhabitants. Port--port--steady!" "Steady it is!" responded the man at the wheel. "Let go!" shouted the captain. A heavy plunge, followed by the rattling of chains and swinging round of the brig, told that they had come to an anchor in the lagoon of the Cocos-Keeling Islands. CHAPTER III. INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS. By the first blush of dawn Nigel Roy hastened on deck, eager to see the place in regard to which his father's narrative had awakened in him considerable interest. It not only surpassed but differed from all his preconceived ideas. The brig floated on the bosom of a perfectly calm lake of several miles in width, the bottom of which, with its bright sand and brilliant coral-beds, could be distinctly seen through the pellucid water. This lake was encompassed by a reef of coral which swelled here and there into tree-clad islets, and against which the breakers of the Indian Ocean were dashed into snowy foam in their vain but ceaseless efforts to invade the calm serenity of the lagoon. Smaller islands, rich with vegetation, were scattered here and there within the charmed circle, through which several channels of various depths and sizes connected the lagoon with the ocean. "We shall soon have the king himself off to welcome us," said Captain Roy as he came on deck and gave a sailor-like glance all round the horizon and then up at the sky from the mere force of habit. "Visitors are not numerous here. A few scientific men have landed now and again; Darwin the great naturalist among others in 1836, and Forbes in 1878. No doubt they'll be very glad to welcome Nigel Roy in this year of grace 1883." "But I'm not a naturalist, father, more's the pity." "No matter, lad; you're an ammytoor first mate, an' pr'aps a poet may count for somethin' here. They lead poetical lives and are fond o' poetry." "Perhaps that accounts for the fondness you say they have for you, father." "Just so, lad. See!--there's a boat puttin' off already: the king, no doubt." He was right. Mr. Ross, the appointed governor, and "King of the Cocos Islands," was soon on deck, heartily shaking hands with and welcoming Captain Roy as an old friend. He carried him and his son off at once to breakfast in his island-home; introduced Nigel to his family, and then showed them round the settlement, assuring them at the same time that all its resources were at their disposal for the repair of the _Sunshine_. "Thank 'ee kindly," said the captain in reply, "but I'll only ask for a stick to rig up a foretop-mast to carry us to Batavia, where we'll give the old craft a regular overhaul--for it's just possible she may have received some damage below the water-line, wi' bumpin' on the mast and yards." The house of the "King" was a commodious, comfortable building in the midst of a garden, in which there were roses in great profusion, as well as fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Each Keeling family possessed a neat well-furnished plank cottage enclosed in a little garden, besides a boat-house at the water-edge on the inner or lagoon side of the reef, and numerous boats were lying about on the white sand. The islanders, being almost born sailors, were naturally very skilful in everything connected with the sea. There was about them a good deal of that kindly innocence which one somehow expects to find associated with a mild paternal government and a limited intercourse with the surrounding world, and Nigel was powerfully attracted by them from the first. After an extensive ramble, during which Mr. Ross plied the captain with eager questions as to the latest news from the busy centres of civilisation--especially with reference to new inventions connected with engineering--the island king left them to their own resources till dinner-time, saying that he had duties to attend to connected with the kingdom! "Now, boy," said the captain when their host had gone, "what'll 'ee do? Take a boat and have a pull over the lagoon, or go with me to visit a family I'm particularly fond of, an' who are uncommon fond o' _me!"_ "Visit the family, of course," said Nigel. "I can have a pull any day." "Come along then." He led the way to one of the neatest of the plank cottages, which stood on the highest ridge of the island, so that from the front windows it commanded a view of the great blue ocean with its breakers that fringed the reef as with a ring of snow, while, on the opposite side, lay the peaceful waters and islets of the lagoon. A shout of joyful surprise was uttered by several boys and girls at sight of the captain, for during his former visit he had won their hearts by telling them wild stories of the sea, one half of each story being founded on fact and personal experience, the other half on a vivid imagination! "We are rejoiced to see you," said the mother of the juveniles, a stout woman of mixed nationality--that of Dutch apparently predominating. She spoke English, however, remarkably well, as did many of the Cocos people, though Malay is the language of most of them. The boys and girls soon hauled the captain down on a seat and began to urge him to tell them stories, using a style of English that was by no means equal to that of the mother. "Stop, stop, let me see sister Kathy first. I can't begin without her. Where is she?" "Somewhere, I s'pose," said the eldest boy. "No doubt of that. Go--fetch her," returned the captain. At that moment a back-door opened, and a girl of about seventeen years of age entered. She was pleasant-looking rather than pretty--tall, graceful, and with magnificent black eyes. "Here she comes," cried the captain, rising and kissing her. "Why, Kathy, how you've grown since I saw you last! Quite a woman, I declare!" Kathy was not too much of a woman, however, to join her brothers and sisters in forcing the captain into a seat and demanding a story on the spot. "Stop, stop!" cried the captain, grasping round their waists a small boy and girl who had already clambered on his knees. "Let me inquire about my old friends first--and let me introduce my son to you--you've taken no notice of _him_ yet! That's not hospitable." All eyes were turned at once on Nigel, some boldly, others with a shy inquiring look, as though to say, Can _you_ tell stories? "Come, now," said Nigel, advancing, "since you are all so fond of my father, I must shake hands with you all round." The hearty way in which this was done at once put the children at their ease. They admitted him, as it were, into their circle, and then turning again to the captain continued their clamour for a story. "No, no--about old friends first. How--how's old mother Morris?" "Quite well," they shouted. "Fatterer than ever," added an urchin, who in England would have been styled cheeky. "Yes," lisped a very little girl; "one of 'e doors in 'e house too small for she." "Why, Gerchin, you've learned to speak English like the rest," said the captain. "Yes, father make every one learn." "Well, now," continued the captain, "what about Black Sam?" "Gone to Batavia," chorused the children. "And--and--what's-'is-name?--the man wi' the nose--" A burst of laughter and, "We's _all_ got noses here!" was the reply. "Yes, but you know who I mean--the short man wi' the--" "Oh! with the turned _up_ nose. _I_ know," cried the cheeky boy; "you means Johnson? He goed away nobody know whar'." "And little Nelly Drew, what of her?" A sudden silence fell on the group, and solemn eyes were turned on sister Kathy, who was evidently expected to answer. "Not dead?" said the captain earnestly. "No, but very _very_ ill," replied the girl. "Dear Nelly have never git over the loss of her brother, who--" At this point they were interrupted by another group of the captain's little admirers, who, having heard of his arrival, ran forward to give him a noisy welcome. Before stories could be commenced, however, the visitors were summoned to Mr. Ross's house to dinner, and then the captain had got into such an eager talk with the king that evening was upon them before they knew where they were, as Nigel expressed it, and the stories had to be postponed until the following day. Of course beds were offered, and accepted by Captain Roy and Nigel. Just before retiring to them, father and son went out to have a stroll on the margin of the lagoon. "Ain't it a nice place, Nigel?" asked the former, whose kindly spirit had been stirred up to quite a jovial pitch by the gushing welcome he had received alike from old and young. "It's charming, father. Quite different from what you had led me to expect." "My boy," returned the captain, with that solemn deliberation which he was wont to assume when about to deliver a palpable truism. "W'en you've come to live as long as me you'll find that everything turns out different from what people have bin led to expect. Leastways that's _my_ experience." "Well, in the meantime, till I have come to your time of life, I'll take your word for that, and I do hope you intend to stay a long time here." "No, my son, I don't. Why do ye ask?" "Because I like the place and the people so much that I would like to study it and them, and to sketch the scenery." "Business before pleasure, my lad," said the captain with a grave shake of the head. "You know we've bin blown out of our course, and have no business here at all. I'll only wait till the carpenter completes his repairs, and then be off for Batavia. Duty first; everything else afterwards." "But you being owner as well as commander, there is no one to insist on duty being done," objected Nigel. "Pardon me," returned the captain, "there is a certain owner named Captain David Roy, a very stern disciplinarian, who insists on the commander o' this here brig performin' his duty to the letter. You may depend upon it that if a man ain't true to himself he's not likely to be true to any one else. But it's likely that we may be here for a couple of days, so I release _you_ from duty that you may make the most o' your time and enjoy yourself. By the way, it will save you wastin' time if you ask that little girl, Kathy Holbein, to show you the best places to sketch, for she's a born genius with her pencil and brush." "No, thank you, father," returned Nigel. "I want no little girl to bother me while I'm sketching--even though she be a born genius--for I think I possess genius enough my self to select the best points for sketching, and to get along fairly well without help. At least I'll try what I can do." "Please yourself, lad. Nevertheless, I think you wouldn't find poor Kathy a bother; she's too modest for that--moreover, she could manage a boat and pull a good oar when I was here last, and no doubt she has improved since." "Nevertheless, I'd rather be alone," persisted Nigel. "But why do you call her _poor_ Kathy? She seems to be quite as strong and as jolly as the rest of her brothers and sisters." "Ah, poor thing, these are not her brothers and sisters," returned the captain in a gentler tone. "Kathy is only an adopted child, and an orphan. Her name, Kathleen, is not a Dutch one. She came to these islands in a somewhat curious way. Sit down here and I'll tell 'ee the little I know about her." Father and son sat down on a mass of coral rock that had been washed up on the beach during some heavy gale, and for a few minutes gazed in silence on the beautiful lagoon, in which not only the islets, but the brilliant moon and even the starry hosts were mirrored faithfully. "About thirteen years ago," said the captain, "two pirate junks in the Sunda Straits attacked a British barque, and, after a fight, captured her. Some o' the crew were killed in action, some were taken on board the junks to be held to ransom I s'pose, and some, jumping into the sea to escape if possible by swimming, were probably drowned, for they were a considerable distance from land. It was one o' these fellows, however, who took to the water that managed to land on the Java shore, more dead than alive. He gave information about the affair, and was the cause of a gun-boat, that was in these waters at the time, bein' sent off in chase o' the pirate junks. "This man who swam ashore was a Lascar. He said that the chief o' the pirates, who seemed to own both junks, was a big ferocious Malay with only one eye--he might have added with no heart at all, if what he said o' the scoundrel was true, for he behaved with horrible cruelty to the crew o' the barque. After takin' all he wanted out of his prize he scuttled her, and then divided the people that were saved alive between the two junks. There were several passengers in the vessel; among them a young man--a widower--with a little daughter, four year old or so. He was bound for Calcutta. Being a very powerful man he fought like a lion to beat the pirates off, but he was surrounded and at last knocked down by a blow from behind. Then his arms were made fast and he was sent wi' the rest into the biggest junk. "This poor fellow recovered his senses about the time the pirates were dividin' the prisoners among them. He seemed dazed at first, so said the Lascar, but as he must have bin in a considerable funk himself I suspect his observations couldn't have bin very correct. Anyhow, he said he was sittin' near the side o' the junk beside this poor man, whose name he never knew, but who seemed to be an Englishman from his language, when a wild scream was heard in the other junk. It was the little girl who had caught sight of her father and began to understand that she was going to be separated from him. At the sound o' her voice he started up, and, looking round like a wild bull, caught sight o' the little one on the deck o' the other junk, just as they were hoistin' sail to take advantage of a breeze that had sprung up. "Whether it was that they had bound the man with a piece o' bad rope, or that the strength o' Samson had been given to him, the Lascar could not tell, but he saw the Englishman snap the rope as if it had bin a bit o' pack-thread, and jump overboard. He swam for the junk where his little girl was. If he had possessed the strength of a dozen Samsons it would have availed him nothin', for the big sail had caught the breeze and got way on her. At the same time the other junk lay over to the same breeze and the two separated. At first the one-eyed pirate jumped up with an oath and fired a pistol shot at the Englishman, but missed him. Then he seemed to change his mind and shouted in bad English, with a diabolical laugh--'Swim away; swim hard, p'raps you kitch 'im up!' Of course the two junks were soon out of sight o' the poor swimmer--and that was the end of _him,_ for, of course, he must have been drowned." "But what of the poor little girl?" asked Nigel, whose feelings were easily touched by the sorrows of children, and who began to have a suspicion of what was coming. "I'm just comin' to that. Well, the gun-boat that went to look for the pirates sighted one o' the junks out in the Indian Ocean after a long search and captured her, but not a single one o' the barque's crew was to be found in her, and it was supposed they had been all murdered and thrown overboard wi' shots tied to their feet to sink them. Enough o' the cargo o' the British barque was found, however, to convict her, and on a more careful search bein' made, the little girl was discovered, hid away in the hold. Bein' only about four year old, the poor little thing was too frightened to understand the questions put to her. All she could say was that she wanted 'to go to father,' and that her name was Kathy, probably short for Kathleen, but she could not tell." "Then that is the girl who is now here?" exclaimed Nigel. "The same, lad. The gun-boat ran in here, like as we did, to have some slight repairs done, and Kathy was landed. She seemed to take at once to motherly Mrs. Holbein, who offered to adopt her, and as the captain of the gun-boat had no more notion than the man-in-the-moon who the child belonged to, or what to do with her, he gladly handed her over, so here she has been livin' ever since. Of course attempts have been made to discover her friends, but without success, and now all hope has been given up. The poor girl herself never speaks on the subject, but old Holbein and his wife tell me she is sure that Kathy has never forgotten her father. It may be so; anyhow, she has forgotten his name--if she ever knew it." Next day Nigel made no objections to being guided to the most picturesque spots among the coral isles by the interesting orphan girl. If she had been older he might even have fallen in love with her, an event which would have necessitated an awkward modification of the ground-work of our tale. As it was, he pitied the poor child sincerely, and not only--recognising her genius--asked her advice a good deal on the subject of art, but--recognising also her extreme youth and ignorance--volunteered a good deal of advice in exchange, quite in a paternal way! CHAPTER IV. NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES. The arrangements made on the following day turned out to be quite in accordance with the wishes and tastes of the various parties concerned. The ship's carpenter having been duly set to work on the repairs, and being inspected in that serious piece of prosaic business by the second mate, our captain was set free to charm the very souls of the juveniles by wandering for miles along the coral strand inventing, narrating, exaggerating to his heart's content. Pausing now and then to ask questions irrelevant to the story in hand, like a wily actor, for the purpose of intensifying the desire for more, he would mount a block of coral, and thence, sometimes as from a throne, or platform, or pulpit, impress some profound piece of wisdom, or some thrilling point, or some exceedingly obvious moral on his followers open-mouthed and open-eyed. These were by no means idlers, steeped in the too common business of having nothing to do. No, they had regularly sought and obtained a holiday from work or school; for all the activities of social and civilised life were going on full swing--fuller, indeed, than the average swing--in that remote, scarcely known, and beautiful little gem of the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile Nigel and Kathy, with sketch-books under their arms, went down to where the clear waters of the lagoon rippled on the white sand, and, launching a cockleshell of a boat, rowed out toward the islets. "Now, Kathy, you must let me pull," said Nigel, pushing out the sculls, "for although the captain tells me you are very good at rowing, it would never do for a man, you know, to sit lazily down and let himself be rowed by a girl." "Very well," said Kathy, with a quiet and most contented smile, for she had not yet reached the self-conscious age--at least, as ages go in the Cocos-Keeling Islands! Besides, Kathy was gifted with that charming disposition which never _objects_ to anything--anything, of course, that does not involve principle! But it was soon found that, as the cockleshell had no rudder, and the intricacies they had to wind among were numerous, frequent directions and corrections were called for from the girl. "D' you know," said Nigel at last, "as I don't know where you want me to go to, it may be as well, after all, that you should row!" "Very well," said Kathy, with another of her innocent smiles. "I thinked it will be better so at first." Nigel could not help laughing at the way she said this as he handed her the sculls. She soon proved herself to be a splendid boatwoman, and although her delicate and shapely arms were as mere pipe-stems to the great brawny limbs of her companion, yet she had a deft, mysterious way of handling the sculls that sent the cockleshell faster over the lagoon than before. "Now, we go ashore here," said Kathy, turning the boat,--with a prompt back-water of the left scull, and a vigorous pull of the right one,--into a little cove just big enough to hold it. The keel went with such a plump on the sand, that Nigel, who sat on a forward thwart with his back landward, reversed the natural order of things by putting his back on the bottom of the boat and his heels in the air. To this day it is an unsettled question whether this was done on purpose by Kathy. Certain it is that _she_ did not tumble, but burst into a hearty fit of laughter, while her large lustrous eyes half shut themselves up and twinkled. "Why, you don't even apologise, you dreadful creature!" exclaimed Nigel, joining in the laugh, as he picked himself up. "Why should I 'pologise?" asked the girl, in the somewhat broken English acquired from her adopted family. "Why you not look out?" "Right, Kathy, right; I'll keep a sharp lookout next time. Meanwhile I will return good for evil by offering my hand to help you a--hallo!" While he spoke the girl had sprung past him like a grasshopper, and alighted on the sand like a butterfly. A few minutes later and this little jesting fit had vanished, and they were both engaged with pencil and book, eagerly--for both were enthusiastic--sketching one of the most enchanting scenes that can well be imagined. We will not attempt the impossible. Description could not convey it. We can only refer the reader's imagination to the one old, hackneyed but expressive, word--fairyland! One peculiarly interesting point in the scene was, that on the opposite side of the lagoon the captain could be seen holding forth to his juvenile audience. [Illustration: ART ON THE KEELING ISLANDS.--PAGE 36.] When a pretty long time had elapsed in absolute silence, each sketcher being totally oblivious of the other, Nigel looked up with a long sigh, and said:-- "Well, you _have_ chosen a most exquisite scene for me. The more I work at it, the more I find to admire. May I look now at what you have done?" "Oh yes, but I have done not much. I am slow," said the girl, as Nigel rose and looked over her shoulder. "Why!--what--how beautiful!--but--but--what do you mean?" exclaimed the youth. "I don't understand you," said the girl, looking up in surprise. "Why, Kathy, I had supposed you were drawing that magnificent landscape all this time, and--and you've only been drawing a group of shells. Splendidly done, I admit, but why----" He stopped at that moment, for her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Forgive me, dear child," said Nigel, hurriedly; "I did not intend to hurt your feelings. I was only surprised at your preference." "You have not hurt me," returned Kathy in a low voice, as she resumed her work, "but what you say calls back to me--my father was very fond of shells." She stopped, and Nigel, blaming himself for having inadvertently touched some tender chord, hastened, somewhat clumsily, to change the subject. "You draw landscape also, I doubt not?" "Oh yes--plenty. If you come home to me to-night, I will show you some." "I shall be only too happy," returned the youth, sitting down again to his sketch, "and perhaps I may be able to give you a hint or two--especially in reference to perspective--for I've had regular training, you know, Kathy, and I dare say you have not had that here." "Not what you will think much, perhaps, yet I have study a little in school, and _very_ much from Nature." "Well, you have been under the best of masters," returned Nigel, "if you have studied much from Nature. And who has been your other teacher?" "A brother of Mr. Ross. I think he must understand very much. He was an engineer, and has explained to me the rules of perspective, and many other things which were at first very hard to understand. But I do see them now." "Perhaps then, Kathleen," said Nigel, in that drawling, absent tone in which artists are apt to indulge when busy at work--"perhaps you may be already too far advanced to require instruction from me." "Perhaps--but I think no, for you seems to understand a great deal. But why you call me Kathleen just now?" "Because I suppose that is your real name--Kathy being the short for it. Is it not so?" "Well, p'raps it is. I have hear mother Holbein say so once. I like Kathleen best." "Then, may I call you Kathleen?" "If you like." At this point both artists had become so engrossed in their occupation that they ceased to converse, and for a considerable time profound silence reigned--at least on their part, though not as regarded others, for every now and then the faint sound of laughter came floating over the tranquil lagoon from that part of the coral strand where Captain Roy was still tickling the fancies and expanding the imaginations and harrowing or soothing the feelings of the Cocos-Keeling juveniles. Inferior animal life was also in ceaseless activity around the sketchers, filling the air with those indescribably quiet noises which are so suggestive of that general happiness which was originally in terrestial paradise and is ultimately to be the lot of redeemed creation. Snipe and curlews were wading with jaunty step and absorbed inquiring gaze in the shallow pools. Hermit crabs of several species and sizes were scuttling about searching for convenient shells in which to deposit their naturally homeless and tender tails. Overhead there was a sort of sea-rookery, the trees being tenanted by numerous gannets, frigate birds, and terns--the first gazing with a stupid yet angry air; the last--one beautiful little snow-white species in particular--hovering only a few feet above the sketchers' heads, while their large black eyes scanned the drawings with the owlish look of wisdom peculiar to connoisseurs. Noddies also were there, and, on the ground, lizards and spiders and innumerable ants engaged in all the varied activities connected with their several domestic arrangements. Altogether it was a scene of bright peaceful felicity, which seemed to permeate Nigel's frame right inward to the spinal marrow, and would have kept him entranced there at his work for several hours longer if the cravings of a healthy appetite had not warned him to desist. "Now, Kathleen," he said, rising and stretching himself as one is apt to do after sitting long in a constrained position, "it seems to me about time to--by the way, we've forgotten to bring something to eat!" His expression as he said this made his companion look up and laugh. "Plenty cocoa-nuts," she said, pointing with her pencil to the overarching trees. "True, but I doubt my ability to climb these long straight stems; besides, I have got only a small clasp-knife, which would be but a poor weapon with which to attack the thick outer husk of the nuts." "But I have got a few without the husks in the boat," said the girl, rising and running to the place where the cockleshell had been left. She returned immediately with several nuts divested of their thick outer covering, and in the condition with which we are familiar in England. Some of them were already broken, so that they had nothing to do but sit down to lunch. "Here is one," said Kathy, handing a nut to Nigel, "that has got no meat yet in it--only milk. Bore a hole in it and drink, but see you bore in the right hole." "The right hole?" echoed the youth, "are some of them wrong ones?" "Oh yes, only one of the three will do. One of our crawbs knows that and has claws that can bore through the husk and shell. We calls him cocoa-nut crawb." "Indeed! That is strange; I never heard before of a crab that fed on cocoa-nuts." "This one do. He is very big, and also climbs trees. It goes about most at night. Perhaps you see one before you go away." The crab to which Kathy referred is indeed a somewhat eccentric crustacean, besides being unusually large. It makes deep tunnels in the ground larger than rabbit burrows, which it lines with cocoa-nut fibre. One of its claws is developed into an organ of extraordinary power with which it can break a cocoa-nut shell, and even, it is said, a man's limb! It never takes all the husk off a cocoa-nut--that would be an unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched and it has been ascertained that it feeds only on fallen nuts. Possibly it climbs for exercise, or to obtain a more extended view of its charming habitat, or simply "for fun." Why not? All this and a great deal more was told to Nigel by Kathleen, who was a bit of a naturalist in her tendencies--as they sat there under the graceful fronds of the palm-trees admiring the exquisite view, eating and drinking cocoa-nuts. "I suppose you have plenty of other kinds of food besides this?" said Nigel. "Oh yes, plenty. Most of the fish in our lagoon be good for eating, and so also the crawbs, and we have turtle too." "Indeed! How _do_ you catch the turtle? Another nut, please.--Thank you." "The way we gets turtle is by the men diving for them and catching them in the water. We has pigs too--plenty, and the wild birds are some very nice."[1] When the artists had finished they proceeded to the shore, and to their surprise and amusement found the cockleshell in possession of a piratical urchin of about four years of age in a charmingly light state of clothing. He was well known to Kathleen, and it turned out that, having seen the cockle start at too great a distance to be hailed, and having set his heart on joining in the excursion, he had watched their movements, observed their landing on the islet--which was not far from the main circlet of land--and, running round till he came opposite to it, swam off and got into the boat. Being somewhat tired he had lain down to rest and fallen sound asleep. On the way home this urchin's sole delight was to lean over the bow and watch the fish and coral groves over which they skimmed. In this he was imitated by Nigel who, ungallantly permitting his companion to row, also leaned over the side and gazed down into the clear crystal depths with unwearying delight. For the wonderful colours displayed in those depths must be seen to be believed. Not only is the eye pleased with the ever-varying formations of the coral bowers, but almost dazzled with the glittering fish--blue, emerald, green, scarlet, orange, banded, spotted, and striped--that dart hither and thither among the rich-toned sea-weed and the variegated anemones which spread their tentacles upwards as if inviting the gazer to come down! Among these, crabs could be seen crawling with undecided motion, as if unable to make up their minds, while in out of the way crevices clams of a gigantic size were gaping in deadly quietude ready to close with a snap on any unfortunate creature that should give them the slightest touch. Nigel was sharply awakened from his dream by a sudden splash. Looking up he observed that the small boy was gone. With a bound he stood erect, one foot on the gunwale and hands clasped ready to dive, when a glance revealed the fact that Kathy was smiling broadly! "Don't jump!" she said. "He is only after a fish." Even while she spoke Nigel saw the brown little fellow shooting about like a galvanised tadpole, with a small harpoon in his hand! Next moment he appeared on the surface shouting and spluttering, with a splendid fish on the end of his harpoon! Both were hauled into the boat, and very soon after they drew near to land. In the shallow water Nigel observed some remarkable creatures which resembled hedgehogs, having jaws armed with formidable teeth to enable them to feed, Kathy said, on coral insects. File-fishes also drew his attention particularly. These were magnificently striped and coloured, and apparently very fearless. "What convenient tails they have to lay hold of," remarked our hero, as they slowly glided past one; "I believe I could catch it with my hand!" Stooping swiftly as he spoke, he dipped his arm into the water, and actually did grasp the fish by its tail, but dropped it again instantly--to the shrieking delight of the urchin and Kathy,--for the tail was armed with a series of sharp spines which ran into his hand like lancets. This was an appropriate conclusion to a day that would have been otherwise too enjoyable. Poor Nigel's felicity was further diluted when he met his father. "We'll have to sleep a-board to-night," said the captain, "for there's a fair breeze outside which seems likely to hold, and the mast has been temporarily rigged up, so we'll have to up anchor, and away by break of day to-morrow." Nigel's heart sank. "To-morrow! father?" "Ay, to-morrow. Business first, pleasure afterwards." "Well, I suppose you are right, but it seems almost a shame to leave such a heaven upon earth as this in such a hurry. Besides, is it not unkind to such hospitable people to bolt off after you've got all that you want out of them?" "Can't help that, lad-- "Dooty first, an' fun to follow, That's what beats creation hollow." "Come father, don't say that you quote _that_ from mother!" "No more I do, my boy. It's my own--homemade. I put it together last night when I couldn't sleep for your snorin'." "Don't tell fibs, father. You know I never snore. But--really--are we to start at daylight?" "We are, if the wind holds. But you may stay as late as you choose on shore to-night." Nigel availed himself of the opportunity to see as much of the place and people as was possible in the limited time. Next morning the good though damaged brig was running in the direction of Sunda Straits before a stiff and steady breeze. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: We recommend those who desire more curious information on the fauna and flora of the Keeling Islands to apply to Henry O. Forbes' most interesting book, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_.--(Sampson Low.)] CHAPTER V. CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE. Arrived in Batavia--the low-lying seaport and capital of the Dutch island of Java--Captain Roy had his brig examined, and found that the damage she had sustained was so serious that several months would probably elapse before she would be again ready for sea. "Now, Nigel, my lad," said the old gentleman, on the morning after the examination had been made, "come down below with me; I want to have a confabulation with 'ee." "Why, father," said the youth, when seated at the small cabin table opposite his rugged parent, "you seem to be in an unusually solemn frame of mind this morning. Has anything happened?" "Nothin', boy--nothin'. Leastwise nothin' in particular. You know all about the brig, an' what a deal o' repair she's got to undergo?" "Of course I do. You know I was present when you talked the matter over with that fellow--what's-'is-name--that gave you his report." "Just so. Well now, Nigel, you don't suppose, do you, that I'm goin' to keep you here for some months knockin' about with nothin' to do--eatin' your grub in idleness?" "Certainly not," said the youth, regarding the stern countenance of his parent with an amused look. "I have no intention of acting such an ignoble part, and I'm surprised at you askin' the question, for you know I am not lazy--at least not more so than average active men--and there must be plenty of work for me to do in looking after the cargo, superintending repairs, taking care of the ship and men. I wonder at you, father. You must either have had a shock of dotage, or fallen into a poetical vein. What is a first mate fit for if--" "Nigel," said Captain Roy, interrupting, "I'm the owner an' commander of the _Sunshine_, besides bein' the paternal parent of an impertinent son, and I claim to have the right to do as I please--therefore, hold your tongue and listen to me." "All right, father," replied the young man, with a benignant grin; "proceed, but don't be hard upon me; spare my feelings." "Well now, this is how the land lies," said the old seaman, resting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands before him. "As Mr. Moor and I, with the stooard and men, are quite sufficient to manage the affairs o' the brig, and as we shall certainly be here for a considerable time to come, I've made up my mind to give you a holiday. You're young, you see, an' foolish, and your mind needs improvin'. In short, you want a good deal o' the poetry knocked out o' you, for it's not like your mother's poetry by any means, so you needn't flatter yourself--not built on the same lines by a long way. Well--where was I?" "Only got the length of the holiday yet, father." "Only, indeed. You ungrateful dog! It's a considerable length to get, that, isn't it? Well, I also intend to give you some money, to enable you to move about in this curious archipelago--not much, but enough to keep you from starvation if used with economy, so I recommend you to go into the town, make general inquiries about everything and everywhere, an' settle in your mind what you'll do, for I give you a rovin' commission an' don't want to be bothered with you for some time to come." "Are you in earnest, father?" asked Nigel, who had become more interested while the captain unfolded his plan. "Never more in earnest in my life--except, p'raps, when I inquired over twenty years ago whether you was a boy or a gurl." "Well, now, that _is_ good of you, father. Of course I need not say that I am charmed at the prospect you open up to me. And--and when may I start?" "At once. Up anchor and away to-night if you choose." "But--where?" "Anywhere--everywhere, Java, Sumatra, Borneo--all Malaysia before you where to choose. Now be off, and think over it, for I've got too much to do to waste time on you at present," said the captain, rising, "and, stay--Nigel." "Well?" said the youth, looking back as he was about to leave the cabin. "Whatever you do, don't grow poetical about it. You know it is said somewhere, that mischief is found for idle hands to do." "All right, father. I'll keep clear of poetry--leave all that sort o' nonsense to _you_. I'll-- "I'll flee Temptation's siren voice, Throw poesy to the crows, And let my soul's ethereal fire Gush out in sober prose." It need scarcely be said that our hero was not slow to take advantage of the opportunity thus thrown in his way. He went off immediately through the town, armed with the introduction of his father's well-known name, and made inquiries of all sorts of people as to the nature, the conditions, the facilities, and the prospects of travel in the Malay Archipelago. In this quest he found himself sorely perplexed for the very good reason that "all sorts" of people, having all sorts of ideas and tastes, gave amazingly conflicting accounts of the region and its attractions. Wearied at last with his researches, he sauntered towards afternoon in the direction of the port, and began in a listless sort of way to watch the movements of a man who was busily engaged with a boat, as if he were making preparations to put to sea. Now, whatever philosophers may say to the contrary, we hold strongly to the opinion that likings and dislikings among men and women and children are the result of some profound occult cause which has nothing whatever to do with experience. No doubt experience may afterwards come in to modify or intensify the feelings, but it is not the originating cause. If you say it is, how are we to account for love at first sight? Beauty has nothing necessarily to do with it, for men fall in love at first sight with what the world calls plain women--happily! Character is not the cause, for love assails the human breast, ofttimes, before the loved object has uttered a word, or perpetrated a smile, or even fulminated a glance to indicate character. So, in like manner, affection may arise between man and man. It was so on this occasion with Nigel Roy. As he stood abstractedly gazing at the boatman he fell in love with him--at least he took a powerful fancy to him, and this was all the more surprising that the man was a negro,--a woolly-headed, flat-nosed, thick-lipped nigger! We would not for a moment have it supposed that it is unnatural to love such a man. Quite the reverse. But when such a man is a perfect stranger, has never uttered a word in one's presence, or vouchsafed so much as a glance, and is gravely, stolidly engaged in the unsavoury work of greasing some of the tackling of a boat, it does seem unaccountable that he should be unwittingly capable of stirring up in another man's bosom feelings of ardent goodwill, to put it mildly. After watching him for some time, Nigel under an almost involuntary impulse shouted "Hullo!" "Hullo!" replied the negro, looking up with a somewhat stern frown and a pout of his thick lips, as much as to say--"Who are _you_?" Nigel smiled, and made that suggestive motion with his forefinger which signifies "Come here." The frown fled and the pout became a smile as the negro approached, wiping his hands on a piece of cotton-waste. "What you want wi' _me_, sar?" he asked. "Well, upon my word," said Nigel, somewhat perplexed, "I can't very well say. I suppose something must have been in my mind, but--anyhow, I felt a desire to have a talk with you; that is, if you can spare the time." The first part of this reply induced a slight recurrence of the frown and pout, but at its conclusion the black brow cleared and the mouth expanded to such a gum-and-teeth-exposing extent that Nigel fairly burst into a laugh. "You's bery good, sar," said the man, "an' I's hab much pleasure to make your acquaintance.--Der an't no grease on 'em now." The last remark had reference to the enormous black paw which he held out. Nigel at once grasped it and shook it heartily. "I's bery fond ob a talk, sar," continued the negro, "so as you wants one, heabe ahead." Thus encouraged, our hero began by remarking that he seemed to be preparing for a trip. "Dat's zackly what I's a-doin', sar." "A long one?" "Well, dat depends on what you call short. Goin' to Sunda Straits, which p'raps you know, sar, is nigh a hundred miles fro' here." "And what may you be going to do there?" asked Nigel. "Goin' home to Krakatoa." "Why, I thought that was an uninhabited island. I passed close to it on my way here, and saw no sign of inhabitants." "Da's cause I was absint fro' home. An' massa he keeps indoors a good deal." "And pray who is massa?" asked Nigel. "Sar," said the negro, drawing up his square sturdy frame with a look of dignity; "fair-play is eberyt'ing wid me. You've ax me a heap o' questions. Now's my--turn. Whar you comes fro'?" "From England," replied Nigel. "An' whar you go to?" "Well, you've posed me now, for I really don't know where I'm going to. In fact that is the very thing I have been trying to find out all day, so if you'll help me I'll be much obliged." Here Nigel explained his position and difficulties, and it was quite obvious, judging from the glittering eyes and mobile mouth, that he poured his tale into peculiarly sympathetic ears. When he had finished, the negro stood for a considerable time gazing in meditative silence at the sky. "Yes," he said at last, as if communing with himself, "I t'ink--I ain't quite sure, but I t'ink--I may ventur'." "Whatever it is you are thinking about," remarked Nigel, "you may venture to say anything you like to _me_." The negro, who, although comparatively short of stature, was herculean in build, looked at the youth with an amused expression. "You're bery good, sar, but da's not what I's t'inkin' ob. I's t'inkin' whedder I dar' ventur' to introdoce you to my massa. He's not fond o' company, an' it might make 'im angry, but he came by a heaby loss lately an' p'raps he may cond'send to receibe you. Anyhow you 'd be quite safe, for he's sure to be civil to any friend ob mine." "Is he then so fierce?" asked Nigel, becoming interested as well as amused. "Fierce! no, he's gentle as a lamb, but he's awrful when he's roused--tigers, crokindiles, 'noceroses is nuffin' to him!" "Indeed! what's his name, and what does he do? How does he live?" The negro shook his head. "Da's more'n I dar tell till I ax his leave, sar. I kin only say de peepil around calls 'im the hermit ob Rakata, 'cause he libs by his self (wid me, ob course, but _I_ counts for nuffin), close under de ole volcano ob Krakatoa. Dey tink--some ob de foolish peepil--dat he hab sold his-self to de dibil, but I knows better. He's a good man, and you'd hab great fun if you stop wid him. Now, what I's a-gwine to advise you is, come wid me an' see de hermit. If he lets you stop, good. If not, I fetch you ober to de main land--whar you please--an' you kin come back here or go whar you choose. Its wort' your while to take your chance, anyhow." The negro said this with such an earnest look that Nigel made up his mind on the spot to accept this curious invitation. "I'll go!" he exclaimed with sudden energy. "When do you start?" "To-morrer at daybreak, sar." "Well, I shall have to talk it over first with my father, but I'm sure he won't object, so you may look out for me here at daybreak. Shall I have to fetch any provisions with me for the voyage?" "No, nuffin'. Boat's crammed wi' grub. But you'd better bring a gun o' some sort an' a 'volver, an' a big knife, an' a mortal big appetite, for a man's no good widout dat." "I always carry that about with me," said the youth, "whatever else I may leave behind; and I'll see to the other things.--By the way, what's your name?" "Moses." "Is that all?" "Isn't dat enuff?" returned the negro with a look of dignity. "Quite; but I have the advantage of you there, Moses, for I have two names--Nigel Roy." "Well, I don't see much use ob two, but which does you like to be called by--Nadgel or Roy?" "Whichever you please, Moses; I'll answer to either. So now, good-bye for the present, and look out for me to-morrow at daylight." "Good-bye, Massa Nadgel, till to-morrer." The negro waved his hand and, sauntering slowly back to his boat, remarked in an undertone, "I lub dat young feller!" Saying which, he resumed his greasing operations. Of course Captain Roy made no objection to his son's proposal, though he freely gave his opinion that it was a wild-goose chase. "However, lad, please yourself and you'll please me," he added; "and now, be particular to bear in mind that you've got to write to me every time you get within hail of a post-office or a passing ship or steamer that may chance to be comin' this way, and in each letter be sure to tell me where you're goin' to next, so as I may send a letter there to you in case I want you to return sudden or otherwise. We mustn't lose touch, you see. You needn't write long screeds. I only want to know your whereabouts from time to time. For the rest--you can spin it out in yarns when you come back." CHAPTER VI. THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED. Nothing worthy of particular note occurred during the boat-voyage along the northern shore of Java to Sunda Straits. A fair, steady breeze wafted them westward, and, on the morning of the third day, they came in sight of the comparatively small uninhabited island of Krakatoa. The boat in which they voyaged, although a little one, had a small portion of the bow decked over, so that our hero and his sable friend could find shelter from the night air when disposed to sleep and from the fierce rays of the sun at noon. By the advice of his father, Nigel had changed his sailor costume for the "shore-goin' toggery" in which he had landed on the Keeling Islands, as being more suitable to his new character as a traveller, namely, a white cloth cap with a peak in front and a curtain behind to protect his neck, a light-grey tunic belted at the waist, and a pair of strong canvas trousers. He had also purchased an old-fashioned double-barrelled fowling-piece, muzzle-loading and with percussion locks. "For you see, Nigel," the captain had said, "it's all very well to use breech-loaders when you've got towns and railways and suchlike to supply you wi' cartridges, but when you've got to cruise in out-o'-the-way waters, there's nothin' like the old style. It's not difficult to carry a few thousand percussion-caps an' a bullet-mould about wi' you wherever you go. As to powder, why, you'll come across that 'most everywhere, an' lead too; and, for the matter o' that, if your life depended on it you could shove a handful of gravel or a pen-knife or tooth-pick into your gun an' blaze away, but with a breech-loader, if you run out o' cartridges, where are you?" So, as Nigel could not say where he was, the percussion-gun had been purchased. The peak of Rakata--the highest in the island--a little over 2600 feet, came in sight first; gradually the rest of the island rose out of the horizon, and ere long the rich tropical verdure became distinguishable. Krakatoa--destined so soon to play a thrilling part in the world's history; to change the aspect of the heavens everywhere; to attract the wondering gaze of nearly all nations, and to devastate its immediate neighbourhood--is of volcanic origin, and, at the time we write of (1883) was beginning to awaken from a long, deep slumber of two hundred years. Its last explosion occurred in the year 1680. Since that date it had remained quiet. But now the tremendous subterranean forces which had originally called it into being were beginning to reassert their existence and their power. Vulcan was rousing himself again and beginning once more to blow his bellows. So said some of the sailors who were constantly going close past the island and through Sunda Straits, which may be styled the narrows of the world's highway to the China seas. Subterranean forces, however, are so constantly at work more or less violently in those regions that people took little notice of these indications in the comparatively small island of Krakatoa, which was between five and six miles long by four broad. As we have said, it was uninhabited, and lying as it does between Sumatra and Java, about sixteen miles from the former and over twenty miles from the latter, it was occasionally visited by fishermen. The hermit whom Nigel was about to visit might, in some sort, be counted an inhabitant, for he had dwelt there many years, but he lived in a cave which was difficult of access, and held communication with no one. How he spent his time was a mystery, for although his negro servant went to the neighbouring town of Anjer in Java for supplies, and sometimes to Batavia, as we have seen, no piece of inanimate ebony from the forest could have been less communicative than he. Indeed, our hero was the first to unlock the door of his lips, with that key of mysterious sympathy to which reference has already been made. Some of the bolder of the young fishermen of the neighbouring coasts had several times made futile efforts to find out where and how the hermit lived, but the few who got a glimpse of him at a distance brought back such a report that a kind of superstitious fear of him was generated which kept them at a respectful distance. He was ten feet high, some romancers said, with shoulders four feet broad, a chest like a sugar-hogshead, and a countenance resembling a compound of orang-utan and tiger. Of course our hero knew nothing of these rumours, and as Moses declined to give any information regarding his master beyond that already given, he was left to the full play of his imagination. Moses was quite candid about it. He made no pretence to shroud things in mystery. "You mus' know, Massa Nadgel," he said, as they slowly drew near to the island, "I's 'fraid ob 'im dough I lub 'im." "But why do you love him, Moses?" "'Cause he sabe my life an' set me free." "Indeed? well, that is good reason. And why do you fear him?" "Da's what I don' know, massa," replied the negro with a puzzled look. "Is he harsh, then?" "No." "Passionate?" "No. Gentle as a lamb." "Strong?" "Yes--oh! mighty strong an' big." "Surely you're not afraid of his giving you a licking, Moses?" "Oh no," returned the negro, with a smile of expansive benignity; "I's not 'fraid ob dat. I's bin a slabe once, got used to lickin's. Don't care nuffin' at all for a lickin'!" "Then it must be that you're afraid of hurting his feelings, Moses, for I know of no other kind of fear." "Pr'aps da's it!" said the negro with a bright look, "now I wouldn't wonder if you's right, Massa Nadgel. It neber come into my head in dat light before. I used to be t'ink, t'inkin' ob nights--when I's tired ob countin' my fingers an' toes--But I couldn't make nuffin' ob it. _Now_ I knows! It's 'fraid I am ob hurtin' his feelin's." In the excess of his satisfaction at the solution of this long-standing puzzle, Moses threw back his head, shut his eyes, opened his enormous mouth and chuckled. By the time he had reversed this process they were sufficiently near to Krakatoa to distinguish all its features clearly, and the negro began to point out to Nigel its various localities. There were three prominent peaks on it, he said, named respectively, Perboewatan about 400 feet high, at the northern end of the island; Danan, near the centre, 1500 feet; and Rakata, at the southern end, over 2600 feet. It was high up on the sides of the last cone that the residence of the hermit was situated. "And you won't tell me your master's name?" said Nigel. Moses shook his woolly head. "No, sar, no. I's 'fraid ob him--he! he! 'fraid ob hurtin' his feelin's!" "Well, never mind; I'll find it out from himself soon. By the way, what were you telling me about explosions yesterday when that little white gull came to admire your pretty face, and took off our attention?" "Well, I dun know. Not got much to tell, only dar's bin rumblin' an' grumblin's an' heavin's lately in de mountains as didn't use to be, an' cracks like somet'in' bustin' down blow, an' massa he shook 'is head two or free times an' look solemn. He don't often do dat--shook 'is head, I mean--for he mostly always looks solemn." A few minutes later the boat, running through a narrow opening among the rocks into a small circular harbour not more than fifty yards in diameter, rested its keel gently on a little bed of pure yellow sand. The shore there was so densely covered with bushes that the harbour might easily have been passed without being observed. Jumping ashore, Moses made the painter fast to a tree. "What a quiet, cosy place!" said Nigel, as he sprang on the beach and looked admiringly round. "Yes, an' not easy to find if you don't knows 'im. We will leabe de boat here,--no danger ob bein' tooked away--an' den go up to de cave." "Is it far?" asked Nigel. "A good bit--near de top ob de mountain,"--answered the negro, who looked at his companion somewhat uneasily. "Why, what's the matter, Moses?" "Nuffin'--oh! nuffin'--but--but when massa axes you who you is, an' what you bin up to, an' whar your a-gwine to, an' what wages you want, jist you answer 'im in a sorter permiscuous way, an' don't be too partikler." "Wages! man, what d' ye mean?" "Well, you'll 'scuse me, sar," returned the negro with an air of profound humility, "but my massa lost a old sarvint--a nigger like myself--only last munt', an' he wants to go on one ob his usual expeditions jus' now, so he sends me to Batavia to git anoder man--'a good one, you know,' says massa,--an' as you, sar, was good 'nuff to ax me what you should do, an' you looked a pritty smart man, I----" "You scoundrel!" cried Nigel, interrupting him, "do you really mean to tell me that you've brought me here as a hired servant?" "Well, not zackly," returned Moses, with solemn simplicity, "you needn't ax no wages unless you like." "But what if I don't want to take service?" demanded our hero, with a savage frown. "You kin go home agin," answered Moses, humbly. Nigel could contain himself no longer. As he observed the man's deprecatory air, and thought of his own position, he burst into a fit of hearty laughter, whereupon the negro recovered himself and smiled the smile of the guiltless. "Come," said Nigel at last. "Lead on, you rascal! When I see your master I shall know what to say." "All right, Massa Nadgel, but mind what you say, else I won't answer for de consikences. Foller me an' look arter your feet, for de road is roughish." The negro's last remark was unquestionably true, for the road--if a mere footpath merits the name--was rugged in the extreme--here winding round the base of steep cliffs, there traversing portions of luxuriant forest, elsewhere skirting the margin of the sea. Moses walked at such a pace that Nigel, young and active though he was, found it no easy matter to keep up with him. Pride, however, forbade him to show the slightest sign of difficulty, and made him even converse now and then in tones of simulated placidity. At last the path turned abruptly towards the face of a precipice and seemed to terminate in a small shallow cave. Any one following the path out of mere curiosity would have naturally imagined that the cave was the termination of it; and a very poor termination too, seeing that it was a rather uninteresting cave, the whole of the interior of which could be seen at a single glance from its mouth. But this cave served in reality as a blind. Climbing by one or two projecting points, the negro, closely followed by Nigel, reached a narrow ledge and walked along it a short distance. On coming to the end of the ledge he jumped down into a mass of undergrowth, where the track again became visible--winding among great masses of weatherworn lava. Here the ascent became very steep, and Moses put on what sporting men call a spurt, which took him far ahead of Nigel, despite the best efforts of the latter to keep up. Still our hero scorned to run or call out to his guide to wait, and thereby admit himself beaten. He pushed steadily on, and managed to keep the active Moses in view. Presently the negro stepped upon a platform of rock high up on the cliffs, where his form could be distinctly seen against the bright sky. There Nigel observed that he was joined by a man whose tall commanding figure seemed in such a position to be of gigantic proportions. The two stood engaged in earnest conversation while watching Nigel. The latter immediately slackened his pace, in order at once to recover breath and approach with a leisurely aspect. "The wild man of the island, I suppose," he thought as he drew near; but on coming still nearer he saw that he must be mistaken, for the stranger who advanced to meet him with gracious ease and self-possession was obviously a gentleman, and dressed, not unlike himself, in a sort of mixed travelling and shooting costume. "I must apologise, Mr. Roy, for the presumption of my man, in bringing you here under something like false pretences," said the stranger, holding out his hand, which Nigel shook heartily. "Moses, I find, has failed to execute my commission, and has partially deceived you; but as you are now here, the least I can do is to bid you welcome, and offer you the hospitality of my roof." There was something so courteous and kindly in the tone and manner of the stranger, and something so winning in his soft gentle tones, which contrasted strangely with his grand towering figure and massive bearded countenance, that Nigel felt drawn to him instantly. Indeed there was a peculiar and mysterious something about him which quite fascinated our hero as he looked up at him, for, bordering on six feet though Nigel was, the stranger stood several inches above him. "You are very kind," said the visitor, "and I don't think that Moses can fairly be charged with deceiving me, although he has been somewhat unwise in his way of going about this business, for I had told him I wanted to see something of these regions, and perhaps it may be to my advantage to travel in your service--that is, if I can be of any use to you; but the time at my disposal may be too limited." "How much time have you to spare?" asked the stranger. "Well, say perhaps three months." "That will do," returned his questioner, looking thoughtfully at the ground. "We will talk of this hereafter." "But--excuse me," said Nigel, "your man spoke of you as a hermit--a sort of--of--forgive me--a wild-man-of-the-island, if I may--" "No, I didn't, Massa Nadgel," said the negro, the edge of whose flat contradiction was taken off by the extreme humility of his look. "Well," returned Nigel, with a laugh; "you at least gave me to understand that other people said something of that sort." "Da's right, Massa Nadgel--kite right. You're k'rect _now_." "People have indeed got some strange ideas about me, I believe," interposed the hermit, with a grave almost sad expression and tone. "But come, let me introduce you to my hermitage and you shall judge for yourself." So saying, this singular being turned and led the way further up the rugged side of the peak of Rakata. After about five minutes' walk in silence, the trio reached a spot where there was a clear view over the tree-tops, revealing the blue waters of the strait, with the Java shores and mountains in the distance. Behind them there yawned, dark and mysterious, a mighty cavern, so black and high that it might well suggest a portal leading to the regions below, where Vulcan is supposed to stir those tremendous fires which have moulded much of the configuration of the world, and which are ever seething--an awful Inferno--under the thin crust of the globe on which we stand. Curiously formed and large-leaved trees of the tropics, with their pendent parasites, as well as rank grasses, sprouting from below and hanging from above, partially concealed this cavern from Nigel when he first turned towards it, but a few steps further on he could see it in all its rugged grandeur. "My home," said the hermit, with a very slight smile and the air of a prince, as he turned towards his visitor and waved his hand towards it. "A magnificent entrance at all events," said Nigel, returning the smile with something of dubiety, for he was not quite sure that his host was in earnest. "Follow me," said the hermit, leading the way down a narrow well-worn path which seemed to lose itself in profound darkness. After being a few minutes within the cavern, however, Nigel's eyes became accustomed to the dim light, and he perceived that the roof rapidly lowered, while its walls narrowed until they reached a spot which was not much wider than an ordinary corridor. Here, however, it was so dark that it was barely possible to see a small door in the right-hand wall before which they halted. Lifting a latch the hermit threw the door wide open, and a glare of dazzling light almost blinded the visitor. Passing through the entrance, Nigel followed his guide, and the negro let the heavy door shut behind him with a clang that was depressingly suggestive of a prison. "Again I bid you welcome to my home," said the hermit, turning round and extending his hand, which Nigel mechanically took and pressed, but without very well knowing what he did, for he was almost dumfounded by what he saw, and for some minutes gazed in silence around him. And, truly, there was ground for surprise. The visitor found himself in a small but immensely high and brilliantly lighted cavern or natural chamber, the walls of which were adorned with drawings of scenery and trees and specimens of plants, while on various shelves stood innumerable stuffed birds, and shells, and other specimens of natural history. A table and two chairs stood at one end of the cave, and, strangest of all, a small but well-filled book-case ornamented the other end. "Arabian Nights!" thought Nigel. "I _must_ be dreaming." His wandering eyes travelled slowly round the cavern until they rested at last on the door by which they had entered, beside which stood the negro with a broad grin on his sable visage. CHAPTER VII. WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND. The thing that perhaps surprised Nigel most in this strange cavern was the blaze of light with which it was filled, for it came down direct through a funnel-shaped hole in the high roof and bore a marvellous resemblance to natural sunshine. He was well aware that unless the sun were shining absolutely in the zenith, the laws of light forbade the entrance of a _direct_ ray into such a place, yet there were the positive rays, although the sun was not yet high in the heavens, blinding him while he looked at them, and casting the shadows of himself and his new friends on the floor. There was the faintest semblance of a smile on the hermit's face as he quietly observed his visitor, and waited till he should recover self-possession. As for Moses--words are wanting to describe the fields of teeth and gum which he displayed, but no sound was suffered to escape his magnificent lips, which closed like the slide of a dark lantern when the temptation to give way to feeling became too strong. "My cave interests you," said the hermit at last. "It amazes me," returned our hero, recovering himself and looking earnestly at his host, "for you seem not only to have all the necessaries of life around you in your strange abode, but many of the luxuries; among them the cheering presence of sunshine--though how you manage to get it is beyond my powers of conception." "It is simple enough, as you shall see," returned the hermit. "You have heard of the saying, no doubt, that 'all things are possible to well-directed labour'?" "Yes, and that 'nothing can be achieved without it.'" "Well, I have proved that to some extent," continued the hermit. "You see, by the various and miscellaneous implements on my shelves, that I am given to dabbling a little in science, and thus have made my lonely home as pleasant as such a home can be--but let us not talk of these matters just now. You must be hungry. Have you had breakfast?" "No, we have not--unless, at least, you count a sea biscuit dipped in salt water a breakfast. After all, that may well be the case, for hermits are noted for the frugality of their fare." "I am not a genuine hermit," remarked his host gravely. "Men do indeed call me the Hermit of Rakata, because I dwell alone here under the shadow of this particular cone of Krakatoa, but I do not ape the austere life of the conventional hermit, as you see, either in my domestic arrangements or food. Come, your breakfast is ready. From my outlook I saw your boat approaching some hours ago, and knew that it was mine, so I made ready for your arrival, though I did not guess that Moses was bringing me a guest instead of a servant!" So saying, he led the way through a short natural passage to an inner cave, the entrance to which, like the outer one, was boarded. On opening a small door, Nigel was again greeted as before with brilliant rays of sunshine, and, in addition, with a gush of odours that were exceedingly grateful to a hungry man. A low "Ho! ho!" behind him told that his black companion was equally gratified. The inner cave or mess-room, as the host styled it, combined dining-room and kitchen, for while in one corner stood a deal table with plates, cups, etc., but no tablecloth, in another stood a small stove, heated by an oil lamp, from which issued puffing and sputtering sounds, and the savoury odours above referred to. Nigel now perceived that although his strange host necessarily spoke a good deal while welcoming him and offering him the hospitalities of his abode, he was by no means communicative. On the contrary, it was evident that he was naturally reserved and reticent, and that although polite and gentle in the extreme, there was a quiet grave dignity about him which discouraged familiarity. It must not be supposed, however, that he was in any degree morosely silent. He was simply quiet and undemonstrative, said little except when asked questions, and spoke, alike to Nigel and Moses, in the soft, low, kindly tones with which one might address very young people. Going to the stove he took a coffee-pot therefrom and set it on the table. At the same time, Moses, without requiring to be told, opened the oven and brought forth fried fish, meat of some kind, and cakes of he knew not what, but cared little, for their excellence was unquestionable. During the meal that followed, Nigel ventured as far as politeness permitted--indeed a little further, if truth must be told--to inquire into the circumstances and motives of his entertainer in taking up his abode in such a strange place, but he soon found that his eccentric friend was not one who could be "pumped." Without a touch of rudeness, and in the sweetest of voices, he simply assumed an absent manner and changed the subject of discourse, when he did not choose to reply, by drawing attention to some irrelevant matter, or by putting a counter question which led away from the subject. Nigel also found that his host never laughed and rarely smiled, though, when he did so the smile was so slight as merely to indicate a general feeling of urbanity and goodwill, and it was followed instantly by a look of gravity, if not sadness. Altogether the guest was much perplexed about the host at first, and somewhat constrained in consequence, but gradually he began to feel at ease. Another discovery that he soon made was, that the hermit treated Moses not as a servant, but as if he were in all respects an equal and a comrade. After eating for some time in silence, and having tried to draw out his host without success, Nigel changed his tactics and said-- "You were so kind as to speak of me as your guest, Mr.---- Mr.---- I beg pardon, may I--" "My name is Van der Kemp," said the hermit quietly. "Well, Mr. Van der Kemp, I must tell you that I am quite willing to accept the position for which Moses hired me--" "No, I didn't," contradicted the negro, flatly yet very gently, both in tone and manner, for long residence with the hermit had apparently imbued him with something of his spirit. "Well, then," said Nigel, "the position for which Moses _should have_ hired some one else. ('K'rect _now_' whispered Moses.) Of course I do not intend to ask for or accept wages, and also, of course, I accept the position on the understanding that you think me fit for the service. May I ask what that service is to be, and where you think of going to?" "The service," returned the hermit slowly and with his eyes fixed on the floor as if pondering his reply, "is to accompany me as my attendant and companion, to take notes as occasion may serve, and to paddle a canoe." At this reply our hero almost laughed, but was prevented from doing so by his host asking abruptly if he understood canoeing. "Well, yes. At least I can manage what in England is known as the Rob Roy canoe, having possessed one in my boyhood." "That will do," returned the hermit gravely. "Can you write shorthand?" "I can. A friend of mine, a reporter on one of the London dailies, once gave me a few lessons, and, becoming fond of the subject, I followed it up." "That is well; you did well. It is of immense advantage to a man, whatever his position in life, that he should be able to write shorthand with facility. Especially useful is it in commerce. I know that, having had some experience of commercial life." At this point in the conversation Nigel was startled by what was to him an absolutely new sensation, namely a shaking or trembling of the whole cavern, accompanied by faint rumbling sounds as if in deeper caverns below him. He glanced quickly at his host and at the negro, but to his surprise these remarkable men seemed not to be aware of the shaking, although it was severe enough to cause some of the furniture to rattle. Observing his look of surprise, Moses remarked, with a benignant though capacious smile, "Mountain's got de mulligrumps pritty bad jist now." "We are pretty well accustomed to that," said the host, observing that Nigel turned to him for an explanation. "No doubt you are aware that this region is celebrated for earthquakes and volcanoes, so much so that the inhabitants pay little attention to them unless they become unusually violent. This island of Krakatoa is itself the fragment of an extinct volcano; but the term 'extinct' is scarcely applicable to volcanoes, for it is well known that many which were for centuries supposed to be extinct have awakened to sudden and violent activity--'quiescent' might be a more appropriate term." "Yes," said Moses, ceasing to masticate for purposes of speech; "dem 'stinkt volcanoes hab got an okard habit ob unstinkin' dereselves hereabouts when you don' 'spect it of 'em. Go on, massa. I ax yer pard'n for 'truptin'." The hermit's peculiar good-natured little smile played for a moment on his massive features, and then faded away as he continued-- "Perhaps you may have heard that this is the very heart of the district that has long been recognised as the greatest focus of volcanic activity on the globe?" "I have heard something of the sort," answered Nigel, "but I confess that my knowledge is limited and my mind hazy on the subject." "I doubt it not," returned his friend, "for geographical and scientific training in primary schools anywhere is not what it might be. The island of Java, with an area about equal to that of England, contains no fewer than forty-nine great volcanic mountains, some of which rise to 12,000 feet above the sea-level. Many of these mountains are at the present time active ('Yes, much _too_ active,' muttered the negro), and more than half of them have been seen in eruption since Java was occupied by Europeans. Hot springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires. This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in consequence we find a number of these vents--as volcanic mountains may be styled--in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you came along. But there is supposed to be another great crack in the earth's crust--indicated by several volcanic mountains--which crosses the other fissure almost at right angles, and at the exact point where these two lines intersect _stands this island of Krakatoa_! "I emphasise the fact," continued the hermit after a pause, "first, because, although this has been a quiescent volcano since the year 1680, and people have come to regard it as extinct, there are indications now which lead me to believe that its energy is reviving; and, second, because this focus where fissures cross each other--this Krakatoa Island--is in reality part of the crater of an older and much larger volcanic mountain, which must have been literally blown away in prehistoric times, and of which Krakatoa and the neighbouring islets of Varlaten, Polish Hat, Lang Island, and the rest, are but the remnants of the great crater ring. If these rumblings and minor earthquakes, which I have noticed of late--and the latest of which you have just experienced--are the precursors of another explosion, my home here may be rendered untenable." "Hi!" exclaimed Moses, who had been listening with open mouth and eyes to this discourse, which was obviously news to him, "I hope, massa, he ain't a-gwine to 'splode to-day--anyhow, not till after breakfast!" "You must have studied the subject of volcanoes a good deal, I suppose, from what you say," observed Nigel. "Naturally; living as I do almost on the top of one. My library, which I will show you presently, contains many interesting works on the subject. But come, if you have finished we will ascend the Peak of Rakata and I will introduce you to my sunshine." He rose and led his guest back to the outer cavern, leaving Moses still busy with knife and fork, apparently meditating on the pleasure of breakfasting with the prospect of a possible and immediate explosion. In passing through the first chamber, Nigel observed, in a natural recess, the library just referred to. He also noted that, besides stuffed birds and other specimens and sea-shells, there were chisels, saws, hammers, and other tools, besides something like a forge and carpenter's bench in a side-chamber opening out of the large one, which he had not at first seen--from all which he concluded that the hermit was imbued with mechanical as well as scientific and literary tastes. At the further and darker end of the outer cave there was a staircase, partly natural, and partly improved by art, which led upward into profound darkness. "Let me take your hand here," said the hermit, looking down upon his guest with his slight but winning smile; "it is a rough and dark staircase. You will be apt to stumble." Nigel placed his hand in that of his host with perfect confidence, and with a curious feeling--aroused, probably, by the action--of having returned to the days of childhood. The stair was indeed rugged as well as winding, and so pitchy dark that the youth could not have advanced at all without stumbling, unless his host had held him all the way. At last a glimmer of light was seen in the distance. It seemed to increase suddenly, and in a few moments the two emerged from total darkness into dazzling sunshine. When Nigel looked round him he saw that they had gained a plateau, high up on the very summit of the mountain, which appeared to be absolutely inaccessible by any means save that by which they had reached it. "This is what I call my observatory," said the hermit, turning to his guest. "We have passed right through the peak of Rakata, and reached its northern side, which commands, as you see, a view of all the northern part of the island. I come here often in the night to study the face of the heavens, the moon, and stars, and meditate on their mysterious Maker, whose ways are indeed wonderful and past finding out; but all which must, in the nature of things, be _right_." As this was the first mention that the hermit had made of the Creator, and the reference was one requiring more thought than Nigel had yet bestowed on it, he made no rejoinder. "Have you studied astronomy, Mr. Roy?" "No--at least not more of it than was needful for navigation. But pray, sir, do not call me Mr. Roy," said the youth, with a somewhat embarrassed air. "If I am to be your assistant and familiar companion for two or three months, I hope that you will agree to call me Nigel. Your man has done so already without asking leave!" "I will, on one condition." "And that is--?" "That you also dispense with the 'Mr.' and 'sir,' and call me Van der Kemp." "Agreed," said Nigel, "though it does not seem so appropriate in me as in you, considering the difference of our years." "Look here," said the hermit, turning abruptly to a small wooden shed which had hitherto escaped the youth's observation, so covered was it with overhanging boughs and tropical creeping plants, "these are my astronomical instruments." He pointed to a table in the hut on which stood several telescopes--and microscopes as well--one of the former being a large instrument, certainly not less than six feet long, with a diameter of apparently six or eight inches. "Here, you see, I have the means of investigating the wonders of Nature in her grandest as well as her minutest scales. And there," he added, pointing to a couple of large reflecting mirrors in strong wooden frames, erected on joints in such a way that they could be turned in any direction,--"there you have the secret of my sunshine. One of these mirrors catches the sunshine direct and reflects it on the other, which, as you see, is so arranged that it transmits the rays down the natural funnel or chimney into the cave. By means of chains connected with the mechanism, and extending below, I can change the direction of the mirrors as the sun changes its place in the sky, without requiring to come up here." "Very ingenious!" said Nigel; "but how do you manage when the mountain comes between you and the sun, as I see it cannot fail to do during some part of the day?" "Simply enough," returned the hermit, pointing to a distant projecting cliff or peak. "On yon summit I have fixed four mirrors similar to these. When the sun can no longer be reflected from this pair, the first of the distant mirrors takes it up and shoots a beam of light over here. When the sun passes from that, the second mirror is arranged to catch and transmit it, and so on to the fourth. After that I bid good-bye to the sun, and light my lamp!" Nigel felt an almost irresistible tendency to smile at this, but the grave simplicity of the man forbade such familiarity. "Look yonder," continued the hermit, sweeping one of his long arms towards Sumatra, "in that direction runs the line of volcanic disturbance--the fissure of which I have already spoken. Focus this telescope to suit your sight. Now, do you see the little island away there to the nor'-west?" "Yes." "Well, that is _Varlaten_. I mentioned it when at breakfast. Sweep your glass round to the nor'ard, the little island there is _Polish Hat_, and you see _Lang Island_ in the nor'-east. These, with Krakatoa, are merely the higher parts still remaining above water of the ring or lip of the ancient crater. This will give you some idea what an enormous mountain the original of this old volcano must have been. This island-mountain is estimated to have been twenty-five miles in circumference, and 10,000 to 12,000 feet high. It was blown into the air in 1680, and this island, with the few islets I have pointed out, is all that remains of it! Now, cast your eye down the centre of the island on which we stand; you see several cones of various sizes. These are ancient vents, supposed to be extinct--" "But one of them, the one furthest away," interrupted Nigel, steadying his telescope on the branch of a tree, "seems to be anything but extinct, for I see a thin column of white smoke or steam rising from it." "That is just what I was going to point out. They call that Perboewatan. It is the lowest peak on the island, about 400 feet high, and stands, I should say, in the very centre of the ancient crater, where are the two fissures I have mentioned. For two hundred years Perboewatan has not smoked like that, and, slight though it is at present, I cannot help thinking that it indicates an impending eruption, especially when I consider that earthquakes have become more numerous of late years, and there was one in 1880 which was so violent as to damage seriously the lighthouse on Java's First Point." "Then you have resided here for some time?" said Nigel. "Yes, for many years," replied the hermit, in a low, sad tone. "But is it wise in you to stay if you think an explosion so likely? Don't you needlessly run considerable risk?" "I do not fear to die." Nigel looked at his new friend in surprise, but there was not a shadow of boastfulness or affectation either in his look or tone. "Besides," he continued, "the explosion may be but slight, and Perboewatan is, as you see, about four miles off. People in the neighbourhood of the straits and passing ships are so accustomed to volcanic explosions on a more or less grand scale that they will never notice this little cloud hanging over Krakatoa. Those who, like myself, know the ancient history of the island, regard it in a more serious light, but we may be wrong. Come, now, we will descend again and have a ramble over part of the island. It will interest you. Not many men have penetrated its luxuriant forests or know their secrets. I have wandered through them in all directions, and can guide you. Indeed, Moses could do that as well as I, for he has lived with me many years. Come." Returning to the cavern they found that the active negro had not only finished his breakfast, but had washed the dishes and cleared up the kitchen, so that he was quite ready to shoulder a wallet and a gun when his master bade him prepare for a day in the forest. It is not, however, our intention to follow the trio thither. Matters of greater interest, if not importance, claim our attention at present. Let it suffice to say, therefore, that after a most delightful day, spent in wandering amongst the luxuriant tropical vegetation with which the island was densely covered, visiting one of the extinct craters, bathing in one of the numerous hot springs, and collecting many objects of interest to the hermit, in the shape of botanical and geological specimens, they returned in the evening to their cavern-house not only ready but eager for sustenance and repose. CHAPTER VIII. PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT. The cave was enshrouded in almost total darkness when they entered it, but this was quickly dispelled, to Nigel's no little surprise, by the rays of a magnificent oil lamp, which Moses lighted and placed on the table in the larger cave. A smaller one of the same kind already illuminated the kitchen. Not much conversation was indulged in during the progress of the supper that was soon spread upon the rude table. The three men, being uncommonly hungry and powerfully robust, found in food a sufficient occupation for their mouths for some time. After supper they became a little, but not much, more sociable, for, although Nigel's active mind would gladly have found vent in conversation, he experienced some difficulty in making headway against the discouragement of Van der Kemp's very quiet disposition, and the cavernous yawns with which Moses displayed at once his desire for slumber and his magnificent dental arrangements. "We always retire early to rest after a day of this sort," said the hermit at last, turning to his guest. "Do you feel disposed for bed?" "Indeed I do," said Nigel, with a half-suppressed yawn, that was irresistibly dragged out of him by the sight of another earthquake on the negro's face. "Come, then, I will show you your berth; we have no bedrooms here," said the hermit, with a sort of deprecatory smile, as he led the way to the darker end of the cavern, where he pointed to a little recess in which there was a pile of something that smelt fresh and looked like heather, spread on which there was a single blanket. "Sailors are said to be indifferent to sheets. You won't miss them, I daresay?" "Not in the least," returned Nigel, with a laugh. "Good-night," he added, shaking hands with his host and suppressing another yawn, for Moses' face, even in the extreme distance, was irresistibly infectious! Our hero was indifferent not only to sheets, but also, in certain circumstances, to the usual habiliments of night. Indeed, while travelling in out-of-the-way regions he held it to be a duty to undress but partially before turning in, so that he might be ready for emergencies. On lying down he found his mattress, whatever it was, to be a springy, luxurious bed, and was about to resign himself to slumber when he observed that, from the position in which he lay, he could see the cavern in all its extent. Opening his half-closed eyes, therefore, he watched the proceedings of his host, and in doing so, as well as in speculating on his strange character and surroundings, he became somewhat wakeful. He saw that Van der Kemp, returning to the other end of the cave, sat down beside the lamp, the blaze of which fell full on his fine calm countenance. A motion of his head brought Moses to him, who sat down beside him and entered into earnest conversation, to judge from his gestures, for nothing could be heard where Nigel lay save the monotonous murmur of their voices. The hermit did not move. Except for an occasional inclination of the head he appeared to be a grand classic statue, but it was otherwise with the negro. His position in front of the lamp caused him to look if possible even blacker than ever, and the blackness was so uniform that his entire profile became strongly pronounced, thus rendering every motion distinct, and the varied pouting of his huge lips remarkably obvious. The extended left hand, too, with the frequent thrusting of the index finger of the other into the palm, was suggestive of argument, and of much reasoning effort--if not power. After about half-an-hour of conversation, Moses arose, shook his master by the hand, appeared to say "Good-night" very obviously, yawned, and retired to the kitchen, whence, in five minutes or so, there issued sounds which betokened felicitous repose. Meanwhile his master sat motionless for some time, gazing at the floor as if in meditation. Then he rose, went to his book-case and took down a large thick volume, which he proceeded to read. Nigel had by that time dropped into a drowsy condition, yet his interest in the doings of his strange entertainer was so great that he struggled hard to keep awake, and partially succeeded. "I wonder," he muttered, in sleepy tones, "if that's a f--fam--'ly Bible he's reading--or--or--a vol'm o' the En--Encyclopida Brit--" He dropped off at this point, but, feeling that he had given way to some sort of weakness, he struggled back again into wakefulness, and saw that the hermit was bending over the large book with his massive brow resting on the palms of both hands, and his fingers thrust into his iron-grey hair. It was evident, however, that he was not reading the book at that moment, for on its pages was lying what seemed to be a miniature or photograph case, at which he gazed intently. Nigel roused himself to consider this, and in doing so again dropped off--not yet soundly, however, for curiosity induced one more violent struggle, and he became aware of the fact that the hermit was on his knees with his face buried in his hands. The youth's thoughts must have become inextricably confused at this point, yet their general drift was indicated by the muttered words: "I--I'm glad o' that--a good sign--an'--an' it's _not_ th' Encyclop----." Here Morpheus finally conquered, and he sank into dreamless repose. How long this condition lasted he could not tell, but he was awakened violently by sensations and feelings of dread, which were entirely new to him. The bed on which he rested seemed to heave under him, and his ears were filled by sharp rattling sounds, something like--yet very different from--the continuous roll of musketry. Starting up, he sprang into the large cavern where he found Van der Kemp quietly tightening his belt and Moses hastily pulling on his boots. "Sometin's bu'sted an' no mistake!" exclaimed the latter. "An eruption from one of the cones," said the hermit. "I have been for a long time expecting it. Come with us." He went swiftly up the staircase and passages which led to the observatory as he spoke. The scene that met their eyes on reaching the ledge or plateau was sublime in the extreme, as well as terrific. "As I thought," said Van der Kemp, in a low tone. "It is Perboewatan that has broken out." "The cone from which I observed smoke rising?" asked Nigel. "The same. The one over the very centre of the old crater, showing that we were wrong in supposing it to be extinct: it was only slumbering. It is in what vulcanologists term moderate eruption now, and, perhaps, may prove a safety-valve which will prevent a more violent explosion." That the cone of Perboewatan was indeed in a state of considerable activity, worthy of a stronger term than "moderate," was very obvious. Although at a distance, as we have said, of four miles, the glare of its fires on the three figures perched near the top of Rakata was very intense, while explosion after explosion sent molten lava and red-hot rocks, pumice, and dust, high into the thickening air--clouds of smoke and steam being vomited forth at the same time. The wind, of which there was very little, blew it all away from the position occupied by the three observers. "What if the wind were to change and blow it all this way?" asked Nigel, with very pardonable feelings of discomfort. "We could return to the cavern," said the hermit. "But what if Rakata itself should become active?" It was evident from the very solemn expression on the negro's face that he awaited the reply to Nigel's question with some anxiety. "Rakata," answered the hermit thoughtfully, "although the highest cone, is the one most distant from the great centre of activity. It is therefore not likely that the volcanic energy will seek a vent here while there are other cones between us and Perboewatan. But we shall soon see whether the one vent is likely to suffice. There is undoubtedly no diminution in the explosions at present." There certainly was not, for the voice of the speaker was almost drowned by the horrible din caused, apparently, by the hurtling of innumerable fragments of rock and stones in the air, while a succession of fiery flashes, each followed by a loud explosion, lit up the dome-shaped mass of vapour that was mounting upwards and spreading over the sky. Vivid flashes of lightning were also seen playing around the vapour-column. At the same time, there began a fall of fine white dust, resembling snow, which soon covered the foliage and the ground of all the lower part of the island. The sea around was also ere long covered with masses of pumice, which, being very light, floated away into the Indian ocean, and these were afterwards encountered in large quantities by various vessels passing through Sunda Straits. The Scientific Committee, which ultimately wrote on the details of this eruption in Krakatoa, mention this first outburst as being a phase of moderate activity, similar to that which is said to have been exhibited for some months during the years 1680 and 1681, and they added that "the outburst was one of considerable violence, especially at its commencement," that falls of dust were noticed at the distance of three hundred miles, and that "the commander of the German war-vessel _Elizabeth_ estimated the height of the dust-column issuing from the volcano at 11 kilometres (36,000 feet or about 7 miles)."[2] To our hero, however, and to Moses, the outburst seemed anything but "moderate," and that night as they two sat together in the cave after supper, listening with awe-struck faces to the cannonading and wild musketry going on as it seemed under their very feet, the negro solemnly imparted to Nigel in a low whisper that he thought "de end ob de wurld hab come at last!" Returning at that moment from his observatory, to which he had ascended for a few minutes to view the scene through one of his glasses, Van der Kemp relieved their anxieties somewhat by remarking, in his quiet manner, that there was a distinct diminution in the violence of the explosions, and that, from his knowledge and experience of other volcanoes in Java, Sumatra, and elsewhere, he thought it probable they had seen the worst of it at that time, and that none of the other cones would be likely to break out. "I'm glad to hear you say so," observed Nigel, "for although the sight is extremely magnificent and very interesting, both from a scientific and artistic point of view, I cannot help thinking that we should be safer away from this island at present--at least while the volcano is active." The hermit smiled almost pitifully. "I do not apprehend danger," he said, "at least nothing unusual. But it happens that my business requires me to leave in the course of a few days at any rate, so, whether the eruption becomes fiercer or feebler, it will not matter to us. I have preparations to make, however, and I have no doubt you won't object to remain till all is ready for a start?" "Oh, as to that," returned the youth, slightly hurt by the implied doubt as to his courage, "if _you_ are willing to risk going off the earth like a skyrocket, I am quite ready to take my chance of following you!" "An' Moses am de man," said the negro, smiting his broad chest with his fist, "what's ready to serve as a rocket-stick to bof, an' go up along wid you!" The hermit made the nearest approach to a laugh which Nigel had yet seen, as he left the cave to undertake some of the preparations above referred to. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: See _The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena_, p. 11. (Trübner and Co., London.)] CHAPTER IX. DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES. There is unquestionably a class of men--especially Englishmen--who are deeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our world in particular, has been created with a view to afford them what they call fun. "It would be great fun," said an English commercial man to a friend who sat beside him, "to go and have a look at this eruption. They say it is Krakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as it has been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold on for some time longer. What would you say to charter a steamer and have a grand excursion to the volcano?" The friend said he thought it would indeed be "capital fun!" We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but they must have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, for they at once set to work and organised an excursion. The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia. Although that city was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa, the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of the volcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling of doors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated that the eruption, even in that eruptive region, was of unusual violence. They little imagined to what mighty throes the solid rocks of Krakatoa were yet to be subjected before those volcanic fires could find a vent. Meanwhile, as we have said, there was enough of the unusual in it to warrant our merchants in their anticipation of a considerable amount of fun. A steamer was got ready; a number of sightseeing enthusiasts were collected, and they set forth on the morning of the 26th of May. Among these excursionists was our friend Captain David Roy--not that _he_ was addicted to running about in search of "fun," but, being unavoidably thrown idle at the time, and having a poetical turn of mind--derived from his wife--he thought he could not do better than take a run to the volcano and see how his son was getting along. The party reached the scene of the eruption on the morning of the 27th, having witnessed during the night several tolerably strong explosions, which were accompanied by earthquake shocks. It was found that Krakatoa and all the adjoining islands were covered with a fine white dust, like snow, and that the trees on the northern part of the former island and Varlaten had been to a great extent deprived of their leaves and branches by falling pumice, while those on Lang Island and Polish Hat, as well as those on the Peak of Rakata, had to a great extent escaped--no doubt owing to the prevailing direction of the wind. It was soon seen that Perboewatan on Krakatoa was the cone in active eruption, and the steamer made for its neighbourhood, landing her party within a short distance of its base. Explosions were occurring at intervals of from five to ten minutes. Each explosion being accompanied by an uncovering of the molten lava in the vent, the overhanging steam-cloud was lighted up with a grand glow for a few seconds. Some of the party, who seemed to be authorities on such matters, estimated that the vapour-column rose to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, and that fragments of pumice were shot upwards to a height of 600 feet. "That's a sign that the violence of the eruption is diminished," remarked the young merchant, who was in search of fun, as he prepared to wade ankle-deep in the loose pumice up the slopes of the cone. "Diminished!" repeated our captain, who had fraternised much with this merchant during their short voyage. "If that's what you call diminishin', I shouldn't like to be here when it's increasin'." "Pooh!" exclaimed the merchant, "that's nothing. I've seen, at other volcanoes, pieces of pumice blown up so high that they've been caught by the upper currents of the atmosphere and carried away in an opposite direction to the wind that was blowing below at the time. Ay, I believe that dust is sometimes blown _miles_ up into the air." As Captain Roy thought that the merchant was drawing the long bow he made no reply, but changed the subject by asking what was the height of Perboewatan. "Three hundred feet or thereabouts," replied his friend. "I hope my son will have the sense to clear out of the island if things look like gittin' worse," muttered the captain, as an unusually violent explosion shook the whole side of the cone. "No fear of him," returned the merchant. "If he is visiting the hermit of Rakata, as you tell me, he'll be safe enough. Although something of a dare-devil, the hermit knows how to take care of himself. I'm afraid, however, that you'll not find it so easy to 'look up' your son as you seem to think. Just glance round at these almost impenetrable forests. You don't know what part of the island he may be in just now; and you might as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as look for him there. He is probably at the other end of Krakatoa--four or five miles off--on the South side of Rakata, where the hermit's cave is supposed to be, for no one seems to be quite sure as to its whereabouts. Besides, you'll have to stick by the excursionists if you wish to return to Batavia." Captain Roy paused for a moment to recover breath, and looking down upon the dense tropical forest that stretched between him and the Peak of Rakata, he shook his head, and admitted that the merchant was right. Turning round he addressed himself once more to the ascent of the cone, on the sides of which the whole excursion party now straggled and struggled, remarking, as he panted along, that hill-climbing among ashes and cinders didn't "come easy to a sea-farin' man." Now, nothing was more natural than that Van der Kemp and his guest should be smitten with the same sort of desire which had brought these excursionists from Batavia. The only thing that we do not pretend to account for is the strange coincidence that they should have been so smitten, and had so arranged their plans, that they arrived at Perboewatan almost at the same time with the excursionists--only about half an hour before them! Their preliminary walk, however, through the tangled, almost impassable, forest had been very slow and toilsome, and having been involved in its shadow from daybreak, they were, of course, quite unaware of the approach of the steamer or the landing of the excursion party. "If the volcano seems quieting down," said Nigel to his host, "shall you start to-morrow?" "Yes; by daybreak. Even if the eruption does _not_ quiet down I must set out, for my business presses." Nigel felt much inclined to ask what his business was, but there was a quiet something in the air of the hermit, when he did not choose to be questioned, which effectually silenced curiosity. Falling behind a little, till the negro came up with him, Nigel tried to obtain information from him, for he felt that he had a sort of right to know at least something about the expedition in which he was about to act a part. "Do you know, Moses, what business your master is going about?" he asked, in a low voice. "No more nor de man ob de moon, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, with an air at once so truthful and so solemn that the young man gave it up with a laugh of resignation. On arriving at Perboewatan, and ascending its sides, they at last became aware of the approach of the excursion steamer. "Strange," muttered the hermit, "vessels don't often touch here." "Perhaps they have run short of water," suggested Nigel. "Even if they had it would not be worth their while to stop here for that," returned the hermit, resuming the ascent of the cone after an intervening clump of trees had shut out the steamer from view. It was with feelings of profound interest and considerable excitement that our hero stood for the first time on the top of a volcanic cone and gazed down into its glowing vent. The crater might be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter. From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides sloped so gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more than half that diameter. This floor--which was about 150 feet below the upper edge--was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it was the tremendous cavity--between one and two hundred feet in diameter--from which issued the great steam-cloud. The cloud was mixed with quantities of pumice and fragments of what appeared to be black glass. The roar of this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the reader will reflect on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by a kitchen kettle when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a steamboat's safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he may form some idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the thunderous roar of Krakatoa when it began to boil over. When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions, the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and the bubbling up of molten lava--verily it did not require the imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna! So amazed and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds that he neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until the equally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew his attention to several men who suddenly appeared on the crater-brim not fifty yards off, but who, like themselves, were too much absorbed with the volcano itself to observe the other visitors. Probably they took them for some of their own party who had reached the summit before them. Nigel was yet looking at these visitors in some surprise, when an elderly nautical man suddenly stood not twenty yards off gazing in open-mouthed amazement, past our hero's very nose, at the volcanic fires. "Hallo, Father!" shouted the one. "Zounds! Nigel!" exclaimed the other. Both men glared and were speechless for several seconds. Then Nigel rushed at the captain, and the captain met him half-way, and they shook hands with such hearty goodwill as to arrest in his operations for a few moments a photographer who was hastily setting up his camera! Yes, science has done much to reveal the marvellous and arouse exalted thoughts in the human mind, but it has also done something to crush enthusiasts and shock the romantic. Veracity constrains us to state that there he was, with his tripod, and his eager haste, and his hideous black cloth, preparing to "take" Perboewatan on a "dry plate"! And he "took" it too! And you may see it, if you will, as a marvellous frontispiece to the volume by the "Krakatoa Committee"--a work which is apparently as exhaustive of the subject of Krakatoa as was the great explosion itself of those internal fires which will probably keep that volcano quiet for the next two hundred years. But this was not the Great Eruption of Krakatoa--only a rehearsal, as it were. "What brought you here, my son?" asked the captain, on recovering speech. "My legs, father." "Don't be insolent, boy." "It's not insolence, father. It's only poetical licence, meant to assure you that I did not come by 'bus or rail though you did by steamer! But let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.----" He stopped short on looking round, for Van der Kemp was not there. "He goed away wheneber he saw de peepil comin' up de hill," said Moses, who had watched the meeting of father and son with huge delight. "But you kin interdooce _me_ instead," he added, with a crater-like smile. "True, true," exclaimed Nigel, laughing. "This is Moses, father, my host's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easy friend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van der Kemp seems to have left us." "Who's Van der Kemp?" asked the captain. "The hermit of Rakata, father--that's his name. His father was a Dutchman and his mother an English or Irish woman--I forget which. He's a splendid fellow; quite different from what one would expect; no more like a hermit than a hermit-crab, except that he lives in a cave under the Peak of Rakata, at the other end of the island. But you must come with us and pay him a visit. He will be delighted to see you." "What! steer through a green sea of leaves like that?" said the captain, stretching his arm towards the vast forest that lay stretched out below them, "and on my legs, too, that have been used all their lives to a ship's deck? No, my son. I will content myself with this lucky meetin'. But, I say, Nigel, lad," continued the old man, somewhat more seriously, "what if the Peak o' Ra--Ra, what's-'is-name, should take to spoutin' like this one, an' you, as you say, livin' under it?" "Ha! das 'zackly what _I_ say," interposed Moses. "Das what I oftin says to massa, but he nebber answers. He only smile. Massa's not always so purlite as he might be!" "There is no fear," said Nigel, "not at present, anyhow, for Van der Kemp says that the force of this eruption is diminishing--" "It don't look much like it," muttered the captain, as the volcano at that moment gave vent to a burst which seemed like a sarcastic laugh at the hermit's opinion, and sent the more timid of the excursionists sprawling down the cinder-slope in great alarm. "There's reason in what you say, father," said Nigel, when the diminution of noise rendered speech more easy; "and after all, as we start off on our travels to-morrow, your visit could not have been a long one." "Where do you go first?" asked the captain. "Not sure. Do _you_ know, Moses?" "No; no more 'n de man ob de moon. P'r'aps Borneo. He go dar sometimes." At this point another roar from the volcano, and a shout from the leader of the excursionists to return on board, broke up the conference. "Well, lad, I'm glad I've seen you. Don't forget to write your whereabouts. They say there's a lot o' wild places as well as wild men and beasts among them islands, so keep your weather-eye open an' your powder dry. Good-bye, Nigel. Take care of him, Moses, and keep him out o' mischief if ye can--which is more than ever I could. Good-bye, my boy." "Good-bye, father." They shook hands vigorously. In another minute the old seaman was sailing down the cinder-cone at the rate of fourteen knots an hour, while his son, setting off under the guidance of Moses towards a different point of the compass, was soon pushing his way through the tangled forest in the direction of the hermit's cave. CHAPTER X. A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN. It was early next morning when Van der Kemp and his man left their couches and descended to the shore, leaving their visitor enjoying the benefit of that profound slumber which bids defiance to turmoil and noise, however stupendous, and which seems to be the peculiar privilege of healthy infants and youthful seamen. Perboewatan had subsided considerably towards morning, and had taken to that internal rumbling, which in the feline species indicates mitigated indignation. The hermit had therefore come to the conclusion that the outburst was over, and went with Moses to make arrangements for setting forth on his expedition after breakfast. They had scarcely left the cave when Nigel awoke. Feeling indisposed for further repose, he got up and went out in that vague state of mind which is usually defined as "having a look at the weather." Whether or not he gathered much information from the look we cannot tell, but, taking up his short gun, which stood handy at the entrance of the cave, he sauntered down the path which his host had followed a short time before. Arrived at the shore, he observed that a branch path diverged to the left, and appeared to run in the direction of a high precipice. He turned into it, and after proceeding through the bushes for a short way he came quite unexpectedly on a cavern, the mouth of which resembled, but was much higher and wider than that which led to the hermit's home. Just as he approached it there issued from its gloomy depths a strange rumbling sound which induced him to stop and cock his gun. A curious feeling of serio-comic awe crept over him as the idea of a fiery dragon leaped into his mind! At the same time, the fancy that the immense abyss of darkness might be one of the volcanic vents diminished the comic and increased the serious feeling. Ere long the sound assumed the definite tone of footsteps, and the dragon fancy seemed about to become a reality when he beheld a long narrow thing of uncertain form emerging from the darkness. "It must be coming out tail-foremost!" he muttered, with a short laugh at his semi-credulity. Another instant and the hermit emerged into the blazing sunshine, and stood pictured against the intense darkness like a being of supernatural radiance, with the end of a long narrow canoe on his shoulder. As Nigel passed round a bush to reach him he perceived the dark form of Moses emerging from the depths and supporting the body of the canoe. "I see you are active and an early riser," said the hermit, with a nod of approval on seeing our hero. "I almost took you for a Krakatoa monster!" said Nigel, as they came out in front of the cavern and laid the canoe on the ground. "Why, you've got here one of the craft which we in England call a Rob Roy canoe!" "It is fashioned on the same pattern," said the hermit, "but with one or two alterations of my own devising, and an improvement--as I think--founded on what I have myself seen, when travelling with the Eskimos of Greenland." Van der Kemp here pointed out that the canoe was not only somewhat broader than the kind used in England, but was considerably longer, and with three openings or manholes in the deck, so that it was capable of holding three persons. Also, that there was a large rounded mass of wood fixed in front of the three manholes. "These saddles, as I call them," said the hermit, "have been suggested to me by the Eskimos, who, instead of wearying their arms by supporting the double-bladed paddle continuously, rest it on the saddle and let it slide about thereon while being used. Thus they are able to carry a much longer and heavier paddle than that used in the Rob Roy canoe, the weight of which, as it rests on the saddle, is not felt. Moreover it does not require nearly so much dip to put it in the water. I have heard of a sort of upright with a universal joint being applied to the English canoe, but it seems to me a much more clumsy and much less effective, because rigid, contrivance than the Eskimo saddle. Inside, under the deck, as I will show you by and by, I have lighter and shorter paddles for use when in narrow rivers, but I prefer the long heavy paddle when traversing great stretches of ocean." "You don't mean to say you ever go to sea in an eggshell like that!" exclaimed Nigel in surprise. "Indeed we do," returned the hermit, "and we are fitted out for longish voyages and rough weather. Besides, it is not so much of an eggshell as you suppose. I made it myself, and took care that it should be fit for the work required of it. The wood of which it is made, although light, is very tough, and it is lined with a skin of strong canvas which is fixed to the planks with tar. This makes the craft watertight as well as strong. The ribs also are very light and close together, and every sixth rib is larger and stronger than the others and made of tougher wood. All these ribs are bound together by longitudinal pieces, or laths, of very tough wood, yet so thin that the whole machine is elastic without being weak. Besides this, there are two strong oiled-canvas partitions, which divide the canoe into three water-tight compartments, any two of which will float it if the third should get filled." "Is this then the craft in which you intend to voyage?" asked Nigel. "It is. We shall start in an hour or two. I keep it in this cave because it is near the landing-place. But come, you will understand things better when you see us making our arrangements. Of course you understand how to manage sails of every kind?" "If I did not it would ill become me to call myself a sailor," returned our hero. "That is well, because you will sit in the middle, from which position the sail is partly managed. I usually sit in the bow to have free range for the use of my gun, if need be, and Moses steers." Van der Kemp proceeded down the track as he said this, having, with the negro, again lifted the canoe on his shoulder. A few minutes' walk brought them to the beach at the spot where Nigel had originally landed. Here a quantity of cargo lay on the rocks ready to be placed in the canoe. There were several small bags of pemmican, which Van der Kemp had learned to make while travelling on the prairies of North America among the Red Indians,--for this singular being seemed to have visited most parts of the habitable globe during his not yet very long life. There were five small casks of fresh water, two or three canisters of gunpowder, a small box of tea and another of sugar, besides several bags of biscuits. There were also other bags and boxes which did not by their appearance reveal their contents, and all the articles were of a shape and size which seemed most suitable for passing through the manholes, and being conveniently distributed and stowed in the three compartments of the canoe. There was not very much of anything, however, so that when the canoe was laden and ready for its voyage, the hermit and his man were still able to raise and carry it on their shoulders without the assistance of Nigel. There was one passenger whom we have not yet mentioned, namely, a small monkey which dwelt in the cave with the canoe, and which, although perfectly free to come and go when he pleased, seldom left the cave except for food, but seemed to have constituted himself the guardian of the little craft. Spinkie, as Moses had named him, was an intensely affectionate creature, with a countenance of pathetic melancholy which utterly belied his character, for mischief and fun were the dominating qualities of that monkey. He was seated on a water-cask when Nigel first caught sight of him, holding the end of his long tail in one hand, and apparently wiping his nose with it. "Is that what he is doing?" asked Nigel of the negro. "Oh no, Massa Nadgel," said Moses. "Spinkie nebber ketch cold an' hab no need ob a pocket-hangkitcher. He only tickles his nose wid 'is tail. But he's bery fond ob doin' dat." Being extremely fond of monkeys, Nigel went forward to fondle him, and Spinkie being equally fond of fondling, resigned himself placidly--after one interrogative gaze of wide-eyed suspicion--into the stranger's hands. A lifelong friendship was cemented then and there. After stowing the cargo the party returned to the upper cavern, leaving the monkey to guard the canoe. "An' he's a good defender ob it," said Moses, "for if man or beast happen to come near it when Spinkie's in charge, dat monkey sets up a skriekin' fit to cause a 'splosion ob Perboewatan!" Breakfast over, the hermit put his cave in order for a pretty long absence, and they again descended to the shore, each man carrying his bed on his shoulder. Each bed, however, was light and simple. It consisted merely of one blanket wrapped up in an oil-cloth sheet. Besides, an old-fashioned powder-flask and shot belt. Van der Kemp and Nigel had slung a bullet-pouch on their shoulders, and carried small hatchets and hunting-knives in their belts. Moses was similarly armed, with this difference, that his _couteau de chasse_ bore stronger resemblance to an ancient Roman sword than a knife, and his axe was of larger size than the hatchets of his companions. Launching the canoe, the hermit and his man held it fast at either end while Nigel was directed to take his place in the central of the three openings or manholes. He did so and found himself seated on a flat board on the bottom of the canoe, which was so shallow that the deck scarcely rose as high as his waist. Round the manhole there was a ledge of thin wood, about three inches high, to which a circular apron of oiled canvas was attached. "Yes, you'd better understand that thing before we start," said Van der Kemp, observing that Nigel was examining the contrivance with some curiosity. "It's an apron to tie round you in bad weather to keep the water out. In fine weather it is rolled as you see it now round the ledge. Undo the buckle before and behind and you will see how it is to be used." Acting as directed, Nigel unbuckled the roll and found that he was surrounded by a sort of petticoat of oil-skin which could be drawn up and buckled round his chest. In this position it could be kept by a loop attached to a button, or a wooden pin, thrust through the coat. "You see," explained the hermit, "the waves may wash all over our deck and round our bodies without being able to get into the canoe while we have these things on--there are similar protections round the other holes." "I understand," said Nigel. "But how if water gets in through a leak below?" "Do you see that brass thing in front of you?" returned the hermit. "That is a pump which is capable of keeping under a pretty extensive leak. The handle unships, so as to be out of the way when not wanted. I keep it here, under the deck in front of me, along with mast and sails and a good many other things." As he spoke he raised a plank of the deck in front of the foremost hole, and disclosed a sort of narrow box about six feet long by six inches broad. The plank was hinged at one end and fastened with a hook at the other so as to form a lid to the box. The hole thus disclosed was not an opening into the interior of the canoe, but was a veritable watertight box just under the deck, so that even if it were to get filled with water not a drop could enter the canoe itself. But the plank-lid was so beautifully fitted, besides shutting tightly down on indiarubber, that the chance of leakage through that source was very remote. Although very narrow, this box was deep, and contained a variety of useful implements; among them a slender mast and tiny sail, which could be rendered still smaller by means of reef points. All these things were fitted into their respective places with so keen an eye to economy of space that the arrangement cannot be better described than by the familiar phrase--_multum, in parvo._ "We don't use the sails much; we depend chiefly on this," said the hermit, as he seated himself in the front hole and laid the long, heavy, double-bladed paddle on the saddle in front of him. Moses uses a single blade, partly because it is handier for steering and partly because he has been accustomed to it in his own land. You are at liberty to use which you prefer." "Thanks, I will follow the lead of Moses, for I also have been accustomed to the single blade and prefer it--at least while I am one of three. If alone, I should prefer the double blade." "Now, Moses, are you ready?" asked the hermit. "All ready, massa." "Get in then and shove off. Come along, Spinkie." The monkey, which all this time had been seated on a rock looking on with an expression of inconsolable sorrow, at once accepted the invitation, and with a lively bound alighted on the deck close to the little mast, which had been set up just in front of Nigel, and to which it held on when the motions of the canoe became unsteady. "You need not give yourself any concern about Spinkie," said the hermit, as they glided over the still water of the little cove in which the canoe and boat were harboured. "He is quite able to take care of himself." Bounding the entrance to the cove and shooting out into the ocean under the influence of Van der Kemp's powerful strokes, they were soon clear of the land, and proceeded eastward at a rate which seemed unaccountable to our hero, for he had not sufficiently realised the fact that in addition to the unusual physical strength of Van der Kemp as well as that of Moses, to say nothing of his own, the beautiful fish-like adaptation of the canoe to the water, the great length and leverage of the bow paddle, and the weight of themselves as well as the cargo, gave this canoe considerable advantage over other craft of the kind. About a quarter of an hour later the sun arose in cloudless splendour on a perfectly tranquil sea, lighted up the shores of Java, glinted over the mountains of Sumatra, and flooded, as with a golden haze, the forests of Krakatoa--emulating the volcanic fires in gilding the volumes of smoke that could be seen rolling amid fitful mutterings from Perboewatan, until the hermit's home sank from view in the western horizon. CHAPTER XI. CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT. At first the voyagers paddled over the glassy sea in almost total silence. Nigel was occupied with his own busy thoughts; speculating on the probable end and object of their voyage, and on the character, the mysterious life, and unknown history of the man who sat in front of him wielding so powerfully the great double-bladed paddle. Van der Kemp himself was, as we have said, naturally quiet and silent, save when roused by a subject that interested him. As for Moses, although quite ready at any moment to indulge in friendly intercourse, he seldom initiated a conversation, and Spinkie, grasping the mast and leaning against it with his head down, seemed to be either asleep or brooding over his sorrows. Only a few words were uttered now and then when Nigel asked the name of a point or peak which rose in the distance on either hand. It seemed as if the quiescence of sea and air had fallen like a soft mantle on the party and subdued them into an unusually sluggish frame of mind. They passed through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java--not more at the narrowest part than about thirteen miles wide--and, in course of time, found themselves in the great island-studded archipelago beyond. About noon they all seemed to wake up from their lethargic state. Van der Kemp laid down his paddle, and, looking round, asked Nigel if he felt tired. "Not in the least," he replied, "but I feel uncommonly hungry, and I have just been wondering how you manage to feed when at sea in so small a craft." "Ho! ho!" laughed Moses, in guttural tones, "you soon see dat--I 'spose it time for me to get out de grub, massa?" "Yes, Moses--let's have it." The negro at once laid down his steering paddle and lifted a small square hatch or lid in the deck which was rendered watertight by the same means as the lid in front already described. From the depths thus revealed he extracted a bird of some sort that had been shot and baked the day before. Tearing off a leg he retained it and handed the remainder to Nigel. "Help you'self, Massa Nadgel, an' pass 'im forid." Without helping himself he passed it on to Van der Kemp, who drew his knife, sliced off a wing with a mass of breast, and returned the rest. "Always help yourself _before_ passing the food in future," said the hermit; "we don't stand on ceremony here." Nigel at once fell in with their custom, tore off the remaining drumstick and began. "Biskit," said Moses, with his mouth full, "an' look out for Spinkie." He handed forward a deep tray of the sailor's familiar food, but Nigel was too slow to profit by the warning given, for Spinkie darted both hands into the tray and had stuffed his mouth and cheeks full almost before a man could wink! The negro would have laughed aloud, but the danger of choking was too great; he therefore laughed internally--an operation which could not be fully understood unless seen. "'Splosions of Perboewatan," may suggest the thing. Sorrow, grief--whatever it was that habitually afflicted that monkey--disappeared for the time being, while it devoted itself heart and soul to dinner. Feelings of a somewhat similar kind animated Nigel as he sat leaning back with his mouth full, a biscuit in one hand, and a drumstick in the other, and his eyes resting dreamily on the horizon of the still tranquil sea, while the bright sun blazed upon his already bronzed face. To many men the fierce glare of the equatorial sun might have proved trying, but Nigel belonged to the salamander type of humanity and enjoyed the great heat. Van der Kemp seemed to be similarly moulded, and as for Moses, he was in his native element--so was Spinkie. Strange as it may seem, sea-birds appeared to divine what was going on, for several specimens came circling round the canoe with great outstretched and all but motionless wings, and with solemn sidelong glances of hope which Van der Kemp evidently could not resist, for he flung them scraps of his allowance from time to time. "If you have plenty of provisions on board, I should like to do that too," said Nigel. "Do it," returned the hermit. "We have plenty of food for some days, and our guns can at any time replenish the store. I like to feed these creatures," he added, "they give themselves over so thoroughly to the enjoyment of the moment, and _seem_ to be grateful. Whether they are so or not, of course, is matter of dispute. Cynics will tell us that they only come to us and fawn upon us because of the memory of past favours and the hope of more to come. I don't agree with them." "Neither do I," said Nigel, warmly. "Any man who has ever had to do with dogs knows full well that gratitude is a strong element of their nature. And it seems to me that the speaking eyes of Spinkie, to whom I have just given a bit of biscuit, tell of a similar spirit." As he spoke, Nigel was conveying another piece of biscuit to his own mouth, when a small brown hand flashed before him, and the morsel, in the twinkling of an eye, was transferred to the monkey's already swollen cheek--whereat Moses again became suddenly "'splosive" and red, as well as black in the face, for his capacious mouth was inordinately full as usual. Clear water, from one of the casks, and poured into a tin mug, washed down their cold collation, and then, refreshed and reinvigorated, the trio resumed their paddles, which were not again laid down till the sun was descending towards the western horizon. By that time they were not far from a small wooded islet near the coast of Java, on which Van der Kemp resolved to spend the night. During the day they had passed at some distance many boats and _praus_ and other native vessels, the crews of which ceased to row for a few moments, and gazed with curiosity at the strange craft which glided along so swiftly, and seemed to them little more than a long plank on the water, but these took no further notice of our voyagers. They also passed several ships--part of that constant stream of vessels which pass westward through those straits laden with the valuable teas and rich silks of China and Japan. In some cases a cheer of recognition, as being an exceptional style of craft, was accorded them, to which the hermit replied with a wave of the hand--Moses and Nigel with an answering cheer. There is something very pleasant in the rest which follows a day of hard and healthful toil. Our Maker has so ordained it as well as stated it, for is it not written, "The sleep of the labouring man is sweet"? and our travellers experienced the truth of the statement that night in very romantic circumstances. The small rocky islet, not more than a few hundred yards in diameter, which they now approached had several sheltered sandy bays on its shore, which were convenient for landing. The centre was clothed with palm-trees and underwood, so that fuel could be procured, and cocoa-nuts. "Sometimes," said the hermit, while he stooped to arrange the fire, after the canoe and cargo had been carried to their camping-place at the edge of the bushes,--"sometimes it is necessary to keep concealed while travelling in these regions, and I carry a little spirit-lamp which enables me to heat a cup of tea or coffee without making a dangerous blaze; but here there is little risk in kindling a fire." "I should not have thought there was any risk at all in these peaceful times," said Nigel, as he unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the ground under an overhanging bush. "There are no peaceful times among pirates," returned the hermit; "and some of the traders in this archipelago are little better than pirates." "Where I puts your bed, massa?" asked Moses, turning his huge eyes on his master. "There--under the bush, beside Nigel." "An' where would _you_ like to sleep, Massa Spinkie?" added the negro, with a low obeisance to the monkey, which sat on the top of what seemed to be its favourite seat--a watercask. Spinkie treated the question with calm contempt, turned his head languidly to one side, and scratched himself. "Unpurliteness is your k'racter from skin to marrow, you son of a insolent mother!" said Moses, shaking his fist, whereat Spinkie, promptly making an O of his mouth, looked fierce. The sagacious creature remained where he was till after supper, which consisted of another roast fowl--hot this time--and ship's-biscuit washed down with coffee. Of course Spinkie's portion consisted only of the biscuit with a few scraps of cocoa-nut. Having received it he quietly retired to his native wilds, with the intention of sleeping there, according to custom, till morning; but his repose was destined to be broken, as we shall see. After supper, the hermit, stretching himself on his blanket, filled an enormous meerschaum, and began to smoke. The negro, rolling up a little tobacco in tissue paper, sat down, tailor-wise, and followed his master's example, while our hero--who did not smoke--lay between them, and gazed contemplatively over the fire at the calm dark sea beyond, enjoying the aroma of his coffee. "From what you have told me of your former trading expeditions," said Nigel, looking at his friend, "you must have seen a good deal of this archipelago before you took--excuse me--to the hermit life." "Ay--a good deal." "Have you ever travelled in the interior of the larger islands?" asked Nigel, in the hope of drawing from him some account of his experiences with wild beasts or wild men--he did not care which, so long as they were wild! "Yes, in all of them," returned the hermit, curtly, for he was not fond of talking about himself. "I suppose the larger islands are densely wooded?" continued Nigel interrogatively. "They are, very." "But the wood is not of much value, I fancy, in the way of trade," pursued our hero, adopting another line of attack which proved successful, for Van der Kemp turned his eyes on him with a look of surprise that almost forced him to laugh. "Not of much value in the way of trade!" he repeated--"forgive me, if I express surprise that you seem to know so little about us--but, after all, the world is large, and one cannot become deeply versed in everything." Having uttered this truism, the hermit resumed his meerschaum and continued to gaze thoughtfully at the embers of the fire. He remained so long silent that Nigel began to despair, but thought he would try him once again on the same lines. "I suppose," he said in a careless way, "that none of the islands are big enough to contain many of the larger wild animals." "My friend," returned Van der Kemp, with a smile of urbanity, as he refilled his pipe, "it is evident that you do not know much about our archipelago. Borneo, to the woods and wild animals of which I hope ere long to introduce you, is so large that if you were to put your British islands, including Ireland, down on it they would be engulphed and surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea is, perhaps, larger than Borneo. Sumatra is only a little smaller. France is not so large as some of our islands. Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about equal in size to Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as Jamaica, more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight, and the smaller isles and islets are innumerable. In short, our archipelago is comparable with any of the primary divisions of the globe, being full 4000 miles in length from east to west and about 1,300 in breadth from north to south, and would in extent more than cover the whole of Europe." It was evident to Nigel that he had at length succeeded in opening the floodgates. The hermit paused for a few moments and puffed at the meerschaum, while Moses glared at his master with absorbed interest, and pulled at the cigarette with such oblivious vigour that he drew it into his mouth at last, spat it out, and prepared another. Nigel sat quite silent and waited for more. "As to trade," continued Van der Kemp, resuming his discourse in a lower tone, "why, of gold--the great representative of wealth--we export from Sumatra alone over 26,000 ounces annually, and among other gold regions we have a Mount Ophir in the Malay Peninsula from which there is a considerable annual export." Continuing his discourse, Van der Kemp told a great deal more about the products of these prolific islands with considerable enthusiasm--as one who somewhat resented the underrating of his native land. "Were you born in this region, Van der Kemp?" asked Nigel, during a brief pause. "I was--in Java. My father, as my name tells, was of Dutch descent. My mother was Irish. Both are dead." He stopped. The fire that had been aroused seemed to die down, and he continued to smoke with the sad absent look which was peculiar to him. "And what about large game?" asked Nigel, anxious to stir up his friend's enthusiasm again, but the hermit had sunk back into his usual condition of gentle dreaminess, and made no answer till the question had been repeated. "Pardon me," he said, "I was dreaming of the days that are gone. Ah! Nigel; you are yet too young to understand the feelings of the old--the sad memories of happy years that can never return: of voices that are hushed for ever. No one can _know_ till he has _felt_!" "But you are not old," said Nigel, wishing to turn the hermit's mind from a subject on which it seemed to dwell too constantly. "Not in years," he returned; "but old, _very_ old in experience, and--stay, what was it that you were asking about? Ah, the big game. Well, we have plenty of that in some of the larger of the islands; we have the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the puma, that great man-monkey the orang-utan, or, as it is called here, the mias, besides wild pigs, deer, and innumerable smaller animals and birds--" The hermit stopped abruptly and sat motionless, with his head bent on one side, like one who listens intently. Such an action is always infectious. Nigel and the negro also listened, but heard nothing. By that time the fire had died down, and, not being required for warmth, had not been replenished. The faint light of the coming moon, which, however, was not yet above the horizon, only seemed to render darkness visible, so that the figure of Moses was quite lost in the shadow of the bush behind him, though the whites of his solemn eyes appeared like two glow-worms. "Do you hear anything?" asked Nigel in a low tone. "Oars," answered the hermit. "I hear 'im, massa," whispered the negro, "but das not su'prisin'--plenty boats about." "This boat approaches the island, and I can tell by the sound that it is a large _prau_. If it touches here it will be for the purpose of spending the night, and Malay boatmen are not always agreeable neighbours. However, it is not likely they will ramble far from where they land, so we may escape observation if we keep quiet." As he spoke he emptied the remains of the coffee on the dying fire and effectually put it out. Meanwhile the sound of oars had become quite distinct, and, as had been anticipated, the crew ran their boat into one of the sandy bays and leaped ashore with a good deal of shouting and noise. Fortunately they had landed on the opposite side of the islet, and as the bush on it was very dense there was not much probability of any one crossing over. Our voyagers therefore lay close, resolving to be off in the morning before the unwelcome visitors were stirring. As the three lay there wrapped in their blankets and gazing contemplatively at the now risen moon, voices were heard as if of men approaching. It was soon found that two of the strangers had sauntered round by the beach and were slowly drawing near the encampment. Nigel observed that the hermit had raised himself on one elbow and seemed to be again listening intently. The two men halted on reaching the top of the ridges of rock which formed one side of the little bay, and their voices became audible though too far distant to admit of words being distinguishable. At the same time their forms were clearly defined against the sky. Nigel glanced at Van der Kemp and was startled by the change that had come over him. The moonbeams, which had by that time risen above some intervening shrubs, shone full on him and showed that his usually quiet gentle countenance was deadly pale and transformed by a frown of almost tiger-like ferocity. So strange and unaccountable did this seem to our hero that he lay quite still, as if spell-bound. Nor did his companions move until the strangers, having finished their talk, turned to retrace their steps and finally disappeared. Then Van der Kemp rose with a sigh of relief. The negro and Nigel also sprang up. "What's wrong, massa?" asked Moses, in much anxiety. "Nothing, nothing," said the hermit hurriedly. "I must cross over to see these fellows." "All right, massa. I go wid you." "No, I go alone." "Not widout arms?" exclaimed the negro, laying his hand on his master's shoulder. "Yes, without arms!" As he spoke he drew the long knife that usually hung at his girdle and flung it down. "Now attend, both of you," he added, with sudden and almost threatening earnestness. "Do not on any account follow me. I am quite able to take care of myself." Next moment he glided into the bushes and was gone. "Can you guess what is the matter with him?" asked Nigel, turning to his companion with a perplexed look. "Not more nor de man ob de moon. I nebber saw'd 'im like dat before. I t'ink he's go mad! I tell you what--I'll foller him wid a rifle an' knife and two revolvers." "You'll do nothing of the sort," said Nigel, laying hold of the negro's wrist with a grip of iron; "when a man like Van der Kemp gives an order it's the duty of inferior men like you and me strictly to obey." "Well--p'raps you're right, Nadgel," returned Moses calmly. "If you wasn't, I'd knock you into de middle ob nixt week for takin' a grip o' me like dat." "You'll wish yourself into the middle of next fortnight if you disobey orders," returned our hero, tightening the grip. Moses threw back his head, opened his cavern, and laughed silently; at the same time he twisted his arm free with a sudden wrench. "You's awrful strong, Nadgel, but you don't quite come up to niggers! Howse'ber, you's right. I'll obey orders; neberdeless I'll get ready for action." So saying, the negro extracted from the canoe several revolvers, two of which he handed to Nigel, two he thrust into his own belt, and two he laid handy for "massa" when he should return. "Now, if you're smart at arit'metic, you'll see dat six time six am t'irty-six, and two double guns das forty--forty dead men's more 'n enuff--besides de knives." Moses had barely finished these deadly preparations when Van der Kemp returned as quietly as he had gone. His face was still fierce and haggard, and his manner hurried though quite decided. "I have seen him," he said, in a low voice. "Seen who?" asked Nigel. "Him whom I had hoped and prayed never more to see. My enemy! Come, quick, we must leave at once, and without attracting their notice." He gave his comrades no time to put further questions, but laid hold of one end of the canoe; Moses took the other end and it was launched in a few seconds, while Nigel carried down such part of the lading as had been taken out. Five minutes sufficed to put all on board, and that space of time was also sufficient to enable Spinkie to observe from his retreat in the bushes that a departure was about to take place; he therefore made for the shore with all speed and bounded to his accustomed place beside the mast. Taking their places they pushed off so softly that they might well have been taken for phantoms. A cloud conveniently hid the moon at the time. Each man plied his paddle with noiseless but powerful stroke, and long before the cloud uncovered the face of the Queen of Night they were shooting far away over the tranquil sea. CHAPTER XII. WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA. In profound silence they continued to paddle until there was no chance of their being seen by the party on the islet. Then Van der Kemp rested his paddle in front of him and looked slowly round the horizon and up at the sky as if studying the weather. Nigel longed to ask him more about the men they had seen, and of this "enemy" whom he had mentioned, but there was that in the hermit's grave look which forbade questioning, and indeed Nigel now knew from experience that it would be useless to press him to speak on any subject in regard to which he chose to be reticent. "I don't like the look of the sky," he said at last. "We are going to have a squall, I fear." "Had we not better run for the nearest land?" said Nigel, who, although not yet experienced in the signs of the weather in those equatorial regions, had quite enough of knowledge to perceive that bad weather of some sort was probably approaching. "The nearest island is a good way off," returned the hermit, "and we might miss it in the dark, for daylight won't help us yet awhile. No, we will continue our course and accept what God sends." This remark seemed to our hero to savour of unreasoning contempt of danger, for the facing of a tropical squall in such an eggshell appeared to him the height of folly. He ventured to reply, therefore, in a tone of remonstrance-- "God sends us the capacity to appreciate danger, Van der Kemp, and the power to take precautions." "He does, Nigel--therefore I intend to use both the capacity and the power." There was a tone of finality in this speech which effectually sealed Nigel's lips, and, in truth, his ever-increasing trust in the wisdom, power, and resource of his friend indisposed him to further remark. The night had by this time become intensely dark, for a bank of black cloud had crept slowly over the sky and blotted out the moon. This cloud extended itself slowly, obliterating, ere long, most of the stars also, so that it was scarcely possible to distinguish any object more than a yard or two in advance of them. The dead calm, however, continued unbroken, and the few of heaven's lights which still glimmered through the obscurity above were clearly reflected in the great black mirror below. Only the faint gleam of Krakatoa's threatening fires was visible on the horizon, while the occasional boom of its artillery sounded in their ears. It was impossible for any inexperienced man, however courageous, to avoid feelings of awe, almost amounting to dread, in the circumstances, and Nigel--as he tried to penetrate the darkness around him and glanced at the narrow craft in which he sat and over the sides of which he could dip both hands at once into the sea--might be excused for wishing, with all his heart, that he were safely on shore, or on the deck of his father's brig. His feelings were by no means relieved when Van der Kemp said, in a low soliloquising tone-- "The steamers will constitute our chief danger to-night. They come on with such a rush that it is not easy to make out how they are steering, so as to get out of their way in time." "But should we not hear them coming a long way off?" asked Nigel. "Ay. It is not during a calm like this that we run risk, but when the gale begins to blow we cannot hear, and shall not, perhaps, see very well." As he spoke the hermit lifted the covering of the forehatch and took out a small sail which he asked Nigel to pass aft to the negro. "Close-reef it, Moses; we shall make use of the wind as long as possible. After that we will lay-to." "All right, massa," said the negro, in the same cheerful free-and-easy tone in which he was wont to express his willingness to obey orders whether trifling or important. "Don' forgit Spinkie, massa." "You may be sure I won't do that," replied the hermit. "Come along, monkey!" Evidently Van der Kemp had trained his dumb companion as thoroughly to prompt obedience as his black follower, for the little creature instantly bounded from its place by the mast on to the shoulder of its master, who bade it go into the place from which he had just extracted the sail. Nigel could not see this--not only because of the darkness, but because of the intervention of the hermit's bulky person, but he understood what had taken place by the remark--"That's a good little fellow. Keep your head down, now, while I shut you in!" From the same place Van der Kemp had drawn a small triangular foresail, which he proceeded to attach to the bow of the canoe--running its point out by means of tackle laid along the deck--while Moses was busy reefing the mainsail. From the same repository were extracted three waterproof coats, which, when put on by the canoe-men, the tails thrust below-deck, and the aprons drawn over them and belted round their waists, protected their persons almost completely from water. "Now, Nigel," said the hermit, "unship the mast, reeve the halyard of this foresail through the top and then re-ship it. Moses will give you the mainsail when ready, and you can hook the halyards on to it. The thing is too simple to require explanation to a sailor. I attend to the foresail and Moses manages the mainsheet, but you have to mind the halyards of both, which, as you would see if it were light enough, run down alongside the mast. All I ask you to remember is to be smart in obeying orders, for squalls are sometimes very sudden here--but I doubt not that such a caution is needless." "I'll do my best," said Nigel. By this time a slight puff of air had ruffled the sea, thereby intensifying, if possible, the blackness which already prevailed. The tiny sails caught the puff, causing the canoe to lean slightly over, and glide with a rippling sound through the water, while Moses steered by means of his paddle. "You have put Spinkie down below, I think," said Nigel, who had been struck more than once with the hermit's extreme tenderness and care of the little creature. "Yes, to prevent it from being washed overboard. I nearly lost the poor little thing once or twice, and now when we are likely to be caught in bad weather I put him below." "Is he not apt to be suffocated?" asked Nigel. "With everything made so tight to prevent water getting into the canoe, you necessarily prevent air entering also." "I see you have a mechanical turn of mind," returned the hermit. "You are right. Yet in so large a canoe the air would last a considerable time to satisfy a monkey. Nevertheless, I have made provision for that. There is a short tube alongside the mast, and fixed to it, which runs a little below the deck and rises a foot above it so as to be well above the wash of most waves, and in the deck near the stern there is a small hole with a cap fitted so as to turn the water but admit the air. Thus free circulation of air is established below deck." Suddenly a hissing sound was heard to windward. "Look out, Moses," said Van der Kemp. "There it comes. Let go the sheet. Keep good hold of your paddle, Nigel." The warning was by no means unnecessary, for as the canoe's head was turned to meet the blast, a hissing sheet of white water swept right over the tiny craft, completely submerging it, insomuch that the three men appeared to be sitting more than waist-deep in the water. "Lower the mainsail!" shouted the hermit, for the noise of wind and sea had become deafening. Nigel obeyed and held on to the flapping sheet. The hermit had at the same moment let go the foresail, the flapping of which he controlled by a rope-tackle arranged for the purpose. He then grasped his single-blade paddle and aided Moses in keeping her head to wind and sea. For a few minutes this was all that could be done. Then the first violence of the squall passed off, allowing the deck of the little craft to appear above the tormented water. Soon the waves began to rise. The mere keeping of the canoe's head to wind required all the attention of both master and man, while Nigel sat waiting for orders and looking on with mingled feelings of surprise and curiosity. Of course they were all three wet to the skin, for the water had got up their sleeves and down their necks; but, being warm, that mattered little, and the oiled aprons before mentioned, being securely fastened round their waists, effectually prevented any of it from getting below save the little that passed through the thickness of their own garments. No word was spoken for at least a quarter of an hour, during which time, although they rose buoyantly on the water, the waves washed continually over the low-lying deck. As this deck was flush with the gunwale, or rather, had no gunwale at all, the water ran off it as it does off a whale's back. Then there came a momentary lull. "Now, Moses--'bout ship!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Stand by, Nigel!" "Ay, ay, sir." Although the canoe was long--and therefore unfitted to turn quickly--the powerful strokes of the two paddles in what may be called counteracting-harmony brought the little craft right round with her stern to the waves. "Hoist away, Nigel! We must run right before it now." Up went the mainsail, the tiny foresail bulged out at the same moment, and away they went like the driving foam, appearing almost to leap from wave to wave. All sense of danger was now overwhelmed in Nigel's mind by that feeling of excitement and wild delight which accompanies some kinds of rapid motion. This was, if possible, intensified by the crashing thunder which now burst forth and the vivid lightning which began to play, revealing from time to time the tumultuous turmoil as if in clearest moonlight, only to plunge it again in still blacker night. By degrees the gale increased in fury, and it soon became evident that neither sails nor cordage could long withstand the strain to which they were subjected. "A'most too much, massa," said the negro in a suggestive shout. "Right, Moses," returned his master. "I was just thinking we must risk it." "Risk what? I wonder," thought Nigel. He had not long to wait for an answer to his thought. "Down wi' the mainsail," was quickly followed by the lowering of the foresail until not more than a mere corner was shown, merely to keep the canoe end-on to the seas. Soon even this was lowered, and Van der Kemp used his double-blade paddle to keep them in position, at the same time telling Nigel to unship the mast. "And plug the hole with that," he added, handing him a bit of wood which exactly fitted the hole in the deck. Watching for another lull in the blast, the hermit at last gave the order, and round they came as before, head to wind, but not quite so easily, and Nigel felt that they had narrowly escaped overturning in the operation. "Keep her so, Moses. You can help with your paddle, Nigel, while I get ready our anchor." "Anchor!" exclaimed our hero in amazement--obeying orders, however, at the same moment. The hermit either did not hear the exclamation or did not care to notice it. He quickly collected the mast and sails, with a couple of boat-hooks and all the paddles excepting two single ones. These he bound together by means of the sheets and halyards, attached the whole to a hawser,--one end of which passed through an iron ring at the bow--and tossed it into the sea--paying out the hawser rapidly at the same time so as to put a few yards between them and their floating anchor--if it may be so called--in the lee of which they prepared to ride out the gale. It was well that they had taken the precaution to put on their waterproofs before the gale began, because, while turned head to wind every breaking wave swept right over their heads, and even now while under the lee of the floating anchor they were for some time almost continually overwhelmed by thick spray. Being, however, set free from the necessity of keeping their tiny craft in position, they all bowed their heads on the deck, sheltered their faces in their hands and awaited the end! Whilst in this attitude--so like to that of prayer--Nigel almost naturally thought of Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand, and lifted his soul to God; for, amid the roaring of the gale, the flashes of lightning, the appalling thunder, the feeling that he was in reality all but under the waves and the knowledge that the proverbial plank between him and death was of the very thinnest description, a sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he had never before experienced, crept over him. What the thoughts of the hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about himself; but Moses was not so reticent, for he afterwards remarked that he had often been caught by gales while in the canoe, and had been attached for hours to their floating anchor, but that "dat was out ob sight de wust bust ob wedder dey'd had since dey come to lib at Krakatoa, an' he had bery nigh giben up in despair!" The use of the floating breakwater was to meet the full force of the seas and break them just before they reached the canoe. In spite of this some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off the stooping figures like rain from a duck's back. Of course a good deal got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, "was not'ing to speak ob." Thus they lay tossing in the midst of the raging foam for several hours. Now and then each would raise his head a little to see that the rope held fast, but was glad to lower it again. They hardly knew when day broke. It was so slow in coming, and so gloomy and dark when it did come, that the glare of the lightning-flash seemed more cheerful. It may be easily believed that there was no conversation during those hours of elemental strife, though the thoughts of each were busy enough. At last the thunder ceased, or, rather, retired as if in growling defiance of the world which it had failed to destroy. Then the sky began to lighten a little, and although the wind did not materially abate in force it became more steady and equal. Before noon, however, it had subsided so much that Moses suggested the propriety of continuing the voyage. To this Van der Kemp agreed, and the floating anchor was hauled in; the large paddle was resumed by the hermit, and the dangerous process of turning the canoe was successfully accomplished. When the mast was again set up and the close-reefed main and foresails were hoisted, the light craft bounded away once more before the wind like a fleck of foam. Then a gleam of sunshine forced its way through the driving clouds, and painted a spot of emerald green on the heaving sea. Soon after that Van der Kemp opened the lid, or hatch, of the forehold, and Spinkie, jumping out with alacrity, took possession of his usual seat beside the mast, to which he clung with affectionate tenacity. Gradually the wind went down. Reef after reef of the two sails was shaken out, and for several hours thereafter our travellers sped merrily on, plunging into the troughs and cutting through the crests of the stormy sea. CHAPTER XIII. FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES. In physics, as in morals, a storm is frequently the precursor of a dead calm. Much to the monkey's joy, to say nothing of the men, the sun erelong asserted its equatorial power, and, clearing away the clouds, allowed the celestial blue to smile on the turmoil below. The first result of that smile was that the wind retired to its secret chambers, leaving the ships of men to flap their idle sails. Then the ocean ceased to fume, though its agitated bosom still continued for some time to heave. Gradually the swell went down and soon the unruffled surface reflected a dimpling smile to the sky. When this happy stage had been reached our voyagers lowered and stowed the canoe-sails, and continued to advance under paddles. "We get along wonderfully fast, Van der Kemp," said Nigel, while resting after a pretty long spell; "but it seems to me, nevertheless, that we shall take a considerable time to reach Borneo at this rate, seeing that it must be over two hundred miles away, and if we have much bad weather or contrary wind, we shan't be able to reach it for weeks--if at all." "I have been thrown somewhat out of my reckoning," returned the hermit, "by having to fly from the party on the islet, where I meant to remain till a steamer, owned by a friend of mine, should pass and pick us up, canoe and all. The steamer is a short-voyage craft, and usually so punctual that I can count on it to a day. But it may have passed us in the gale. If so, I shall take advantage of the first vessel that will agree to lend us a hand." "How!--Do you get them to tow you?" "Nay, that were impossible. A jerk from the tow-rope of a steamer at full speed would tear us asunder. Have you observed these two strong ropes running all round our gunwale, and the bridles across with ring-bolts in them?" "I have, and did not ask their use, as I thought they were merely meant to strengthen the canoe." "So they are," continued the hermit, "but they have other uses besides--" "Massa," cried Moses, at this point. "You'll 'scuse me for 'truptin' you, but it's my opinion dat Spinkie's sufferin' jus' now from a empty stummik!" The hermit smiled and Nigel laughed. Laying down his paddle the former said-- "I understand, Moses. That speech means that you are suffering from the same complaint. Well--get out the biscuit." "Jus' de way oh de wurld," muttered the negro with a bland smile. "If a poor man obsarves an' feels for de sorrows ob anoder, he allers gits credit for t'inkin' ob hisself. Neber mind, I's used to it!" Evidently the unjust insinuation did not weigh heavily on the negro's spirit, for he soon began to eat with the appetite of a healthy alligator. While he was thus engaged, he chanced to raise his eyes towards the south-western horizon, and there saw something which caused him to splutter, for his mouth was too full to speak, but his speaking eyes and pointing finger caused his companions to turn their faces quickly to the quarter indicated. "A steamer!" exclaimed the hermit and Nigel in the same breath. The vessel in question was coming straight towards them, and a very short time enabled Van der Kemp to recognise with satisfaction the steamer owned by his friend. "Look here, run that to the mast-head," said Van der Kemp, handing a red flag to Nigel. "We lie so low in the water that they might pass quite close without observing us if we showed no signal." An immediate though slight change in the course of the steamer showed that the signal had been seen. Hereupon the hermit and Moses performed an operation on the canoe which still further aroused Nigel's surprise and curiosity. He resolved to ask no questions, however, but to await the issue of events. From the marvellous hold of the canoe, which seemed to be a magazine for the supply of every human need, Moses drew a short but strong rope or cable, with a ring in the middle of it, and a hook at each end. He passed one end along to his master who hooked it to the bridle-rope at the bow before referred to. The other end was hooked to the bridle in the stern, so that the ring in the centre came close to Nigel's elbow. This arrangement had barely been completed when the steamer was within hail, but no hail was given, for the captain knew what was expected of him. He reduced speed as the vessel approached the canoe, and finally came almost to a stop as he ranged alongside. "What cheer, Van der Kemp? D'ye want a lift to-day?" shouted the skipper, looking over the side. A nod and a wave of the hand was the hermit's reply. "Heave a rope, boys--bow and stern--and lower away the tackle," was the skipper's order. A coil was flung to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held on--slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook attached descending towards his head. "Catch it, Nigel, and hook it to the ring at your elbow," said the hermit. Our hero obeyed, still in surprise, though a glimmer of what was to follow began to dawn. "Haul away!" shouted the skipper, and next moment the canoe was swinging in the air, kept in position by the lines in the hands of Van der Kemp and Moses. At the same time another order was given, and the steamer went ahead full speed. It was all so suddenly done, and seemed such a reckless proceeding, that Nigel found himself on the steamer's deck, with the canoe reposing beside him, before he had recovered from his surprise sufficiently to acknowledge in suitable terms the welcome greeting of the hospitable skipper. "You see, Nigel," said Van der Kemp that night, as the two friends paced the deck together after supper, "I have other means, besides paddles and sails, of getting quickly about in the Java seas. Many of the traders and skippers here know me, and give me a lift in this way when I require it." "Very kind of them, and very convenient," returned Nigel. He felt inclined to add: "But why all this moving about?" for it was quite evident that trade was not the hermit's object, but the question, as usual, died on his lips, and he somewhat suddenly changed the subject. "D'ye know, Van der Kemp, that I feel as if I must have seen you somewhere or other before now, for your features seem strangely familiar to me. Have you ever been in England?" "Never. As I have told you, I was born in Java, and was educated in Hongkong at an English School. But a fancy of this sort is not very uncommon. I myself once met a perfect stranger who bore so strong a resemblance to an old friend, that I spoke to him as such, and only found out from his voice that I was mistaken." The captain of the steamer came on deck at that moment and cut short the conversation. "Are you engaged, Van der Kemp?" he asked. "No--I am at your service." "Come below then, I want to have a talk with you." Thus left alone, and overhearing a loud burst of laughter at the fore part of the steamer, Nigel went forward to see what was going on. He found a group of sailors round his comrade Moses, apparently engaged in good-natured "chaff." "Come, now, blackey," said one; "be a good fellow for once in your life an' tell us what makes your master live on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, an' go about the ocean in a canoe." "Look 'ere now, whitey," returned Moses, "what you take me for?" "A nigger, of course." "Ob course, an' you're right for once, which is sitch an unusual t'ing dat I 'dvise you go an' ax de cappen to make a note ob it in de log. I's a nigger, an' a nigger's so much more 'cute dan a white man dat you shouldn't ought to expect him to blab his massa's secrets." "Right you are, Moses. Come, then, if you won't reweal secrets, give us a song." "Couldn't t'ink ob such a t'ing," said the negro, with a solemn, remonstrant shake of the head. "Why not?" "'Cause I neber sing a song widout a moral, an' I don't like to hurt your feelin's by singin' a moral dat would be sure to waken up _some_ o' your consciences." "Never mind that, darkey. Our consciences are pretty tough. Heave ahead." "But dere's a chorus," said Moses, looking round doubtfully. "What o' that? We'll do our best with it--if it ain't too difficult." "Oh, it's not diffikilt, but if de lazy fellers among you sings de chorus dey'll be singin' lies, an' I don't 'zackly like to help men to tell lies. Howseber, here goes. It begins wid de chorus so's you may know it afore you has to sing it." So saying, Moses struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right pitch, began in a really fine manly voice to chant the following ditty:-- "GO TO WORK." Oh when de sun am shinin' bright, and eberyt'ing am fair, Clap on de steam an' go to work, an' take your proper share. De wurld hab got to go ahead, an' dem what's young and strong Mus' do deir best, wid all de rest, to roll de wurld along. De lazy man does all he can to stop its whirlin' round. If he was king he'd loaf an' sing--and guzzle, I'll be bound, He always shirk de hardest work, an' t'ink he's awful clebbar, But boder his head to earn his bread, Oh! no, he'll nebber, nebber. _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc. De selfish man would rader dan put out his hand to work, Let women toil, an' sweat and moil--as wicked as de Turk. De cream ob eberyt'ing he wants, let oders hab de skim; In fact de wurld and all it holds was only made for him. _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc. So keep de ball a-rollin', boys, an' each one do his best To make de wurld a happy one--for dat's how man is blest. Do unto oders all around de t'ing what's good and true, An' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to you. _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etc. The sailors, who were evidently much pleased, took up the chorus moderately at the second verse, came out strong at the third, and sang with such genuine fervour at the last that it was quite evident, as Moses remarked, there was not a lazy man amongst them--at least, if they all sang conscientiously! The weather improved every hour, and after a fine run of about twenty-four hours over that part of the Malay Sea, our three voyagers were lowered over the steamer's side in their canoe when within sight of the great island of Borneo. "I'm sorry," said the captain at parting, "that our courses diverge here, for I would gladly have had your company a little longer. Good-bye. I hope we'll come across you some other time when I'm in these parts." "Thanks--thanks, my friend,'" replied Van der Kemp, with a warm grip of the hand, and a touch of pathos in his tones. "I trust that we shall meet again. You have done me good service by shortening my voyage considerably.--Farewell." "I say, Moses," shouted one of the seamen, as he looked down on the tiny canoe while they were pushing off. "Hallo?" "Keep your heart up, for--we'll try to 'do to oders all around de t'ing what's good an' true!'" "Das de way, boy--'an' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to you!'" He yelled rather than sang this at the top of his tuneful voice, and waved his hand as the sharp craft shot away over the sea. Fortunately the sea was calm, for it was growing dark when they reached the shores of Borneo and entered the mouth of a small stream, up which they proceeded to paddle. The banks of the stream were clothed with mangrove trees. We have said the banks, but in truth the mouth of that river had no distinguishable banks at all, for it is the nature of the mangrove to grow in the water--using its roots as legs with which, as it were, to wade away from shore. When darkness fell suddenly on the landscape, as it is prone to do in tropical regions, the gnarled roots of those mangroves assumed the appearance of twining snakes in Nigel's eyes. Possessing a strongly imaginative mind he could with difficulty resist the belief that he saw them moving slimily about in the black water, and, in the dim mysterious light, tree stems and other objects assumed the appearance of hideous living forms, so that he was enabled to indulge the uncomfortable fancy that they were traversing some terrestrial Styx into one of Dante's regions of horror. In some respects this was not altogether a fancy, for they were unwittingly drawing near to a band of human beings whose purposes, if fully carried out, would render the earth little better than a hell to many of their countrymen. It is pretty well known that there is a class of men in Borneo called Head Hunters. These men hold the extraordinary and gruesome opinion that a youth has not attained to respectable manhood until he has taken the life of some human being. There are two distinct classes of Dyaks--those who inhabit the hills and those who dwell on the sea-coast. It is the latter who recruit the ranks of the pirates of those eastern seas, and it was to the camp of a band of such villains that our adventurers were, as already said, unwittingly drawing near. They came upon them at a bend of the dark river beyond which point the mangroves gave place to other trees--but what sort of trees they were it was scarcely light enough to make out very distinctly, except in the case of the particular tree in front of which the Dyaks were encamped, the roots of which were strongly illuminated by their camp fire. We say _roots_ advisedly, for this singular and gigantic tree started its branches from a complexity of aërial roots which themselves formed a pyramid some sixty feet high, before the branches proper of the tree began. If our voyagers had used oars the sharp ears of the pirates would have instantly detected them. As it was, the softly moving paddles and the sharp cutwater of the canoe made no noise whatever. The instant that Van der Kemp, from his position in the bow, observed the camp, he dipped his paddle deep, and noiselessly backed water. There was no need to give any signal to his servant. Such a thorough understanding existed between them that the mere action of the hermit was sufficient to induce the negro to support him by a similar movement on the opposite side, and the canoe glided as quickly backward as it had previously advanced. When under the deep shadow of the bank Moses thrust the canoe close in, and his master, laying hold of the bushes, held fast and made a sign to him to land and reconnoitre. Creeping forward to an opening in the bushes close at hand, Moses peeped through. Then he turned and made facial signals of a kind so complicated that he could not be understood, as nothing was visible save the flashing of his teeth and eyes. Van der Kemp therefore recalled him by a sign, and, stepping ashore, whispered Nigel to land. [Illustration: DISCOVER A PIRATES' BIVOUAC.--PAGE 164.] Another minute and the three travellers stood on the bank with their heads close together. "Wait here for me," said the hermit, in the lowest possible whisper. "I will go and see who they are." "Strange," said Nigel, when he was gone; "strange that in so short a time your master should twice have to stalk strangers in this way. History repeats itself, they say. It appears to do so rather fast in these regions! Does he not run a very great risk of being discovered?" "Not de smallest," replied the negro, with as much emphasis as was possible in a whisper. "Massa hab ride wid de Vaquieros ob Ameriky an' hunt wid de Injuns on de Rockies. No more fear ob deir ketchin' him dan ob ketchin' a streak o' lightnin'. He come back bery soon wid all de news." Moses was a true prophet. Within half-an-hour Van der Kemp returned as noiselessly as he had gone. He did not keep them long in uncertainty. "I have heard enough," he whispered, "to assure me that a plot, of which I had already heard a rumour, has nearly been laid. We fell in with the chief plotters on the islet the other night; the band here is in connection with them and awaits their arrival before carrying out their dark designs. There is nothing very mysterious about it. One tribe plotting to attack another--that is all; but as a friend of mine dwells just now with the tribe to be secretly attacked, it behoves me to do what I can to save him. I am perplexed, however. It would seem sometimes as if we were left in perplexity for wise purposes which are beyond our knowledge." "Perhaps to test our willingness to _do right_," suggested Nigel. "I know not," returned the hermit, as if musing, but never raising his voice above the softest whisper. "My difficulty lies here; I _must_ go forward to save the life of my friend. I must _not_ leave you at the mouth of a mangrove river to die or be captured by pirates, and yet I have no right to ask you to risk your life on my account!" "You may dismiss your perplexities then," said Nigel, promptly, "for I decline to be left to die here or to be caught by pirates, and I am particularly anxious to assist you in rescuing your friend. Besides, am I not your hired servant?" "The risk we run is only at the beginning," said Van der Kemp. "If we succeed in passing the Dyaks unseen all will be well. If they see us, they will give chase, and our lives, under God, will depend on the strength of our arms, for I am known to them and have thwarted their plans before now. If they catch us, death will be our certain doom. Are you prepared?" "Ready!" whispered Nigel. Without another word the hermit took his place in the bow of the canoe. Moses stepped into the stern, and our hero sat down in the middle. Before pushing off, the hermit drew a revolver and a cutlass from his store-room in the bow and handed them to Nigel, who thrust the first into his belt and fastened the other to the deck by means of a strap fixed there on purpose to prevent its being rolled or swept off. This contrivance, as well as all the other appliances in the canoe, had previously been pointed out and explained to him. The hermit and negro having armed themselves in similar way, let go the bushes which held them close to the bank and floated out into the stream. They let the canoe drift down a short way so as to be well concealed by the bend in the river and a mass of bushes. Then they slowly paddled over to the opposite side and commenced to creep up as close to the bank as possible, under the deep shadow of overhanging trees, and so noiselessly that they appeared in the darkness like a passing phantom. But the sharp eyes of the pirates were too much accustomed to phantoms of every kind to be easily deceived. Just as the canoe was about to pass beyond the line of their vision a stir was heard in their camp. Then a stern challenge rolled across the river and awoke the slumbering echoes of the forest--perchance to the surprise and scaring away of some prowling beast of prey. "No need for concealment now," said Van der Kemp, quietly; "we must paddle for life. If you have occasion to use your weapons, Nigel, take no life needlessly. Moses knows my mind on this point and needs no warning. Any fool can take away life. Only God can give it." "I will be careful," replied Nigel, as he dipped his paddle with all the muscular power at his command. His comrades did the same, and the canoe shot up the river like an arrow. A yell from the Dyaks, and the noise of jumping into and pushing off their boats told that there was no time to lose. "They are strong men, and plenty of them to relieve each other," said the hermit, who now spoke in his ordinary tones, "so they have some chance of overhauling us in the smooth water; but a few miles further up there is a rapid which will stop them and will only check us. If we can reach it we shall be safe." While he was speaking every muscle in his broad back and arms was strained to the uttermost; so also were the muscles of his companions, and the canoe seemed to advance by a series of rapid leaps and bounds. Yet the sound of the pursuers' oars seemed to increase, and soon the proverb "it is the pace that kills" received illustration, for the speed of the canoe began to decrease a little--very little at first--while the pursuers, with fresh hands at the oars, gradually overhauled the fugitives. "Put on a spurt!" said the hermit, setting the example. The pirates heard the words and understood either them or the action that followed, for they also "put on a spurt," and encouraged each other with a cheer. Moses heard the cheer, and at the same time heard the sound of the rapid to which they were by that time drawing near. He glanced over his shoulder and could make out the dim form of the leading boat, with a tall figure standing up in the bow, not thirty yards behind. "Shall we manage it, Moses?" asked Van der Kemp, in that calm steady voice which seemed to be unchangeable either by anxiety or peril. "No, massa. Unpossable--widout _dis_!" The negro drew the revolver from his belt, slewed round, took rapid aim and fired. The tall figure in the bow of the boat fell back with a crash and a hideous yell. Great shouting and confusion followed, and the boat dropped behind. A few minutes later and the canoe was leaping over the surges of a shallow rapid. They dashed from eddy to eddy, taking advantage of every stone that formed a tail of backwater below it, and gradually worked the light craft upward in a way that the hermit and his man had learned in the nor'-western rivers of America. "We are not safe yet," said the former, resting and wiping his brow as they floated for a few seconds in a calm basin at the head of the rapid. "Surely they cannot take a boat up such a place as that!" "Nay, but they can follow up the banks on foot. However, we will soon baffle them, for the river winds like a serpent just above this, and by carrying our canoe across one, two, or three spits of land we will gain a distance in an hour or so that would cost them nearly a day to ascend in boats. They know that, and will certainly give up the chase. I think they have given it up already, but it is well to make sure." "I wonder why they did not fire at us," remarked Nigel. "Probably because they felt sure of catching us," returned the hermit, "and when they recovered from the confusion that Moses threw them into we were lost to them in darkness, besides being pretty well beyond range. I hope, Moses, that you aimed low." "Yes, massa--but it's sca'cely fair when life an' def am in de balance to expect me to hit 'im on de legs on a dark night. Legs is a bad targit. Bullet's apt to pass between 'em. Howseber, dat feller won't hop much for some time to come!" A couple of hours later, having carried the canoe and baggage across the spits of land above referred to, and thus put at least half-a-day's journey between themselves and their foes, they came to a halt for the night. "It won't be easy to find a suitable place to camp on," remarked Nigel, glancing at the bank, where the bushes grew so thick that they overhung the water, brushing the faces of our travellers and rendering the darkness so intense that they had literally to feel their way as they glided along. "We will encamp where we are," returned the hermit. "I'll make fast to a bush and you may get out the victuals, Moses." "Das de bery best word you've said dis day, massa," remarked the negro with a profound sigh. "I's pritty well tired now, an' de bery t'ought ob grub comforts me!" "Do you mean that we shall sleep in the canoe?" asked Nigel. "Ay, why not?" returned the hermit, who could be heard, though not seen, busying himself with the contents of the fore locker. "You'll find the canoe a pretty fair bed. You have only to slip down and pull your head and shoulders through the manhole and go to sleep. You won't want blankets in this weather, and, see--there is a pillow for you and another for Moses." "I cannot _see_, but I can feel," said Nigel, with a soft laugh, as he passed the pillow aft. "T'ank ee, Nadgel," said Moses; "here--feel behind you an' you'll find grub for yourself an' some to pass forid to massa. Mind when you slip down for go to sleep dat you don't dig your heels into massa's skull. Dere's no bulkhead to purtect it." "I'll be careful," said Nigel, beginning his invisible supper with keen appetite. "But how about _my_ skull, Moses? Is there a bulkhead between it and _your_ heels?" "No, but you don't need to mind, for I allers sleeps doubled up, wid my knees agin my chin. It makes de arms an' legs feel more sociable like." With this remark Moses ceased to encourage conversation--his mouth being otherwise engaged. Thereafter they slipped down into their respective places, laid their heads on their pillows and fell instantly into sound repose, while the dark waters flowed sluggishly past, and the only sound that disturbed the universal stillness was the occasional cry of some creature of the night or the flap of an alligator's tail. CHAPTER XIV. A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND HEW HOPES DELAYED. When grey dawn began to dispel the gloom of night, Nigel Roy awoke with an uncomfortable sensation of having been buried alive. Stretching himself as was his wont he inadvertently touched the head of Van der Kemp, an exclamation from whom aroused Moses, who, uncoiling himself, awoke Spinkie. It was usually the privilege of that affectionate creature to nestle in the negro's bosom. With the alacrity peculiar to his race, Spinkie sprang through the manhole and sat down in his particular place to superintend, perhaps to admire, the work of his human friends, whose dishevelled heads emerged simultaneously from their respective burrows. Dawn is a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective. Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be done, it was needless. The silently conducted operations of the men appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and alternately into the faces of its comrades. To all appearance it seemed about to speak--but it didn't. Pushing out from the shore they paddled swiftly up stream, and soon put such a distance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of being overtaken was at an end. All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour, and again at mid-day to dine. Towards evening they observed that the country through which they were passing had changed much in character and aspect. The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation, conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the steep banks of the stream. On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene. Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a fire a man and a boy and a monkey. The monkey was a tame orang-utan, youthful but large. The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with the upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy ornaments in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his head. The man was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting garb, with a wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply tanned face, a snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue spectacles. Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in recognition. The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy. "He seems to know you," remarked Nigel, as they made for a landing-place. "Yes. He is the friend I have come to rescue," replied the hermit in a tone of quiet satisfaction. "He is a naturalist and lives with the Rajah against whom the pirates are plotting." "He don't look z'if he needs much rescuin'," remarked Moses with a chuckle, as they drew to land. The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of limb. "Ah! mein frond! mine brodder!" he exclaimed, in fairly idiomatic English, but with a broken pronunciation that was a mixture of Dutch, American, and Malay. His language therefore, like himself, was nondescript. In fact he was an American-born Dutchman, who had been transported early in life to the Straits Settlements, had received most of his education in Hongkong, was an old school-fellow of Van der Kemp, became an enthusiastic naturalist, and, being possessed of independent means, spent most of his time in wandering about the various islands of the archipelago, making extensive collections of animal and vegetable specimens, which he distributed with liberal hand to whatever museums at home or abroad seemed most to need or desire them. Owing to his tastes and habits he had been dubbed Professor by his friends. "Ach! Van der Kemp," he exclaimed, while his coal-black eyes glittered as they shook hands, "_vat_ a booterfly I saw to-day! It beat all creation! The vay it flew--oh! But, excuse me--v'ere did you come from, and vy do you come? An' who is your frond?" He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious bow. "An Englishman--Nigel Roy--who has joined me for a few months," said the hermit. "Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor Verkimier." Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist's a shake so hearty, that a true friendship was begun on the spot--a friendship which was rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies. "Ve vill hont an' shot togezzer, mine frond," he said, on making this discovery, "ant I vill show you v'ere de best booterflies are to be fount--Oh! sooch a von as I saw to---- but, excuse me, Van der Kemp. Vy you come here joost now?" "To save _you_" said the hermit, with a scintillation of his half-pitiful smile. "To safe _me_!" exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. "Vell, I don't feel to vant safing joost at present." "It is not that danger threatens _you_ so much as your friend the Rajah," returned the hermit. "But if he falls, all under his protection fall along with him. I happen to have heard of a conspiracy against him, on so large a scale that certain destruction would follow if he were taken by surprise, so I have come on in advance of the conspirators to warn him in time. You know I have received much kindness from the Rajah, so I could do no less than warn him of impending danger, and then the fact that you were with him made me doubly anxious to reach you in time." While the hermit was saying this, the naturalist removed his blue glasses, and slowly wiped them with a corner of his coat-tails. Replacing them, he gazed intently into the grave countenance of his friend till he had finished speaking. "Are zee raskils near?" he asked, sternly. "No. We have come on many days ahead of them. But we found a party at the river's mouth awaiting their arrival." "Ant zey cannot arrife, you say, for several veeks?" "Probably not--even though they had fair and steady winds." A sigh of satisfaction broke through the naturalist's moustache on hearing this. "Zen I vill--_ve_ vill, you and I, Mister Roy,--go after ze booterflies to-morrow!" "But we must push on," remonstrated Van der Kemp, "for preparations to resist an attack cannot be commenced too soon." "_You_ may push on, mine frond; go ahead if you vill, but I vill not leave zee booterflies. You know veil zat I vill die--if need be--for zee Rajah. Ve must all die vonce, at least, and I should like to die--if I must die--in a goot cause. What cause better zan frondship? But you say joost now zere is no dancher. Vell, I vill go ant see zee booterflies to-morrow. After zat, I will go ant die--if it must be--vith zee Rajah." "I heartily applaud your sentiment," said Nigel, with a laugh, as he helped himself to some of the food which the Dyak youth and Moses had prepared, "and if Van der Kemp will give me leave of absence I will gladly keep you company." "Zank you. Pass round zee victuals. My appetite is strong. It alvays vas more or less strong. Vat say you, Van der Kemp?" "I have no objection. Moses and I can easily take the canoe up the river. There are no rapids, and it is not far to the Rajah's village; so you are welcome to go, Nigel." "Das de most 'straord'nary craze I eber know'd men inflicted wid!" said Moses that night, as he sat smoking his pipe beside the Dyak boy. "It passes my compr'ension what fun dey find runnin' like child'n arter butterflies, an' beetles, an' sitch like varmint. My massa am de wisest man on eart', yet _he_ go a little wild dat way too--sometimes!" Moses looked at the Dyak boy with a puzzled expression, but as the Dyak boy did not understand English, he looked intently at the fire, and said nothing. Next morning Nigel entered the forest under the guidance of Verkimier and the Dyak youth, and the orang-utan, which followed like a dog, and sometimes even took hold of its master's arm and walked with him as if it had been a very small human being. It was a new experience to Nigel to walk in the sombre shade beneath the tangled arches of the wilderness. In some respects it differed entirely from his expectations, and in others it surpassed them. The gloom was deeper than he had pictured it, but the shade was not displeasing in a land so close to the equator. Then the trees were much taller than he had been led to suppose, and the creeping plants more numerous, while, to his surprise, the wild-flowers were comparatively few and small. But the scarcity of these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant colouring of the foliage. The abundance and variety of the ferns also struck the youth particularly. "Ah! zey are magnificent!" exclaimed Verkimier with enthusiasm. "Look at zat tree-fern. You have not'ing like zat in England--eh! I have found nearly von hoondred specimens of ferns. Zen, look at zee fruit-trees. Ve have here, you see, zee Lansat, Mangosteen, Rambutan, Jack, Jambon, Blimbing ant many ozers--but zee queen of fruits is zee Durian. Have you tasted zee Durian?" "No, not yet." "Ha! a new sensation is before you! Stay, you vill eat von by ant by. Look, zat is a Durian tree before you." He pointed as he spoke to a large and lofty tree, which Mr. A.R. Wallace, the celebrated naturalist and traveller, describes as resembling an elm in general character but with a more smooth and scaly bark. The fruit is round, or slightly oval, about the size of a man's head, of a green colour, and covered all over with short spines which are very strong and so sharp that it is difficult to lift the fruit from the ground. Only the experienced and expert can cut the tough outer rind. There are five faint lines extending from the base to the apex of the fruit, through which it may be divided with a heavy knife and a strong hand, so as to get to the delicious creamy pulp inside. There is something paradoxical in the descriptions of this fruit by various writers, but all agree that it is inexpressibly good! Says one--writing of the sixteenth century--"It is of such an excellent taste that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world." Another writes: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions! but immediately they have tasted it they prefer it to all other food." Wallace himself says of it: "When brought into the house, the smell is so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian-eater!" This was exactly the experience of Nigel Roy that day, and the way in which the fruit came to him was also an experience, but of a very different sort. It happened just as they were looking about for a suitable spot on which to rest and eat their mid-day meal. Verkimier was in front with the orang-utan reaching up to his arm and hobbling affectionately by his side--for there was a strong mutual affection between them. The Dyak youth brought up the rear, with a sort of game-bag on his shoulders. Suddenly Nigel felt something graze his arm, and heard a heavy thud at his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height and missed him by a hairbreadth. "Zank Got, you have escaped!" exclaimed the professor, looking back with a solemn countenance. "I have indeed escaped what might have been a severe blow," said Nigel, stooping to examine the fruit, apparently forgetful that more might follow. "Come--come avay. My boy vill bring it. Men are sometimes killed by zis fruit. Here now ve vill dine." They sat down on a bank which was canopied by ferns. While the boy was arranging their meal, Verkimier drew a heavy hunting-knife from his belt and applying it with an unusually strong hand to the Durian laid it open. Nigel did not at all relish the smell, but he was not fastidious or apt to be prejudiced. He tasted--and, like Mr. Wallace, "became a confirmed Durian eater" from that day. "Ve draw near to zee region vere ve shall find zee booterflies," said the naturalist, during a pause in their luncheon. "I hope we shall be successful," said Nigel, helping himself to some more of what may be styled Durian cream. "To judge from the weight and hardness of this fruit, I should think a blow on one's head from it would be fatal." "Sometimes, not alvays. I suppose zat Dyak skulls are strong. But zee wound is terrible, for zee spikes tear zee flesh dreadfully. Zee Dyak chief, Rajah, vith whom I dwell joost now, was floored once by one, and he expected to die--but he did not. He is alife ant vell, as you shall see." As he spoke a large butterfly fluttered across the scene of their festivities. With all the energy of his enthusiastic spirit and strong muscular frame the naturalist leaped up, overturned his dinner, rushed after the coveted _specimen_, tripped over a root, and measured his length on the ground. "Zat comes of too much horry!" he remarked, as he picked up his glasses, and returned, humbly, to continue his dinner. "Mine frond, learn a lesson from a foolish man!" "I shall learn two lessons," said Nigel, laughing--"first, to avoid your too eager haste, and, second, to copy if I can your admirable enthusiasm." "You are very goot. Some more cheekin' if you please. Zanks. Ve most make haste viz our meal ant go to vork." The grandeur and novelty of the scenery through which they passed when they did go to work was a source of constant delight and surprise to our hero, whose inherent tendency to take note of and admire the wonderful works of God was increased by the unflagging enthusiasm and interesting running commentary of his companion, whose flow of language and eager sympathy formed a striking contrast to the profound silence and gravity of the Dyak youth, as well as to the pathetic and affectionate selfishness of the man-monkey. It must not, however, be supposed that the young orang-utan was unworthy of his victuals, for, besides being an amusing and harmless companion, he had been trained to use his natural capacity for climbing trees in the service of his master. Thus he ascended the tall Durian trees, when ordered, and sent down some of the fruit in a few minutes--an operation which his human companions could not have accomplished without tedious delay and the construction of an ingenious ladder having slender bamboos for one of its sides, and the tree to be ascended for its other side, with splinters of bamboo driven into it by way of rounds. "Zat is zee pitcher-plant," said Verkimier, as Nigel stopped suddenly before a plant which he had often read of but never seen. He was told by his friend that pitcher-plants were very numerous in that region; that every mountain-top abounded with them; that they would be found trailing along the ground and climbing over shrubs and stunted trees, with their elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these, he said, were long and slender, others broad and short. The plant at which they were looking was a broad green one, variously tinted and mottled with red, and was large enough to hold two quarts of water. Resuming the march Nigel observed that the group of orchids was abundant, but a large proportion of the species had small inconspicuous flowers. Some, however, had large clusters of yellow flowers which had a very ornamental effect on the sombre forest. But, although the exceptions were striking, he found that in Borneo, as elsewhere, flowers were scarcer than he had expected in an equatorial forest. There were, however, more than enough of striking and surprising things to engage the attention of our hero, and arouse his interest. One tree they came to which rendered him for some moments absolutely speechless! to the intense delight of the professor, who marched his new-found sympathiser from one object of interest to another with the secret intention of surprising him, and when he had got him to the point of open-mouthed amazement he was wont to turn his spectacles full on his face, like the mouths of a blue binocular, in order to witness and enjoy his emotions! Nigel found this out at last and was rather embarrassed in consequence. "Zat," exclaimed the naturalist, after gazing at his friend for some time in silence, "zat is a tree vitch planted itself in mid-air and zen sent its roots down to zee ground and its branches up to zee sky!" "It looks as if it had," returned Nigel; "I have seen a tree of the same kind near the coast. How came it to grow in this way?" "I know not. It is zought zat zey spring from a seed dropped by a bird into zee fork of anozer tree. Zee seed grows, sends his roots down ant his branches up. Ven his roots reach zee ground he lays hold, ant, ven strong enough, kills his support--zus returning efil for good, like a zankless dependent. Ah! zere is much resemblance between plants and animals! Com', ve must feed here," said the professor, resting his gun against one of the roots, "I had expected to find zee booterflies sooner. It cannot be helped. Let us make zis our banqueting-hall. Ve vill have a Durian to refresh us, ant here is a bandy tree which seems to have ripe vones on it.--Go," he added, turning to the orang-utan, "and send down von or two." The creature looked helplessly incapable, pitifully unwilling, scratching its side the while. Evidently it was a lazy monkey. "Do you hear?" said Verkimier, sternly. The orang moved uneasily, but still declined to go. Turning sharply on it, the professor bent down, placed a hand on each of his knees and stared through the blue goggles into the animal's face. This was more than it could stand. With a very bad grace it hobbled off to the Durian tree, ascended it with a sort of lazy, lumbering facility, and hurled down some of the fruit without warning those below to look out. "My little frond is obstinate sometimes," remarked the naturalist, picking up the fruit, "but ven I bring my glasses to bear on him he alvays gives in. I never found zem fail. Come now; eat, an' ve vill go to vork again. Ve must certainly find zee booterflies somevere before night." [Illustration: "DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY.--PAGE 187.] But Verkimier was wrong. It was his destiny not to find the butterflies that night, or in that region at all, for he and his companion had not quite finished their meal when a Dyak youth came running up to them saying that he had been sent by the Rajah to order their immediate return to the village. "Alas! ve most go. It is dancherous to disobey zee Rajah--ant I am sorry--very sorry--zat I cannot show you zee booterflies to-day. No matter.--Go" (to the Dyak youth), "tell your chief ve vill come. Better lock zee next time!" CHAPTER XV. HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY. Although Professor Verkimier had promised to return at once, he was compelled to encamp in the forest, being overtaken by night before he could reach the river and procure a boat. Next morning they started at daybreak. The country over which they passed had again changed its character and become more hilly. On the summits of many of the hills Dyak villages could be seen, and rice fields were met with as they went along. Several gullies and rivulets were crossed by means of native bamboo bridges, and the professor explained as he went along the immense value of the bamboo to the natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their houses, and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want broader planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out to a plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo serve as receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the path, and every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the bamboos by which it is supported. Honey-bees in Borneo hang their combs, to be out of danger no doubt, under the branches of the Tappan, which towers above all the other trees of the forest. But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder--which can be prolonged to any height on the smooth branchless stem of the Tappan--and storm the stronghold of the bees with much profit to themselves, for bees'-wax will purchase from the traders the brass wire, rings, gold-edged kerchiefs and various ornaments with which they decorate themselves. When travelling, the Dyaks use bamboos as cooking vessels in which to boil rice and other vegetables; as jars in which to preserve honey, sugar, etc., or salted fish and fruit. Split bamboos form aqueducts by which water is conveyed to the houses. A small neatly carved piece of bamboo serves as a case in which are carried the materials used in the disgusting practice of betel-nut chewing--which seems to be equivalent to the western tobacco-chewing. If a pipe is wanted the Dyak will in a wonderfully short space of time make a huge hubble-bubble out of bamboos of different sizes, and if his long-bladed knife requires a sheath the same gigantic grass supplies one almost ready-made. But the uses to which this reed may be applied are almost endless, and the great outstanding advantage of it is that it needs no other tools than an axe and a knife to work it. At about mid-day the river was reached, and they found a native boat, or prau, which had been sent down to convey them to the Rajah's village. Here Nigel was received with the hospitality due to a friend of Van der Kemp, who, somehow--probably by unselfish readiness, as well as ability, to oblige--had contrived to make devoted friends in whatever part of the Malay Archipelago he travelled. Afterwards, in a conversation with Nigel, the professor, referring to those qualities of the hermit which endeared him to men everywhere, said, with a burst of enthusiasm, which almost outdid himself-- "You cannot oonderstant Van der Kemp. No man can oonderstant him. He is goot, right down to zee marrow--kind, amiable, oonselfish, obliging, nevair seems to zink of himself at all, ant, abof all zings, is capable. Vat he vill do, he can do--vat he can do he vill do. But he is sad--very sad." "I have observed that, of course," said Nigel. "Do you know what makes him so sad?" The professor shook his head. "No, I do not know. Nobody knows. I have tried to find out, but he vill not speak." The Orang-Kaya, or rich man, as this hill chief was styled, had provided lodgings for his visitors in the "head-house." This was a large circular building erected on poles. There is such a house in nearly all Dyak villages. It serves as a trading-place, a strangers' room, a sleeping-room for unmarried youths, and a general council-chamber. Here Nigel found the hermit and Moses enjoying a good meal when he arrived, to which he and the professor sat down after paying their respects to the chief. "The Orang-Kaya hopes that we will stay with him some time and help to defend the village," said Van der Kemp, when they were all seated. "Of course you have agreed?" said Nigel. "Yes; I came for that purpose." "We's allers ready to fight in a good cause," remarked Moses, just before filling his mouth with rice. "Or to die in it!" added Verkimier, engulfing the breast of a chicken at a bite. "But as zee pirates are not expected for some days, ve may as veil go after zee mias--zat is what zee natifs call zee orang-utan. It is a better word, being short." Moses glanced at the professor out of the corners of his black eyes and seemed greatly tickled by his enthusiastic devotion to business. "I am also," continued the professor, "extremely anxious to go at zee booterflies before--" "You die," suggested Nigel, venturing on a pleasantry, whereat Moses opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest at his plate. "Do you alvays sneeze like zat?" asked Verkimier. "Not allers," answered the negro simply, "sometimes I gibs way a good deal wuss. Depends on de inside ob my nose an' de state ob de wedder." What the professor would have replied we cannot say, for just then a Dyak youth rushed in to say that an unusually large and gorgeous butterfly had been seen just outside the village! No application of fire to gunpowder could have produced a more immediate effect. The professor's rice was scattered on the floor, and himself was outside the head-house before his comrades knew exactly what was the matter. "He's always like that," said the hermit, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. "Nothing discourages--nothing subdues him. Twice I pulled him out of deadly danger into which he had run in his eager pursuit of specimens. And he has returned the favour to me, for he rescued me once when a mias had got me down and would certainly have killed me, for my gun was empty at the moment, and I had dropped my knife." "Is, then, the orang-utan so powerful and savage?" "Truly, yes, when wounded and driven to bay," returned the hermit. "You must not judge of the creature by the baby that Verkimier has tamed. A full-grown male is quite as large as a man, though very small in the legs in proportion, so that it does not stand high. It is also very much stronger than the most powerful man. You would be quite helpless in its grip, I assure you." "I hope, with the professor," returned Nigel, "that we may have a hunt after them, either before or after the arrival of the pirates. I know he is very anxious to secure a good specimen for some museum in which he is interested--I forget which." As he spoke, the youth who had brought information about the butterfly returned and said a few words to Moses in his native tongue. "What does he say?" asked Nigel. "Dat Massa Verkimier is in full chase, an' it's my opinion dat when he comes back he'll be wet all ober, and hab his shins and elbows barked." "Why d'you think so?" "'Cause dat's de way he goed on when we was huntin' wid him last year. He nebber larns fro' 'sperience." "That's a very fine-looking young fellow," remarked Nigel, referring to the Dyak youth who had just returned, and who, with a number of other natives, was watching the visitors with profound interest while they ate. As the young man referred to was a good sample of the youth of his tribe, we shall describe him. Though not tall, he was well and strongly proportioned, and his skin was of a reddish-brown colour. Like all his comrades, he wore little clothing. A gay handkerchief with a gold lace border encircled his head, from beneath which flowed a heavy mass of straight, jet-black hair. Large crescent-shaped ornaments hung from his ears. His face was handsome and the expression pleasing, though the mouth was large and the lips rather thick. Numerous brass rings encircled his arms above and below the elbows. His only other piece of costume was a waist-cloth of blue cotton, which hung down before and behind. It ended in three bands of red, blue, and white. There were also rows of brass rings on his legs, and armlets of white shells. At his side he wore a long slender knife and a little pouch containing the materials for betel-chewing. "Yes, and he is as good as he looks," said the hermit. "His name is Gurulam, and all the people of his tribe have benefited by the presence in Borneo of that celebrated Englishman Sir James Brooke,--Rajah Brooke as he was called,--who did so much to civilise the Dyaks of Borneo and to ameliorate their condition." The prophecy of Moses about the professor was fulfilled. Just as it was growing dark that genial scientist returned, drenched to the skin and covered with mud, having tumbled into a ditch. His knuckles also were skinned, his knees and shins damaged, and his face scratched, but he was perfectly happy in consequence of having secured a really splendid specimen of a "bootterfly" as big as his hand; the scientific name of which, for very sufficient reasons, we will not attempt to inflict on our readers, and the description of which may be shortly stated by the single word--gorgeous! Being fond of Verkimier, and knowing his desire to obtain a full-grown orang-utan, Gurulam went off early next morning to search for one. Half-a-dozen of his comrades accompanied him armed only with native spears, for their object was not to hunt the animal, but to discover one if possible, and let the professor know so that he might go after it with his rifle, for they knew that he was a keen sportsman as well as a man of science. They did not, indeed, find what they sought for, but they were told by natives with whom they fell in that a number of the animals had been seen among the tree-tops not more than a day's march into the forest. They hurried home therefore with this information, and that day--accompanied by the Dyak youths, Nigel, the hermit, and Moses--Verkimier started off in search of the mias; intending to camp out or to take advantage of a native hut if they should chance to be near one when night overtook them. Descending the hill region, they soon came to more level ground, where there was a good deal of swamp, through which they passed on Dyak roads. These roads consisted simply of tree-trunks laid end to end, along which the natives, being barefooted, walk with ease and certainty, but our booted hunters were obliged to proceed along them with extreme caution. The only one who came to misfortune was, as usual, the professor; and in the usual way! It occurred at the second of these tree-roads. "Look, look at that remarkable insect!" exclaimed Nigel, eagerly, in the innocence of his heart. The professor was in front of him; he obediently looked, saw the insect, made an eager step towards it, and next moment was flat on the swamp, while the woods rang with his companions' laughter. The remarkable insect, whatever it was, vanished from the scene, and the professor was dragged, smiling though confused, out of the bog. These things affected him little. His soul was large and rose superior to such trifles. The virgin forest into which they penetrated was of vast extent; spreading over plain, mountain, and morass in every direction for hundreds of miles, for we must remind the reader that the island of Borneo is considerably larger than all the British islands put together, while its inhabitants are comparatively few. Verkimier had been absolutely revelling in this forest for several months--ranging its glades, penetrating its thickets, bathing (inadvertently) in its quagmires, and maiming himself generally, with unwearied energy and unextinguishable enthusiasm; shooting, skinning, stuffing, preserving, and boiling the bones of all its inhabitants--except the human--to the great advantage of science and the immense interest and astonishment of the natives. Yet with all his energy and perseverance the professor had failed, up to that time, to obtain a large specimen of a male orang-utan, though he had succeeded in shooting several small specimens and females, besides catching the young one which he had tamed. It was therefore with much excitement that he learned from a party of bees'-wax hunters, on the second morning of their expedition, that a large male mias had been seen that very day. Towards the afternoon they found the spot that had been described to them, and a careful examination began. "You see," said Verkimier, in a low voice, to Nigel, as he went a step in advance peering up into the trees, with rifle at the "ready" and bending a little as if by that means he better avoided the chance of being seen. "You see, I came to Borneo for zee express purpose of obtaining zee great man-monkey and vatching his habits.--Hush! Do I not hear somet'ing?" "Nothing but your own voice, I think," said Nigel, with a twinkle in his eye. "Vell--hush! Keep kviet, all of you." As the whole party marched in single file after the professor, and were at the moment absolutely silent, this order induced the display of a good many teeth. Just then the man of science was seen to put his rifle quickly to the shoulder; the arches of the forest rang with a loud report; various horrified creatures were seen and heard to scamper away, and next moment a middle-sized orang-utan came crashing through the branches of a tall tree and fell dead with a heavy thud on the ground. The professor's rifle was a breechloader. He therefore lost no time in re-charging, and hurried forward as if he saw other game, while the rest of the party--except Van der Kemp, Nigel, and Gurulam--fell behind to look at and pick up the fallen animal. "Look out!" whispered Nigel, pointing to a bit of brown hair that he saw among the leaves high overhead. "Vere? I cannot see him," whispered the naturalist, whose eyes blazed enough almost to melt his blue glasses. "Do _you_ fire, Mr. Roy?" "My gun is charged only with small-shot, for birds. It is useless for such game," said Nigel. "Ach! I see!" Up went the rifle and again the echoes were startled and the animal kingdom astounded, especially that portion at which the professor had fired, for there was immediately a tremendous commotion among the leaves overhead, and another orang of the largest size was seen to cross an open space and disappear among the thick foliage. Evidently the creature had been hit, but not severely, for it travelled among the tree-tops at the rate of full five miles an hour, obliging the hunters to run at a rapid pace over the rough ground in order to keep up with it. In its passage from tree to tree the animal showed caution and foresight, selecting only those branches that interlaced with other boughs, so that it made uninterrupted progress, and also had a knack of always keeping masses of thick foliage underneath it so that for some time no opportunity was found of firing another shot. At last, however, it came to one of those Dyak roads of which we have made mention, so that it could not easily swing from one tree to another, and the stoppage of rustling among the leaves told that the creature had halted. For some time they gazed up among the branches without seeing anything, but at last, in a place where the leaves seemed to have been thrust aside near the top of one of the highest trees, a great red hairy body was seen, and a huge black face gazed fiercely down at the hunters. Verkimier fired instantly, the branches closed, and the monster moved off in another direction. In desperate anxiety Nigel fired both barrels of his shot-gun. He might as well have fired at the moon. Gurulam was armed only with a spear, and Van der Kemp, who was not much of a sportsman, carried a similar weapon. The rest of the party were still out of sight in rear looking after the dead mias. It was astonishing how little noise was made by so large an animal as it moved along. More than once the hunters had to halt and listen intently for the rustling of the leaves before they could make sure of being on the right track. At last they caught sight of him again on the top of a very high tree, and the professor got two more shots, but without bringing him down. Then he was seen, quite exposed for a moment, walking in a stooping posture along the large limb of a tree, but the hunter was loading at the time and lost the chance. Finally he got on to a tree whose top was covered with a dense mass of creepers which completely hid him from view. Then he halted and the sound of snapping branches was heard. "You've not much chance of him now," remarked the hermit, as they all stood in a group gazing up into the tree-top. "I have often seen the mias act thus when severely wounded. He is making a nest to lie down and die in." "Zen ve must shoot again," said the professor, moving round the tree and looking out for a sign of the animal. At last he seemed to have found what he wanted, for raising his rifle he took a steady aim and fired. A considerable commotion of leaves and fall of broken branches followed. Then the huge red body of the mias appeared falling through, but it was not dead, for it caught hold of branches as it fell and hung on as long as it could; then it came crashing down, and alighted on its face with an awful thud. After firing the last shot Verkimier had not reloaded, being too intent on watching the dying struggles of the creature, and when it fell with such violence he concluded that it was dead. For the same reason Nigel had neglected to reload after firing. Thus it happened that when the enormous brute suddenly rose and made for a tree with the evident intention of climbing it, no one was prepared to stop it except the Dyak youth Gurulam. He chanced to be standing between the mias and the tree. Boldly he levelled his spear and made a thrust that would probably have killed the beast, if it had not caught the point of the spear and turned it aside. Then with its left paw it caught the youth by the neck, seized his thigh with one of its hind paws, and fixed its teeth in his right shoulder. Never was man rendered more suddenly and completely helpless, and death would have been his sure portion before the hunters had reloaded if Van der Kemp had not leaped forward, and, thrusting his spear completely through the animal's body, killed it on the spot. CHAPTER XVI. BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT. The hunt, we need scarcely say, was abruptly terminated, and immediate preparations were made for conveying the wounded man and the two orangs to the Dyak village. This was quickly arranged, for the convenient bamboo afforded ready-made poles wherewith to form a litter on which to carry them. The huge creature which had given them so much trouble, and so nearly cost them one human life, was found to be indeed of the largest size. It was not tall but very broad and large. The exact measurements, taken by the professor, who never travelled without his tape measure, were as follows:-- Height from heel to top of head, 4 feet 2 inches. Outstretched arms across chest, 7 " 8 " Width of face, 1 foot 2 " Girth of arm, 1 " 3 " Girth of wrist, 8 " The muscular power of such a creature is of course immense, as Nigel and the professor had a rare chance of seeing that very evening--of which, more presently. On careful examination by Nigel, who possessed some knowledge of surgery, it was found that none of Gurulam's bones had been broken, and that although severely lacerated about the shoulders and right thigh, no very serious injury had been done--thanks to the promptitude and vigour of the hermit's spear-thrust. The poor youth, however, was utterly helpless for the time being, and had to be carried home. That afternoon the party reached a village in a remote part of the forest where they resolved to halt for the night, as no other resting-place could be reached before dark. While a supper of rice and fowl was being cooked by Moses, Van der Kemp attended to the wounded man, and Nigel accompanied the professor along the banks of the stream on which the village stood. Having merely gone out for a stroll they carried no weapons except walking-sticks, intending to go only a short distance. Interesting talk, however, on the character and habits of various animals, made them forget time until the diminution of daylight warned them to turn. They were about to do so when they observed, seated in an open place near the stream, the largest orang they had yet seen. It was feeding on succulent shoots by the water-side: a fact which surprised the professor, for his inquiries and experience had hitherto taught him that orangs never eat such food except when starving. The fat and vigorous condition in which this animal was forbade the idea of starvation. Besides, it had brought a Durian fruit to the banks of the stream and thrown it down, so that either taste or eccentricity must have induced it to prefer the shoots. Perhaps its digestion was out of order and it required a tonic. Anyhow, it continued to devour a good many young shoots while our travellers were peeping at it in mute surprise through the bushes. That they had approached so near without being observed was due to the fact that a brawling rapid flowed just there, and the mias was on the other side of the stream. By mutual consent the men crouched to watch its proceedings. They were not a little concerned, however, when the brute seized an overhanging bough, and, with what we may style sluggish agility, swung itself clumsily but lightly to their side of the stream. It picked up the Durian which lay there and began to devour it. Biting off some of the strong spikes with which that charming fruit is covered, it made a small hole in it, and then with its powerful fingers tore off the thick rind and began to enjoy a feast. Now, with monkeys, no less than with men, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, for the mias had just begun its meal, or, rather, its dessert, when a crocodile, which the professor had not observed and Nigel had mistaken for a log, suddenly opened its jaws and seized the big monkey's leg. The scene that ensued baffles description! Grasping the crocodile with its other three hands by nose, throat, and eyes, the mias almost performed the American operation of gouging--digging its powerful thumbs and fingers into every crevice and tearing open its assailant's jaws. The crocodile, taken apparently by surprise, went into dire convulsions, and making for deep water, plunged his foe therein over head and ears. Nothing daunted, the mias regained his footing, hauled his victim on to a mudbank, and, jumping on his back began to tear and pommel him. There was nothing of the prize-fighter in the mias. He never clenched his fist--never hit straight from the shoulder, but the buffeting and slapping which he gave resounded all over the place. At last he caught hold of a fold of his opponent's throat, which he began to tear open with fingers and teeth. Wrenching himself free with a supreme effort the crocodile shot into the stream and disappeared with a sounding splash of its tail, while the mias waded lamely to the shore with an expression of sulky indignation on its great black face. Slowly the creature betook itself to the shelter of the forest, and we need scarcely add that the excited observers of the combat made no attempt to hinder its retreat. It is said that the python is the only other creature that dares to attack the orang-utan, and that when it does so victory usually declares for the man-monkey, which bites and tears it to death. The people of the village in which the hunters rested that night were evidently not accustomed to white men--perhaps had never seen them before--for they crowded round them while at supper and gazed in silent wonder as if they were watching a group of white-faced baboons feeding! They were, however, very hospitable, and placed before their visitors abundance of their best food without expecting anything in return. Brass rings were the great ornament in this village--as they are, indeed, among the Dyaks generally. Many of the women had their arms completely covered with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee. Their petticoats were fastened to a coil of rattan, stained red, round their bodies. They also wore coils of brass wire, girdles of small silver coins, and sometimes broad belts of brass ring-armour. It was break of dawn next morning when our hunters started, bearing their wounded comrade and the dead orangs with them. Arrived at the village they found the people in great excitement preparing for defence, as news had been brought to the effect that the pirates had landed at the mouth of the river, joined the disaffected band which awaited them, and that an attack might be expected without delay, for they were under command of the celebrated Malay pirate Baderoon. Nigel observed that the countenance of his friend Van der Kemp underwent a peculiar change on hearing this man's name mentioned. There was a combination of anxiety, which was unnatural to him, and of resolution, which was one of his chief characteristics. "Is Baderoon the enemy whom you saw on the islet on our first night out?" asked Nigel, during a ramble with the hermit that evening. "Yes, and I fear to meet him," replied his friend in a low voice. Nigel was surprised. The impression made on his mind since their intercourse was that Van der Kemp was incapable of the sensation of fear. "Is he so very bitter against you?" asked Nigel. "Very," was the curt reply. "Have you reason to think he would take your life if he could?" "I am sure he would. As I told you before, I have thwarted his plans more than once. When he hears that it is I who have warned the Orang-Kaya against him he will pursue me to the death--and--and I _must not_ meet him." "Indeed!" exclaimed Nigel, with renewed surprise. But the hermit took no note of the exclamation. Anxiety had given place to a frown, and his eyes were fixed on the ground. It seemed to Nigel so evident that he did not wish to pursue the subject, that he slightly changed it. "I suppose," he said, "that there is no fear of the Dyaks of the village being unable to beat off the pirates now that they have been warned?" "None whatever. Indeed, this is so well known to Baderoon that I think he will abandon the attempt. But he will not abandon his designs on me. However, we must wait and see how God will order events." Next morning spies returned to the village with the information that the pirates had taken their departure from the mouth of the river. "Do you think this is an attempt to deceive us?" asked the chief, turning to Van der Kemp, when he heard the news. "I think not. And even should it be so, and they should return, you are ready and well able to meet them." "Yes, ready--and _well_ able to meet them," replied the Orang-Kaya, drawing himself up proudly. "Did they _all_ go in one direction?" asked Van der Kemp of the youths who had brought the news. "Yes, all went in a body to the north--except one boat which rowed southward." "Hm! I thought so. My friends, listen to me. This is no pretence. They do not mean to attack you now you are on your guard; but that boat which went south contains Baderoon, and I feel certain that he means to hang about here till he gets the chance of killing me." "That is well," returned the chief, calmly. "My young men will hunt till they find where he is. Then they will bring us the information and Van der Kemp will go out with a band and slay his enemy." "No, my friend," said the hermit, firmly; "that shall not be. I must get out of his way, and in order to do so will leave you at once, for there will be no further need for my services here." The chief looked at his friend in surprise. "Well," he said, "you have a good judgment, and understand your own affairs. But you have already rendered me good service, and I will help you to fly--though such is not the habit of the Dyaks! There is a trader's vessel to start for Sumatra by the first light of day. Will my friend go by that?" "I am grateful," answered the hermit, "but I need no help--save some provisions, for I have my little canoe, which will suffice." As this colloquy was conducted in the native tongue it was unintelligible to Nigel, but after the interview with the chief the hermit explained matters to him, and bade Moses get ready for a start several hours before dawn. "You see we must do the first part of our trip in the dark, for Baderoon has a keen eye and ear. Then we will land and sleep all day where the sharpest eye will fail to find us--and, luckily, pirates have been denied the power of scenting out their foes. When night comes we will start again and get out of sight of land before the next dawn." "Mine frond," said the professor, turning his moon-like goggles full on the hermit. "I vill go viz you." "I should be only too happy to have your company," returned the hermit, "but my canoe cannot by any contrivance be made to hold more than three." "Zat is no matter to me," rejoined Verkimier; "you forget zee trader's boat. I vill go in zat to Sumatra. Ve vill find out zee port he is going to, ant you vill meet me zere. Vait for me if I have not arrived--or I vill vait for you. I have longed to visit Sumatra, ant vat better fronds could I go viz zan yourselfs?" "But, my good friend," returned the hermit, "my movements may not exactly suit yours. Here they are,--you can judge for yourself. First I will, God permitting, cross over to Sumatra in my canoe." "But it is t'ree hoondert miles across, if not more!" "No matter--there are plenty of islands on the way. Besides, some passing vessel will give me a lift, no doubt. Then I will coast along to one of the eastern ports, where I know there is a steamboat loading up about this time. The captain is an old friend of mine. He brought me and my companions the greater part of the way here. If I find him I will ask him to carry my canoe on his return voyage through Sunda Straits, and leave it with another friend of mine at Telok Betong on the south coast of Sumatra--not far, as you know, from my home in Krakatoa. Then I will proceed overland to the same place, so that my friend Nigel Roy may see a little of the country." "Ant vat if you do _not_ find your frond zee captain of zee steamer?" "Why, then I shall have to adopt some other plan. It is the uncertainty of my movements that makes me think you should not depend on them." "Zat is not'ing to me, Van der Kemp; you joost go as you say. I vill follow ant take my chance. I am use' to ooncertainties ant difficoolties. Zey can not influence me." After a good deal of consideration this plan was agreed to. The professor spent part of the night in giving directions about the preserving of his specimens, which he meant to leave at the village in charge of a man whom he had trained to assist him, while Van der Kemp with his companions lay down to snatch a little sleep before setting out on their voyage, or, as the Dyak chief persisted in calling it, their flight! When Nigel had slept about five minutes--as he thought--he was awakened by Moses. "Don't make a noise, Massa Nadgel! Dere may be spies in de camp for all we knows, so we mus' git off like mice. Canoe's ready an' massa waitin'; we gib you to de last momint." In a few minutes our hero was sleepily following the negro through the woods to the spot where the canoe was in waiting. The night was very dark. This was in their favour,--at least as regarded discovery. "But how shall we ever see to make our way down stream?" asked Nigel of the hermit in a whisper on reaching the place of embarkation. "The current will guide us. Besides, I have studied the river with a view to this flight. Be careful in getting in. Now, Moses, are you ready?" "All right, massa." "Shove off, then." There was something so eerie in the subdued tones, and stealthy motions, and profound darkness, that Nigel could not help feeling as if they were proceeding to commit some black and criminal deed! Floating with the current, with as little noise as possible, and having many a narrow escape of running against points of land and sandbanks, they flew swiftly towards the sea, so that dawn found them among the mud flats and the mangrove swamps. Here they found a spot where mangrove roots and bushes formed an impenetrable screen, behind which they spent the day, chiefly in sleep, and in absolute security. When darkness set in they again put forth, and cautiously clearing the river's mouth, were soon far out on the open sea, which was fortunately calm at the time, the slight air that blew being in their favour. "We are safe from pursuit now," said Van der Kemp in a tone of satisfaction, as they paused for a breathing spell. "O massa!" exclaimed Moses at that moment, in a voice of consternation; "we's forgotten Spinkie!" "So we have!" returned the hermit in a voice of regret so profound that Nigel could scarce restrain a laugh in spite of his sympathy. But Spinkie had not forgotten himself. Observing probably, that these night expeditions were a change in his master's habits, he had kept an unusually watchful eye on the canoe, so that when it was put in the water, he had jumped on board unseen in the darkness, and had retired to the place where he usually slept under hatches when the canoe travelled at night. Awakened from refreshing sleep at the sound of his name, Spinkie emerged suddenly from the stern-manhole, right under the negro's nose, and with a sleepy "oo, oo!" gazed up into his face. "Ho! Dare you is, you mis'rible hyperkrite!" exclaimed Moses, kissing the animal in the depth of his satisfaction. "He's here, massa, all right. Now, you go to bed agin, you small bundle ob hair." The creature retired obediently to its place, and laying its little cheek on one of its small hands, committed itself to repose. Van der Kemp was wrong when he said they were safe. A pirate scout had seen the canoe depart. Being alone and distant from the rendezvous of his commander, some time elapsed before the news could be conveyed to him. When Baderoon was at length informed and had sailed out to sea in pursuit, returning daylight showed him that his intended victim had escaped. CHAPTER XVII. TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETC., OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED. Fortunately the weather continued fine at first, and the light wind fair, so that the canoe skimmed swiftly over the wide sea that separates Borneo from Sumatra. Sometimes our travellers proceeded at night when the distance between islets compelled them to do so. At other times they landed on one of these isles when opportunity offered to rest and replenish the water-casks. We will not follow them step by step in this voyage, which occupied more than a week, and during which they encountered without damage several squalls in which a small open boat could not have lived. Beaching at last the great island of Sumatra--which, like its neighbour Borneo, is larger in extent than the British Islands--they coasted along southwards, without further delay than was absolutely necessary for rest and refreshment, until they reached a port where they found the steamer of which they were in search just about to start on its return voyage. Van der Kemp committed his little craft to the care of the captain, who, after vainly advising his friend to take a free passage with him to the Straits of Sunda, promised to leave the canoe in passing at Telok Betong. We may add that Spinkie was most unwillingly obliged to accompany the canoe. "Now, we must remain here till our friend Verkimier arrives," said the hermit, turning to Nigel after they had watched the steamer out of sight. "I suppose we must," said Nigel, who did not at all relish the delay--"of course we must," he added with decision. "I sees no 'ob course' about it, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who never refrained from offering his opinion from motives of humility, or of respect for his employer. "My 'dvice is to go on an' let de purfesser foller." "But I promised to wait for him," said the hermit, with one of his kindly, half-humorous glances, "and you know I _never_ break my promises." "Das true, massa, but you di'n't promise to wait for him for eber an' eber!" "Not quite; but of course I meant that I would wait a reasonable time." The negro appeared to meditate for some moments on the extent of a "reasonable" time, for his huge eyes became huger as he gazed frowningly at the ground. Then he spoke. "A 'reasonable' time, massa, is such an oncertain time--wariable, so to speak, accordin' to the mind that t'inks upon it! Hows'eber, if you's _promised,_ ob coorse dat's an end ob it; for w'en a man promises, he's bound to stick to it." Such devotion to principle was appropriately rewarded the very next day by the arrival of the trading prau in which the professor had embarked. "We did not expect you nearly so soon," said Nigel, as they heartily shook hands. "It vas because zee vind freshen soon after ve set sail--ant, zen, ve made a straight line for zis port, w'ereas you possibly crossed over, ant zen push down zee coast." "Exactly so, and that accounts for your overtaking us," said the hermit. "Is that the lad Baso I see down there with the crew of the prau?" "It is. You must have some strainch power of attracting frondship, Van der Kemp, for zee poor yout' is so fond of you zat he beg ant entreat me to take him, ant he says he vill go on vit zee traders if you refuse to let him follow you." "Well, he may come. Indeed, we shall be the better for his services, for I had intended to hire a man here to help to carry our things. Much of our journeying, you see, must be done on foot." Baso, to his great joy, thus became one of the party. We pass over the next few days, which were spent in arranging and packing their provisions, etc., in such a way that each member of the party should carry on his shoulders a load proportioned to his strength. In this arrangement the professor, much against his will, was compelled to accept the lightest load in consideration of his liability to dart off in pursuit of creeping things and "bootterflies" at a moment's notice. The least damageable articles were also assigned to him in consideration of his tendency at all times to tumble into bogs and stumble over fallen trees, and lose himself, and otherwise get into difficulties. We also pass over part of the journey from the coast, and plunge with our travellers at once into the interior of Sumatra. One evening towards sunset they reached the brow of an eminence which, being rocky, was free from much wood, and permitted of a wide view of the surrounding country. It was covered densely with virgin forest, and they ascended the eminence in order that the hermit, who had been there before, might discover a forest road which led to a village some miles off, where they intended to put up for the night. Having ascertained his exact position, Van der Kemp led his followers down to this footpath, which led through the dense forest. The trees by which they were surrounded were varied and magnificent--some of them rising clear up seventy and eighty feet without a branch, many of them had superb leafy crowns, under any one of which hundreds of men might have found shelter. Others had trunks and limbs warped and intertwined with a wild entanglement of huge creepers, which hung in festoons and loops as if doing their best to strangle their supports, themselves being also encumbered, or adorned, with ferns and orchids, and delicate twining epiphytes. A forest of smaller trees grew beneath this shade, and still lower down were thorny shrubs, rattan-palms, broad-leaved bushes, and a mass of tropical herbage which would have been absolutely impenetrable but for the native road or footpath along which they travelled. "A most suitable abode for tigers, I should think," remarked Nigel to the hermit, who walked in front of him--for they marched in single file. "Are there any in these parts?" "Ay, plenty. Indeed, it is because I don't like sleeping in their company that I am so anxious to reach a village." "Are zey dangerows?" asked the professor, who followed close on Nigel. "Well, they are not safe!" replied the hermit. "I had an adventure with one on this very road only two years ago." "Indeed! vat vas it?" asked the professor, whose appetite for anecdote was insatiable. "Do tell us about it." "With pleasure. It was on a pitch-dark night that it occurred. I had occasion to go to a neighbouring village at a considerable distance, and borrowed a horse from a friend----" "Anozer frond!" exclaimed the professor; "vy, Van der Kemp, zee country seems to be svarming vid your fronds." "I have travelled much in it and made many friends," returned the hermit. "The horse that I borrowed turned out to be a very poor one, and went lame soon after I set out. Business kept me longer than I expected, and it was getting dark before I started to return. Erelong the darkness became so intense that I could scarcely see beyond the horse's head, and could not distinguish the path. I therefore let the animal find his own way--knowing that he would be sure to do so, for he was going home. As we jogged along, I felt the horse tremble. Then he snorted and came to a dead stop, with his feet planted firmly on the ground. I was quite unarmed, but arms would have been useless in the circumstances. Suddenly, and fortunately, the horse reared, and next moment a huge dark object shot close past my face--so close that its fur brushed my cheek--as it went with a heavy thud into the jungle on the other side. I knew that it was a tiger and felt that my life, humanly speaking, was due to the rearing of the poor horse." "Are ve near to zee spote?" asked the professor, glancing from side to side in some anxiety. "Not far from it!" replied the hermit, "but there is not much fear of such an attack in broad daylight and with so large a party." "Ve are not a very large party," returned the professor. "I do not zink I would fear much to face a tiger vid my goot rifle, but I do not relish his choomping on me unavares. Push on, please." They pushed on and reached the village a little before nightfall. Hospitality is a characteristic of the natives of Sumatra. The travellers were received with open arms, so to speak, and escorted to the public building which corresponds in some measure to our western town-halls. It was a huge building composed largely of bamboo wooden-planks and wicker-work, with a high thatched roof, and it stood, like all the other houses, on posts formed of great tree-stems which rose eight or ten feet from the ground. "You have frunds here too, I zink," said Verkimier to the hermit, as they ascended the ladder leading to the door of the hall. "Well, yes--I believe I have two or three." There could be no doubt upon that point, unless the natives were consummate hypocrites, for they welcomed Van der Kemp and his party with effusive voice, look and gesture, and immediately spread before them part of a splendid supper which had just been prepared; for they had chanced to arrive on a festive occasion. "I do believe," said Nigel in some surprise, "that they are lighting up the place with petroleum lamps!" "Ay, and you will observe that they are lighting the lamps with Congreve matches--at least with matches of the same sort, supplied by the Dutch and Chinese. Many of their old customs have passed away (among others that of procuring fire by friction), and now we have the appliances of western civilisation to replace them." "No doubt steam is zee cause of zee change," remarked the professor. "That," said Nigel, "has a good deal to do with most things--from the singing of a tea-kettle to the explosion of a volcano; though, doubtless, the commercial spirit which is now so strong among men is the proximate cause." "Surely dese people mus' be reech," said the professor, looking round him with interest. "They are rich enough--and well off in every respect, save that they don't know very well how to make use of their riches. As you see, much of their wealth is lavished on their women in the shape of ornaments, most of which are of solid gold and silver." There could be little doubt about that, for, besides the ornaments proper, such as the bracelets and rings with which the arms of the young women were covered, and earrings, etc.,--all of solid gold and native-made--there were necklaces and collars composed of Spanish and American dollars and British half-crowns and other coins. In short, these Sumatran young girls carried much of the wealth of their parents on their persons, and were entitled to wear it until they should be relegated to the ranks of the married--the supposed-to-be unfrivolous, and the evidently unadorned! As this was a region full of birds, beasts, and insects of many kinds, it was resolved, for the professor's benefit, that a few days should be spent in it. Accordingly, the village chief set apart a newly-built house for the visitors' accommodation, and a youth named Grogo was appointed to wait on them and act as guide when they wished to traverse any part of the surrounding forest. The house was on the outskirts of the village, a matter of satisfaction to the professor, as it enabled him at once to plunge into his beloved work unobserved by the youngsters. It also afforded him a better opportunity of collecting moths, etc., by the simple method of opening his window at night. A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the naturalist and his _matériel_. "I vil begin at vonce," said the eager man, on taking possession. And he kept his word by placing his lamp on a table in a conspicuous position, so that it could be well seen from the outside. Then he threw his window wide open, as a general invitation to the insect world to enter! Moths, flying beetles, and other creatures were not slow to accept the invitation. They entered by twos, fours, sixes--at last by scores, insomuch that the room became uninhabitable except by the man himself, and his comrades soon retired to their own compartment, leaving him to carry on his work alone. "You enjoy this sort of thing?" said Nigel, as he was about to retire. "Enchoy it? yes--it is 'paradise regained'!" He pinned a giant moth at the moment and gazed triumphant through his blue glasses. "'Paradise lost' to the moth, anyhow," said Nigel with a nod, as he bade him good-night, and carefully closed the wicker door to check the incursions of uncaptured specimens. Being rather tired with the day's journey, he lay down on a mat beside the hermit, who was already sound asleep. But our hero found that sleep was not easily attainable so close to an inexhaustible enthusiast, whose every step produced a rattling of the bamboo floor, and whose unwearied energy enabled him to hunt during the greater part of the night. At length slumber descended on Nigel's spirit, and he lay for some time in peaceful oblivion, when a rattling crash awoke him. Sitting up he listened, and came to the conclusion that the professor had upset some piece of furniture, for he could hear him distinctly moving about in a stealthy manner, as if on tip-toe, giving vent to a grumble of dissatisfaction every now and then. "What _can_ he be up to now, I wonder?" murmured the disturbed youth, sleepily. The hermit, who slept through all noises with infantine simplicity, made no answer, but a peculiar snort from the negro, who lay not far off on his other side, told that he was struggling with a laugh. "Hallo, Moses! are you awake?" asked Nigel, in a low voice. "Ho yes, Massa Nadgel. I's bin wakin' a good while, larfin fit to bu'st my sides. De purfesser's been agoin' on like a mad renoceros for more 'n an hour. He's arter suthin, which he can't ketch. Listen! You hear 'im goin' round an' round on his tip-toes. Dere goes anoder chair. I only hope he won't smash de lamp an' set de house a-fire." "Veil, veil; I've missed him zee tence time. Nevair mind. Have at you vonce more, you aggravating leetle zing!" Thus the unsuccessful man relieved his feelings, in a growling tone, as he continued to move about on tip-toe, rattling the bamboo flooring in spite of his careful efforts to move quietly. "Why, Verkimier, what are you after?" cried Nigel at last, loud enough to be heard through the partition. "Ah! I am sorry to vake you," he replied, without, however, suspending his hunt. "I have tried my best to make no noice, but zee bamboo floor is--hah! I have 'im at last!" "What is it?" asked Nigel, becoming interested. "Von leetle bat. He come in vis a moss----" "A what?" "A moss--a big, beautiful moss." "Oh! a moth--well?" "Vell, I shut zee window, capture zee moss, ant zen I hunt zee bat vith my bootterfly-net for an hour, but have only captured him zis moment. Ant he is--sooch a--sooch a splendid specimen of a _very_ rar' species, zee _Coelops frizii_--gootness! Zere goes zee lamp!" The crash that followed told too eloquently of the catastrophe, and broke the slumbers even of the hermit. The whole party sprang up, and entered the naturalist's room with a light, for the danger from fire was great. Fortunately the lamp had been extinguished in its fall, so that, beyond an overpowering smell of petroleum and the destruction of a good many specimens, no serious results ensued. After securing the _Coelops frithii_, removing the shattered glass, wiping up the oil, and putting chairs and tables on their legs, the professor was urged to go to bed,--advice which, in his excitement, he refused to take until it was suggested that, if he did not, he would be totally unfit for exploring the forest next day. "Vy, it is next day already!" he exclaimed, consulting his watch. "Just so. Now _do_ turn in." "I vill." And he did. CHAPTER XVIII. A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON. When the early birds are singing, and the early mists are scattering, and the early sun is rising to gladden, as with the smile of God, all things with life in earth and sea and sky--then it is that early-rising man goes forth to reap the blessings which his lazy fellow-man fails to appreciate or enjoy. Among the early risers that morning was our friend Moses. Gifted with an inquiring mind, the negro had proceeded to gratify his propensities by making inquiries of a general nature, and thus had acquired, among other things, the particular information that the river on the banks of which the village stood was full of fish. Now, Moses was an ardent angler. "I lub fishing," he said one day to Nigel when in a confidential mood; "I can't tell you how much I lub it. Seems to me dat der's nuffin' like it for proggin' a man!" When Nigel demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a compound meaning--it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour ob ticklin' about it," and was rather pleasant. "You see," he continued, "when a leetle fish plays wid your hook, it progs your intellec' an' tickles up your fancy a leetle. When he grabs you, dat progs your hopes a good deal. When a big fish do de same, dat progs you deeper. An' when a real walloper almost pulls you into de ribber, dat progs your heart up into your t'roat, where it stick till you land him." With surroundings and capacities such as we have attempted to describe, it is no wonder that Moses sat down on the river-bank and enjoyed himself, in company with a little Malay boy, who lent him his bamboo rod and volunteered to show him the pools. But there were no particular pools in that river It was a succession of pools, and fish swarmed in all of them. There were at least fifteen different species which nothing short of an ichthyologist could enumerate correctly. The line used by Moses was a single fibre of bark almost as strong as gut; the hook was a white tinned weapon like a small anchor, supplied by traders, and meant originally for service in the deep sea. The bait was nothing in particular, but as the fish were not particular that was of no consequence. The reader will not be surprised, then, when we state that in an hour or so Moses had had his heart progged considerably and had filled a large bag with superb fish, with which he returned, perspiring, beaming, and triumphant to breakfast. After breakfast the whole party went forth for what Verkimier styled "zee business of zee day," armed with guns, spears, botanical boxes, bags, wallets, and butterfly nets. In the immediate neighbourhood of the village large clearings in the forest were planted as coffee gardens, each separated from the other for the purpose of isolation, for it seems that coffee, like the potato, is subject to disease. Being covered with scarlet flowers these gardens had a fine effect on the landscape when seen from the heights behind the village. Passing through the coffee grounds the party was soon in the tangled thickets of underwood through which many narrow paths had been cut. We do not intend to drag our readers through bog and brake during the whole of this day's expedition; suffice it to say that the collection of specimens made, of all kinds, far surpassed the professor's most sanguine expectations, and, as for the others, those who could more or less intelligently sympathise did so, while those who could not were content with the reflected joy of the man of science. At luncheon--which they partook of on the river-bank, under a magnificently umbrageous tree--plans for the afternoon were fixed. "We have kept together long enough, I think," said Van der Kemp. "Those of us who have guns must shoot something to contribute to the national feast on our return." "Vell, let us divide," assented the amiable naturalist. Indeed he was so happy that he would have assented to anything--except giving up the hunt. "Von party can go von vay, anoder can go anoder vay. I vill continue mine business. Zee place is more of a paradise zan zee last. Ve must remain two or tree veeks." The hermit glanced at Nigel. "I fear it is impossible for me to do so," said the latter. "I am pledged to return to Batavia within a specified time, and from the nature of the country I perceive it will take all the time at my disposal to reach that place so as to redeem my pledge." "Ha! Zat is a peety. Vell, nevair mind. Let us enchoy to-day. Com', ve must not vaste more of it in zee mere gratification of our animal natures." Acting on this broad hint they all rose and scattered in different groups--the professor going off ahead of his party in his eager haste, armed only with a butterfly net. Now, as the party of natives,--including Baso, who carried the professor's biggest box, and Grogo, who bore his gun,--did not overtake their leader, they concluded that he must have joined one of the other parties, and, as it was impossible to ascertain which of them, they calmly went hunting on their own account! Thus it came to pass that the man of science was soon lost in the depths of that primeval forest! But little cared the enthusiast for that--or, rather, little did he realise it. With perspiration streaming from every pore--except where the pores were stopped by mud--he dashed after "bootterflies" with the wisdom of Solomon and the eagerness of a school-boy, and not until the shades of evening began to descend did his true position flash upon him. Then, with all the vigour of a powerful intellect and an enlightened mind, he took it in at a glance--and came to a sudden halt. "Vat _shall_ I do?" he asked. Not even an echo answered, and the animal kingdom was indifferent. "Lat me see. I have been vandering avay all dis time. Now, I have not'ing to do but right-about-face and vander back." Could reasoning be clearer or more conclusive? He acted on it at once, but, after wandering back a long time, he did not arrive at any place or object that he had recognised on the outward journey. Meanwhile, as had been appointed, the rest of the party met a short time before dark at the rendezvous where they had lunched. "Where is the professor, Baso?" asked Van der Kemp as he came up. Baso did not know, and looked at Grogo, who also professed ignorance, but both said they thought the professor had gone with Nigel. "I thought he was with _you_," said the latter, looking anxiously at the hermit. "He's goed an' lost hisself!" cried Moses with a look of concern. Van der Kemp was a man of action. "Not a moment to lose," he said, and organised the band into several smaller parties, each led by a native familiar with the jungle. "Let this be our meeting-place," he said, as they were on the point of starting off together; "and let those of us who have fire-arms discharge them occasionally." Meanwhile, the professor was walking at full speed in what he supposed to be--and in truth was--"back." He was not alone, however. In the jungle close beside him a tiger prowled along with the stealthy, lithe, sneaking activity of a cat. By that time it was not absolutely dark, but the forest had assumed a very sombre appearance. Suddenly the tiger made a tremendous bound on to the track right in front of the man. Whether it had miscalculated the position of its intended victim or not we cannot say, but it crouched for another spring. The professor, almost instinctively, crouched also, and, being a brave man, stared the animal straight in the face without winking! and so the two crouched there, absolutely motionless and with a fixed glare, such as we have often seen in a couple of tom-cats who were mutually afraid to attack each other. What the tiger thought at that critical and crucial moment we cannot tell, but the professor's thoughts were swift, varied, tremendous--almost sublime, and once or twice even ridiculous! "Vat shall I do? Deaf stares me in zee face! No veapons! only a net, ant he is _not_ a bootterfly! Science, adieu! Home of my chilthood, farevell! My moder--Hah! zee fusees!" Such were a few of the thoughts that burned but found no utterance. The last thought however led to action. Verkimier, foolish man! was a smoker. He carried fusees. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the blue binoculars! The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail--undoubtedly though not evidently--between its legs! Heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, the professor stood up and wiped his forehead. Then he listened intently. "A shote, if mine ears deceive me not!" he said, and listened again. He was right. Another shot, much nearer, was heard, and he replied with a shout to which joy as much as strength of lung gave fervour. Hurrying along the track--not without occasional side-glances at the jungle--the hero was soon again in the midst of his friends; and it was not until his eyes refused to remain open any longer that he ceased to entertain an admiring circle that night with the details of his face-to-face meeting with a tiger. But Verkimier's anticipations in regard to that paradise were not to be realised. The evil passions of a wicked man, with whom he had personally nothing whatever to do, interfered with his plans. In the middle of the night a native Malay youth named Babu arrived at the village and demanded an interview with the chief. That worthy, after the interview, conducted the youth to the hut where his visitors lived, and, rousing Van der Kemp without disturbing the others, bade him listen to what the young man had to say. An expression of great anxiety overspread the hermit's usually placid countenance while Babu was speaking. "It is fate!" he murmured, as if communing with himself--then, after a pause--"no, there is no such thing as fate. It is, it must be, the will of God. Go, young man, mention this to no one. I thank you for the kindness which made you take so long a journey for my sake." "It is not kindness, it is love that makes me serve you," returned the lad earnestly. "Every one loves you, Van der Kemp, because that curse of mankind, _revenge_, has no place in your breast." "Strange! how little man does know or guess the secret thoughts of his fellow!" said the hermit with one of his pitiful smiles. "_Revenge_ no place in me!--but I thank you, boy, for the kind thought as well as the effort to save me. My life is not worth much to any one. It will not matter, I think, if my enemy should succeed. Go now, Babu, and God be with you!" "He will surely succeed if you do not leave this place at once," rejoined the youth, in a tone of decision. "Baderoon is furious at all times. He is worse than ever just now, because you have thwarted his plans--so it is said--very often. If he knew that _I_ am now thwarting them also, he would hunt me to death. I will not leave you till you are safe beyond his reach." The hermit looked at the lad with kindly surprise. "How comes it," he said, "that you are so much interested in me? I remember seeing you two years ago, but have no recollection of having done you any service." "Do you not remember that my mother was ill when you spent a night in our hut, and my little sister was dying? You nursed her, and tried your best to save her, and when you could not save her, and she died, you wept as if the child had been your own. I do not forget that, Van der Kemp. Sympathy is of more value than service." "Strangely mistaken again!" murmured the hermit. "Who can know the workings of the human mind! Self was mixed with my feelings--profoundly--yet my sympathy with you and your mother was sincere." "We never doubted that," returned Babu with a touch of surprise in his tone. "Well now, what do you propose to do, as you refuse to leave me?" asked the hermit with some curiosity. "I will go on with you to the next village. It is a large one. The chief man there is my uncle, who will aid me, I know, in any way I wish. I will tell him what I know and have heard of the pirate's intention, of which I have proof. He will order Baderoon to be arrested on suspicion when he arrives. Then we will detain him till you are beyond his reach. That is not unjust." "True--and I am glad to know by your last words that you are sensitive about the justice of what you propose to do. Indifference to pure and simple justice is the great curse of mankind. It is not indeed the root, but it is the fruit of our sins. The suspicion that detains Baderoon is more than justified, for I could bring many witnesses to prove that he has vowed to take my life, and I _know_ him to be a murderer." At breakfast-time Van der Kemp announced to his friends his intention of quitting the village at once, and gave an account of his interview with the Malay lad during the night. This, of course, reconciled them to immediate departure,--though, in truth, the professor was the only one who required to be reconciled. "It is _very_ misfortunate," he remarked with a sigh, which had difficulty in escaping through a huge mass of fish and rice. "You see zee vonderful variety of ornizological specimens I could find here, ant zee herbareum, not to mention zee magnificent _Amblypodia eumolpus_ ant ozer bootterflies--ach!-a leetle mor' feesh if you please. Zanks. My frond, it is a great sacrifice, but I vill go avay viz you, for I could not joostify myself if I forzook you, ant I cannot ask you to remain vile your life is in dancher." "I appreciate your sentiments and sacrifice thoroughly," said the hermit. "So does I," said Moses, helping himself to coffee; "but ob course if I didn't it would be all de same. Pass de venison, Massa Nadgel, an' don't look as if you was goin' to gib in a'ready. It spoils my appetite." "You will have opportunities," continued Van der Kemp, addressing the professor, "to gather a good many specimens as we go along. Besides, if you will consent to honour my cave in Krakatoa with a visit, I promise you a hearty welcome and an interesting field of research. You have no idea what a variety of species in all the branches of natural history my little island contains." Hereupon the hermit proceeded to enter into details of the flora, fauna, and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the professor became quite reconciled to immediate departure. "But how," he asked, "am I to get zere ven ve reach zee sea-coast? for your canoe holds only t'ree, as you have told me." "There are plenty of boats to be had. Besides, I can send over my own boat for you to the mainland. The distance is not great." "Goot. Zat vill do. I am happay now." "So," remarked Nigel as he went off with Moses to pack up, "his 'paradise regained' is rather speedily to be changed into paradise forsaken! 'Off wi' the old love and on wi' the new.' 'The expulsive power of a new affection!'" "Das true, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who entertained profound admiration for anything that sounded like proverbial philosophy. "De purfesser am an affectionit creeter. 'Pears to me dat he lubs de whole creation. He kills an' tenderly stuffs 'most eberyt'ing he kin lay hands on. If he could only lay hold ob Baderoon an' stuff an' stick him in a moozeum, he'd do good service to my massa an' also to de whole ob mankind." CHAPTER XIX. A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION. After letting the chief of the village know that the news just received rendered it necessary that they should proceed at once to the next town--but carefully refraining from going into particulars lest Baderoon should by any means be led to suspect their intentions--the party started off about daybreak under the guidance of the Malay youth Babu. Anxious as he was that no evil should befall his friend, Nigel could not help wondering that a man of such a calm spirit, and such unquestionable courage, should be so anxious to escape from this pirate. "I can't understand it at all," he said to Moses, as they walked through the forest together a little in rear of the party. "No more kin I, Massa Nadgel," answered the negro, with one of those shakes of the head and glares of solemn perplexity with which he was wont to regard matters that were too deep for him. "Surely Van der Kemp is well able to take care of himself against any single foe." "Das true, Massa Nadgel,--'gainst any half-dozen foes as well." "Fear, therefore, cannot be the cause." The negro received this with a quiet chuckle. "No," said he. "Massa nebber knowed fear, but ob dis you may be bery sure, massa's _allers_ got good reasons for what he does. One t'ing's sartin, I neber saw him do nuffin for fear, nor revenge, nor anger, no, nor yet for fun; allers for lub--and," added Moses, after a moment's thought, "sometimes for money, when we goes on a tradin' 'spidition--but he don't make much account ob dat." "Well, perhaps the mystery may be cleared up in time," said Nigel, as they closed up with the rest of the party, who had halted for a short rest and some refreshment. This last consisted largely of fruit, which was abundant everywhere, and a little rice with water from sparkling springs to wash it down. In the afternoon they reached the town--a large one, with a sort of market-place in the centre, which at the time of their arrival was crowded with people. Strangers, especially Europeans, were not often seen in that region, so that Van der Kemp and his friends at once attracted a considerable number of followers. Among these was one man who followed them about very unobtrusively, usually hanging well in rear of the knot of followers whose curiosity was stronger than their sense of propriety. This man wore a broad sun-hat and had a bandage round his head pulled well over one eye, as if he had recently met with an accident or been wounded. He was unarmed, with the exception of the kriss, or long knife, which every man in that region carries. This was no other than Baderoon himself, who had outwitted his enemies, had somehow discovered at least part of their plans, and had hurried on in advance of them to the town, where, disguising himself as described, he awaited their arrival. Babu conducted his friends to the presence of his kinsman the chief man of the town, and, having told his story, received a promise that the pirate should be taken up when he arrived and put in prison. Meanwhile he appointed to the party a house in which to spend the night. Baderoon boldly accompanied the crowd that followed them, saw the house, glanced between the heads of curious natives who watched the travellers while eating their supper, and noted the exact spot on the floor of the building where Van der Kemp threw down his mat and blanket, thus taking possession of his intended couch! He did not, however, see that the hermit afterwards shifted his position a little, and that Babu, desiring to be near his friend, lay down on the vacated spot. In the darkest hour of the night, when even the owls and bats had sought repose, the pirate captain stole out of the brake in which he had concealed himself, and, kriss in hand, glided under the house in which his enemy lay. Native houses, as we have elsewhere explained, are usually built on posts, so that there is an open space under the floors, which is available as a store or lumber-room. It is also unfortunately available for evil purposes. The bamboo flooring is not laid so closely but that sounds inside may be heard distinctly by any one listening below. Voices were heard by the pirate as he approached, which arrested his steps. They were those of Van der Kemp and Nigel engaged in conversation. Baderoon knew that as long as his enemy was awake and conversing he might probably be sitting up and not in a position suitable to his fell purpose. He crouched therefore among some lumber like a tiger abiding its time. "Why are you so anxious not to meet this man?" asked Nigel, who was resolved, if possible without giving offence, to be at the bottom of the mystery. For some moments the hermit was silent, then in a constrained voice he said slowly-- "Because revenge burns fiercely in my breast. I have striven to crush it, but cannot. I fear to meet him lest I kill him." "Has he, then, done you such foul wrong?" "Ay, he has cruelly--fiendishly--done the worst he could. He robbed me of my only child--but I may not talk of it. The unholy desire for vengeance burns more fiercely when I talk. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' My constant prayer is that I may not meet him. Good-night." As the hermit thus put an abrupt end to the conversation he lay down and drew his blanket over him. Nigel followed his example, wondering at what he had heard, and in a few minutes their steady regular breathing told that they were both asleep. Then Baderoon advanced and counted the bamboo planks from the side towards the centre of the house. When looking between the heads of the people he had counted the same planks above. Standing under one he looked up, listened intently for a few seconds, and drew his kriss. The place was almost pitch dark, yet the blade caught a faint gleam from without, which it reflected on the pirate's face as he thrust the long keen weapon swiftly, yet deliberately, between the bamboos. A shriek, that filled those who heard it with a thrill of horror, rang out on the silent night. At the same moment a gush of warm blood poured over the murderer's face before he could leap aside. Instant uproar and confusion burst out in the neighbourhood, and spread like wildfire until the whole town was aroused. When a light was procured and the people crowded into the hut where the strangers lay, Van der Kemp was found on his knees holding the hand of poor Babu, who was at his last gasp. A faint smile, that yet seemed to have something of gladness in it, flitted across his pale face as he raised himself, grasped the hermit's hand and pressed it to his lips. Then the fearful drain of blood took effect and he fell back--dead. One great convulsive sob burst from the hermit as he leaped up, drew his knife, and, with a fierce glare in his blue eyes, rushed out of the room. Vengeance would indeed have been wreaked on Baderoon at that moment if the hermit had caught him, but, as might have been expected, the murderer was nowhere to be found. He was hid in the impenetrable jungle, which it was useless to enter in the darkness of night. When daybreak enabled the townspeople to undertake an organised search, no trace of him could be discovered. Flight, personal safety, formed no part of the pirate's plan. The guilty man had reached that state of depravity which, especially among the natives of that region, borders close on insanity. While the inhabitants of the village were hunting far a-field for him, Baderoon lay concealed among some lumber in rear of a hut awaiting his opportunity. It was not very long of coming. Towards afternoon the various searching parties began to return, and all assembled in the market-place, where the chief man, with the hermit and his party, were assembled discussing the situation. "I will not now proceed until we have buried poor Babu," said Van der Kemp. "Besides, Baderoon will be sure to return. I will meet him now." "I do not agree viz you, mine frond," said the professor. "Zee man is not a fool zough he is a villain. He knows vat avaits him if he comes." "He will not come openly," returned the hermit, "but he will not now rest till he has killed me." Even as he spoke a loud shouting, mingled with shrieks and yells, was heard at the other end of the main street. The sounds of uproar appeared to approach, and soon a crowd of people was seen rushing towards the market-place, uttering cries of fear in which the word "a-mok" was heard. At the sound of that word numbers of people--specially women and children--turned and fled from the scene, but many of the men stood their ground, and all of them drew their krisses. Among the latter of course were the white men and their native companions. We have already referred to that strange madness, to which the Malays seem to be peculiarly liable, during the paroxysms of which those affected by it rush in blind fury among their fellows, slaying right and left. From the terrified appearance of some of the approaching crowd and the maniac shouts in rear, it was evident that a man thus possessed of the spirit of amok was venting his fury on them. Another minute and he drew near, brandishing a kriss that dripped with the gore of those whom he had already stabbed. Catching sight of the white men he made straight for them. He was possessed of only one eye, but that one seemed to concentrate and flash forth the fire of a dozen eyes, while his dishevelled hair and blood-stained face and person gave him an appalling aspect. "It is Baderoon!" said Van der Kemp in a subdued but stern tone. Nigel, who stood next to him, glanced at the hermit. His face was deadly pale; his eyes gleamed with a strange, almost unearthly light, and his lips were firmly compressed. With a sudden nervous motion, unlike his usually calm demeanour, he drew his long knife, and to Nigel's surprise cast it away from him. At that moment a woman who came in the madman's way was stabbed by him to the heart and rent the air with her dying shriek as she fell. No one could have saved her, the act was so quickly done. Van der Kemp would have leaped to her rescue, but it was too late; besides, there was no need to do so now, for the maniac, recognising his enemy, rushed at him with a shout that sounded like a triumphant yell. Seeing this, and that his friend stood unarmed, as well as unmoved, regarding Baderoon with a fixed gaze, Nigel stepped a pace in advance to protect him, but Van der Kemp seized his arm and thrust him violently aside. Next moment the pirate was upon him with uplifted knife, but the hermit caught his wrist, and with a heave worthy of Samson hurled him to the ground, where he lay for a moment quite stunned. Before he could recover, the natives, who had up to this moment held back, sprang upon the fallen man with revengeful yells, and a dozen knives were about to be buried in his breast when the hermit sprang forward to protect his enemy from their fury. But the man whose wife had been the last victim came up at the moment, and led an irresistible rush which bore back the hermit as well as his comrades, who had crowded round him, and in another minute the maniac was almost hacked to pieces. "I did not kill him--thank God!" muttered Van der Kemp as he left the market-place, where the relatives of those who had been murdered were wailing over their dead. After this event even the professor was anxious to leave the place, so that early next morning the party resumed their journey, intending to make a short stay at the next village. Failing to reach it that night, however, they were compelled to encamp in the woods. Fortunately they came upon a hill which, although not very high, was sufficiently so, with the aid of watch-fires, to protect them from tigers. From the summit, which rose just above the tree-tops, they had a magnificent view of the forest. Many of the trees were crowned with flowers among which the setting sun shone for a brief space with glorious effulgence. Van der Kemp and Nigel stood together apart from the others, contemplating the wonderful scene. "What must be the dwelling-place of the Creator Himself when his footstool is so grand?" said the hermit in a low voice. "That is beyond mortal ken," said Nigel. "True--true. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived it. Yet, methinks, the glory of the terrestrial was meant to raise our souls to the contemplation of the celestial." "And yet how signally it has failed in the case of Baderoon," returned Nigel, with a furtive glance at the hermit, whose countenance had quite recovered its look of quiet simple dignity. "Would it be presumptuous if I were to ask why it is that this pirate had such bitter enmity against you?" "It is no secret," answered the hermit, in a sad tone. "The truth is, I had discovered some of his nefarious plans, and more than once have been the means of preventing his intended deeds of violence--as in the case of the Dyaks whom we have so lately visited. Besides, the man had done me irreparable injury, and it is one of the curious facts of human experience that sometimes those who injure us hate us because they have done so." "May I venture to ask for a fuller account of the injury he did you?" said Nigel with some hesitancy. For some moments the hermit did not answer. He was evidently struggling with some suppressed feeling. Turning a look full upon his young friend, he at length spoke in a low sad voice-- "I have never mentioned my grief to mortal man since that day when it pleased God to draw a cloud of thickest darkness over my life. But, Nigel, there is that in you which encourages confidence. I confess that more than once I have been tempted to tell you of my grief--for human hearts crave intelligent sympathy. My faithful servant and friend Moses is, no doubt, intensely sympathetic, but--but--well, I cannot understand, still less can I explain, why I shrink from making a confidant of him. Certainly it is not because of his colour, for I hold that the _souls_ of men are colourless! "I need not trouble you with the story of my early life," continued the hermit. "I lost my dear wife a year after our marriage, and was left with a little girl whose lovely face became more and more like that of her mother every day she lived. My soul was wrapped up in the child. After three years I went with her as a passenger to Batavia. On the way we were attacked by a couple of pirate junks. Baderoon was the pirate captain. He killed many of our men, took some of us prisoners, sank the vessel, seized my child, and was about to separate us, putting my child into one junk while I was retained, bound, in the other." He paused, and gazed over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon, with a longing, wistful look. At the same time something like an electric shock passed through Nigel's frame, for was not this narrative strangely similar in its main features to that which his own father had told him on the Keeling Islands about beautiful little Kathleen Holbein and her father? He was on the point of seizing the hermit by the hand and telling him what he knew, when the thought occurred that attacks by pirates were common enough in those seas, that other fathers might have lost daughters in this way, and that, perhaps, his suspicion might be wrong. It would be a terrible thing, he thought, to raise hope in his poor friend's breast unless he were pretty sure of the hope being well founded. He would wait and hear more. He had just come to this conclusion, and managed to subdue the feelings which had been aroused, when Van der Kemp turned to him again, and continued his narrative-- "I know not how it was, unless the Lord gave me strength for a purpose as he gave it to Samson of old, but when I recovered from the stinging blow I had received, and saw the junk hoist her sails and heard my child scream, I felt the strength of a lion come over me; I burst the bonds that held me and leaped into the sea, intending to swim to her. But it was otherwise ordained. A breeze which had sprung up freshened, and the junk soon left me far behind. As for the other junk, I never saw it again, for I never looked back or thought of it--only, as I left it, I heard a mocking laugh from the one-eyed villain, who, I afterwards found out, owned and commanded both junks." Nigel had no doubt now, but the agitation of his feelings still kept him silent. "Need I say," continued the hermit, "that revenge burned fiercely in my breast from that day forward? If I had met the man soon after that, I should certainly have slain him. But God mercifully forbade it. Since then He has opened my eyes to see the Crucified One who prayed for His enemies. And up till now I have prayed most earnestly that Baderoon and I might _not_ meet. My prayer has not been answered in the way I wished, but a _better_ answer has been granted, for the sin of revenge was overcome within me before we met." Van der Kemp paused again. "Go on," said Nigel, eagerly. "How did you escape?" "Escape! Where was I--Oh! I remember," said the hermit, awaking as if out of a dream "Well, I swam after the junk until it was out of sight, and then I swam on in silent despair until so completely exhausted that I felt consciousness leaving me. Then I knew that the end must be near and I felt almost glad; but when I began to sink, the natural desire to prolong life revived, and I struggled on. Just as my strength began a second time to fail, I struck against something. It was a dead cocoa-nut tree. I laid hold of it and clung to it all that night. Next morning I was picked up by some fishermen who were going to Telok Betong by the outer passage round Sebesi Island, and were willing to land me there. But as my business connections had been chiefly with the town of Anjer, I begged of them to land me on the island of Krakatoa. This they did, and it has been my home ever since. I have been there many years." "Have you never seen or heard of your daughter since?" asked Nigel eagerly, and with deep sympathy. "Never--I have travelled far and near, all over the archipelago; into the interior of the islands, great and small, but have failed to find her. I have long since felt that she must be dead--for--for she could not live with the monsters who stole her away." A certain contraction of the mouth, as he said this, and a gleam of the eyes, suggested to Nigel that revenge was not yet dead within the hermit's breast, although it had been overcome. "What was her name?" asked Nigel, willing to gain time to think how he ought to act, and being afraid of the effect that the sudden communication of the news might have on his friend. "Winnie--darling Winnie--after her mother," said the hermit with deep pathos in his tone. A feeling of disappointment came over our hero. Winnie bore not the most distant resemblance to Kathleen! "Did you ever, during your search," asked Nigel slowly, "visit the Cocos-Keeling Islands?" "Never. They are too far from where the attack on us was made." "And you never heard of a gun-boat having captured a pirate junk and----" "Why do you ask, and why pause?" said the hermit, looking at his friend in some surprise. Nigel felt that he had almost gone too far. "Well, you know--" he replied in some confusion, "you--you are right when you expect me to sympathise with your great sorrow, which I do most profoundly, and--and--in short, I would give anything to be able to suggest hope to you, my friend. Men should _never_ give way to despair." "Thank you. It is kindly meant," returned the hermit, looking at the youth with his sad smile. "But it is vain. Hope is dead now." They were interrupted at this point by the announcement that supper was ready. At the same time the sun sank, like the hermit's hope, and disappeared beyond the dark forest. CHAPTER XX. NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL. It was not much supper that Nigel Roy ate that night. The excitement resulting from his supposed discovery reduced his appetite seriously, and the intense desire to open a safety-valve in the way of confidential talk with some one induced a nervously absent disposition which at last attracted attention. "You vant a goot dose of kvinine," remarked Verkimier, when, having satiated himself, he found time to think of others--not that the professor was selfish by any means, only he was addicted to concentration of mind on all work in hand, inclusive of feeding. The hermit paid no attention to anything that was said. His recent conversation had given vent to a flood of memories and feelings that had been pent up for many years. After supper Nigel resolved to make a confidant of Moses. The negro's fidelity to and love for his master would ensure his sympathy at least, if not wise counsel. "Moses," he said, when the professor had raised himself to the seventh heaven by means of tobacco fumes, "come with me. I want to have a talk." "Das what I's allers wantin', Massa Nadgel; talkin's my strong point if I hab a strong point at all." They went together to the edge of a cliff on the hill-top, whence they could see an almost illimitable stretch of tropical wilderness bathed in a glorious flood of moonlight, and sat down. On a neighbouring cliff, which was crowned with a mass of grasses and shrubs, a small monkey also sat down, on a fallen branch, and watched them with pathetic interest, tempered, it would seem, by cutaneous irritation. "Moses, I am sorely in need of advice," said Nigel, turning suddenly to his companion with ill-suppressed excitement. "Well, Massa Nadgel, you _does_ look like it, but I'm sorry I ain't a doctor. Pra'ps de purfesser would help you better nor me." "You misunderstand me. Can you keep a secret, Moses?" "I kin try--if--if he's not too diffikilt to keep." "Well, then; listen." The negro opened his eyes and his mouth as if these were the chief orifices for the entrance of sound, and advanced an ear. The distant monkey, observing, apparently, that some unusual communication was about to be made, also stretched out its little head, cocked an ear, and suspended its other operations. Then, in low earnest tones, Nigel told Moses of his belief that Van der Kemp's daughter might yet be alive and well, and detailed the recent conversation he had had with his master. "Now, Moses; what d' ye think of all that?" Profundity unfathomable sat on the negro's sable brow as he replied, "Massa Nadgel, I don't bery well know _what_ to t'ink." "But remember, Moses, before we go further, that I tell you all this in strict confidence; not a word of it must pass your lips." The awful solemnity with which Nigel sought to impress this on his companion was absolutely trifling compared with the expression of that companion's countenance, as, with a long-drawn argumentative and remonstrative _Oh!_ he replied:--"Massa--Nadgel. Does you really t'ink I would say or do any mortal t'ing w'atsumiver as would injure _my_ massa?" "I'm _sure_, you would not," returned Nigel, quickly. "Forgive me, Moses, I merely meant that you would have to be very cautious--very careful--that you do not let a word slip--by accident, you know. I believe you'd sooner die than do an intentional injury to Van der Kemp. If I thought you capable of _that_, I think I would relieve my feelings by giving you a good thrashing." The listening monkey cocked its ear a little higher at this, and Moses, who had at first raised his flat nose indignantly in the air, gradually lowered it, while a benignant smile supplanted indignation. "You're right dere, Massa Nadgel. I'd die a t'ousand times sooner dan injure massa. As to your last obserwation, it rouses two idees in my mind. First, I wonder how you'd manidge to gib me a t'rashin', an' second, I wonder if your own moder would rikognise you arter you'd tried it." At this the monkey turned its other ear as if to make quite sure that it heard aright. Nigel laughed shortly. "But seriously, Moses," he continued; "what do you think I should do? Should I reveal my suspicions to Van der Kemp?" "Cer'nly not!" answered the negro with prompt decision. "What! wake up all his old hopes to hab 'em all dashed to bits p'raps when you find dat you's wrong!" "But I feel absolutely certain that I'm _not_ wrong!" returned Nigel, excitedly. "Consider--there is, first, the one-eyed pirate; second, there is--" "'Scuse me, Massa Nadgel, dere's no occasion to go all ober it again. I'll tell you what you do." "Well?" exclaimed Nigel, anxiously, while his companion frowned savagely under the force of the thoughts that surged through his brain. "Here's what you'll do," said Moses. "Well?" (impatiently, as the negro paused.) "We're on our way home to Krakatoa." "Yes--well?" "One ob our men leabes us to-morrer--goes to 'is home on de coast. Kitch one ob de steamers dat's allers due about dis time." "Well, what of that?" "What ob dat! why, you'll write a letter to your fadder. It'll go by de steamer to Batavia. He gits it long before we gits home, so dere's plenty time for 'im to take haction." "But what good will writing to my father do?" asked Nigel in a somewhat disappointed tone. "_He_ can't help us." "Ho yes, he can," said Moses with a self-satisfied nod. "See here, I'll tell you what to write. You begin, 'Dear fadder--or Dearest fadder--I's not quite sure ob de strengt' ob your affection. P'raps de safest way--." "Oh! get on, Moses. Never mind that." "Ho! it's all bery well for you to say dat, but de ole gen'leman'll mind it. Hows'ever, put it as you t'ink best--'Dear fadder, victual your ship; up anchor; hois' de sails, an' steer for de Cocos-Keelin' Islands. Go ashore; git hold ob de young 'ooman called Kat'leen Hobbleben--'" "Holbein, Moses." "What! is she Moses too?" "No, no! get on, man." "Well, 'Dearest fadder, git a hold ob her, whateber her name is, an' carry her off body and soul, an' whateber else b'longs to her. Take her to de town ob Anjer an' wait dere for furder orders.' Ob course for de windin' up o' de letter you must appeal agin to de state ob your affections, for, as--" "Not a bad idea," exclaimed Nigel. "Why, Moses, you're a genius! Of course I'll have to explain a little more fully." "'Splain what you please," said Moses. "My business is to gib you de bones ob de letter; yours--bein' a scholar--is to clove it wid flesh." "I'll do it, Moses, at once." "I should like," rejoined Moses, with a tooth-and-gum-disclosing smile, "to see your fadder when he gits dat letter!" The picture conjured up by his vivid imagination caused the negro to give way to an explosive laugh that sent the eavesdropping monkey like a brown thunderbolt into the recesses of its native jungle, while Nigel went off to write and despatch the important letter. Next day the party arrived at another village, where, the report of their approach having preceded them, they were received with much ceremony--all the more that the professor's power with the rifle had been made known, and that the neighbourhood was infested by tigers. There can be little doubt that at this part of the journey the travellers must have been dogged all the way by tigers, and it was matter for surprise that so small a party should not have been molested. Possibly the reason was that these huge members of the feline race were afraid of white faces, being unaccustomed to them, or, perchance, the appearance and vigorous stride of even a few stalwart and fearless men had intimidated them. Whatever the cause, the party reached the village without seeing a single tiger, though their footprints were observed in many places. The wild scenery became more and more beautiful as this village was neared. Although flowers as a rule were small and inconspicuous in many parts of the great forest through which they passed, the rich pink and scarlet of many of the opening leaves, and the autumn-tinted foliage which lasts through all seasons of the year, fully made up for the want of them--at least as regards colour, while the whole vegetation was intermingled in a rich confusion that defies description. The professor went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all at the same time. "Look zere!" he cried, at one turning in the path which opened up a new vista of exquisite beauty--"look at zat!" "Ay, it is a Siamang ape--next in size to the orang-utan," said Van der Kemp, who stood at his friend's elbow. The animal in question was a fine full-grown specimen, with long jet-black glancing hair. Its height might probably have been a few inches over three feet, and the stretch of its arms over rather than under five feet, but at the great height at which it was seen--not less than eighty feet--it looked much like an ordinary monkey. It was hanging in the most easy nonchalant way by one hand from the branch of a tree, utterly indifferent to the fact that to drop was to die! The instant the Siamang observed the travellers it set up a loud barking howl which made the woods resound, but it did not alter its position or seem to be alarmed in any degree. "Vat a 'straordinary noise!" remarked the professor. "It is indeed," returned the hermit, "and it has an extraordinary appliance for producing it. There is a large bag under its throat extending to its lips and cheeks which it can fill with air by means of a valve in the windpipe. By expelling this air in sudden bursts it makes the varied sounds you hear." "Mos' vonderful! A sort of natural air-gun! I vill shoot it," said the professor, raising his deadly rifle, and there is no doubt that the poor Siamang would have dropped in another moment if Van der Kemp had not quietly and gravely touched his friend's elbow just as the explosion took place. "Hah! you tooched me!" exclaimed the disappointed naturalist, looking fiercely round, while the amazed ape sent forth a bursting crack of its air-gun as it swung itself into the tree-top and made off. "Yes, I touched you, and if you _will_ shoot when I am so close to you, you cannot wonder at it--especially when you intend to take life uselessly. The time now at the disposal of my friend Nigel Roy will not permit of our delaying long enough to kill and preserve large specimens. To say truth, my friend, we must press on now, as fast as we can, for we have a very long way to go." Verkimier was not quite pleased with this explanation, but there was a sort of indescribable power about the hermit, when he was resolved to have his way, that those whom he led found it impossible to resist. On arriving at the village they were agreeably surprised to find a grand banquet, consisting chiefly of fruit, with fowl, rice, and Indian corn, spread out for them in the Balai or public hall, where also their sleeping quarters were appointed. An event had recently occurred, however, which somewhat damped the pleasure of their reception. A young man had been killed by a tiger. The brute had leaped upon him while he and a party of lads were traversing a narrow path through the jungle, and had killed him with one blow of its paw. The other youths courageously rushed at the beast with their spears and axes, and, driving it off, carried the body of their comrade away. "We have just buried the young man," said the chief of the village, "and have set a trap for the tiger, for he will be sure to visit the grave." "My friends would like to see this trap," said the hermit, who, of course, acted the part of interpreter wherever they went, being well acquainted with most of the languages and dialects of the archipelago. "There will yet be daylight after you have finished eating," said the chief. Although anxious to go at once to see this trap, they felt the propriety of doing justice to what had been provided for them, and sat down to their meal, for which, to say truth, they were quite ready. Then they went with a large band of armed natives to see this curious tiger-trap, the bait of which was the grave of a human being! The grave was close to the outskirts of the village, and, on one side, the jungle came up to within a few yards of it. The spot was surrounded by a strong and high bamboo fence, except at one point where a narrow but very conspicuous opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground--as well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the opening about breast-high for a tiger. The intention was that the animal, in entering the enclosure, should become its own executioner--should commit unintentional suicide, if we may so put it. "I have an ambition to shoot a tiger," said Nigel to Van der Kemp that evening. "Do you think the people would object to my getting up into a tree with my rifle and watching beside the grave part of the night?" "I am sure that they would not. But your watch will probably be in vain, for tigers are uncommonly sagacious creatures and seem to me to have exceptional powers for scenting danger." "No matter, I will try." Accordingly, a little before dark that evening our hero borrowed the professor's double-barrelled rifle, being more suitable for large game than his own gun, and sauntered with Moses down to the grave where he ensconced himself in the branches of a large tree about thirty feet from the ground. The form of the tree was such, that among its forks Nigel could form a sort of nest in which he could sit, in full view of the poor youth's grave, without the risk of falling to the ground even if he should chance to drop asleep. "Good-night, massa Nadgel," said Moses as he turned to leave his companion to his solitary vigil. "See you not go to sleep." "No fear of _that_!" said Nigel. "An' whateber you do, don't miss." "I'll do my best--Good-night." While there was yet a little daylight, our hunter looked well about him; took note of the exact position of the fence, the entrance to the enclosure, and the grave; judged the various distances of objects, and arranged the sights of the rifle, which was already loaded with a brace of hardened balls. Then he looked up through the tree-tops and wished for darkness. It came sooner than he expected. Night always descends more suddenly in tropical than in temperate regions. The sun had barely dipped below the horizon when night seemed to descend like a pall over the jungle, and an indescribable sensation of eerieness crept over Nigel's spirit. Objects became very indistinct, and he fancied that he saw something moving on the newly-made grave. With a startled feeling he grasped his weapon, supposing that the tiger must have entered the enclosure with cat-like stealth. On second thoughts, however, he discarded the idea, for the entrance was between him and the grave, and still seemed quite visible. Do what he would, however, the thought of ghosts insisted on intruding upon him! He did not believe in ghosts--oh no!--had always scouted the idea of their existence. Why, therefore, did he feel uncomfortable? He could not tell. It must simply be the excitement natural to such a very new and peculiar situation. He would think of something else. He would devote his mind to the contemplation of tigers! In a short time the moon would rise, he knew--then he would be able to see better. While he was in this very uncomfortable state of mind, with the jungle wrapped in profound silence as well as gloom, there broke on the night air a wail so indescribable that the very marrow in Nigel's bones seemed to shrivel up. It ceased, but again broke forth louder than before, increasing in length and strength, until his ears seemed to tingle with the sound, and then it died away to a sigh of unutterable woe. "I have always," muttered Nigel, "believed myself to be a man of ordinary courage, but _now_--I shall write myself a coward, if not an ass!" He attempted to laugh at this pleasantry, but the laugh was hollow and seemed to freeze in his gullet as the wail broke forth again, ten times more hideous than at first. After a time the wail became more continuous, and the watcher began to get used to it. Then a happy thought flashed into his mind--this was, perhaps, some sort of mourning for the dead! He was right. The duty of the father of the poor youth who had been killed was, for several days after the funeral, to sit alone in his house and chant from sunset till daybreak a death-dirge, or, as it is called, the _Tjerita bari_. It was not till next day that this was told to him, but meanwhile the surmise afforded him instantaneous relief. As if nature sympathised with his feelings, the moon arose at the same time and dispelled the thick darkness, though it was not till much later that, sailing across a clear sky, she poured her bright beams through the tree-tops and finally rested on the dead man's grave. By that time Nigel had quite recovered his equanimity, and mentally blotted out the writing of "coward" and "ass" which he had written against himself. But another trouble now assailed him. He became sleepy! Half-a-dozen times at least within half-an-hour he started wide awake under the impression that he was falling off the tree. "This will never do," he exclaimed, rising to his feet, resting his rifle in a position of safety, and then stretching himself to his utmost extent so that he became thoroughly awake. After this "rouser," as he called it, he sat down again, and almost immediately fell fast asleep. How long he sat in this condition it is impossible to say, but he opened his eyes at length with an indescribable sensation that _something_ required attention, and the first thing they rested on (for daylight was dawning) was an enormous tiger not forty yards away from him, gliding like a shadow and with cat-like stealth towards the opening of the enclosure. The sight was so sudden and so unexpected that, for the moment, he was paralysed. Perhaps he thought it was a dream. Before he could recover presence of mind to seize his rifle, the breast of the animal had touched the fatal line; the trigger was drawn; the stout bamboo straightened with a booming sound, and the spear--or, rather, the giant arrow--was shot straight through the tiger's side! Then occurred a scene which might well have induced Nigel to imagine that he dreamt, for the transfixed creature bounded into the enclosure with a terrific roar that rang fearfully through the arches of the hitherto silent forest. Rushing across the grave, it sprang with one tremendous bound right over the high fence, carrying the spear along with it into the jungle beyond. By that time Nigel was himself again, with rifle in hand, but too late to fire. The moment he heard the thud of the tiger's descent, he slid down the tree, and, forgetful or regardless of danger, went crashing into the jungle, while the yells and shouts of hundreds of aroused natives suggested the peopling of the region with an army of fiends. But our hero had not to go far. In his haste he almost tumbled over the tiger. It was lying stone dead on the spot where it had fallen! A few minutes more and the natives came pouring round him, wild with excitement and joy. Soon he was joined by his own comrades. "Well, you've managed to shoot him, I see," said Van der Kemp as he joined the group. "Alas! no. I have not fired a shot," said Nigel, with a half disappointed look. "You's got de better ob him anyhow," remarked Moses as he pushed to the front. "The spear got the better of him, Moses." "Veil now, zat is a splendid animal. Lat me see," said the professor, pulling out his tape-measure. It was with difficulty that the man of science made and noted his measurements, for the people were pressing eagerly round the carcase to gratify their revenge by running their spears into the still warm body. They dipped the points in the blood and passed their krisses broadside over the creature that they might absorb the courage and boldness which were supposed to emanate from it! Then they skinned it, and pieces of the heart and brain were eaten raw by some of those whose relatives had been killed by tigers. Finally the skull was hacked to pieces for the purpose of distributing the teeth, which are used by the natives as charms. CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF. Leaving this village immediately after the slaying of the tiger, the party continued to journey almost by forced marches, for not only was Nigel Roy very anxious to keep tryst with his father, and to settle the question of Kathleen's identity by bringing father and daughter together, but Van der Kemp himself, strange to say, was filled with intense and unaccountable anxiety to get back to his island home. "I don't know how it is," he said to Nigel as they walked side by side through the forest, followed by Moses and the professor, who had become very friendly on the strength of a certain amount of vacant curiosity displayed by the former in regard to scientific matters--"I don't know how it is, but I feel an unusually strong desire to get back to my cave. I have often been absent from home for long periods at a time, but have never before experienced these strange longings. I say strange, because there is no such thing as an effect without a cause." "May not the cause be presentiment?" suggested Nigel, who, knowing what a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for himself--touching his recent discovery or suspicion! "I do not believe in presentiments," returned the hermit. "They are probably the result of indigestion or a disordered intellect, from neither of which complaints do I suffer--at least not consciously!" "But you have never before left home in such peculiar circumstances," said Nigel. "Have you not told me that this is the first time for about two hundred years that Krakatoa has broken out in active eruption?" "True, but that cannot be to me the cause of longings or anxieties, for I have seen many a long-dormant crater become active without any important result either to me or to any one else." "Stop, stop!" cried Professor Verkimier in a hoarse whisper at that moment; "look! look at zee monkeys!" Monkeys are very abundant in Sumatra, but the nest of them which the travellers discovered at that time, and which had called forth the professor's admiration, was enough--as Moses said--to make a "renocerus laugh." The trees around absolutely swarmed with monkeys; those of a slender form and with very long tails being most numerous. They were engaged in some sort of game, swinging by arms, legs, and tails from branches, holding on to or chasing each other, and taking the most astonishing leaps in circumstances where a slip would have no doubt resulted in broken limbs or in death. "Stand still! Oh! _do_ stand still--like you vas petrivied," said the professor in a low voice of entreaty. Being quite willing to humour him, the whole party stood immovable, like statues, and thus avoided attracting the attention of the monkeys, who continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of "follow my leader," for one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and less agile companions. They all succeeded, however, from the largest even to the smallest--which last was a very tiny creature with a pink face, a sad expression, and a corkscrew tail. For a time they bounded actively among the branches, now high now low, till suddenly the big leader took a tremendous leap, as if for the express purpose of baffling or testing his companions. It was immensely amusing to see the degrees of trepidation with which the others followed. The last two seemed quite unable to make up their minds to the leap, until the others seemed about to disappear, when one of them took heart and bounded wildly across. Thus little pink-face with the corkscrew tail was left alone! Twice did that little monkey make a desperate resolution to jump, and twice did its little heart fail as it measured the distance between the branches and glanced at the abyss below. Its companions seemed to entertain a feeling of pity for it. Numbers of them came back, as if to watch the jump and encourage the little one. A third time it made an abortive effort to spring, and looked round pitifully, whereupon Moses gave vent to an uncontrollable snort of suppressed laughter. "Vat you mean by zat?" growled the professor angrily. The growl and snort together revealed the intruders, and all the monkeys, except pink-face, crowding the trees above the spot where they stood, gazed down upon them with expressions in which unparalleled indignation and inconceivable surprise struggled for the mastery. Then, with a wild shriek, the whole troop fled into the forest. This was too much for poor, half-petrified pink-face with the twisted tail. Seeing that its comrades were gone in earnest, it became desperate, flung itself frantically into the air with an agonising squeak, missed its mark, went crashing through the slender branches and fell to the ground. Fortunately these branches broke its fall so that it arose unhurt, bounded into a bush, still squeaking with alarm, and made after its friends. "Why did you not shoot it, professor?" asked Nigel, laughing as much at Verkimier's grave expression as at the little monkey's behaviour. "Vy did I not shot it?" echoed the professor. "I vould as soon shot a baby. Zee pluck of zat leetle creature is admirable. It vould be a horrible shame to take his life. No! I do love to see ploock vezer in man or beast! He could not shoomp zat. He _knew_ he could not shoomp it, but he _tried_ to shoomp it. He vould not be beat, an' I vould not kill him--zough I vant 'im very mooch for a specimen." It seemed as if the professor was to be specially rewarded for his generous self-denial on this occasion, for while he was yet speaking, a soft "hush!" from Van der Kemp caused the whole party to halt in dead silence and look at the hermit inquiringly. "You are in luck, professor," he murmured, in a soft, low voice--very different from that hissing whisper which so many people seem to imagine is an inaudible utterance. "I see a splendid Argus pheasant over there making himself agreeable to his wife!" "Vare? oh! vare?" exclaimed the enthusiast with blazing eyes, for although he had already seen and procured specimens of this most beautiful creature, he had not yet seen it engage in the strange love-dance--if we may so call it--which is peculiar to the bird. "You'll never get near enough to see it if you hiss like a serpent," said the hermit. "Get out your binoculars, follow me, and hold your tongue, all of you--that will be the safest plan. Tread lightly." It was a sight to behold the professor crouching almost double in order to render himself less conspicuous, with his hat pushed back, and the blue glasses giving him the appearance of a great-eyed seal. He carried his butterfly-net in one hand, and the unfailing rifle in the other. Fortunately the hermit's sharp and practised eye had enabled him to distinguish the birds in the distance before their advance had alarmed them, so that they were able to reach a mound topped with low bushes over which they could easily watch the birds. "Zat is very koorious an' most interesting," murmured the professor after a short silence. He was right. There were two Argus pheasants, a male and female--the male alone being decorated superbly. The Argus belongs to the same family as the peacock, but is not so gaudy in colouring, and therefore, perhaps, somewhat more pleasing. Its tail is formed chiefly by an enormous elongation of the two tail quills, and of the secondary wing feathers, no two of which are exactly the same, and the closer they are examined the greater is seen to be the extreme beauty of their markings, and the rich varied harmony of their colouring. When a male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse--or when she asks him to show it off, we know not which--he makes a circle in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition. This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and generally displaying his gorgeous beauty. "Vat ineffable vanity!" exclaimed the professor, after gazing for some time in silence. His own folly in thus speaking was instantly proved by the two birds bringing the exhibition to an abrupt close and hastily taking wing. Not long after seeing this they came to a small but deep and rapid river, which for a time checked their progress, for there was no ford, and the porters who carried Verkimier's packages seemed to know nothing about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had fallen across the stream and formed a natural bridge. On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight--only a glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops. In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life away over the damp ground by the water's edge. The native forest path which they followed was little better than a tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it, or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step quietly back and unhook themselves. This of itself would have rendered their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic mud-bath--the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants--obstructed the way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it--as resolute men always do--somehow! "Zis is horrible!" exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions, and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature. "Hah! zee brute! I have 'im." The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face. "What have you got?" asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh. "A splendid _Ornit'optera_ a day-flying moss'," said Verkimier as he cautiously rose, "vich mimics zee _Trepsichrois mulciber_. Ant zis very morning I caught von _Leptocircus virescens_, vich derives protection from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly." "What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!" remarked Moses in an undertone to the hermit as they moved on again. "Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses. These are the scientific names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they are not. Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic. Indeed, you have a little of it yourself," said the hermit with one of his twinkling glances. "When you are almost terrified of your wits don't you pretend that there's nothing the matter with you?" "Nebber, massa, nebber!" answered the negro with remonstrative gravity. "When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in de lips, an' I _pretends_ nuffin'--I don't care _who_ sees it!" The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse. Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat--became more hilly, and the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall, and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so that a man could scarcely see his fellow even when within two paces of him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from those creatures. "Shall we have a stormy night, think you?" asked Nigel, as he assisted in striking a light. "It may be so," replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of his wet matches, which failed to kindle. "What we hear may be distant thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so--especially after the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have escaped--mine are useless." But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel, with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled, but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings, an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain was of no avail. "Vat must ve do _now_?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a wo-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish it. "Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight expansion of the mouth--though no one could see it. "Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright. "Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, hot if zee tigers find us out or zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping. Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?" The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which followed. "It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably increase--meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?" This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not answered, and it was found, on a _feeling_ examination, that, in spite of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation. Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light. Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of light behind them, and fireflies darting to and fro peopled the air and gave additional animation to the scene. In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby. But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one which gleamed through intense darkness. How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously, and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another--with growing confidence--and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope. At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs, kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the wilderness fled away. When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had encamped. Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable portion of both in sleep--at least such parts of both as were not devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the utmost regard for himself, we were not sufficiently acquainted with his moral character to answer for his strict truthfulness. As to the main event, there was no denying that. The thing happened thus:-- Towards the afternoon of that same day the travellers began to wake up, stretch themselves, and think about supper. In the course of conversation it transpired that a tiger had been prowling about the village for some days, and had hitherto successfully eluded all attempts to trap or spear it. They had tethered a goat several times near a small pond and watched the spot from safe positions among the trees, with spears, bows and arrows, and blow-pipes ready, but when they watched, the tiger did not come, and when they failed to watch, the tiger did come and carried off the goat. Thus they had been baffled. "Mine frond," said the professor to the hermit on hearing this. "I vill shot zat tiger! I am resolved. Vill you ask zee chief to show me zee place ant zen tell his people, on pain of def, not to go near it all night, for if zey do I vill certainly shot zem--by accident of course!" The hermit did as he was bid, but advised his sanguine friend against exposing himself recklessly. The chief willingly fell in with his wishes. "Won't you tell us what you intend to do, professor?" asked Nigel, "and let us help you." "No, I vill do it all by mineself--or die! I vill vant a shofel or a spade of some sort." The chief provided the required implement, conducted his visitor a little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss, besides the spade. When alone, the bold man put off his glasses, made a careful inspection of the ground, came to a conclusion--founded on scientific data no doubt--as to the probable spot whence the tiger would issue from the jungle when about to seize the goat, and, just opposite that spot, on the face of a slope about ten yards from the goat, he dug a hole deep enough to contain his own person. The soil was sandy easy to dig, and quite dry. It was growing dusk when the professor crept into this rifle-pit, drew his weapons and the spade in after him, and closed the mouth of the pit with moist earth, leaving only a very small eye-hole through which he could see the goat standing innocently by the brink of the pool. "Now," said he, as he lay resting on his elbows with the rifle laid ready to hand and the revolver beside it; "now, I know not vezer you can smell or not, but I have buried mineself in eart', vich is a non-conductor of smell. Ve shall see!" It soon became very dark, for there was no moon, yet not so dark but that the form of the goat could be seen distinctly reflected in the pond. Naturally the professor's mind reverted to the occasion when Nigel had watched in the branches of a tree for another tiger. The conditions were different, and so, he thought, was the man! "Mine yoong frond," he said mentally, "is brav', oondoubtedly, but his nerves have not been braced by experience like mine. It is vell, for zere is more dancher here zan in a tree. It matters not. I am resolf to shot zat tigre--or die!" In this resolute and heroic frame of mind he commenced his vigil. It is curious to note how frequently the calculations of men fail them--even those of scientific men! The tiger came indeed to the spot, but he came in precisely the opposite direction from that which the watcher expected, so that while Verkimier was staring over the goat's head at an opening in the jungle beyond the pond, the tiger was advancing stealthily and slowly through the bushes exactly behind the hole in which he lay. Suddenly the professor became aware of _something_! He saw nothing consciously, he heard nothing, but there stole over him, somehow, the feeling of a dread presence! Was he asleep? Was it nightmare? No, it was night-tiger! He knew it, somehow; he _felt_ it--but he could not see it. To face death is easy enough--according to some people--but to face nothing at all is at all times trying. Verkimier felt it to be so at that moment. But he was a true hero and conquered himself. "Come now," he said mentally, "don't be an ass! Don't lose your shance by voomanly fears. Keep kviet." Another moment and there was a very slight sound right over his head. He glanced upwards--as far as the little hole would permit--and there, not a foot from him, was a tawny yellow throat! with a tremendous paw moving slowly forward--so slowly that it might have suggested the imperceptible movement of the hour-hand of a watch, or of a glacier. There was indeed motion, but it was not perceptible. The professor's perceptions were quick. He did not require to think. He knew that to use the rifle at such close quarters was absolutely impossible. He knew that the slightest motion would betray him. He could see that as yet he was undiscovered, for the animal's nose was straight for the goat, and he concluded that either his having buried himself was a safeguard against being smelt, or that the tiger had a cold in its head. He thought for one moment of bursting up with a yell that would scare the monster out of his seven senses--if he had seven--but dismissed the thought as cowardly, for it would be sacrificing success to safety. He knew not what to do, and the cold perspiration consequent upon indecision at a supreme moment broke out all over him. Suddenly he thought of the revolver! Like lightning he seized it, pointed it straight up and fired. The bullet--a large army revolver one--entered the throat of the animal, pierced the root of the tongue, crashed through the palate obliquely, and entered the brain. The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and fell--fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its heart as it gasped its life away. But in his cramped position he could not push it aside. Well aware of the tenacity of life in tigers, he thought that if the creature revived it would certainly grasp him even in its dying agonies, for the weight of its body and its struggles were already crushing in the upper part of the hole. To put an end to its sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was tremendous--so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have burst. The struggles of the, tiger became more violent than ever, and its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold perspiration broke out all over the man, and he became unconscious. It must not be supposed that the professor's friends were unwatchful. Although they had promised not to disturb him in his operations, they had held themselves in readiness with rifle, revolver, and spear, and the instant the first shot was heard, they ran down to the scene of action. Before reaching it the second shot quickened their pace as they ran down to the pond--a number of natives yelling and waving torches at their heels. "Here he is," cried Moses, who was first on the scene, "dead as mutton!" "What! the professor?" cried Nigel in alarm. "No; de tiger." "Where's Verkimier?" asked the hermit as he came up. "I dun know, massa," said Moses, looking round him vacantly. "Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured," cried Van der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example. "Let me out!" came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and on each other. "Zounds! vy don't you let me _out_?" shouted the voice again. There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the natives, but Nigel's asking "Where _are_ you?" had the effect of inducing them to delay for the answer. "Here--oonder zee tigre! Kveek, I am suffocat!" Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the 'tail, and, Avith a force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat, revealing the man of science underneath--alive and well, but dishevelled, scratched, and soiled--also, as deaf as a door-post! CHAPTER XXII. A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED. "It never rains but it pours" is a well-known proverb which finds, frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time, for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to be the very paradise of the student of nature. We have not room in this volume to follow him in the details of his wonderful experiences, but we must mention one adventure which he had on the very day after the tiger-incident, because it very nearly had the effect of separating him from his travelling companions. Being deaf, as we have said--owing to the explosion of his revolver in the hole--but not necessarily dumb, the professor, after one or two futile attempts to hear and converse, deemed it wise to go to bed and spend the few conscious minutes that might precede sleep in watching Van der Kemp, who kindly undertook to skin his tiger for him. Soon the self-satisfied man fell into a sweet infantine slumber, and dreamed of tigers, in which state he gave vent to sundry grunts, gasps, and half-suppressed cries, to the immense delight of Moses, who sat watching him, indulging in a running commentary suggestive of the recent event, and giving utterance now and then to a few imitative growls by way of enhancing the effect of the dreams! "Look! look! Massa Nadgel, he's twitchin' all ober. De tiger's comin' to him now." "Looks like it, Moses." "Yes--an', see, he grip de 'volver--no, too soon, or de tiger's goed away, for he's stopped twichin'--dare; de tiger comes agin!" A gasp and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow, glared fearfully. "I'n't it awrful?" inquired Moses in a low tone. The professor awoke mentally, recognised the situation, smiled an imbecile smile, and sank back again on his pillow with a sigh of relief. After that, when the skinning of the tiger was completed, the dreams appeared to leave him, and all his comrades joined him in the land of Nod. He was first to awake when daylight entered their hut the following morning, and, feeling in a fresh, quiescent state of mind after the excitement of the preceding night, he lay on his back, his eyes fixed contentedly on the grand tiger-skin which hung on the opposite wall. By degrees his eyes grew wearied of that object, and he allowed them to travel languidly upwards and along the roof until they rested on the spot directly over his head, where they became fixed, and, at the same time, opened out to a glare, compared to which all his previous glaring was as nothing--for there, in the thatch, looking down upon him, was the angular head of a huge python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil, and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head! Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with a snap, while the professor opened his with a roar, and in another moment every man was on his feet blinking inquiringly. "Look! zee snake!" cried the professor, when Moses released him. "We must get him out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head. "Clear out, friends," he said, looking round. All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail as it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so violently that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew the creature straight out--a thick monster full twelve feet long, and capable of swallowing a dog or a child. "Out of zee way!" shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which it took refuge. Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale. "Zat is strainch--very strainch," slowly remarked the professor, as, still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts. "Not so _very_ strange, after all," said Van der Kemp; "I've seen the head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow." "Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in two--physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still alife, zerfore, zee life--zee spirit--has also been divided!" "It is indeed very strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground, professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not hurt, I hope--are you?" "I razer zink I am," returned the philosopher with a faint smile; "mine onkle, I zink, is spraint." This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man's wanderings were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the professor should ride until his ankle recovered. We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active volcano. By that time Verkimier's ankle had recovered and the pony had been dismissed. The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet above the sea-level. Only one native from the plain below accompanied them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted them to make the ascent. At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with clumps of heath and rhododendrons. In the centre of this was a cone which formed the true--or modern--crater. On scrambling up to the lip of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200 feet in diameter. The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its rim. "You will soon see a change come over it," said the hermit, as the party gazed in silent admiration at the weird scene. He had scarcely spoken, when the middle of the lake became intensely black and scored with dark streaks. This, though not quite obvious at first from the point where they stood, was caused by the slow formation of a great chasm in the centre of the seething lake of mud. The lake was sinking into its own throat. The blackness increased. Then a dull sullen roar was heard, and next moment the entire lake upheaved, not violently, but in a slow, majestic manner some hundreds of feet into the air, whence it fell back into its basin with an awful roar which reverberated and echoed from the rocky walls of the caldron like the singing of an angry sea. An immense volume of steam--the motive power which had blown up the lake--was at the same time liberated and dissipated in the air. The wave-circles died away on the margin of the lake, and the placid, cloud-reflecting surface was restored until the geyser had gathered fresh force for another upheaval. "Amazing!" exclaimed Nigel, who had gazed with feelings of awe at this curious exhibition of the tremendous internal forces with which the Creator has endowed the earth. "Vonderful!" exclaimed the professor, whose astonishment was such, that his eyebrows rose high above the rim of his huge blue binoculars. Moses, to whom such an exhibition of the powers of nature was familiar, was, we are sorry to say, not much impressed, if impressed at all! Indeed he scarcely noticed it, but watched, with intense teeth-and-gum disclosing satisfaction, the faces of two of the native porters who had never seen anything of the kind before, and whose terrified expressions suggested the probability of a precipitate flight when their trembling limbs became fit to resume duty. "Will it come again soon?" asked Nigel, turning to Van der Kemp. "Every fifteen or twenty minutes it goes through that process all day and every day," replied the hermit. "But, if I may joodge from zee stones ant scoriae around," said the professor, "zee volcano is not alvays so peaceful as it is joost now." "You are right. About once in every three years, and sometimes oftener, the crops of coffee, bananas, rice, etc., in this region are quite destroyed by sulphur-rain, which covers everything for miles around the crater." "Hah! it vould be too hote a place zis for us, if zat vas to happin joost now," remarked Verkimier with a smile. "It cannot be far off the time now, I should think," said Yan der Kemp. All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He had scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the changeful aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit came on, and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard. It was so awesome that the countenance even of Van der Kemp became graver than usual. As for the two native porters, they gazed and trembled. Nigel and the professor also gazed with lively expectation. Moses--we grieve to record it--hugged himself internally, and gloated over the two porters. Another moment and there came a mighty roar. Up went the mud-lake hundreds of feet into the air; out came the steam with the sound of a thousand trombones, and away went the two porters, head ever heels, down the outer slope of the cone and across the sawah as if the spirit of evil were after them. There was no cause, however, for alarm. The mud-lake, falling back into its native cup, resumed its placid aspect and awaited its next upheaval with as much tranquillity as if it had never known disturbance in the past, and were indifferent about the future. That evening our travellers encamped in close proximity to the crater, supped on fowls roasted in an open crevice whence issued steam and sulphurous smells, and slept with the geyser's intermittent roar sounding in their ears and re-echoing in their dreams. CHAPTER XXIII. TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN "HOME." This tremendous introduction to volcanic fires was but the prelude to a period of eruptive action which has not been paralleled in the world's history. For a short time after this, indeed, the genial nature of the weather tended to banish from the minds of our travellers all thoughts of violence either in terrestrial or human affairs, and as the professor devoted himself chiefly to the comparatively mild occupation of catching and transfixing butterflies and beetles during the march southward, there seemed to be nothing in the wide universe above or below save peace and tranquillity--except, perhaps, in the minds of beetles and butterflies! Throughout all this period, nevertheless, there were ominous growlings, grumblings, and tremors--faint but frequent--which indicated a condition of mother earth that could not have been called easy. "Some of the volcanoes of Java must be at work, I think," said Nigel one night, as the party sat in a small isolated wood-cutter's hut discussing a supper of rice and fowls with his friends, which they were washing down with home-grown coffee. "It may be so," said Van der Kemp in a dubious tone; "but the sounds, though faint, seem to me a good deal nearer. I can't help thinking that the craters which have so recently opened up in Krakatoa are still active, and that it may be necessary for me to shift my quarters, for my cave is little more, I suspect, than the throat of an ancient volcano." "Hah! say you so, mine frond? Zen I vould advise you to make no delay," said the professor, critically examining a well-picked drumstick. "You see, it is not pleasant to be blown up eizer by the terrestrial eruptions of zee vorld or zee celestial explosions of your vife.--A leetle more rice, Moses if you please. Zanks." "Now, mine fronds," he continued, after having disposed of a supper which it might have taxed a volcano's throat to swallow, "it is viz great sorrow zat I must part from you here." "Part! Why?" asked the hermit in surprise. "Vy, because I find zis contrie is heaven upon eart'. Zat is, of course, only in a scientific point of view. Zee voods are svarming, zee air is teeming, ant zee vaters are vallo'ing vit life. I cannot tear myself avay. But ve shall meet again--at Telok Betong, or Krakatoa, or Anjer, or Batavia." It was found that the man of science was also a man of decision. Nothing would persuade him to go a step further. The wood-cutter's hut suited him, so did the wood-cutter himself, and so, as he said, did the region around him. With much regret, therefore, and an earnest invitation from the hermit to visit his cave, and range the almost unexplored woods of his island, the travellers parted from him; and our three adventurers, dismissing all attendants and hiring three ponies, continued their journey to the southern shores of Sumatra. As they advanced it soon became evident that the scene of volcanic activity was not so far distant as the island of Java, for the air was frequently darkened by the falling of volcanic dust which covered the land with a greyish powder. As, however, at least sixteen volcanoes have been registered in the island of Sumatra, and there are probably many others, it was impossible to decide where the scene of eruption was that caused those signs. One afternoon the travellers witnessed a catastrophe which induced them to forego all idea of spending more time in examining the country. They had arrived at a village where they found a traveller who appeared to be going about without any special object in view. He spoke English, but with a foreign accent. Nigel naturally felt a desire to become sociable with him, but he was very taciturn and evidently wished to avoid intercourse with chance acquaintances. Hearing that there were curious hot-water and mud springs not far off, the stranger expressed a desire to visit them. Nigel also felt anxious to see them, and as one guide was sufficient for the party the stranger joined the party and they went together. The spot they were led to was evidently a mere crust of earth covering fierce subterranean fires. In the centre of it a small pond of mud was boiling and bubbling furiously, and round this, on the indurated clay, were smaller wells and craters full of boiling mud. The ground near them was obviously unsafe, for it bent under pressure like thin ice, and at some of the cracks and fissures the sulphurous vapour was so hot that the hand could not be held to it without being scalded. Nigel and the stranger walked close behind the native guide, both, apparently, being anxious to get as near as possible to the central pond. But the guide stopped suddenly, and, looking back, said to Van der Kemp that it was not safe to approach nearer. Nigel at once stopped, and, looking at the stranger, was struck by the wild, incomprehensible expression of his face as he continued to advance. "Stop! stop, sir!" cried the hermit on observing this, but the man paid no attention to the warning. Another instant and the crust on which he stood gave way and he sank into a horrible gulf from which issued a gust of sulphurous vapour and steam. The horror which almost overwhelmed Nigel did not prevent him bounding forward to the rescue. Well was it for him at that time that a cooler head than his own was near. The strong hand of the hermit seized his collar on the instant, and he was dragged backward out of danger, while an appalling shriek from the stranger as he disappeared told that the attempt to succour him would have been too late. A terrible event of this kind has usually the effect of totally changing, at least for a time, the feelings of those who witness it, so as to almost incapacitate them from appreciating ordinary events or things. For some days after witnessing the sudden and awful fate of this unknown man, Nigel travelled as if in a dream, taking little notice of, or interest in, anything, and replying to questions in mere monosyllables. His companions seemed to be similarly affected, for they spoke very little. Even the volatile spirit of Moses appeared to be subdued, and it was not till they had reached nearly the end of their journey that their usual flow of spirits returned. Arriving one night at a village not very far from the southern shores of Sumatra they learned that the hermit's presentiments were justified, and that the volcano which was causing so much disturbance in the islands of the archipelago was, indeed, the long extinct one of Krakatoa. "I've heard a good deal about it from one of the chief men here," said the hermit as he returned to his friends that night about supper-time. "He tells me that it has been more or less in moderate eruption ever since we left the island, but adds that nobody takes much notice of it, as they don't expect it to increase much in violence. I don't agree with them in that," he added gravely. "Why not?" asked Nigel. "Partly because of the length of time that has elapsed since its last eruption in 1680; partly from the fact that that eruption--judging from appearances--must have been a very tremendous one, and partly because my knowledge of volcanic action leads me to expect it; but I could not easily explain the reason for my conclusions on the latter point. I have just been to the brow of a ridge not far off whence I have seen the glow in the sky of the Krakatoa fires. They do not, however, appear to be very fierce at the present moment." As he spoke there was felt by the travellers a blow, as if of an explosion under the house in which they sat. It was a strong vertical bump which nearly tossed them all off their chairs. Van der Kemp and his man, after an exclamation or two, continued supper like men who were used to such interruptions, merely remarking that it was an earthquake. But Nigel, to whom it was not quite so familiar, stood up for a few seconds with a look of anxious uncertainty, as if undecided as to the path of duty and prudence in the circumstances. Moses relieved him. "Sot down, Massa Nadgel," said that sable worthy, as he stuffed his mouth full of rice; "it's easier to sot dan to stand w'en its eart'quakin'." Nigel sat down with a tendency to laugh, for at that moment he chanced to glance at the rafters above, where he saw a small anxious-faced monkey gazing down at him. He was commenting on this creature when another prolonged shock of earthquake came. It was not a bump like the previous one, but a severe vibration which only served to shake the men in their chairs, but it shook the small monkey off the rafter, and the miserable little thing fell with a shriek and a flop into the rice-dish! "Git out o' dat--you scoundril!" exclaimed Moses, but the order was needless, for the monkey bounced out of it like indiarubber and sought to hide its confusion in the thatch, while Moses helped himself to some more of the rice, which, he said; was none the worse for being monkeyfied! At last our travellers found themselves in the town of Telok Betong, where, being within forty-five miles of Krakatoa, the hermit could both see and hear that his island-home was in violent agitation; tremendous explosions occurring frequently, while dense masses of smoke were ascending from its craters. "I'm happy to find," said the hermit, soon after their arrival in the town, "that the peak of Rakata, on the southern part of the island where my cave lies, is still quiet and has shown no sign of breaking out. And now I shall go and see after my canoe." "Do you think it safe to venture to visit your cave?" asked Nigel. "Well, not absolutely safe," returned the hermit with a peculiar smile, "but, of course, if you think it unwise to run the risk of--" "I asked a simple question, Van der Kemp, without any thought of myself," interrupted the youth, as he flushed deeply. "Forgive me, Nigel," returned the hermit quickly and gravely, "it is but my duty to point out that we cannot go there without running _some_ risk." "And it is _my_ duty to point out," retorted his hurt friend, "that when any man, worthy of the name, agrees to follow another, he agrees to accept all risks." To this the hermit vouchsafed no further reply than a slight smile and nod of intelligence. Thereafter he went off alone to inquire about his canoe, which, it will be remembered, his friend, the captain of the steamer, had promised to leave for him at this place. Telok Betong, which was one of the severest sufferers by the eruption of 1883, is a small town at the head of Lampong Bay, opposite to the island of Krakatoa, from which it is between forty and fifty miles distant. It is built on a narrow strip of land at the base of a steep mountain, but little above the sea, and is the chief town of the Lampong Residency, which forms the most southerly province of Sumatra. At the time we write of, the only European residents of the place were connected with Government. The rest of the population was composed of a heterogeneous mass of natives mingled with a number of Chinese, a few Arabs, and a large fluctuating population of traders from Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, Siam, and the other innumerable isles of the archipelago. These were more or less connected with praus laden with the rich and varied merchandise of the eastern seas. As each man in the town had been permitted to build his house according to his own fancy, picturesque irregularity was the agreeable result. It may be added that, as each man spoke his own language in his own tones, Babel and noise were the consequence. In a small hut by the waterside the hermit found the friend--a Malay--to whom his canoe had been consigned, and, in a long low shed close by, he found the canoe itself with the faithful Spinkie in charge. "Don't go near the canoe till you've made friends with the monkey," said the Malay in his own tongue, as he was about to put the key in the door. "Why not?" asked the hermit. "Because it is the savagest brute I ever came across," said the man. "It won't let a soul come near the canoe. I would have killed it long ago if the captain of the steamer had not told me you wished it to be taken great care of. There, look out! The vixen is not tied up." He flung open the shed-door and revealed Spinkie seated in his old place, much deteriorated in appearance and scowling malevolently. The instant the poor creature heard its master's voice and saw his form--for his features must have been invisible against the strong light--the scowl vanished from its little visage. With a shriek of joy it sprang like an acrobat from a spring-board and plunged into the hermit's bosom--to the alarm of the Malay, who thought this was a furious attack. We need not say that Van der Kemp received his faithful little servant kindly, and it was quite touching to observe the monkey's intense affection for him. It could not indeed wag its tail like a dog, but it put its arms round its master's neck with a wondrously human air, and rubbed its little head in his beard and whiskers, drawing itself back now and then, putting its black paws on his cheeks, turning his face round to the light and opening its round eyes wide--as well as its round little mouth--as if to make sure of his identity--then plunging into the whiskers again, and sometimes, when unable to contain its joy, finding a safety-valve in a little shriek. When the meeting and greeting were over, Van der Kemp explained that he would require his canoe by daybreak the following morning, ordered a few provisions to be got ready, and turned to leave. "You must get down, Spinkie, and watch the canoe for one night more," said the hermit, quietly. But Spinkie did not seem to perceive the necessity, for he clung closer to his master with a remonstrative croak. "Get down, Spinkie," said the hermit firmly, "and watch the canoe." The poor beast had apparently learned that Medo-Persic law was not more unchangeable than Van der Kemp's commands! At all events it crept down his arm and leg, waddled slowly over the floor of the shed with bent back and wrinkled brow, like a man of ninety, and took up its old position on the deck, the very personification of superannuated woe. The hermit patted its head gently, however, thus relieving its feelings, and probably introducing hope into its little heart before leaving. Then he returned to his friends and bade them prepare for immediate departure. It was the night of the 24th of August, and as the eruptions of the volcano appeared to be getting more and more violent, Van der Kemp's anxiety to reach his cave became visibly greater. "I have been told," said the hermit to Nigel, as they went down with Moses to the place where the canoe had been left, "the history of Krakatoa since we left. A friend informs me that a short time after our departure the eruptions subsided a little, and the people here had ceased to pay much attention to them, but about the middle of June the volcanic activity became more violent, and on the 19th, in particular, it was observed that the vapour column and the force of the explosions were decidedly on the increase." "At Katimbang, from which place the island can be seen, it was noticed that a second column of vapour was ascending from the centre of the island, and that the appearance of Perboewatan had entirely changed, its conspicuous summit having apparently been blown away. In July there were some explosions of exceptional violence, and I have now no doubt that it was these we heard in the interior of this island when we were travelling hither, quite lately. On the 11th of this month, I believe, the island was visited in a boat by a government officer, but he did not land, owing to the heavy masses of vapour and dust driven about by the wind, which also prevented him from making a careful examination, but he could see that the forests of nearly the whole island have been destroyed--only a few trunks of blighted trees being left standing above the thick covering of pumice and dust. He reported that the dust near the shore was found to be twenty inches thick." "If so," said Nigel, "I fear that the island will be no longer fit to inhabit." "I know not," returned the hermit sadly, in a musing tone. "The officer reported that there is no sign of eruption at Rakata, so that my house is yet safe, for no showers of pumice, however deep, can injure the cave." Nigel was on the point of asking his friend why he was so anxious to revisit the island at such a time, but, recollecting his recent tiff on that subject, refrained. Afterwards, however, when Van der Kemp was settling accounts with the Malay, he put the question to Moses. "I can't help wondering," he said, "that Van der Kemp should be so anxious to get back to his cave just now. If he were going in a big boat to save some of his goods and chattels I could understand it, but the canoe, you know, could carry little more than her ordinary lading." "Well, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, "it's my opinion dat he wants to go back 'cause he's got an uncommon affekshnit heart." "How? Surely you don't mean that his love of the mere place is so strong that--" "No, no, Massa Nadgel--'s not dat. But he was awrful fond ob his wife an' darter, an' I know he's got a photogruff ob 'em bof togidder, an' I t'ink he'd sooner lose his head dan lose dat, for I've seed him look at 'em for hours, an' kiss 'em sometimes w'en he t'ought I was asleep." The return of the hermit here abruptly stopped the conversation. The canoe was carried down and put into the water, watched with profound interest by hundreds of natives and traders, who were all more or less acquainted with the hermit of Rakata. It was still daylight when they paddled out into Lampong Bay, but the volumes of dust which rose from Krakatoa--although nearly fifty miles off--did much to produce an unusually early twilight. "Goin' to be bery dark, massa," remarked Moses as they glided past the shipping. "Shall I light de lamp?" "Do, Moses, but we shan't need it, for as we get nearer home the volcanic fires will light us on our way." "De volcanic dust is a-goin' to powder us on our way too, massa. Keep your hands out o' the way, Spinkie," said the negro as he fixed a small oil-lamp to the mast, and resumed his paddle. "After we get out a bit the wind will help us," said the hermit. "Yes, massa, if he don't blow too strong," returned Moses, as a squall came rushing down the mountains and swept over the bay, ruffling its now dark waters into foaming wavelets. Altogether, what with the increasing darkness and the hissing squall, and the night-voyage before them, and the fires of Krakatoa which were now clearly visible on the horizon, Nigel Boy felt a more eerie sensation in his breast than he ever remembered to have experienced in all his previous life, but he scorned to admit the fact--even to himself, and said, mentally, that it was rather romantic than otherwise! Just then there burst upon their ears the yell of a steam-whistle, and a few moments later a steamer bore straight down on them, astern. "Steamer ahoy!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Will ye throw us a rope?" "Ay! ay!--ease 'er!--stop 'er! where are 'ee bound for?" demanded an unmistakably English voice. "Krakatoa!" replied the hermit. "Where are you?" "Anjer, on the Java coast. Do 'ee want to be smothered, roasted, and blown up?" asked the captain, looking down on the canoe as it ranged alongside the dark hull. "No, we want to get home." "Home! Well, you're queer fellows in a queer eggshell for such waters. Every man to his taste. Look out for the rope!" "All right, cappen," cried Moses as he caught the coil. Next moment the steamer went ahead, and the canoe ploughed over the Sunda Straits at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, with her sharp prow high out of the water, and the stern correspondingly low. The voyage, which would have otherwise cost our three travellers a long laborious night and part of next day, was by this means so greatly shortened that when daybreak arrived they were not more than thirteen miles to the east of Krakatoa. Nearer than this the steamboat could not take them without going out of her course, but as Van der Kemp and Nigel gratefully acknowledged, it was quite near enough. "Well, I should just think it was rather too near!" said the captain with a grin. And, truly, he was justified in making the remark, for the explosions from the volcano had by that time become not only very frequent, but tremendously loud, while the dense cloud which hung above it and spread far and wide over the sky covered the sea with a kind of twilight that struggled successfully against the full advent of day. Lightning too was playing among the rolling black masses of smoke, and the roaring explosions every now and then seemed to shake the very heavens. Casting off the tow-rope, they turned the bow of their canoe to the island. As a stiffish breeze was blowing, they set the sails, close-reefed, and steered for the southern shore at that part which lay under the shadow of Rakata. CHAPTER XXIV. AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING. It was a matter of some satisfaction to find on drawing near to the shore that the peak of Rakata was still intact, and that, although most other parts of the island which could be seen were blighted by fire and covered deeply with pumice dust, much of the forest in the immediate neighbourhood of the cave was still undestroyed though considerably damaged. "D'you think our old harbour will be available, Moses?" asked Van der Kemp as they came close to the first headland. "Pr'aps. Bes' go an' see," was the negro's practical reply. "Evidently Rakata is not yet active," said Nigel, looking up at the grey dust-covered crags as the canoe glided swiftly through the dark water. "That is more than can be said for the other craters," returned the hermit. "It seems to me that not only all the old ones are at work, but a number of new ones must have been opened." The constant roaring and explosions that filled their ears and the rain of fine ashes bore testimony to the truth of this, though the solid and towering mass of Rakata rose between them and the part of Krakatoa which was in eruption, preventing their seeing anything that was passing except the dense masses of smoke, steam, and dust which rose many miles into the heavens, obstructing the light of day, but forming cloud-masses from which the lurid flames of the volcano were reflected downward. On reaching the little bay or harbour it was found much as they had left it, save that the rocks and bushes around were thickly covered with dust, and their boat was gone. "Strange! at such a time one would scarcely have expected thieves to come here," said the hermit, looking slowly round. "No t'ief bin here, massa," said Moses, looking over the side of the canoe. "I see de boat!" He pointed downwards as he spoke, and on looking over the side they saw the wreck of the boat at the bottom, in about ten feet of water, and crushed beneath a ponderous mass of lava, which must have been ejected from the volcano and afterwards descended upon the boat. The destruction of the boat rendered it impossible to remove any of the property of the hermit, and Nigel now saw, from his indifference, that this could not have been the cause of his friend's anxiety and determination to reach his island home in spite of the danger that such a course entailed. That there was considerable danger soon became very obvious, for, having passed to some extent at this point beyond the shelter of the cliffs of Rakata, and come partly into view of the other parts of the island, the real extent of the volcanic violence burst upon Nigel and Moses as a new revelation. The awful sublimity of the scene at first almost paralysed them, and they failed to note that not only did a constant rain of pumice dust fall upon them, but that there was also a pretty regular dropping of small stones into the water around them. Their attention was sharply aroused to this fact by the fall of a lump of semi-molten rock, about the size of a cannon shot, a short distance off, which was immediately followed by not less than a cubic yard of lava which fell close to the canoe and deluged them with spray. "We must go," said the hermit quietly. "No need to expose ourselves here, though the watching of the tremendous forces that our Creator has at command does possess a wonderful kind of fascination. It seems to me the more we see of His power as exerted on our little earth, the more do we realise the paltriness of our conception of the stupendous Might that upholds the Universe." While he was speaking, Van der Kemp guided the canoe into its little haven, and in a few minutes he and Moses had carried it into the shelter of the cave out of which Nigel had first seen it emerge. Then the lading was carried up, after which they turned into the track which led to the hermit's home. The whole operation may be said to have been performed under fire, for small masses of rock kept pattering continually on the dust-covered ground around them, causing cloudlets, like smoke, to spring up wherever they struck. Nigel and Moses could not resist glancing upward now and then as they moved quickly to and fro, and they experienced a shrinking sensation when a stone fell very near them, but each scorned to exhibit the smallest trace of anxiety, or to suggest that the sooner they got from under fire the better! As for Van der Kemp, he moved about deliberately as if there was nothing unusual going on, and with an absent look on his grave face as though the outbursts of smoke, and fire, and lava, which turned the face of day into lurid night, and caused the cliffs to reverberate with unwonted thunders, had no effect whatever on his mind. A short walk, however, along the track, which was more than ankle-deep in dust, brought them under the sheltering sides of Rakata, up which they soon scrambled to the mouth of their cave. Here all was found as they had left it, save that the entrance was knee-deep in pumice dust. And now a new and very strange sensation was felt by each of them, for the loud reports and crackling sounds which had assailed their ears outside were reduced by the thick walls of the cave to a continuous dull groan, as it were, like the soft but thunderous bass notes of a stupendous organ. To these sounds were added others which seemed to be peculiar to the cave itself. They appeared to rise from crevices in the floor, and were no doubt due to the action of those pent-up subterranean fires which were imprisoned directly, though it may be very far down, under their feet. Every now and then there came a sudden increase of the united sounds as if the "swell" of the great organ had been opened, and such out-gushing was always accompanied with more or less of indescribable shocks followed by prolonged tremors of the entire mountain. If the three friends had been outside to observe what was taking place, they would have seen that these symptoms were simultaneous with occasional and extremely violent outbursts from the crater of Perboewatan and his compeers. Indeed they guessed as much, and two of them at least were not a little thankful that, awesome as their position was, they had the thick mountain between them and the fiery showers outside. Of all this the hermit took no notice, but, hastening into the inner cavern, opened a small box, and took therefrom a bundle of papers and a little object which, at a first glance, Nigel supposed to be a book, but which turned out to be a photograph case. These the hermit put carefully into the breastpocket of his coat and then turned to his companions with a sigh as if of relief. "I think there is no danger of anything occurring at this part of the island," he remarked, looking round the cave, "for there is no sign of smoke and no sulphurous smell issuing from any of the crevices in walls or floor. This, I think, shows that there is no direct communication with Rakata and the active volcano--at least not at present." "Do you then think there is a possibility of an outbreak at some future period?" asked Nigel. "Who can tell? People here, who don't study the nature of volcanoes much, though surrounded by them, will expect things ere long to resume their normal condition. I can never forget the fact that the greater part of Krakatoa stands, as you know, exactly above the spot where the two great lines of volcanic action cross, and right over the mouth of the immense crater to which Perboewatan and all the other craters serve as mere chimneys or safety-valves. We cannot tell whether a great eruption similar to that of 1680 may not be in store for us. The only reason that I can see for the quiescence of this peak of Rakata is, as I said to you once before, that it stands not so much above the old crater as above and on the safe side of its lip." "I t'ink, massa, if I may ventur' to speak," said Moses, "dat de sooner we git off his lip de better lest we tumble into his mout'." "You may be right, Moses, and I have no objection to quit," returned the hermit, "now that I have secured the photograph and papers. At the same time I fear the rain of stones and lava is growing worse. It might be safer to stay till there is a lull in the violence of the eruption, and then make a dash for it. What say you, Nigel?" "I say that you know best, Van der Kemp. I'm ready to abide by your decision, whatever it be." "Well, then, we will go out and have a look at the state of matters." The view from the entrance was not calculated to tempt them to forsake the shelter of the cave, however uncertain that might be. The latest explosions had enshrouded the island in such a cloud of smoke and dust, that nothing whatever was visible beyond a few yards in front, and even that space was only seen by the faint rays of the lamp issuing from the outer cave. This lamp-light was sufficient, however, to show that within the semicircle of a few yards there was a continuous rain of grey ashes and dust mingled with occasional stones of various sizes--some larger than a man's fist. "To go out in that would be simply to court death," said Nigel, whose voice was almost drowned by the noise of the explosions and fall of material. As it was manifest that nothing could be done at the moment except to wait patiently, they returned to the cave, where they lighted the oil-stove, and Moses--who had taken the precaution to carry up some provisions in a bag from the canoe--proceeded to prepare a meal. "Stummicks must be attended to," he murmured to himself as he moved about the cave-kitchen and shook his head gravely. "Collapses in dat region is wuss, a long way, dan 'splosion of the eart'!" Meanwhile, Nigel and the hermit went to examine the passage leading to the observatory. The eruption had evidently done nothing to it, for, having passed upwards without difficulty, they finally emerged upon the narrow ledge. The scene that burst upon their astonished gaze here was awful in the extreme. It will be remembered that while the hermit's cave was on the southern side of Krakatoa, facing Java, the stair and passage leading to the observatory completely penetrated the peak of Rakata, so that when standing on the ledge they faced northward and were thus in full view of all the craters between them and Perboewatan. These were in full blast at the time, and, being so near, the heat, as well as the dust, molten lava, and other missiles, instantly drove them back under the protection of the passage from which they had emerged. Here they found a small aperture which appeared to have been recently formed--probably by a blow from a mass of falling rock--through which they were able to obtain a glimpse of the pandemonium that lay seething below them. They could not see much, however, owing to the smoke which filled the air. The noise of the almost continuous explosions was so loud, that it was impossible to converse save by placing the mouth to the ear and shouting. Fortunately soon after their ascent the wind shifted and blew smoke, fire, and dust away to the northward, enabling them to get out on the ledge, where for a time they remained in comparative safety. "Look! look at your mirrors!" exclaimed Nigel suddenly, as his wandering gaze happened to turn to the hermit's sun-guides. And he might well exclaim, for not only was the glass of these ingenious machines shivered and melted, but their iron frameworks were twisted up into fantastic shapes. "Lightning has been at work here," said Van der Kemp. It did not at the moment occur to either of them that the position on which they stood was peculiarly liable to attack by the subtle and dangerous fluid which was darting and zig-zagging everywhere among the rolling clouds of smoke and steam. A louder report than usual here drew their attention again to the tremendous scene that was going on in front of them. The extreme summit of Perboewatan had been blown into a thousand fragments, which were hurtling upwards and crackling loudly as the smaller masses were impelled against each other in their skyward progress. This crackling has been described by those who heard it from neighbouring shores as a "strange rustling sound." To our hermit and his friend, who were, so to speak, in the very midst of it, the sound rather resembled the continuous musketry of a battle-field, while the louder explosions might be compared to the booming of artillery, though they necessarily lose by the comparison, for no invention of man ever produced sounds equal to those which thundered at that time from the womb of Krakatoa. Immediately after this, a fountain of molten lava at white heat welled up in the great throat that had been so violently widened, and, overflowing the edges of the crater, rolled down its sides in fiery rivers. All the other craters in the island became active at the same moment and a number of new ones burst forth. Indeed it seemed to those who watched them that if these had not opened up to give vent to the suppressed forces the whole island must have been blown away. As it was, the sudden generation of so much excessive heat set fire to what remained of trees and everything combustible, so that the island appeared to be one vast seething conflagration, and darkness was for a time banished by a red glare that seemed to Nigel far more intense than that of noonday. It is indeed the partiality (if we may say so) of conflagration-light which gives to it the character of impressive power with which we are all so familiar--the intense lights being here cut sharply off by equally intense shadows, and then grading into dull reds and duller greys. The sun, on the other hand, bathes everything in its genial glow so completely that all nature is permeated with it, and there are no intense contrasts, no absolutely black and striking shadows, except in caverns and holes, to form startling contrasts. "These safety-valves," said the hermit, referring to the new craters, "have, under God, been the means of saving us from destruction." "It would seem so," said Nigel, who was too overwhelmed by the sight to say much. Even as he spoke the scene changed as if by magic, for from the cone of Perboewatan there issued a spout of liquid fire, followed by a roar so tremendous that the awe-struck men shrank within themselves, feeling as though that time had really come when the earth is to melt with fervent heat! The entire lake of glowing lava was shot into the air, and lost in the clouds above, while mingled smoke and steam went bellowing after it, and dust fell so thickly that it seemed as if sufficient to extinguish the raging fires. Whether it did so or not is uncertain. It may have been that the new pall of black vapour only obscured them. At all events, after the outburst the darkness of night fell suddenly on all around. Just then the wind again changed, and the whole mass of vapour, smoke, and ashes came sweeping like the very besom of destruction towards the giddy ledge on which the observers stood. Nigel was so entranced that it is probable he might have been caught in the horrible tempest and lost had not his cooler companion grasped his arm and dragged him violently into the passage--where they were safe, though half suffocated by the heat and sulphurous vapours that followed them. At the same time the thunderous roaring became so loud that conversation was impossible. Van der Kemp therefore took his friend's hand and led him down to the cave, where the sounds were so greatly subdued as to seem almost a calm by contrast. "We are no doubt in great danger," said the hermit, gravely, as he sat down in the outer cave, "but there is no possibility of taking action to-night. Here we are, whether wisely or unwisely, and here we must remain--at least till there is a lull in the eruption. 'God is our refuge.' He ought to be so at _all_ times, but there are occasions when this great, and, I would add, glorious fact is pressed upon our understandings with unusual power. Such a time is this. Come--we will see what His word says to us just now." To Nigel's surprise, and, he afterwards confessed, to his comfort and satisfaction, the hermit called the negro from his work, and, taking down the large Bible from its shelf, read part of the 46th Psalm, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." He stopped reading at the verse where it is written, "Be still, and know that I am God." Then, going down on his knees,--without even the familiar formula, "Let us pray"--he uttered a brief but earnest prayer for guidance and deliverance "in the name of Jesus." Rising, he quietly put the Bible away, and, with the calmness of a thoroughly practical man, who looks upon religion and ordinary matters as parts of one grand whole, ordered Moses to serve the supper. Thus they spent part of that memorable night of 26th August 1883 in earnest social intercourse, conversing chiefly and naturally about the character, causes, and philosophy of volcanoes, while Perboewatan and his brethren played a rumbling, illustrative accompaniment to their discourse. The situation was a peculiar one. Even the negro was alive to that fact. "Ain't it koorious," he remarked solemnly in a moment of confidence after swallowing the last bite of his supper. "Ain't it koorious, Massa Nadgel, dat we're a sottin' here comf'rably enjoyin' our wittles ober de mout' ob a v'licano as is quite fit to blow us all to bits an' hois' us into de bery middle ob next week--if not farder?" "It is strange indeed, Moses," said Nigel, who however added no commentary, feeling indisposed to pursue the subject. Seeing this, Moses turned to his master. "Massa," he said. "You don' want nuffin' more to-night, I s'pose?" "No, Moses, nothing." "An' is you _quite_ easy in your mind?" "Quite," replied the hermit with his peculiar little smile. "Den it would be wuss dan stoopid for me to be _on_easy, so I'll bid ye bof good-night, an' turn in." In this truly trustful as well as philosophical state of mind, the negro retired to his familiar couch in the inner cave, and went to sleep. Nigel and the hermit sat up for some time longer. "Van der Kemp," said the former, after a pause, "I--I trust you won't think me actuated by impertinent curiosity if I venture to ask you about --the--photograph that I think you----" "My young friend!" interrupted the hermit, taking the case in question from his breast pocket; "I should rather apologise to you for having appeared to make any mystery of it--and yet," he added, pausing as he was about to open the case, "I have not shown it to a living soul since the day that--Well, well,--why should I hesitate? It is all I have left of my dead wife and child." He placed the case in the hands of Nigel, who almost sprang from his seat with excitement as he beheld the countenance of a little child of apparently three or four years of age, who so exactly resembled Kathy Holbein--allowing of course for the difference of age--that he had now no doubt whatever as to her being the hermit's lost daughter. He was on the point of uttering her name, when uncertainty as to the effect the sudden disclosure might have upon the father checked him. "You seem surprised, my friend," said Van der Kemp gently. "Most beautiful!" said Nigel, gazing intently at the portrait. "That dear child's face seems so familiar to me that I could almost fancy I had seen it." He looked earnestly into his friend's face as he spoke, but the hermit was quite unmoved, and there was not a shadow of change in the sad low tone of his voice as he said-- "Yes, she was indeed beautiful, like her mother. As to your fancy about having seen it--mankind is formed in groups and types. We see many faces that resemble others." The absent look that was so common to the solitary man here overspread his massive features, and Nigel felt crushed, as it were, back into himself. Thus, without having disclosed his belief, he retired to rest in a very anxious state of mind, while the hermit watched. "Don't take off your clothes," he said. "If the sounds outside lead me to think things are quieting down, I will rouse you and we shall start at once." It was very early on the morning of the 27th when Van der Kemp roused our hero. "Are things quieter?" asked Nigel as he rose. "Yes, a little, but not much--nevertheless we must venture to leave." "Is it daylight yet?" "No. There will be no daylight to-day!" with which prophecy the hermit left him and went to rouse Moses. "Massa," said the faithful negro. "Isn't you a goin' to take nuffin' wid you? None ob de books or t'ings?" "No--nothing except the old Bible. All the rest I leave behind. The canoe could not carry much. Besides, we may have little time. Get ready; quick! and follow me." Moses required no spur. The three men left the cave together. It was so intensely dark that the road could not be distinguished, but the hermit and his man were so familiar with it that they could have followed it blindfold. On reaching the cave at the harbour, some light was obtained from the fitful outbursts of the volcano, which enabled them to launch the canoe and push off in safety. Then, without saying a word to each other, they coasted along the shore of the island, and, finally, leaving its dangers behind, them, made for the island of Java--poor Spinkie sitting in his accustomed place and looking uncommonly subdued! Scarcely had they pushed off into Sunda Straits when the volcano burst out afresh. They had happily seized on the only quiet hour that the day offered, and had succeeded, by the aid of the sails, in getting several miles from the island without receiving serious injury, although showers of stones and masses of rock of all sizes were falling into the sea around them. Van der Kemp was so far right in his prophecy that there would be no daylight that day. By that time there should have been light, as it was nearly seven o'clock on the memorable morning of the 27th of August. But now, although the travellers were some miles distant from Krakatoa, the gloom was so impervious that Nigel, from his place in the centre of the canoe, could not see the form of poor Spinkie--which sat clinging to the mast only two feet in front of him--save when a blaze from Perboewatan or one of the other craters lighted up island and ocean with a vivid glare. At this time the sea began to run very high and the wind increased to a gale, so that the sails of the canoe, small though they were, had to be reduced. "Lower the foresail, Nigel," shouted the hermit. "I will close-reef it. Do you the same to the mainsail." "Ay, ay, sir," was the prompt reply. Moses and Nigel kept the little craft straight to the wind while the foresail was being reefed, Van der Kemp and the former performing the same duty while Nigel reefed the mainsail. Suddenly there came a brief but total cessation of the gale, though not of the tumultuous heaving of the waters. During that short interval there burst upon the world a crash and a roar so tremendous that for a few moments the voyagers were almost stunned! It is no figure of speech to say that the _world_ heard the crash. Hundreds, ay, thousands of miles did the sound of that mighty upheaval pass over land and sea to startle, more or less, the nations of the earth. The effect of a stupendous shock on the nervous system is curiously various in different individuals. The three men who were so near to the volcano at that moment involuntarily looked round and saw by the lurid blaze that an enormous mass of Krakatoa, rent from top to bottom, was falling headlong into the sea; while the entire heavens were alive with flame, lightning, steam, smoke, and the upward-shooting fragments of the hideous wreck! The hermit calmly rested his paddle on the deck and gazed around in silent wonder. Nigel, not less smitten with awe, held his paddle with an iron grasp, every muscle quivering with tension in readiness for instant action when the need for action should appear. Moses, on the other hand, turning round from the sight with glaring eyes, resumed paddling with unreasoning ferocity, and gave vent at once to his feelings and his opinion in the sharp exclamation--"Blown to bits!" [Illustration: BLOWN TO BITS--PAGE 342.] CHAPTER XXV. ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION. We must request the reader to turn back now for a brief period to a very different scene. A considerable time before the tremendous catastrophe described in the last chapter--which we claim to have recorded without the slightest exaggeration, inasmuch as exaggeration were impossible--Captain David Roy, of the good brig _Sunshine_, received the letter which his son wrote to him while in the jungles of Sumatra. The captain was seated in the back office of a Batavian merchant at the time, smoking a long clay pipe--on the principle, no doubt, that moderate poisoning is conducive to moderate health! As he perused the letter, the captain's eyes slowly opened; so did his mouth, and the clay pipe, falling to the floor, was reduced to little pieces. But the captain evidently cared nothing for that. He gave forth a prolonged whistle, got up, smote upon his thigh, and exclaimed with deep-toned emphasis-- "The _rascal_!" Then he sat down again and re-perused the letter, with a variety of expression on his face that might have recalled the typical April day, minus the tears. "The rascal!" he repeated, as he finished the second reading of the letter and thrust it into his pocket. "I knew there was somethin' i' the wind wi' that little girl! The memory o' my own young days when I boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the rascal's eye the very first time they met--an' he thinks I'm as blind as a bat, I'll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness. But it's a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The young dog! He gives me orders as if he were the owner." Jumping up, Captain Roy hurried out into the street. In passing the outer office he left a message with one of the clerks for his friend the merchant. "Tell him," he said, "that I'll attend to that little business about the bill when I come back. I'm going to sail for the Keeling Islands this afternoon." "The Keeling Islands?" exclaimed the clerk in surprise. "Yes--I've got business to do there. I'll be back, all bein' well, in a week--more or less." The clerk's eyebrows remained in a raised position for a few moments, until he remembered that Captain Roy, being owner of his ship and cargo, was entitled to do what he pleased with his own and himself. Then they descended, and he went on with his work, amusing himself with the thought that the most curious beings in the world were seafaring men. "Mr. Moor," said the captain somewhat excitedly, as he reached the deck of his vessel, "are all the men aboard?" "All except Jim Sloper, sir." "Then send and hunt up Jim Sloper at once, for we sail this afternoon for the Keeling Islands." "Very well, sir." Mr. Moor was a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that afternoon, he would probably have said "Very well, sir," in the same tone and with the same expression. "May I ask, sir, what sort of cargo you expect there?" said Mr. Moor; for to his practical mind some re-arrangement of the cargo already on board might be necessary for the reception of that to be picked up at Keeling. "The cargo we'll take on board will be a girl," said the captain. "A what, sir?". "A girl." "Very well, sir." This ended the business part of the conversation. Thereafter they went into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An amateur detective, in the form of a shipmate, having captured Jim Sloper, the _Sunshine_ finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part of the southern hemisphere. Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa, which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to prevent, as it were, premature explosion. "My son's friend, the hermit of Rakata," said the captain to his second mate, "will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he returns." "Looks like it, sir," said Mr. Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened volcano. "Do you expect 'em back soon, sir?" "Yes--time's about up now. I shouldn't wonder if they reach Batavia before us." Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship. It was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent him, for he could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was Kathleen Holbein's father, and her self-constituted parents did not relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved as a daughter. "Why not bring this man who claims to be her father _here_?" asked the perplexed Holbein. "Because--because, p'raps he won't come," answered the puzzled mariner, who did not like to say that he was simply and strictly obeying his son's orders. "Besides," he continued, "the man does not claim to be anything at all. So far as I understand it, my boy has not spoken to him on the subject, for fear, I suppose, of raisin' hopes that ain't to be realised." "He is right in that," said Mrs. Holbein, "and we must be just as careful not to raise false hopes in dear little Kathy. As your son says, it may be a mistake after all. We must not open our lips to her about it." "Right you are, madam," returned the captain. "Mum's the word; and we've only got to say she's goin' to visit one of your old friends in Anjer--which'll be quite true, you know, for the landlady o' the chief hotel there is a great friend o' yours, and we'll take Kathy to her straight. Besides, the trip will do her health a power o' good, though I'm free to confess it don't need no good to be done to it, bein' A.1 at the present time. Now, just you agree to give the girl a holiday, an' I'll pledge myself to bring her back safe and sound--with her father, if he's _him_; without him if he isn't." With such persuasive words Captain Roy at length overcame the Holbein objections. With the girl herself he had less difficulty, his chief anxiety being, as he himself said, "to give her reasons for wishin' her to go without tellin' lies." "Wouldn't you like a trip in my brig to Anjer, my dear girl?" He had almost said daughter, but thought it best not to be too precipitate. "Oh! I should like it _so_ much," said Kathleen, clasping her little hands and raising her large eyes to the captain's face. "_Dear_ child!" said the captain to himself. Then aloud, "Well, I'll take you." "But I--I fear that father and mother would not like me to go--perhaps." "No fear o' them, my girl," returned the captain, putting his huge rough hand on her pretty little head as if in an act of solemn appropriation, for, unlike too many fathers, this exemplary man considered only the sweetness, goodness, and personal worth of the girl, caring not a straw for other matters, and being strongly of opinion that a man should marry young if he possess the spirit of a man or the means to support a wife. As he was particularly fond of Kathleen, and felt quite sure that his son had deeper reasons than he chose to express for his course of action, he entertained a strong hope, not to say conviction, that she would also become fond of Nigel, and that all things would thus work together for a smooth course to this case of true love. It will be seen from all this that Captain David Roy was a sanguine man. Whether his hopes were well grounded or not remains to be seen. Meanwhile, having, as Mr. Moor said, shipped the cargo, the _Sunshine_ set sail once more for Sunda Straits in a measure of outward gloom that formed a powerful contrast to the sunny hopes within her commander's bosom, for Krakatoa was at that time progressing rapidly towards the consummation of its designs, as partly described in the last chapter. Short though that voyage was, it embraced a period of action so thrilling that ever afterwards it seemed a large slice of life's little day to those who went through it. We have said that the culminating incidents of the drama began on the night of the 26th. Before that time, however, the cloud-pall was fast spreading over land and sea, and the rain of pumice and ashes had begun to descend. The wind being contrary, it was several days before the brig reached the immediate neighbourhood of Krakatoa, and by that time the volcano had begun to enter upon the stage which is styled by vulcanologists "paroxysmal," the explosions being extremely violent as well as frequent. "It is very awful," said Kathleen in a low voice, as she clasped the captain's arm and leaned her slight figure on it. "I have often heard the thunder of distant volcanoes, but never been so near as to hear such terrible sounds." "Don't be frightened, my ducky," said the captain in a soothing tone, for he felt from the appearance of things that there was indeed some ground for alarm. "Volcanoes always look worse when you're near them." "I not frightened," she replied. "Only I got strange, solemn feelings. Besides, no danger can come till God allows." "That's right, lass. Mrs. Holbein has been a true mother if she taught you that." "No, she did not taught me that. My father taught me that." "What! Old Holbein?" "No--my father, who is dead," she said in a low voice. "Oh! I see. My poor child, I should have understood you. Forgive me." As the captain spoke, a tremendous outburst on Krakatoa turned their minds to other subjects. They were by that time drawing near to the island, and the thunders of the eruption seemed to shake not only the heavens but even the great ocean itself. Though the hour was not much past noon the darkness soon became so dense that it was difficult to perceive objects a few yards distant, and, as pieces of stone the size of walnuts, or even larger, began to fall on the deck, the captain sent Kathleen below. "There's no saying where or when a big stone may fall, my girl," he said, "and it's not the habit of Englishmen to let women come under fire, so you'll be safer below. Besides, you'll be able to see something of what's goin' on out o' the cabin windows." With the obedience that was natural to her, Kathleen went down at once, and the captain made everything as snug as possible, battening down the hatches and shortening sail so as to be ready for whatever might befall. "I don't like the look o' things, Mr. Moor," said the captain when the second mate came on deck to take his watch. "No more do I, sir," answered Mr. Moor calmly. The aspect of things was indeed very changeable. Sometimes, as we have said, all nature seemed to be steeped in thick darkness, at other times the fires of the volcano blazed upward, spreading a red glare on the rolling clouds and over the heaving sea. Lightning also played its part as well as thunder, but the latter was scarcely distinguishable from the volcano's roar. Three days before Sunday the 26th of August, Captain Roy--as well as the crews of several other vessels that were in Sunda Straits at the time--had observed a marked though gradual increase in the violence of the eruption. On that day, as we read in the _Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society_, about 1 P.M. the detonations caused by the explosive action attained such violence as to be heard at Batavia, about 100 English miles away. At 2 P.M. of the same day, Captain Thompson of the _Medea_, when about 76 miles E.N.E. of the island, saw a black mass rising like clouds of smoke to a height which has been estimated at no less than 17 miles! And the detonations were at that time taking place at intervals of ten minutes. But, terrible though these explosions must have been, they were but as the whisperings of the volcano. An hour later they had increased so much as to be heard at Bandong and other places 150 miles away, and at 5 P.M. they had become so tremendous as to be heard over the whole island of Java, the eastern portion of which is about 650 miles from Krakatoa. And the sounds thus heard were not merely like distant thunder. In Batavia--although, as we have said, 100 miles off--they were so violent during the whole of that terrible Sunday night as to prevent the people from sleeping. They were compared to the "discharge of artillery close at hand," and caused a rattling of doors, windows, pictures, and chandeliers. Captain Watson of the _Charles Bal_, who chanced to be only 10 miles south of the volcano, also compared the sounds to discharges of artillery, but this only shows the feebleness of ordinary language in attempting to describe such extraordinary sounds, for if they were comparable to close artillery at Batavia, the same comparison is inappropriate at only ten miles' distance. He also mentions the crackling noise, probably due to the impact of fragments in the atmosphere, which were noticed by the hermit and Nigel while standing stunned and almost stupefied on the giddy ledge of Rakata that same Sunday. About five in the evening of that day, the brig _Sunshine_ drew still nearer to the island, but the commotion at the time became so intense, and the intermittent darkness so profound, that Captain Roy was afraid to continue the voyage and shortened sail. Not only was there a heavy rolling sea, but the water was seething, as if about to boil. "Heave the lead, Mr. Moor," said the captain, who stood beside the wheel. "Yes, sir," answered the imperturbable second mate, who thereupon gave the necessary order, and when the depth was ascertained, the report was "Ten fathoms, sand, with a 'ot bottom." "A hot bottom! what do you mean?" "The lead's 'ot, sir," replied the sailor. This was true, as the captain found when he applied his hand to it. "I do believe the world's going on fire," he muttered; "but it's a comfort to know that it can't very well blaze up as long as the sea lasts!" Just then a rain of pumice in large pieces, and quite warm, began to fall upon the deck. As most people know, pumice is extremely light, so that no absolute injury was done to any one, though such rain was excessively trying. Soon, however, a change took place. The dense vapours and dust-clouds which had rendered it so excessively dark were entirely lighted up from time to time by fierce flashes of lightning which rent as well as painted them in all directions. At one time this great mass of clouds presented the appearance of an immense pine-tree with the stem and branches formed of volcanic lightning. Captain Roy, fearing that these tremendous sights and sounds would terrify the poor girl in the cabin, was about to look in and reassure her, when the words "Oh! how splendid!" came through the slightly opened door. He peeped in and saw Kathleen on her knees on the stern locker, with her hands clasped, gazing out of one of the stern windows. "Hm! she's all right," he muttered, softly reclosing the door and returning on deck. "If she thinks it's splendid, she don't need no comfortin'! It's quite clear that she don't know what danger means--and why should she? Humph! there go some more splendid sights for her," he added, as what appeared to be chains of fire ascended from the volcano to the sky. Just then a soft rain began to fall. It was warm, and, on examination at the binnacle lamp, turned out to be mud. Slight at first, it soon poured down in such quantities that in ten minutes it lay six inches thick on the deck, and the crew had to set to work with shovels to heave it overboard. At this time there was seen a continual roll of balls of white fire down the sides of the peak of Rakata, caused, doubtless, by the ejection of white-hot fragments of lava. Then showers of masses like iron cinders fell on the brig, and from that time onward till four o'clock of the morning of the 27th, explosions of indescribable grandeur continually took place, as if the mountains were in a continuous roar of terrestrial agony--the sky being at one moment of inky blackness, the next in a blaze of light, while hot, choking, and sulphurous smells almost stifled the voyagers. At this point the captain again became anxious about Kathleen and went below. He found her in the same place and attitude--still fascinated! "My child," he said, taking her hand, "you must lie down and rest." "Oh! no. Do let me stay up," she begged, entreatingly. "But you must be tired--sleepy." "Sleepy! who could sleep with such wonders going on around? Pray _don't_ tell me to go to bed!" It was evident that poor Kathy had the duty of obedience to authority still strong upon her. Perhaps the memory of the Holbein nursery had not yet been wiped out. "Well, well," said the captain with a pathetic smile, "you are as safe--comfortable, I mean--here as in your berth or anywhere else." As there was a lull in the violence of the eruption just then, the captain left Kathleen in the cabin and went on deck. It was not known at that time what caused this lull, but as it preceded the first of the four grand explosions which effectually eviscerated--emptied--the ancient crater of Krakatoa, we will give, briefly, the explanation of it as conjectured by the men of science. Lying as it did so close to the sea-level, the Krakatoa volcano, having blown away all its cones, and vents, and safety-valves--from Perboewatan southward, except the peak of Rakata--let the sea rush in upon its infernal fires. This result, ordinary people think, produced a gush of steam which caused the grand terminal explosions. Vulcanologists think otherwise, and with reason--which is more than can be said of ordinary people, who little know the power of the forces at work below the crust of our earth! The steam thus produced, although on so stupendous a scale, was free to expand and therefore went upwards, no doubt in a sufficiently effective gust and cloud. But nothing worthy of being named a blow-up was there. The effect of the in-rushing water was to cool the upper surface of the boiling lava and convert it into a thick hard solid crust at the mouth of the great vent. In this condition the volcano resembled a boiler with all points of egress closed and the safety-valve shut down! Oceans of molten lava creating expansive gases below; no outlet possible underneath, and the neck of the bottle corked with tons of solid rock! One of two things must happen in such circumstances: the cork must go or the bottle must burst! Both events happened on that terrible night. All night long the corks were going, and at last--Krakatoa burst! In the hurly-burly of confusion, smoke, and noise, no eye could note the precise moment when the island was shattered, but there were on the morning of the 27th four supreme explosions, which rang loud and high above the horrible average din. These occurred--according to the careful investigations made, at the instance of the Dutch Indian Government, by the eminent geologist, Mr. R.D.M. Verbeek--at the hours of 5.30, 6.44, 10.2, and 10.52 in the morning. Of these the third, about 10, was by far the worst for violence and for the wide-spread devastation which it produced. At each of these explosions a tremendous sea-wave was created by the volcano, which swept like a watery ring from Krakatoa as a centre to the surrounding shores. It was at the second of these explosions--that of 6.44--that the fall of the mighty cliff took place which was seen by the hermit and his friends as they fled from the island, and, on the crest of the resulting wave, were carried along they scarce knew whither. As the previous wave--that of 5.30--had given the brig a tremendous heave upwards, the captain, on hearing the second, ran down below for a moment to tell Kathleen there would soon be another wave, but that she need fear no danger. "The brig is deep and has a good hold o' the water," he said, "so the wave is sure to slip under her without damage. I wish I could hope it would do as little damage when it reaches the shore." As he spoke a strange and violent crash was heard overhead, quite different from volcanic explosions, like the falling of some heavy body on the deck. "One o' the yards down!" muttered the captain as he ran to the cabin door. "Hallo, what's that, Mr. Moor?" "Canoe just come aboard, sir." "A canoe?" "Yes, sir. Crew, three men and a monkey. All insensible--hallo!" The "hallo!" with which the second mate finished his remark was so unlike his wonted tone, and so full of genuine surprise, that the captain ran forward with unusual haste, and found a canoe smashed to pieces against the foremast, and the mate held a lantern close to the face of one of the men while the crew were examining the others. A single glance told the captain that the mud-bespattered figure that lay before him as if dead was none other than his own son! The great wave had caught the frail craft on its crest, and, sweeping it along with lightning speed for a short distance, had hurled it on the deck of the _Sunshine_ with such violence as to completely stun the whole crew. Even Spinkie lay in a melancholy little heap in the lee scuppers. You think this a far-fetched coincidence, good reader! Well, all we can say is that we could tell you of another--a double--coincidence, which was far more extraordinary than this one, but as it has nothing to do with our tale we refrain from inflicting it on you. CHAPTER XXVI. A CLIMAX. Three of those who had tumbled thus unceremoniously on the deck of the _Sunshine_ were soon sufficiently recovered to sit up and look around in dazed astonishment--namely Nigel, Moses, and the monkey--but the hermit still lay prone where he had been cast, with a pretty severe wound on his head, from which blood was flowing freely. "Nigel, my boy!" "Father!" exclaimed the youth. "Where am I? What has happened?" "Don't excite yourself, lad," said the mariner, stooping and whispering into his son's ear. "We've got _her_ aboard!" No treatment could have been more effectual in bringing Nigel to his senses than this whisper. "Is--is--Van der Kemp safe?" he asked anxiously. "All right--only stunned, I think. That's him they're just goin' to carry below. Put 'im in my bunk, Mr. Moor." "Ay ay, sir." Nigel sprang up. "Stay, father," he said in a low voice. "_She_ must not see him for the first time like this." "All right, boy. I understand. You leave that to me. My bunk has bin shifted for'id--more amidships--an' Kathy's well aft. They shan't be let run foul of each other. You go an' rest on the main hatch till we get him down. Why, here's a nigger! Where did you pick him--oh! I remember. You're the man we met, I suppose, wi' the hermit on Krakatoa that day o' the excursion from Batavia." "Yes, das me. But we'll meet on Krakatoa no more, for dat place am blown to bits." "I'm pretty well convinced o' that by this time, my man. Not hurt much, I hope?" "No, sar--not more 'n I can stan'. But I's 'fraid dat poor Spinkie's a'most used up--hallo! what you gwine to do with massa?" demanded the negro, whose wandering faculties had only in part returned. "He's gone below. All right. Now, you go and lie down beside my son on the hatch. I'll see to Van der Kemp." But Captain David Roy's intentions, like those of many men of greater note, were frustrated by the hermit himself, who recovered consciousness just as the four men who carried him reached the foot of the companion-ladder close to the cabin door. Owing to the deeper than midnight darkness that prevailed a lamp was burning in the cabin--dimly, as if, infected by the universal chaos, it were unwilling to enlighten the surrounding gloom. On recovering consciousness Van der Kemp was, not unnaturally, under the impression that he had fallen into the hands of foes. With one effectual convulsion of his powerful limbs he scattered his bearers right and left, and turning--like all honest men--to the light, he sprang into the cabin, wrenched a chair from its fastenings, and, facing round, stood at bay. Kathleen, seeing this blood-stained giant in such violent action, naturally fled to her cabin and shut the door. As no worse enemy than Captain Roy presented himself at the cabin door, unarmed, and with an anxious look on his rugged face, the hermit set down the chair, and feeling giddy sank down on it with a groan. "I fear you are badly hurt, sir. Let me tie a handkerchief round your wounded head," said the captain soothingly. "Thanks, thanks. Your voice is not unfamiliar to me," returned the hermit with a sigh, as he submitted to the operation. "I thought I had fallen somehow into the hands of pirates. Surely an accident must have happened. How did I get here? Where are my comrades--Nigel and the negro?" "My son Nigel is all right, sir, and so is your man Moses. Make your mind easy--an' pray don't speak while I'm working at you. I'll explain it all in good time. Stay, I'll be with you in a moment." The captain--fearing that Kathleen might come out from curiosity to see what was going on, and remembering his son's injunction--went to the girl's berth with the intention of ordering her to keep close until he should give her leave to come out. Opening the door softly and looking in, he was startled, almost horrified, to see Kathleen standing motionless like a statue, with both hands pressed tightly over her heart. The colour had fled from her beautiful face; her long hair was flung back; her large lustrous eyes were wide open and her lips slightly parted, as if her whole being had been concentrated in eager expectancy. "What's wrong, my girl?" asked the captain anxiously. "You've no cause for fear. I just looked in to--." "That voice!" exclaimed Kathleen, with something of awe in her tones--"Oh! I've heard it _so_ often in my dreams." "Hush! sh! my girl," said the captain in a low tone, looking anxiously round at the wounded man. But his precautions were unavailing,--Van der Kemp had also heard a voice which he thought had long been silent in death. The girl's expression was almost repeated in his face. Before the well-meaning mariner could decide what to do, Kathleen brushed lightly past him, and stood in the cabin gazing as if spell-bound at the hermit. "Winnie!" he whispered, as if scarcely daring to utter the name. "Father!" She extended both hands towards him as she spoke. Then, with a piercing shriek, she staggered backward, and would have fallen had not the captain caught her and let her gently down. Van der Kemp vaulted the table, fell on his knees beside her, and, raising her light form, clasped her to his heart, just as Nigel and Moses, alarmed by the scream, sprang into the cabin. "Come, come; away wi' you--you stoopid grampusses!" cried the captain, pushing the intruders out of the cabin, following them, and closing the door behind him. "This is no place for bunglers like you an' me. We might have known that natur' would have her way, an' didn't need no help from the like o' us. Let's on deck. There's enough work there to look after that's better suited to us." Truly there was enough--and more than enough--to claim the most anxious attention of all who were on board of the _Sunshine_ that morning, for hot mud was still falling in showers on the deck, and the thunders of the great volcano were still shaking heaven, earth, and sea. To clear the decks and sails of mud occupied every one for some time so earnestly that they failed to notice at first that the hermit had come on deck, found a shovel, and was working away like the rest of them. The frequent and prolonged blazes of intense light that ever and anon banished the darkness showed that on his face there sat an expression of calm, settled, triumphant joy, which was strangely mingled with a look of quiet humility. "I thank God for this," said Nigel, going forward when he observed him and grasping his hand. "You knew it?" exclaimed the hermit in surprise. "Yes. I knew it--indeed, helped to bring you together, but did not dare to tell you till I was quite sure. I had hoped to have you meet in very different circumstances." "'It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,'" returned the hermit reverently. "God bless you, Nigel. If you have even aimed at bringing this about, I owe you _more_ than my life." "You must have lost a good deal of blood, Van der Kemp. Are you much hurt?" asked Nigel, as he observed the bandage round his friend's head. "Somewhat. Not much, I hope--but joy, as well as blood, gives strength, Nigel." A report from a man who had just been ordered to take soundings induced the captain at this time to lay-to. "It seems to me," he said to Nigel and the hermit who stood close beside him, "that we are getting too near shore. But in cases o' this kind the bottom o' the sea itself can't be depended on." "What part of the shore are we near, d' you think, father?" "Stand by to let go the anchor!" roared the captain, instead of answering the question. "Ay, ay, sir," replied the second mate, whose cool, sing-song, business-like tone at such a moment actually tended to inspire a measure of confidence in those around him. Another moment, and the rattling chain caused a tremor through the vessel, which ceased when the anchor touched bottom, and they rode head to wind. Coruscations of bluish light seemed to play about the masts, and balls of electric fire tipped the yards, throwing for a short time a ghastly sheen over the ship and crew, for the profound darkness had again settled down, owing, no doubt, to another choking of the Krakatoa vent. Before the light referred to went out, Moses was struck violently on the chest by something soft, which caused him to stagger. It was Spinkie! In the midst of the unusual horrors that surrounded him, while clinging to the unfamiliar mizzen shrouds on which in desperation the poor monkey had found a temporary refuge, the electric fire showed him the dark figure of his old familiar friend standing not far off. With a shriek of not quite hopeless despair, and an inconceivable bound, Spinkie launched himself into space. His early training in the forest stood him in good stead at that crisis! As already said he hit the mark fairly, and clung to Moses with a tenacity that was born of mingled love and desperation. Finding that nothing short of cruelty would unfix his little friend, Moses stuffed him inside the breast of his cotton shirt. In this haven of rest the monkey heaved a sigh of profound contentment, folded his hands on his bosom, and meekly went to sleep. Two of the excessively violent paroxysms of the volcano, above referred to, had by that time taken place, but the third, and worst--that which occurred about 10 A.M.--was yet in store for them, though they knew it not, and a lull in the roar, accompanied by thicker darkness than ever, was its precursor. There was not, however, any lull in the violence of the wind. "I don't like these lulls," said Captain Roy to the hermit, as they stood close to the binnacle, in the feeble light of its lamp. "What is that striking against our sides, Mr. Moor?" "Looks like floating pumice, sir," answered the second mate, "and I think I see palm-trees amongst it." "Ay, I thought so, we must be close to land," said the captain. "We can't be far from Anjer, and I fear the big waves that have already passed us have done some damage. Lower a lantern over the side,--no, fetch an empty tar-barrel and let's have a flare. That will enable us to see things better." While the barrel was being fastened to a spar so as to be thrust well out beyond the side of the brig, Van der Kemp descended the companion and opened the cabin door. "Come up now, Winnie, darling." "Yes, father," was the reply, as the poor girl, who had been anxiously awaiting the summons, glided out and clasped her father's arm with both hands. "Are things quieting down?" "They are, a little. It may be temporary, but--Our Father directs it all." "True, father. I'm _so_ glad of that!" "Mind the step, we shall have more light on deck. There is a friend there who has just told me he met you on the Cocos-Keeling Island, Nigel Roy;--you start, Winnie?" "Y--yes, father. I am _so_ surprised, for it is _his_ father who sails this ship! And I cannot imagine how he or you came on board." "Well, I was going to say that I believe it is partly through Nigel that you and I have been brought together, but there is mystery about it that I don't yet understand; much has to be explained, and this assuredly is not the time or place. Here, Nigel, is your old Keeling friend." "Ay--friend! humph!" said old Roy softly to himself. "My _dear_--child!" said young Roy, paternally, to the girl as he grasped her hand. "I cannot tell you how thankful I am that this has been brought about, and--and that _I_ have had some little hand in it." "There's more than pumice floating about in the sea, sir," said Mr. Moor, coming aft at the moment and speaking to the captain in a low tone. "You'd better send the young lady below--or get some one to take up her attention just now." "Here, Nigel. Sit down under the lee of the companion, an' tell Kathy how this all came about," said the captain, promptly, as if issuing nautical orders. "I want you here, Van der Kemp." So saying, the captain, followed by the hermit, went with the second mate to the place where the flaming tar-barrel was casting a lurid glare upon the troubled sea. CHAPTER XXVII. "BLOWN TO BITS." The sight that met their eyes was well calculated to shock and sadden men of much less tender feeling than Van der Kemp and Captain Roy. The water had assumed an appearance of inky blackness, and large masses of pumice were floating past, among which were numerous dead bodies of men, women, and children, intermingled with riven trees, fences, and other wreckage from the land, showing that the two great waves which had already passed under the vessel had caused terrible devastation on some parts of the shore. To add to the horror of the scene large sea-snakes were seen swimming wildly about, as if seeking to escape from the novel dangers that surrounded them. The sailors looked on in awe-stricken silence for some time. "P'raps some of 'em may be alive yet!" whispered one. "Couldn't we lower a boat?" "Impossible in such a sea," said the captain, who overheard the remark. "Besides, no life could exist there." "Captain Roy," said Van der Kemp earnestly, "let me advise you to get your foresail ready to hoist at a moment's notice, and let them stand by to cut the cable." "Why so? There seems no need at present for such strong measures." "You don't understand volcanoes as I do," returned the hermit. "This lull will only last until the imprisoned fires overcome the block in the crater, and the longer it lasts the worse will be the explosion. From my knowledge of the coast I feel sure that we are close to the town of Anjer. If another wave like the last comes while we are here, it will not slip under your brig like the last one. It will tear her from her anchor and hurl us all to destruction. You have but one chance; that is, to cut the cable and run in on the top of it--a poor chance at the best, but if God wills, we shall escape." "If we are indeed as near shore as you think," said the captain, "I know what you say must be true, for in shoal water such a wave will surely carry all before it. But are you certain there will be another explosion?" "No man can be sure of that. If the last explosion emptied the crater there will be no more. If it did not, another explosion is certain. All I advise is that you should be ready for whatever is coming, and ready to take your only chance." "Right you are, sir. Send men to be ready to cut the cable, Mr. Moor. And stand by the topsail halyards." "Ay, ay, sir." During the anxious minutes that followed, the hermit rejoined Winnie and Nigel on the quarter-deck, and conversed with the latter in a low voice, while he drew the former to his side with his strong arm. Captain Roy himself grasped the wheel and the men stood at their various stations ready for action. "Let no man act without orders, whatever happens," said the captain in a deep powerful voice which was heard over the whole ship, for the lull that we have mentioned extended in some degree to the gale as well as to the volcano. Every one felt that some catastrophe was pending. "Winnie, darling," said the hermit tenderly, as he bent down to see the sweet face that had been restored to him. "I greatly fear that there is sure to be another explosion, and it may be His will that we shall perish, but comfort yourself with the certainty that no hair of your dear head can fall without His permission--and in any event He will not fail us." "I know it, father. I have no fear--at least, only a little!" "Nigel," said the hermit, "stick close to us if you can. It may be that, if anything should befall me, your strong arm may succour Winnie; mine has lost somewhat of its vigour," he whispered. "Trust me--nothing but death shall sunder us," said the anxious youth in a burst of enthusiasm. It seemed as if death were indeed to be the immediate portion of all on board the _Sunshine_, for a few minutes later there came a crash, followed by a spout of smoke, fire, steam, and molten lava, compared to which all that had gone before seemed insignificant! The crash was indescribable! As we have said elsewhere, the sound of it was heard many hundreds of miles from the seat of the volcano, and its effects were seen and felt right round the world. The numerous vents which had previously been noticed on Krakatoa must at that moment have been blown into one, and the original crater of the old volcano--said to have been about six miles in diameter--must have resumed its destructive work. All the eye-witnesses who were near the spot at the time, and sufficiently calm to take note of the terrific events of that morning, are agreed as to the splendour of the electrical phenomena displayed during this paroxysmal outburst. One who, at the time, was forty miles distant speaks of the great vapour-cloud looking "like an immense wall or blood-red curtain with edges of all shades of yellow, and bursts of forked lightning at times rushing like large serpents through the air." Another says that "Krakatoa appeared to be alight with flickering flames rising behind a dense black cloud." A third recorded that "the lightning struck the mainmast conductor five or six times," and that "the mud-rain which covered the decks was phosphorescent, while the rigging presented the appearance of St. Elmo's fire." It may be remarked here, in passing, that giant steam-jets rushing through the orifices of the earth's crust constitute an enormous hydro-electric engine; and the friction of ejected materials striking against each other in ascending and descending also generates electricity, which accounts to some extent for the electrical condition of the atmosphere. In these final and stupendous outbursts the volcano was expending its remaining force in breaking up and ejecting the solid lava which constituted its framework, and not in merely vomiting forth the lava-froth, or pumice, which had characterised the earlier stages of the eruption. In point of fact--as was afterwards clearly ascertained by careful soundings and estimates, taking the average height of the missing portion at 700 feet above water, and the depth at 300 feet below it--two-thirds of the island were blown entirely off the face of the earth. The mass had covered an area of nearly six miles, and is estimated as being equal to 1-1/8 cubic miles of solid matter which, as Moses expressed it, was blown to bits! If this had been all, it would have been enough to claim the attention and excite the wonder of the intelligent world--but this was not nearly all, as we shall see, for saddest of all the incidents connected with the eruption is the fact that upwards of thirty-six thousand human beings lost their lives. The manner in which that terrible loss occurred shall be shown by the future adventures of the _Sunshine_. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE." Stunned at first, for a few minutes, by the extreme violence of the explosion, no one on board the _Sunshine_ spoke, though each man stood at his post ready to act. "Strange," said the captain at last. "There seems to be no big wave this time." "That only shows that we are not as near the island as we thought. But it won't be long of----See! There it comes," said the hermit. "Now, Winnie, cling to my arm and put your trust in God." Nigel, who had secured a life-buoy, moved close to the girl's side, and looking anxiously out ahead saw a faint line of foam in the thick darkness which had succeeded the explosion. Already the distant roar of the billow was heard, proving that it had begun to break. "The wind comes with it," said Van der Kemp. "Stand by!" cried the captain, gazing intently over the side. Next moment came the sharp order to hoist the foretopsail and jib, soon followed by "Cut the cable!" There was breeze enough to swing the vessel quickly round. In a few seconds her stern was presented to the coming wave, and her bow cleft the water as she rushed upon what every one now knew was her doom. To escape the great wave was no part of the captain's plan. To have reached the shore before the wave would have been fatal to all. Their only hope lay in the possibility of riding in on the top of it, and the great danger was that they should be unable to rise to it stern first when it came up, or that they should turn broadside on and be rolled over. They had not long to wait. The size of the wave, before it came near enough to be seen, was indicated by its solemn, deep-toned, ever-increasing roar. The captain stood at the wheel himself, guiding the brig and glancing back from time to time uneasily. Suddenly the volcano gave vent to its fourth and final explosion. It was not so violent as its predecessors had been, though more so than any that had occurred on the day before, and the light of it showed them the full terrors of their situation, for it revealed the mountains of Java--apparently quite close in front, though in reality at a considerable distance--with a line of breakers beating white on the shore. But astern of them was the most appalling sight, for there, rushing on with awful speed and a sort of hissing roar, came the monstrous wave, emerging, as it were, out of thick darkness, like a mighty wall of water with a foaming white crest, not much less--according to an average of the most reliable estimates--than 100 feet high. Well might the seamen blanch, for never before in all their varied experience had they seen the like of that. On it came with the unwavering force of Fate. To the eye of Captain Roy it appeared that up its huge towering side no vessel made by mortal man could climb. But the captain had too often stared death in the face to be unmanned by the prospect now. Steadily he steered the vessel straight on, and in a quiet voice said-- "Lay hold of something firm--every man!" The warning was well timed. In the amazement, if not fear, caused by the unwonted sight, some had neglected the needful precaution. As the billow came on, the bubbling, leaping, and seething of its crest was apparent both to eye and ear. Then the roar became tremendous. "Darling Winnie," said Nigel at that moment. "I will die for you or with you!" The poor girl heard, but no sign of appreciation moved her pale face as she gazed up at the approaching chaos of waters. Next moment the brig seemed to stand on its bows. Van der Kemp had placed his daughter against the mast, and, throwing his long arms round both, held on. Nigel, close to them, had grasped a handful of ropes, and every one else was holding on for life. Another moment and the brig rose as if it were being tossed up to the heavens. Immediately thereafter it resumed its natural position in a perfect wilderness of foam. They were on the summit of the great wave, which was so large that its crest seemed like a broad, rounded mass of tumbling snow with blackness before and behind, while the roar of the tumult was deafening. The brig rushed onward at a speed which she had never before equalled even in the fiercest gale--tossed hither and thither by the leaping foam, yet always kept going straight onward by the expert steering of her captain. "Come aft--all of you!" he shouted, when it was evident that the vessel was being borne surely forward on the wave's crest. "The masts will go for certain when we strike." The danger of being entangled in the falling spars and cordage was so obvious that every one except the hermit and Nigel obeyed. "Here, Nigel," gasped the former. "I--I've--lost blood--faint!----" Our hero at once saw that Van der Kemp, fainting from previous loss of blood, coupled with exertion, was unable to do anything but hold on. Indeed, he failed even in that, and would have fallen to the deck had Nigel not caught him by the arm. "Can you run aft, Winnie?" said Nigel anxiously. "Yes!" said the girl, at once understanding the situation and darting to the wheel, of which and of Captain Roy she laid firm hold, while Nigel lifted the hermit in his arms and staggered to the same spot. Winnie knelt beside him immediately, and, forgetting for the moment all the horrors around her, busied herself in replacing the bandage which had been loosened from his head. "Oh! Mr. Roy, save him!--save him!" cried the poor child, appealing in an agony to Nigel, for she felt instinctively that when the crash came her father would be utterly helpless even to save himself. Nigel had barely time to answer when a wild shout from the crew caused him to start up and look round. A flare from the volcano had cast a red light over the bewildering scene, and revealed the fact that the brig was no longer above the ocean's bed, but was passing in its wild career right through, or rather _over_, the demolished town of Anjer. A few of the houses that had been left standing by the previous waves were being swept--hurled--away by this one, but the mass of rolling, rushing, spouting water was so deep, that the vessel had as yet struck nothing save the tops of some palm-trees which bent their heads like straws before the flood. Even in the midst of the amazement, alarm, and anxiety caused by the situation, Nigel could not help wondering that in this final and complete destruction of the town no sign of struggling human beings should be visible. He forgot at the moment, what was terribly proved afterwards, that the first waves had swallowed up men, women, and children by hundreds, and that the few who survived had fled to the hills, leaving nothing for the larger wave to do but complete the work of devastation on inanimate objects. Ere the situation had been well realised the volcanic fires went down again, and left the world, for over a hundred surrounding miles, in opaque darkness. Only the humble flicker of the binnacle light, like a trusty sentinel on duty, continued to shed its feeble rays on a few feet of the deck, and showed that the compass at least was still faithful to the pole! Then another volcanic outburst revealed the fact that the wave which carried them was thundering on in the direction of a considerable cliff or precipice--not indeed quite straight towards it, but sufficiently so to render escape doubtful. At the same time a swarm of terror-stricken people were seen flying towards this cliff and clambering up its steep sides. They were probably some of the more courageous of the inhabitants who had summoned courage to return to their homes after the passage of the second wave. Their shrieks and cries could be heard above even the roaring of the water and the detonations of the volcano. "God spare us!" exclaimed poor Winnie, whose trembling form was now partially supported by Nigel. As she spoke darkness again obscured everything, and they could do naught but listen to the terrible sounds--and pray. On--on went the _Sunshine_, in the midst of wreck and ruin, on this strange voyage over land and water, until a check was felt. It was not a crash as had been anticipated, and as might have naturally been expected, neither was it an abrupt stoppage. There was first a hissing, scraping sound against the vessel's sides, then a steady checking--we might almost say a hindrance to progress--not violent, yet so very decided that the rigging could not bear the strain. One and another of the back-stays parted, the foretopsail burst with a cannon-like report, after which a terrible rending sound, followed by an indescribable crash, told that both masts had gone by the board. Then all was comparatively still--comparatively we say, for water still hissed and leaped beneath them like a rushing river, though it no longer roared, and the wind blew in unfamiliar strains and laden with unwonted odours. At that moment another outburst of Krakatoa revealed the fact that the great wave had borne the brig inland for upwards of a mile, and left her imbedded in a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms! CHAPTER XXIX. TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WOULD AT LARGE. The great explosions of that morning had done more damage and had achieved results more astounding than lies in the power of language adequately to describe, or of history to parallel. Let us take a glance at this subject in passing. An inhabitant of Anjer--owner of a hotel, a ship-chandler's store, two houses, and a dozen boats--went down to the beach about six on the morning of that fateful 27th of August. He had naturally been impressed by the night of the 26th, though, accustomed as he was to volcanic eruptions, he felt no apprehensions as to the safety of the town. He went to look to the moorings of his boats, leaving his family of seven behind him. While engaged in this work he observed a wave of immense size approaching. He leaped into one of his boats, which was caught up by the wave and swept inland, carrying its owner there in safety. But this was the wave that sealed the doom of the town and most of its inhabitants, including the hotel-keeper's family and all that he possessed. This is one only out of thousands of cases of bereavement and destruction. A lighthouse-keeper was seated in his solitary watch-tower, speculating, doubtless, on the probable continuance of such a violent outbreak, while his family and mates--accustomed to sleep in the midst of elemental war--were resting peacefully in the rooms below, when one of the mighty waves suddenly appeared, thundered past, and swept the lighthouse with all its inhabitants away. This shows but one of the many disasters to lighthouses in Sunda Straits. A Dutch man-of-war--the _Berouw_--was lying at anchor in Lampong Bay, fifty miles from Krakatoa. The great wave came, tore it from its anchorage, and carried it--like the vessel of our friend David Roy--nearly two miles inland! Masses of coral of immense size and weight were carried four miles inland by the same wave. The river at Anjer was choked up; the conduit which used to carry water into the place was destroyed, and the town itself was laid in ruins. But these are only a few of the incidents of the great catastrophe. Who can conceive, much less tell of, those terrible details of sudden death and disaster to thousands of human beings, resulting from an eruption which destroyed towns like Telok Betong, Anjer, Tyringin, etc., besides numerous villages and hamlets on the shores of Java and Sumatra, and caused the destruction of more than 36,000 souls? But it is to results of a very different kind, and on a much more extended scale, that we must turn if we would properly estimate the magnitude, the wide-spreading and far-reaching influences, and the extraordinary character, of the Krakatoa outburst of 1883. In the first place, it is a fact, testified to by some of the best-known men of science, that the shock of the explosion extended _appreciably_ right round the world, and seventeen miles (some say even higher!) up into the heavens. Mr. Verbeek, in his treatise on this subject, estimates that a cubic mile of Krakatoa was propelled in the form of the finest dust into the higher regions of the atmosphere--probably about thirty miles! The dust thus sent into the sky was of "ultra-microscopic fineness," and it travelled round and round the world in a westerly direction, producing those extraordinary sunsets and gorgeous effects and afterglows which became visible in the British Isles in the month of November following the eruption; and the mighty waves which caused such destruction in the vicinity of Sunda Straits travelled--not once, but at least--six times round the globe, as was proved by trustworthy and independent observations of tide-gauges and barometers made and recorded at the same time in nearly all lands--including our own. Other volcanoes, it is said by those who have a right to speak in regard to such matters, have ejected more "stuff," but not one has equalled Krakatoa in the intensity of its explosions, the appalling results of the sea-waves, the wonderful effects in the sky, and the almost miraculous nature of the sounds. Seated on a log under a palm-tree in Batavia, on that momentous morning of the 27th, was a sailor who had been left behind sick by Captain Roy when he went on his rather Quixotic trip to the Keeling Islands. He was a somewhat delicate son of the sea. Want of self-restraint was his complaint--leading to a surfeit of fruit and other things, which terminated in a severe fit of indigestion and indisposition to life in general. He was smoking--that being a sovereign and infallible cure for indigestion and all other ills that flesh is heir to, as every one knows! "I say, old man," he inquired, with that cheerful tone and air which usually accompanies incapacity for food. "Do it always rain ashes here?" The old man whom he addressed was a veteran Malay seaman. "No," replied the Malay, "sometimes it rain mud--hot mud." "Do it? Oh! well--anything for variety, I s'pose," returned the sailor, with a growl which had reference to internal disarrangements. "Is it often as dark as this in the daytime, an' is the sun usually green?" he asked carelessly, more for the sake of distracting the mind from other matters than for the desire of knowledge. "Sometime it's more darker," replied the old man. "I've seed it so dark that you couldn't see how awful dark it was." As he spoke, a sound that has been described by ear-witnesses as "deafening" smote upon their tympanums, the log on which they sat quivered, the earth seemed to tremble, and several dishes in a neighbouring hut were thrown down and broken. "I say, old man, suthin' busted there," remarked the sailor, taking the pipe from his mouth and quietly ramming its contents down with the end of his blunt forefinger. The Malay looked grave. "The gasometer?" suggested the sailor. "No, that _never_ busts." "A noo mountain come into action, p'raps, an' blow'd its top off?" "Shouldn't wonder if that's it--close at hand too. We's used to that here. But them's bigger cracks than or'nar'." The old Malay was right as to the cause, but wrong as to distance. Instead of being a volcano "close at hand," it was Krakatoa eviscerating itself a hundred miles off, and the sound of its last grand effort "extended over 50 degrees = about 3000 miles." On that day all the gas lights were extinguished in Batavia, and the pictures rattled on the walls as though from the action of an earthquake. But there was no earthquake. It was the air-wave from Krakatoa, and the noise produced by the air-waves that followed was described as "deafening." The effect of the sounds of the explosions on the Straits Settlements generally was not only striking, but to some extent amusing. At Carimon, in Java--355 miles distant from Krakatoa--it was supposed that a vessel in distress was firing guns, and several native boats were sent off to render assistance, but no distressed vessel was to be found! At Acheen, in Sumatra--1073 miles distant--they supposed that a fort was being attacked and the troops were turned out under arms. At Singapore--522 miles off--they fancied that the detonations came from a vessel in distress and two steamers were despatched to search for it. And here the effect on the telephone, extending to Ishore, was remarkable. On raising the tubes a perfect roar as of a waterfall was heard. By shouting at the top of his voice, the clerk at one end could make the clerk at the other end hear, but he could not render a word intelligible. At Perak--770 miles off--the sounds were thought to be distant salvos of artillery, and Commander Hon. F. Vereker, R.N., of H.M.S. _Magpie_, when 1227 miles distant (in lat. 5° 52' N. long. 118° 22' E.), states that the detonations of Krakatoa were distinctly heard by those on board his ship, and by the inhabitants of the coast as far as Banguey Island, on August 27th. He adds that they resembled distant heavy cannonading. In a letter from St. Lucia Bay--1116 miles distant--it was stated that the eruption was plainly heard all over Borneo. A government steamer was sent out from the Island of Timor--1351 miles off--to ascertain the cause of the disturbance! In South Australia also, at places 2250 miles away, explosions were heard on the 26th and 27th which "awakened" people, and were thought worthy of being recorded and reported. From Tavoy, in Burmah--1478 miles away--the report came--"All day on August 27th unusual sounds were heard, resembling the boom of guns. Thinking there might be a wreck or a ship in distress, the Tavoy Superintendent sent out the police launch, but they 'could see nothing.'" And so on, far and near, similar records were made, the most distant spot where the sounds were reported to have been heard being Rodriguez, in the Pacific, nearly 3000 miles distant! One peculiar feature of the records is that some ships in the immediate neighbourhood of Krakatoa did not experience the shock in proportionate severity. Probably this was owing to their being so near that a great part of the concussion and sound flew over them--somewhat in the same way that the pieces of a bomb-shell fly over men who, being too near to escape by running, escape by flinging themselves flat on the ground. Each air-wave which conveyed these sounds, commencing at Krakatoa as a centre, spread out in an ever-increasing circle till it reached a distance of 180° from its origin and encircled the earth at its widest part, after which it continued to advance in a contracting form until it reached the antipodes of the volcano; whence it was reflected or reproduced and travelled back again to Krakatoa. Here it was turned right-about-face and again despatched on its long journey. In this way it oscillated backward and forward not fewer than six times before traces of it were lost. We say "traces," because these remarkable facts were ascertained, tracked, and corroborated by independent barometric observation in all parts of the earth. For instance, the passage of the great air-wave from Krakatoa to its antipodes, and from its antipodes back to Krakatoa, was registered six times by the automatic barometer at Greenwich. The instrument at Kew Observatory confirmed the records of Greenwich, and so did the barometers of other places in the kingdom. Everywhere in Europe also this fact was corroborated, and in some places even a seventh oscillation was recorded. The Greenwich record shows that the air-waves took about thirty-six hours to travel from pole to pole, thus proving that they travelled at about the rate of ordinary sound-waves, which, roughly speaking, travel at the rate of between six and seven hundred miles an hour. The height of the sea-waves that devastated the neighbouring shores, being variously estimated at from 50 to 135 feet, is sufficiently accounted for by the intervention of islands and headlands, etc., which, of course, tended to diminish the force, height, and volume of waves in varying degrees. These, like the air-waves, were also registered--by self-acting tide-gauges and by personal observation--all over the world, and the observations _coincided as to date with the great eruptions of the 26th and 27th of August_. The influence of the sea-waves was observed and noted in the Java sea--which is shallow and where there are innumerable obstructions--as far as 450 miles, but to the west they swept over the deep waters of the Indian Ocean on to Cape Horn, and even, it is said, to the English Channel. The unusual disturbance of ocean in various places was sufficiently striking. At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the 27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that small boats at their anchorage were left aground--a thing that had never been seen before. The period of recession was only one-and-a-half minutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and, beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest high-water mark in less than two minutes, thus marking a difference of 8 feet 10 inches instead of the ordinary 2 feet. At one place there was an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, within half-an-hour. At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground, was washed away, so that according to the observer "it appeared as if the dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nut garden!" Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten or twelve times--in one case even twenty times--on the 27th. At Trincomalee the sea receded three times and returned with singular force, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fish struggling in the mud. The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at once made manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashed into the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest, when--alas for the poor fishermen!--the sea rushed in again and drove them all away. In the Mauritius, however, the fishers were more fortunate, for when their beach was exposed in a similar manner, they succeeded in capturing a good many fish before the water returned. Even sharks were disturbed in their sinister and slimy habits of life by this outburst of Krakatoa--and no wonder, when it is recorded that in some places "the sea looked like water boiling heavily in a pot," and that "the boats which were afloat were swinging in all directions." At one place several of these monsters were flung out of their native home into pools, where they were left struggling till their enemy man terminated their career. Everywhere those great waves produced phenomena which were so striking as to attract the attention of all classes of people, to ensure record in most parts of the world, and to call for the earnest investigation of the scientific men of many lands--and the conclusion to which such men have almost universally come is, that the strange vagaries of the sea all over the earth, the mysterious sounds heard in so many widely distant places, and the wonderful effects in the skies of every quarter of the globe, were all due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883. With reference to these last--the sky-effects-a few words may not be out of place here. The superfine "ultra-microscopic" dust, which was blown by the volcano in quantities so enormous to such unusual heights, was, after dropping its heavier particles back to earth, caught by the breezes which always blow in the higher regions from east to west, and carried by them for many months round and round the world. The dust was thickly and not widely spread at first, but as time went on it gradually extended itself on either side, becoming visible to more and more of earth's inhabitants, and at the same time becoming necessarily less dense. Through this medium the sun's rays had to penetrate. In so far as the dust-particles were opaque they would obscure these rays; where they were transparent or polished they would refract and reflect them. That the material of which those dust-particles was composed was very various has been ascertained, proved, and recorded by the Krakatoa Committee. The attempt to expound this matter would probably overtax the endurance of the average reader, yet it may interest all to know that this dust-cloud travelled westward within the tropics at the rate of about double the speed of an express train--say 120 miles an hour; crossed the Indian Ocean and Africa in three days, the Atlantic in two, America in two, and, in short, put a girdle round the world in thirteen days. Moreover, the cloud of dust was so big that it took two or three days to pass any given point. During its second circumnavigation it was considerably spread and thinned, and the third time still more so, having expanded enough to include Europe and the greater part of North America. It had thinned away altogether and disappeared in the spring of 1884. Who has not seen--at least read or heard of--the gorgeous skies of the autumn of 1883? Not only in Britain, but in all parts of the world, these same skies were seen, admired, and commented on as marvellous. And so they were. One of the chief peculiarities about them, besides their splendour, was the fact that they consisted chiefly of "afterglows"--that is, an increase of light and splendour _after_ the setting of the sun, when, in an ordinary state of things, the grey shadows of evening would have descended on the world. Greenish-blue suns; pink clouds; bright yellow, orange, and crimson afterglows; gorgeous, magnificent, blood-red skies--the commentators seemed unable to find language adequately to describe them. Listen to a German observer's remarks on the subject:-- "The display of November 29th was the grandest and most manifold. I give a description as exactly; as possible, for its overwhelming magnificence still presents itself to me as if it had been yesterday. When the sun had set about a quarter of an hour, there was not much afterglow, but I had observed a remarkably yellow bow in the south, about 10° above the horizon. In about ten minutes more this arc rose pretty quickly, extended itself all over the east and up to and beyond the zenith. The sailors declared, 'Sir, that is the Northern Lights.' I thought I had never seen Northern Lights in greater splendour. After five minutes more the-light had faded, though not vanished, in the east and south, and the finest purple-red rose up in the south-west; one could imagine one's-self in Fairyland." All this, and a great deal more, was caused by the dust of Krakatoa! "But how--how--why?" exclaims an impatient and puzzled reader. "Ay--there's the rub." Rubbing, by the way, may have had something to do with it. At all events we are safe to say that whatever there was of electricity in the matter resulted from friction. Here is what the men of science say--as far as we can gather and condense. The fine dust blown out of Krakatoa was found, under the microscope, to consist of excessively thin, transparent plates or irregular specks of pumice--which inconceivably minute fragments were caused by enormous steam pressure in the interior and the sudden expansion of the masses blown out into the atmosphere. Of this glassy dust, that which was blown into the regions beyond the clouds must have been much finer even than that which was examined. These glass fragments were said by Dr. Flügel to contain either innumerable air-bubbles or minute needle-like crystals, or both. Small though these vesicles were when ejected from the volcano, they would become still smaller by bursting when they suddenly reached a much lower pressure of atmosphere at a great height. Some of them, however, owing to tenacity of material and other causes, might have failed to burst and would remain floating in the upper air as perfect microscopic glass balloons. Thus the dust was a mass of particles of every conceivable shape, and so fine that no watches, boxes, or instruments were tight enough to exclude from their interior even that portion of the dust which was heavy enough to remain on earth! Now, to the unscientific reader it is useless to say more than that the innumerable and varied positions of these glassy particles, some transparent, others semi-transparent or opaque, reflecting the sun's rays in different directions, with a complex modification of colour and effect resulting from the blueness of the sky, the condition of the atmosphere, and many other causes--all combined to produce the remarkable appearances of light and colour which aroused the admiration and wonder of the world in 1883. The more one thinks of these things, and the deeper one dives into the mysteries of nature, the more profoundly is one impressed at once with a humbling sense of the limited amount of one's knowledge, and an awe-inspiring appreciation of the illimitable fields suggested by that comprehensive expression: "THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD." CHAPTER XXX. COMING EVENTS, ETC.--WONDERFUL CHANGES AMONG THE ISLANDS. Some days after the wreck of the _Sunshine_, as described in a previous chapter, Captain Roy and his son stood on the coast of Java not far from the ruins of Anjer. A vessel was anchored in the offing, and a little boat lay on the shore. All sign of elemental strife had passed, though a cloud of smoke hanging over the remains of Krakatoa told that the terrible giant below was not dead but only sleeping--to awake, perchance, after a nap of another 200 years. "Well, father," said our hero with a modest look, "it may be, as you suggest, that Winnie Van der Kemp does not care for me more than for a fathom of salt water----" "I did not say salt water, lad, I said bilge--a fathom o' _bilge_ water," interrupted the captain, who, although secretly rejoiced at the fact of his son having fallen over head and ears in love with the pretty little Cocos-Keeling islander, deemed it his duty, nevertheless, as a sternly upright parent, to, make quite sure that the love was mutual as well as deep before giving his consent to anything like courtship. "It matters not; salt or bilge water makes little difference," returned the son with a smile. "But all I can say is that I care for Winnie so much that her love is to me of as much importance as sunshine to the world--and we have had some experience lately of what the want of _that_ means." "Nonsense, Nigel," returned the captain severely. "You're workin' yourself into them up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-patterin' regions again--which, by the way, should be pretty well choked wi' Krakatoa dust by this time. Come down out o' that if ye want to hold or'nary intercourse wi' your old father. She's far too young yet, my boy. You must just do as many a young fellow has done before you, attend to your dooties and forget her." "Forget her!" returned the youth, with that amused, quiet expression which wise men sometimes assume when listening to foolish suggestions. "I could almost as easily forget my mother!" "A very proper sentiment, Nigel, very--especially the 'almost' part of it." "Besides," continued the son, "she is not so _very_ young--and that difficulty remedies itself every hour. Moreover, I too am young. I can wait." "The selfishness of youth is only equalled by its presumption," said the captain. "How d'ee know _she_ will wait?" "I don't know, father, but I hope she will--I--I--_think_ she will." "Nigel," said the captain, in a tone and with a look that were meant to imply intense solemnity, "have you ever spoken to her about love?" "No, father." "Has she ever spoken to _you_?" "No--at least--not with her lips." "Come, boy, you're humbuggin' your old father. Her tongue couldn't well do it without the lips lendin' a hand." "Well then--with neither," returned the son. "She spoke with her eyes--not intentionally, of course, for the eyes, unlike the lips, refuse to be under control." "Hm! I see--reef-point-patterin' poetics again! An' what did she say with her eyes?" "Really, father, you press me too hard; it is difficult to translate eye-language, but if you'll only let memory have free play and revert to that time, nigh quarter of a century ago, when you first met with a certain _real_ poetess, perhaps--" "Ah! you dog! you have me there. But how dare you, sir, venture to think of marryin' on nothin'?" "I don't think of doing so. Am I not a first mate with a handsome salary?" "No, lad, you're not. You're nothin' better than a seaman out o' work, with your late ship wrecked in a cocoa-nut grove!" "That's true," returned Nigel with a laugh. "But is not the cargo of the said ship safe in Batavia? Has not its owner a good bank account in England? Won't another ship be wanted, and another first mate, and would the owner dare to pass over his own son, who is such a competent seaman--according to your own showing? Come, father, I turn the tables on you and ask you to aid rather than resist me in this matter." "Well, I will, my boy, I will," said the captain heartily, as he laid his hand on his son's shoulder. "But, seriously, you must haul off this little craft and clap a stopper on your tongue--ay, and on your eyes too--till three points are considered an' made quite clear. First, you must find out whether the hermit would be agreeable. Second, you must look the matter straight in the face and make quite sure that you mean it. For better or for worse. No undoin' _that_ knot, Nigel, once it's fairly tied! And, third, you must make quite sure that Winnie is sure of her own mind, an' that--that--" "We're all sure all round, father. Quite right. I agree with you. 'All fair an' aboveboard' should be the sailing orders of every man in such matters, especially of every seaman. But, will you explain how I am to make sure of Winnie's state of mind without asking her about it?" "Well, I don't exactly see my way," replied the captain slowly. "What d'ee say to my soundin' her on the subject?" "Couldn't think of it! You may be first-rate at deep-sea soundings, father, but you couldn't sound the depths of a young girl's heart. I must reserve that for myself, however long it may be delayed." "So be it, lad. The only embargo that I lay upon you is--haul off, and mind you don't let your figurehead go by the board. Meanwhile, here comes the boat. Now, Nigel, none o' your courtin' till everything is settled and the wind fair--dead aft my lad, and blowin' stiff. You and the hermit are goin' off to Krakatoa to-day, I suppose?" "Yes. I am just now waiting for him and Moses," returned Nigel. "Is Winnie going?" "Don't know. I hope so." "Humph! Well, if we have a fair wind I shall soon be in Batavia," said the captain, descending to business matters, "and I expect without trouble to dispose of the cargo that we landed there, as well as that part o' the return cargo which I had bought before I left for Keeling--at a loss, no doubt, but that don't matter much. Then I'll come back here by the first craft that offers--arter which----. Ay!--Ay! shove her in here. Plenty o' water." The last remark was made to the seaman who steered the boat sent from the vessel in the offing. A short time thereafter Captain Roy was sailing away for Batavia, while his son, with Van der Kemp, Moses, Winnie, and Spinkie, was making for Krakatoa in a native boat. The hermit, in spite of his injuries, had recovered his wonted appearance, if not his wonted vigour. Winnie seemed to have suddenly developed into a mature woman under her recent experiences, though she had lost none of her girlish grace and attractiveness. As for Moses--time and tide seemed to have no effect whatever on his ebony frame, and still less, if possible, on his indomitable spirit. "Now you keep still," he said in solemn tones and with warning looks to Spinkie. "If you keep fidgitin' about you'll capsize de boat. You hear?" Spinkie veiled his real affection for the negro under a look of supreme indifference, while Winnie went off into a sudden giggle at the idea of such a small creature capsizing the boat. Mindful of his father's warning, Nigel did his best to "haul off" and to prevent his "figurehead" from going "by the board." But he found it uncommonly hard work, for Winnie looked so innocent, so pretty, so unconscious, so sympathetic with everybody and everything, so very young, yet so wondrously wise and womanly, that he felt an irresistible desire to prostrate himself at her feet in abject slavery. "Dear little thing," said Winnie, putting her hand on Spinkie's little head and smoothing him down from eyes to tail. Spinkie looked as if half inclined to withdraw his allegiance from Moses and bestow it on Winnie, but evidently changed his mind after a moment's reflection. "O that I were a monkey!" thought Nigel, paraphrasing Shakespeare, "that I might----" but it is not fair to our hero to reveal him in his weaker moments! There was something exasperating, too, in being obliged, owing to the size of the boat, to sit so close to Winnie without having a right to touch her hand! Who has not experienced this, and felt himself to be a very hero of self-denial in the circumstances? "Mos' awrful hot!" remarked Moses, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. "_You_ hot!" said Nigel in surprise. "I thought nothing on earth could be too hot for you." "Dat's your ignerance," returned Moses calmly. "Us niggers, you see, ought to suffer more fro' heat dan you whites." "How so?" "Why, don't your flossiphers say dat black am better dan white for 'tractin' heat, an' ain't our skins black? I wish we'd bin' born white as chalk. I say, Massa Nadgel, seems to me dat dere's not much left ob Krakatoa." They had approached near enough to the island by that time to perceive that wonderful changes had indeed taken place, and Van der Kemp, who had been for some time silently absorbed in contemplation, at last turned to his daughter and said-- "I had feared at first, Winnie, that my old home had been blown entirely away, but I see now that the Peak of Rakata still stands, so perhaps I may yet show you the cave in which I have spent so many years." "But why did you go to live in such a strange place, dear father?" asked the girl, laying her hand lovingly on the hermit's arm. Van der Kemp did not reply at once. He gazed in his child's face with an increase of that absent air and far-away look which Nigel, ever since he met him, had observed as one of his characteristics. At this time an anxious thought crossed him,--that perhaps the blows which his friend had received on his head when he was thrown on the deck of the _Sunshine_ might have injured his brain. "It is not easy to answer your question, dear one," he said after a time, laying his strong hand on the girl's head, and smoothing her luxuriant hair which hung in the untrammelled freedom of nature over her shoulders. "I have felt sometimes, during the last few days, as if I were awaking out of a long long dream, or recovering from a severe illness in which delirium had played a prominent part. Even now, though I see and touch you, I sometimes tremble lest I should really awake and find that it is all a dream. I have so often--so _very_ often--dreamed something like it in years gone by, but never so vividly as now! I cannot doubt--it is sin to doubt--that my prayers have been at last answered. God is good and wise. He knows what is best and does not fail in bringing the best to pass. Yet I have doubted Him--again and again." Van der Kemp paused here and drew his hand across his brow as if to clear away sad memories of the past, while Winnie drew closer to him and looked up tenderly in his face. "When your mother died, dear one," he resumed, "it seemed to me as if the sun had left the heavens, and when _you_ were snatched from me, it was as though my soul had fled and nought but animal life remained. I lived as if in a terrible dream. I cannot recall exactly what I did or where I went for a long long time. I know I wandered through the archipelago looking for you, because I did not believe at first that you were dead. It was at this time I took up my abode in the cave of Rakata, and fell in with my good faithful friend Moses--" "Your sarvint, massa," interrupted the negro humbly. "I's proud to be call your frind, but I's only your sarvint, massa." "Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses," said Van der Kemp, "but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure. After a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period, when I was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to say, even during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander about in search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope seemed to have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as His instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited--for ever!" "Darling father!" were the only words that Winnie could utter as she laid her head on the hermit's shoulder and wept for joy. Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament, her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a problem which he did not care to tackle just then. "See, Winnie," said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on the side of Rakata, "yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now to have been burnt up." "Das so, massa, an' what hasn't bin bu'nt up has bin blow'd up!" remarked the negro. "Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the rest of the island," rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his hands. It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually disappeared from the face of the earth. When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of Rakata (2623 feet high) had been split from top to bottom, and about one-half of it, with all that part of the island lying to the northward, had been blown away, leaving a wall or almost sheer precipice which presented a grand section of the volcano. Pushing their boat into a creek at the base of this precipice, the party landed and tried to reach a position from which a commanding view might be obtained. This was not an easy matter, for there was not a spot for a foot to rest on which was not covered deeply with pumice-dust and ashes. By dint of perseverance, however, they gained a ledge whence the surrounding district could be observed, and then it was clearly seen how wide-spread and stupendous the effects of the explosion had been. Where the greater part of the richly wooded island had formerly flourished, the ocean now rippled in the sunshine, and of the smaller islands around it _Lang_ Island had been considerably increased in bulk as well as in height. _Verlaten_ Island had been enlarged to more than three times its former size and also much increased in height. The island named _Polish Hat_ had disappeared altogether, and two entirely new islets--afterwards named _Steers_ and _Calmeyer_ Islands--had arisen to the northward. "Now, friends," said Van der Kemp, after they had noted and commented on the vast and wonderful changes that had taken place, "we will pull round to our cave and see what has happened there." Descending to the boat they rowed round the southern shores of Rakata until they reached the little harbour where the boat and canoe had formerly been kept. CHAPTER XXXI. ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY. "De cave's blowed away too!" was the first remark of Moses as they rowed into the little port. A shock of disappointment was experienced by Winnie, for she fancied that the negro had referred to her father's old home, but he only meant the lower cave in which the canoe had formerly been kept. She was soon relieved as to this point, however, but, when a landing was effected, difficulties that seemed to her almost insurmountable presented themselves, for the ground was covered knee-deep with pumice-dust, and the road to the upper cave was blocked by rugged masses of lava and ashes, all heaped up in indescribable confusion. On careful investigation, however, it was found that after passing a certain point the footpath was almost unencumbered by volcanic débris. This was owing to the protection afforded to it by the cone of Rakata, and the almost overhanging nature of some of the cliffs on that side of the mountain; still the track was bad enough, and in places so rugged, that Winnie, vigorous and agile though she was, found it both difficult and fatiguing to advance. Seeing this, her father proposed to carry her, but she laughingly declined the proposal. Whereupon Nigel offered to lend her a hand over the rougher places, but this she also declined. Then Moses, stepping forward, asserted his rights. "It's _my_ business," he said, "to carry t'ings w'en dey's got to be carried. M'r'over, as I's bin obleeged to leabe Spinkie in charge ob de boat, I feels okard widout somet'ing to carry, an' you ain't much heavier dan Spinkie, Miss Winnie--so, come along." He stooped with the intention of grasping Winnie as if she were a little child, but with a light laugh the girl sprang away and left Moses behind. "'S'my opinion," said Moses, looking after her with a grin, "dat if de purfesser was here he 'd net her in mistook for a bufferfly. Dar!--she's down!" he shouted, springing forward, but Nigel was before him. Winnie had tripped and fallen. "Are you hurt, dear--child?" asked Nigel, raising her gently. "Oh no! only a little shaken," answered Winnie, with a little laugh that was half hysterical. "I am strong enough to go on presently." "Nay, my child, you _must_ suffer yourself to be carried at this part," said Van der Kemp. "Take her up, Nigel, you are stronger than I am _now_. I would not have asked you to do it before my accident!" Our hero did not need a second bidding. Grasping Winnie in his strong arms he raised her as if she had been a feather, and strode away at a pace so rapid that he soon left Van der Kemp and Moses far behind. "Put me down, now," said Winnie, after a little while, in a low voice. "I'm quite recovered now and can walk." "Nay, Winnie, you are mistaken. The path is very rough yet, and the dust gets deeper as we ascend. _Do_ give me the pleasure of helping you a little longer." Whatever Winnie may have felt or thought she said nothing, and Nigel, taking silence for consent, bore her swiftly onward and upward,--with an "Excelsior" spirit that would have thrown the Alpine youth with the banner and the strange device considerably into the shade,--until he placed her at the yawning black mouth of the hermit's cave. But what a change was there! The trees and flowering shrubs and ferns were all gone, lava, pumice, and ashes lay thick on everything around, and only a few blackened and twisted stumps of the larger trees remained to tell that an umbrageous forest had once flourished there. The whole scene might be fittingly described in the two words--grey desolation. "That is the entrance to your father's old home," said Nigel, as he set his fair burden down and pointed to the entrance. "What a dreadful place!" said Winnie, peering into the black depths of the cavern. "It was not dreadful when I first saw it, Winnie, with rich verdure everywhere; and inside you will find it surprisingly comfortable. But we must not enter until your father arrives to do the honours of the place himself." They had not to wait long. First Moses arrived, and, shrewdly suspecting from the appearance of the young couple that they were engaged in conversation that would not brook interruption, or, perhaps, judging from what might be his own wishes in similar circumstances, he turned his back suddenly on them, and, stooping down, addressed himself to an imaginary creature of the animal kingdom. "What a bootiful bufferfly you is, to be sure! up on sitch a place too, wid nuffin' to eat 'cept Krakatoa dust. I wonder what your moder would say if she know'd you was here. You should be ashamed ob yourself!" "Hallo! Moses, what are you talking to over there?" "Nuffin', Massa Nadgel. I was on'y habin' a brief conv'sation wid a member ob de insect wurld in commemoration ob de purfesser. Leastwise, if it warn't a insect it must hab bin suffm' else. Won't you go in, Miss Winnie?" "No, I'd rather wait for father," returned the girl, looking a little flushed, for some strange and totally unfamiliar ideas had recently floated into her brain and caused some incomprehensible flutterings of the heart to which hitherto she had been a stranger. Mindful of his father's injunctions, however, Nigel had been particularly careful to avoid increasing these flutterings. In a few minutes the hermit came up. "Ah! Winnie," he said, "there has been dire devastation here. Perhaps inside things may look better. Come, take my hand and don't be afraid. The floor is level and your eyes will soon get accustomed to the dim light." "I's afeared, massa," remarked Moses, as they entered the cavern, "dat your sun-lights won't be wu'th much now." "You are right, lad. Go on before us and light the lamps if they are not broken." It was found, as they had expected, that, the only light which penetrated the cavern was that which entered by the cave's mouth, which of course was very feeble. Presently, to Winnie's surprise, Moses was seen issuing from the kitchen with a petroleum lamp in one hand, the brilliant light of which not only glittered on his expressive black visage but sent a ruddy glare all over the cavern. Van der Kemp seemed to watch his daughter intently as she gazed in a bewildered way around. There was a puzzled look as well as mere surprise in her pretty face. "Father," she said earnestly, "you have spoken more than once of living as if in a dream. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that I experience something of that sort now. Strange though this place seems, I have an unaccountable feeling that it is not absolutely new to me--that I have seen it before." "I do not wonder, dear one," he replied, "for the drawings that surround this chamber were the handiwork of your dear mother, and they decorated the walls of your own nursery when you were a little child at your mother's knee. For over ten long years they have surrounded me and kept your faces fresh in my memory--though, truth to tell, it needed no such reminders to do that. Come, let us examine them." It was pleasant to see the earnest face of Winnie as she half-recognised and strove to recall the memories of early childhood in that singular cavern. It was also a sight worth seeing--the countenance of Nigel, as well as that of the hermit, while they watched and admired her eager, puzzled play of feature, and it was the most amazing sight of all to see the all but superhuman joy of Moses as he held the lamp and listened to facts regarding the past of his beloved master which were quite new to him--for the hermit spoke as openly about his past domestic affairs as if he and Winnie had been quite alone. "He either forgets that we are present, or counts us as part of his family," thought Nigel with a feeling of satisfaction. "What a dear comoonicative man!" thought Moses, with unconcealed pleasure. "Come now, let us ascend to the observatory," said the hermit, when all the things in the library had been examined. "There has been damage done there, I know; besides, there is a locket there which belonged to your mother. I left it by mistake one day when I went up to arrange the mirrors, and in the hurry of leaving forgot to return for it. Indeed, one of my main objects in re-visiting my old home was to fetch that locket away. It contains a lock of hair and one of those miniatures which men used to paint before photography drove such work off the field." Winnie was nothing loth to follow, for she had reached a romantic period of life, and it seemed to her that to be led through mysterious caves and dark galleries in the very heart of a still active volcano by her own father--the hermit of Rakata--was the very embodiment of romance itself. But a disappointment awaited them, for they had not proceeded halfway through the dark passage when it was found that a large mass of rock had fallen from the roof and almost blocked it up. "There is a space big enough for us to creep through at the right-hand corner above, I think," said Nigel, taking the lantern from Moses and examining the spot. "Jump up, Moses, and try it," said the hermit. "If your bulky shoulders get through, we can all manage it." The negro was about to obey the order when Nigel let the lantern fall and the shock extinguished it. "Oh! Massa Nadgel; das a pritty business!" "Never mind," said Van der Kemp. "I've got matches, I think, in my--no, I haven't. Have you, Moses?" "No, massa, I forgit to remember him." "No matter, run back--you know the road well enough to follow it in the dark. We will wait here till you return. Be smart, now!" Moses started off at once and for some moments the sound of clattering along the passage was heard. "I will try to clamber through in the dark. Look after Winnie, Nigel--and don't leave the spot where you stand, dear one, for there are cracks and holes about that might sprain your little ankles." "Very well, father." "All right. I've got through, Nigel; I'll feel my way on for a little bit. Remain where you are." "Winnie," said Nigel when they were alone, "doesn't it feel awesome and strange to be standing here in such intense darkness?" "It does--I don't quite like it." "Whereabouts are you?" said Nigel. He carefully stretched out his hand to feel, as he spoke, and laid a finger on her brow. "Oh! take care of my eyes!" exclaimed Winnie with a little laugh. "_I_ wish you would turn your eyes towards me for I'm convinced they would give some light--? to _me_ at least. Here, do let me hold your hand It will make you feel more confident." To one who is at all familiar with the human frame, the way from the brow to the hand is comparatively simple. Nigel soon possessed himself of the coveted article. Like other things of great value the possession turned the poor youth's head! He forgot his father's warnings for the moment, forgot the hermit and Moses and Spinkie, and the thick darkness--forgot almost everything in the light of that touch! "Winnie!" he exclaimed in a tone that quite alarmed her; "I--I--" He hesitated. The solemn embargo of his father recurred to him. "What is it! Is there danger?" exclaimed the poor girl, clasping his hand tighter and drawing nearer to him. This was too much! Nigel felt himself to be contemptible. He was taking unfair advantage of her. "Winnie," he began again, in a voice of forced calmness, "there is no danger whatever. I'm an ass--a dolt--that's all! The fact is, I made my father a sort of half promise that I would not ask your opinion on a certain subject until--until I found out exactly what you thought about it. Now the thing is ridiculous--impossible--for how can I know your opinion on any subject until I have asked you?" "Quite true," returned Winnie simply, "so you better ask me." "Ha! _ha_!" laughed Nigel, in a sort of desperate amusement, "I--I--Yes, I _will_ ask you, Winnie! But first I must explain----" "Hallo! Nigel!" came at that moment from the other side of the obstruction, "are you there--all right?" "Yes, yes--I'm here--_not_ all right exactly, but I'll be all right _some day_, you may depend upon that!" shouted the youth, in a tone of indignant exasperation. "What said you?" asked Van der Kemp, putting his head through the hole. "Hi! I's a-comin', look out, dar!" hallooed Moses in the opposite direction. "Just so," said Nigel, resuming his quiet tone and demeanour, "we'll be all right when the light comes. Here, give us your hand, Van der Kemp." The hermit accepted the proffered aid and leaped down amongst his friends just as Moses arrived with the lantern. "It's of no use going further," he said. "The passage is completely blocked up--so we must go round to where the mountain has been split off and try to clamber up. There will be daylight enough yet if we are quick. Come." CHAPTER XXXII. THE LAST. Descending to the boat they rowed round to the face of the great cliff which had been so suddenly laid bare when the Peak of Rakata was cleft from its summit to its foundations in the sea. It was a wonderful sight--a magnificent section, affording a marvellous view of the internal mechanism of a volcano. But there was no time to spend in contemplation of this extraordinary sight, for evening approached and the hermit's purpose had to be accomplished. High up near the top of the mighty cliff could be seen a small hole in the rock, which was all that remained of the observatory. "It will be impossible, I fear, to reach that spot," said Nigel; "there does not appear to be foothold for a goat." "I will reach it," said the hermit in a low voice, as he scanned the precipice carefully. "So will I," said the negro. "No, Moses, I go alone. You will remain in the boat and watch. If I fall, you can pick me up." "Pick you up!" echoed Moses. "If you tumbles a t'ousand feet into de water how much t'ink you will be lef to pick up?" It was useless to attempt to dissuade Van der Kemp. Being well aware of this, they all held their peace while he landed on a spur of the riven cliff. The first part of the ascent was easy enough, the ground having been irregularly broken, so that the climber disappeared behind masses of rock at times, while he kept as much as possible to the western edge of the mountain where the cleavage had occurred; but as he ascended he was forced to come out upon narrow ledges that had been left here and there on the face of the cliff, where he seemed, to those who were watching far below, like a mere black spot on the face of a gigantic wall. Still upward he went, slowly but steadily, till he reached a spot nearly level with the observatory. Here he had to go out on the sheer precipice, where his footholds were invisible from below. Winnie sat in the boat with blanched face and tightly clasped hands, panting with anxiety as she gazed upwards. "It looks much more dangerous from here than it is in reality," said Nigel to her in a reassuring tone. "Das true, Massa Nadgel, das bery true," interposed Moses, endeavouring to comfort himself as well as the others by the intense earnestness of his manner. "De only danger, Miss Winnie, lies in your fadder losin' his head at sitch a t'riffic height, an' dar's no fear at all ob dat, for Massa neber loses his head--pooh! you might as well talk ob him losin' his heart. Look! look! he git close to de hole now--he put his foot--yes--next step--dar! he've done it!" With the perspiration of anxiety streaming down his face the negro relieved his feelings by a wild prolonged cheer. Nigel obtained the same relief by means of a deep long-drawn sigh, but Winnie did not move; she seemed to realise her father's danger better than her companions, and remembered that the descent would be much more difficult than the ascent. They were not kept long in suspense. In a few minutes the hermit reappeared and began to retrace his steps--slowly but steadily--and the watchers breathed more freely. Moses was right; there was in reality little danger in the climb, for the ledges which appeared to them like mere threads, and the footholds that were almost invisible, were in reality from a foot to three feet wide. The only danger lay in the hermit's head being unable to stand the trial, but, as Moses had remarked, there was no fear of that. The watchers were therefore beginning to feel somewhat relieved from the tension of their anxiety, when a huge mass of rock was seen to slip from the face of the cliff and descend with the thunderous roar of an avalanche. The incident gave those in the boat a shock, for the landslip occurred not far from the spot which Van der Kemp had reached, but as he still stood there in apparent safety there seemed no cause for alarm till it was observed that the climber remained quite still for a long time and, seemed to have no intention of moving. "God help him!" cried Nigel in sudden alarm, "the ledge has been carried away and he cannot advance! Stay by the boat, Moses, I will run to help him!" "No, Massa Nadgel," returned the negro, "I go to die wid 'im. Boat kin look arter itself." He sprang on shore as he spoke, and dashed up the mountain-side like a hunted hare. Our hero looked at Winnie for an instant in hesitation. "Go!" said the poor girl. "You know I can manage a boat--quick!" Another moment and Nigel was following in the track of the negro. They gained the broken ledge together, and then found that the space between the point which they had reached and the spot on which the hermit stood was a smooth face of perpendicular rock--an absolutely impassable gulf! Van der Kemp was standing with his back flat against the precipice and his feet resting on a little piece of projecting rock not more than three inches wide. This was all that lay between him and the hideous depth below, for Nigel found on carefully drawing nearer that the avalanche had been more extensive than was apparent from below, and that the ledge beyond the hermit had been also carried away--thus cutting off his retreat as well as his advance. "I can make no effort to help myself," said Van der Kemp in a low but calm voice, when our hero's foot rested on the last projecting point that he could gain, and found that with the utmost reach of his arm he could not get within six inches of his friend's outstretched hand. Besides, Nigel himself stood on so narrow a ledge, and against so steep a cliff, that he could not have acted with his wonted power even if the hand could have been grasped. Moses stood immediately behind Nigel, where the ledge was broader and where a shallow recess in the rock enabled him to stand with comparative ease. The poor fellow seemed to realise the situation more fully than his companion, for despair was written on every feature of his expressive face. "What is to be done?" said Nigel, looking back. "De boat-rope," suggested the negro. "Useless," said Van der Kemp, in a voice as calm and steady as if he were in perfect safety, though the unusual pallor of his grave countenance showed that he was fully alive to the terrible situation. "I am resting on little more than my heels, and the strain is almost too much for me even now. I could not hold on till you went to the boat and returned. No, it seems to be God's will--and," added he humbly, "His will be done." "O God, send us help!" cried Nigel in an agony of feeling that he could not master. "If I had better foothold I might spring towards you and catch hold of you," said the hermit, "but I cannot spring off my heels. Besides, I doubt if you could bear my weight." "Try, try!" cried Nigel, eagerly extending his hand. "Don't fear for my strength--I've got plenty of it, thank God! and see, I have my right arm wedged into a crevice so firmly that nothing could haul it out." But Van der Kemp shook his head. "I cannot even make the attempt," he said. "The slightest move would plunge me down. Dear boy! I know that you and your father and Moses will care for my Winnie, and--" "Massa!" gasped Moses, who while the hermit was speaking had been working his body with mysterious and violent energy; "massa! couldn't you _fall_ dis way, an' Nadgel could kitch your hand, an' I's got my leg shoved into a hole as nuffin' 'll haul it out ob. Dere's a holler place here. If Nadgel swings you into dat, an' I only once grab you by de hair--you're safe!" "It might be done--tried at least," said the hermit, looking anxiously at his young friend. "Try it!" cried Nigel, "I won't fail you." It is not possible for any except those who have gone through a somewhat similar ordeal to understand fully the test of cool courage which Van der Kemp had to undergo on that occasion. Shutting his eyes for a moment in silent prayer, he deliberately worked with his shoulders upon the cliff against which he leaned until he felt himself to be on the point of falling towards his friend, and the two outstretched hands almost touched. "Now, are you ready?" he asked. "Ready," replied Nigel, while Moses wound both his powerful arms round his comrade's waist and held on. Another moment and the hands clasped, Nigel uttered an irrepressible shout as the hermit swung off, and, coming round with great violence to the spot where the negro had fixed himself, just succeeded in catching the edge of the cliff with his free hand. "Let go, Nigel," he shouted;--"safe!" The poor youth was only too glad to obey, for the tremendous pull had wrenched his arm out of the crevice in which he had fixed it, and for a moment he swayed helplessly over the awful abyss. "Don't let me go, Moses!" he yelled, as he made a frantic but futile effort to regain his hold,--for he felt that the negro had loosened one of his arms though the other was still round him like a hoop of iron. "No fear, Nadgel," said Moses, "I's got you tight--only don' wriggle. Now, massa, up you come." Moses had grasped his master's hair with a grip: that well-nigh scalped him, and he held on until the hermit had got a secure hold of the ledge with both hands. Then he let the hair go, for he knew that to an athlete like his master the raising himself by his arms on to the ledge would be the Work of a few seconds. Van der Kemp was thus able to assist in rescuing Nigel from his position of danger. But the expressions of heartfelt thankfulness for this deliverance which naturally broke from them were abruptly checked when it was found that Moses could by no means extract his leg out of the hole into which he had thrust it, and that he was suffering great pain. After some time, and a good deal of violent wrenching, during which our sable hero mingled a few groans in strange fashion with his congratulations, he was got free, and then it was found that the strain had been too much for even his powerful bones and sinews, for the leg was broken. "My poor fellow!" murmured Van der Kemp, as he went down on his knees to examine the limb. "Don' care a buttin for dat, massa. You're safe, an' Nadgel's safe--an' it only cost a broken leg! Pooh! das nuffin'!" said Moses, unable to repress a few tears in the excess of his joy and pain! With considerable difficulty they carried the poor negro down to the boat, where they found Winnie, as might be supposed, in a half-fainting condition from the strain of prolonged anxiety and terror to which she had been subjected; but the necessity of attending to the case of the injured Moses was an antidote which speedily restored her. Do you think, good reader, that Nigel and Winnie had much difficulty in coming to an understanding after that, or that the hermit was disposed to throw any obstacles in the way of true love? If you do, let us assure you that you are mistaken. Surely this is information enough for any intelligent reader. Still, it may be interesting to add, difficulties did not all at once disappear. The perplexities that had already assailed Nigel more than once assailed him again--perplexities about a negro man-servant, and a household monkey, and a hermit father-in-law, and a small income--to say nothing of a disconsolate mother-poetess in England and a father roving on the high seas! How to overcome these difficulties gave him much thought and trouble; but they were overcome at last. That which seemed impossible to man proved to be child's-play in the hands of woman. Winnie solved the difficulty by suggesting that they should all return to the Cocos-Keeling Islands and dwell together there for evermore! * * * * * Let us drop in on them, good reader, at a later period, have a look at them, and bid them all good-bye. On a green knoll by the margin of the lagoon stands a beautiful cottage with a garden around it, and a pleasure-boat resting on the white coral sand in front. From the windows of that cottage there is a most magnificent view of the lagoon with its numerous islets and its picturesque palm-trees. Within that cottage dwell Nigel and Winnie, and a brown-eyed, brown-haired, fair-skinned baby girl who is "the most extraordinary angel that ever was born." It has a nurse of its own, but is chiefly waited on and attended to by an antique poetess, who dwells in another cottage, a stone's-cast off, on the same green knoll. There she inspires an ancient mariner with poetical sentiments--not your up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-pattering nonsense, observe; but the real genuine article, superior to "that other fellow's," you know--when not actively engaged with _the_ baby. The first cottage is named Rakata, in honour of our hermit, who is one of its inhabitants. The second is named Krakatoa by its eccentric owner, Captain Roy. It must not be imagined, however, that our friends have settled down there to spend their lives in idleness. By no means. This probably would not be permitted by the "King of the Cocos Islands" even if they wished to do so. But they do not wish that. There is no such condition as idleness in the lives of good men and women. Nigel has taken to general superintendence of the flourishing community in the midst of which he has cast his lot. He may be almost regarded as the prime minister of the islands, in addition to which he has started an extensive boat-building business and a considerable trade in cocoa-nuts, etc., with the numerous islands of the Java Sea; also a saw-mill, and a forge, and a Sunday-school--in which last the pretty, humble-minded Winnie lends most efficient aid. Indeed it is said that she is the chief manager as well as the life and soul of that business, though Nigel gets all the credit. Captain Roy sometimes sails his son's vessels, and sometimes looks after the secular education of the Sunday-school children--the said education being conducted on the principle of unlimited story-telling with illimitable play of fancy. But his occupations are irregular--undertaken by fits and starts, and never to be counted on. His evenings he usually devotes to poetry and pipes--for the captain is obstinate, and sticks--like most of us--to his failings as well as his fancies. There is a certain eccentric individual with an enthusiastic temperament and blue binoculars who pays frequent and prolonged visits to the Keeling Islands. It need scarcely be said that his name is Verkimier. There is no accounting for the tastes of human beings. Notwithstanding all his escapes and experiences, that indomitable man of science still ranges, like a mad philosopher, far and wide over the archipelago in pursuit of "booterflies ant ozer specimens of zee insect vorld." It is observed, however, even by the most obtuse among his friends, that whereas in former times the professor's nights were centrifugal they have now become centripetal--the Keeling Islands being the great centre towards which he flies. Verkimier is, and probably will always be, a subject of wonder and of profound speculation to the youthful inhabitants of the islands. They don't understand him and he does not understand them. If they were insects he would take deep and intelligent interest in them. As they are merely human beings, he regards them with that peculiar kind of interest with which men regard the unknown and unknowable. He is by no means indifferent to them. He is too kindly for that. He studies them deeply, though hopelessly, and when he enters the Sunday-school with his binoculars--which he often does, to listen--a degree of awe settles down on the little ones which it is impossible to evoke by the most solemn appeals to their spiritual natures. Nigel and Winnie have a gardener, and that gardener is black--as black as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps slightly on his right leg--his "game" leg, as he styles it. He is, of course, an _immense_ favourite with the young people--not less than with the old. He has been known to say, with a solemnity that might tickle the humorous and horrify the timid, that he wouldn't "hab dat game leg made straight agin! no, not for a hundred t'ousand pounds. 'Cause why? --it was an eber-present visible reminder dat once upon a time he had de libes ob massa and Nadgel in his arms ahangin' on to his game leg, an' dat, t'rough Gracious Goodness, he sabe dem bof!" Ha! You may smile at Moses if you will, but he can return the smile with kindly interest, for he is actuated by that grand principle which will sooner or later transform even the scoffers of earth, and which is embodied in the words--"Love is the fulfilling of the law." Even the lower animals testify to this fact when the dog licks the hand that smites it and accords instant forgiveness on the slightest encouragement. Does not Spinkie prove it also, when, issuing at call, from its own pagoda in the sunniest corner of the Rakata garden, it forsakes cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, fruits, and other delights, to lay its little head in joyful consecration on the black bosom of its benignant friend? And what of Moses' opinion of the new home? It may be shortly expressed in his own words-"It's heaben upon eart', an' de most happiest time as eber occurred to me was dat time when Sunda Straits went into cumbusti'n an' Krakatoa was Blown to Bits." THE END Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, _at the Edinburgh University Press_. * * * * * +ADVERTISEMENTS+ BY MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. each. * * * * * 'The fathers, mothers, guardians, uncles, and aunts who wish to find an acceptable birthday present for a healthy-minded boy of normal tastes, cannot possibly go wrong if they buy a book with Mr. Ballantyne's name on the title-page.'--_Academy_. * * * * * +The Hot Swamp+: A Romance of Old Albion. +The Buffalo Runners+: A Tale of the Red River Plains. +Charlie to the Rescue+: A Tale of the Sea and the Rockies. +Blown to Bits+; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata: A Tale of the Malay Archipelago. +Blue Lights+; or, Hot Work in the Soudan. A Tale of Soldier Life. +The Fugitives+; or, The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar. +Red Rooney+; or, The Last of the Crew. +The Rover of the Andes+: A Tale of Adventure in South America. +The Young Trawler+: A Story of Life, Death, and Rescue in the North Sea. +Dusty Diamonds, Cut and Polished+: A Tale of City Arab Life. +The Battery and the Boiler+; or, Adventures of a Telegraph-Cable Layer. +The Giant of the North+; or, Pokings Round the Pole. +The Lonely Island+; or, The Refuge of the Mutineers. +Post Haste+: A Tale of Her Majesty's Mails. +In the Track of the Troops+: A Tale of Modern War. +The Settler and the Savage+: A Tale of Peace and War in South Africa. +Under the Waves+; or, Diving in Deep Waters. +The Lifeboat+: A Tale of our Coast Heroes. +The Golden Dream+: A Tale of the Diggings. +The Red Eric+; or, The Whaler's Last Cruise. +Freaks on the Fells+, and +Why I+ did not Become a Sailor. +The Wild Man of the West+. +Gascoyne, the Sandalwood+ Trader: A Tale of the Pacific. +Rivers of Ice+: A Tale Illustrative of Alpine Adventure and Glacier Action. +The Pirate City+: An Algerine Tale. +Black Ivory+: A Tale of Adventure among the Slavers of East Africa. +The Norsemen in the West+; or, America before Columbus. +The Iron Horse+; or, Life on the Line. A Railway Tale. +Erling the Bold+: A Tale of the Norse Sea Kings. +Fighting the Flames+: A Tale of the London Fire Brigade. +Deep Down+: A Tale of the Cornish Mines. +The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands+. +Shifting Winds+: A Tough Yarn. +The Lighthouse+: Being the Story of a Great Fight between Man and the Sea. +The Big Otter+: A Tale of the Far Nor'West. Extra Crown 8vo, 5s. +The Walrus Hunters+: A Romance of the Realms of Ice. BY MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each. HUNTED AND HARRIED. A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE; Or, THE RISING TIDE. AND OTHER TALES. THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN; Or, Low LIFE HIGH UP. AND JEFF BENSON; or, THE YOUNG COASTGUARDSMAN. THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL. A STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND. THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS: AN ALGERINE TALE. THE PRAIRIE CHIEF. LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE: A FIERY TALE. AND FORT DESOLATION; or, SOLITUDE IN THE WILDERNESS. THE ISLAND QUEEN; Or, DETHRONED BY FIRE AND WATER. A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. TWICE BOUGHT: A TALE OF THE OREGON GOLD-FIELDS. THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE. MY DOGGIE AND I. PHILOSOPHER JACK: A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS. THE RED MAN'S REVENGE. SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE. LETTERS TO PERIWINKLE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. A RECORD OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND ADVENTURE. BATTLES WITH THE SEA; Or, HEROES OF THE LIFEBOAT AND THE ROCKET. Price 3s. 6d. each. TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN. TALES OF ADVENTURE; Or, WILD WORK IN STRANGE PLACES. TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. THE KITTEN PILGRIMS; Or, GREAT BATTLES AND GRAND VICTORIES. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. JAMES NISBET & CO.'S SELECT LIST OF BOOKS SUITABLE FOR PRESENTS AND PRIZES, BY WELL-KNOWN AND POPULAR WRITERS. Profusely Illustrated and handsomely Bound in Cloth. _A Complete List will be forwarded post free on application to the Publishers_. WORKS by Mrs. MARSHALL. "Readers who value culture and refinement, but, above all, seek for truth and unction, will recommend her tales, especially for young ladies."-_Churchman_. With numerous Illustrations. +Price Five Shillings each. Extra Crown 8vo.+ THE CLOSE OF ST. CHRISTOPHER'S. NEW RELATIONS. A Story for Girls. THOSE THREE; OR, LITTLE WINGS. EASTWARD HO! A Story for Girls. LAUREL CROWNS; OR, GRISELDA'S AIM. HOUSES ON WHEELS. A Story for Children. +Price Three Shillings and Sixpence each. Crown 8vo.+ IN THE PURPLE. DAPHNE'S DECISION; OR, WHICH SHALL IT BE? THE ROSES OF RINGWOOD. A Story for Children. CASSANDRA'S CASKET. SILVER CHIMES; OR, OLIVE. STORIES OF THE CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND. POPPIES AND PANSIES. REX AND REGINA; OR, THE SONG OF THE RIVER. DEWDROPS AND DIAMONDS. HEATHER AND HAREBELL. MISTRESS MATCHETT'S MISTAKE. A very old Story. SIR VALENTINE'S VICTORY, AND OTHER STORIES. OUR OWN PICTURE BOOK. 151 Illustrations. Small 4to. +Price Two Shillings and Sixpence each.+ DULCIBEL'S DAY-DREAMS; OR, THE GRAND, SWEET SONG. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. PICTURES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER. With Appropriate Stories for Children. Medium 4to. THE LIFE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN. 12 Illustrations. Medium 4to. Mrs. MARSHALL'S WORKS--continued. +Price Two Shillings each.+ With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. OLIVER'S OLD PICTURES; OR, THE MAGIC CIRCLE. RUBY AND PEARL; OR, THE CHILDREN AT CASTLE AYLMER. A Story for Little Girls. +Price One Shilling and Sixpence each.+ With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. NATURE'S GENTLEMAN. THE BRIDE'S HOME. MY LADY BOUNTIFUL. STELLAFONT ABBEY; OR, NOTHING NEW. GOLDEN SILENCE. WHEN I WAS YOUNG. MATTHEW FROST, CARRIER; OR, LITTLE SNOWDROP'S MISSION. MICHAEL'S TREASURES; OR, CHOICE SILVER. MY GRANDMOTHER'S PICTURES. MARJORY; OR, THE GIFT OF PEACE. GRACE BUXTON; OR, THE LIGHT OF HOME. THREE LITTLE BROTHERS. THREE LITTLE SISTERS. THE BIRTH OF A CENTURY; OR, EIGHTY YEARS AGO. THE STORY OF JOHN MARBECK: A Windsor Organist of 300 Years Ago. His Work and His Reward. +Price One Shilling each.+ HEATHERCLIFFE; OR, IT'S NO CONCERN OF MINE. DAISY BRIGHT. THE LITTLE PEAT-CUTTERS; OR, THE SONG OF LOVE. PRIMROSE; OR, THE BELLS OF OLD EFFINGHAM. TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY: A STORY OF SUMMER AND WINTER HOLIDAYS. BETWEEN THE CLIFFS; OR, HAL FORESTER'S ANCHOR. A VIOLET IN THE SHADE. LIGHT ON THE LILY; OR, A FLOWER'S MESSAGE. A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN. A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK. +By R.M. BALLANTYNE. With Illustrations. Extra Crown 8vo. 5s.+ "The fathers, mothers, guardians, uncles, and aunts who wish to find an acceptable present for a healthy-minded boy cannot possibly go wrong if they buy a book with Mr. Ballantyne's name on the title-page."--_Academy_. THE WALRUS HUNTERS: A Tale of Esquimaux Land. +Crown 8vo. With Illustrations. 3s. 6d. each.+ THE HOT SWAMP: A Romance of Old Albion. THE BUFFALO RUNNERS: A Tale of the Red River Plains. CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE! A Tale of the Sea and the Rockies. BLOWN TO BITS; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata. A Tale of the Malay Archipelago. BLUE LIGHTS; or, Hot Work in the Soudan. THE FUGITIVES; or, The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar. RED ROONEY; or, The Last of the Crew. THE ROVER OF THE ANDES: A Tale of Adventure in South America. THE YOUNG TRAWLER: A Story of Life and Death and Rescue in the North Sea. DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED: A Tale of Arab City Life. THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER; or, Adventures in the Laying of Submarine Electric Cables. THE GIANT OF THE NORTH; or, Pokings Round the Pole. THE LONELY ISLAND; or, The Refuge of the Mutineers. POST HASTE: A Tale of Her Majesty's Mails. IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS: A Tale of Modern War. THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE: A Tale of Peace and War in South Africa. UNDER THE WAVES; or, Diving in Deep Waters. RIVERS OF ICE: A Tale Illustrative of Alpine Adventure and Glacier Action. THE PIRATE CITY: An Algerine Tale. BLACK IVORY: A Tale of Adventure among the Slavers of East Africa. THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST; or, America before Columbus. THE IRON HORSE; or, Life on the Line. THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS. ERLING THE BOLD: A Tale of the Norse Sea-Kings. Mr. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S BOOKS--continued. THE GOLDEN DREAM: A Tale of the Diggings. DEEP DOWN: A Tale of the Cornish Mines. FIGHTING THE FLAMES: A Tale of the London Fire-Brigade. SHIFTING WINDS: A Tough Yarn. THE LIGHTHOUSE; or, The Story of a Great Fight between Man and the Sea. THE LIFEBOAT: A Tale of our Coast Heroes. GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER. THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains. THE RED ERIC; or, The Whaler's Last Cruise. FREAKS ON THE FELLS: and Why I did not become a Sailor? * * * * * +With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each.+ HUNTED AND HARRIED. A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE; or, The Rising Tide. And other Tales. THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN; or, Low Life High Up: and JEFF BENSON; or, The Young Coastguardsman. THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL. THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS. LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE. A Fiery Tale. THE PRAIRIE CHIEF. A Tale. THE ISLAND QUEEN; or, Dethroned by Fire and Water. THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE. TWICE BOUGHT: A Tale of the Oregon Gold Fields. MY DOGGIE AND I. THE RED MAN'S REVENGE. PHILOSOPHER JACK: A Tale of the Southern Seas. SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE. BATTLES WITH THE SEA; or, Heroes of the Lifeboat and the Rocket. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. THE KITTEN PILGRIMS; or, Great Battles and Grand Victories. Crown 8vo. 2s. +Price 3s. 6d. each.+ TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN. TALES OF ADVENTURE; or, Wild Work in Strange Places. TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST. +MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S MISCELLANY of ENTERTAINING and INSTRUCTIVE TALES+. +With Illustrations. 1s. each+. _Also in a Handsome Cloth Case, Price 20s_. The "Athenæum" says:--"There is no more practical way of communicating elementary information than that which has been adopted in this series. When we see contained in 124 small pages (as in _Fast in the Ice_) such information as a man of fair education should possess about icebergs, northern lights, Esquimaux, musk-oxen, bears, walruses, &c., together with all the ordinary incidents of an Arctic voyage woven into a clear connected narrative, we must admit that a good work has been done, and that the author deserves the gratitude of those for whom the books are especially designed, and also of young people of all classes." I. FIGHTING THE WHALES; or, Doings and Dangers on a Fishing Cruise. II. AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS; or, Life among the Red Indians and Fur Traders of North America. III. FAST IN THE ICE; or, Adventures In the Polar Regions. IV. CHASING THE SUN; or, Rambles in Norway. V. SUNK AT SEA; or, The Adventures of Wandering Will in the Pacific. VI. LOST IN THE FOREST; or, Wandering Will's Adventures in South America. MR. R.M. BALLANTYNE'S MISCELLANY--continued. VII. OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS; or, Wandering Will in the Land of the Red Skin. VIII. SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT; or, A Tale of Wreck and Rescue on the Coast. IX. THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS; or, Captain Cook's Adventures in the South Seas. X. HUNTING THE LIONS; or, The Land of the Negro. XI. DIGGING FOR GOLD; or, Adventures in California. XII. UP IN THE CLOUDS; or, Balloon Voyages. XIII. THE BATTLE AND THE BREEZE; or, The Fights and Fancies of a British Tar. XIV. THE PIONEERS: A Tale of the Western Wilderness. XV. THE STORY OF THE ROCK. XVI. WRECKED, BUT NOT RUINED. XVII. THE THOROGOOD FAMILY. XVIII. THE LIVELY POLL: A Tale of the North Sea. +By AGNES GIBERNE+. "Tales that bear Miss Giberne's name are 'the best of the best.' No writer excels her in this department of literature."--_Fireside News_. "That the story is Miss Giberne's guarantees refinement and Christian principle."--_Churchman_. * * * * * THE ANDERSONS. Illustrated. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. THE DALRYMPLES. With Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. "LEAST SAID, SOONEST MENDED." 3s. 6d. "A simple tale, well told."--_Guardian_. "To say that it is by Miss Giberne is at once to recommend the story highly to girls."--_Quiver_. "A well written and most interesting tale."--_Glasgow Herald_. "A well written story. The moral is conveyed in a most interesting way, and as a mere tale it will well repay perusal."--_Church Review_. NUMBER THREE WINIFRED PLACE. 3s. 6d. "A delightful story, and, we need hardly add--being Miss Giberne's--is full of the highest and most profitable religious teaching."--_Record_. "A well constructed, thoroughly healthy tale."--_Aberdeen Free Press_. "Miss Giberne's book is for gentler readers. It appeals very delicately to their softer sympathies, and introduces them to one young girl at least who may serve as a model or ideal to them. It is written in a pleasing sympathetic style."--_Scotsman_. "The plot of the story is as ingenious as the treatment is effective, and it is told with great skill."--_Yorkshire Post_. READY, AYE READY! 2s. 6d. "A thoroughly good and deeply interesting story."--_Newcastle Chronicle_. "A charming story, which displays all this well-known writer's knowledge of girls and their habits of mind."--_Scotsman_. MISS CON; or, All Those Girls. 5s. "Constance Conway is a charming heroine. Her diary is an admirable collection of character sketches."_--Athenæum_. AGNES GIBERNE'S WORKS--continued ENID'S SILVER BOND. 5s. "Enid's nature is essentially heroic.... The other characters are cleverly sketched."--_Times_. FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS. 2s. "Youthful readers have reason to thank Miss Giberne for having written this capital story."--_John Bull_. ST. AUSTIN'S LODGE; or, Mr. Berkeley and his Nieces. 5s. "A very good example of the author's well-known style. It is carefully written, and is in all respects a conscientious performance."--_Academy_. BERYL AND PEARL. 5s. "Characterised by unflagging vivacity and great dramatic power."-_Christian Leader_. "One of Miss Giberne's most delightful tales."--_Record_. DECIMA'S PROMISE. 3s. 6d. "One of the best and soundest books we have seen."--_Public Opinion_. "The result of a disaster, Decima's distress, and the behaviour of the parents, are touchingly told, and the whole case of conscience is admirably, managed."--_Guardian_. DAISY OF OLD MEADOW. 2s. "There are few boys or girls to whom this story will not prove interesting reading."--_Court Circular_. KATHLEEN. 5s. "Worthy of high praise, thoroughly good and very interesting."--_Church Bells_. "A fascinating tale."--_Record_. OLD UMBRELLAS; or, Clarrie and her Mother. 2s. "The book is bright and lively, and will be read with pleasure and profit."--_Christian_. MILES MURCHISON. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. By Dr. MACAULAY. STRANGE YET TRUE. With many Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s. * * * * * By S.M.S. CLARKE (Mrs. Pereira). BARON AND SQUIRE. A Story of the Thirty Years' War. From the German of N. NOELDECHEN. With Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s. THE DUKE'S PAGE; or, "In the Days of Luther." A Story for Boys. From the German. Sixteen Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s. "A spirited and attractive narrative."--_Literary Churchman_. "A capital story for boys."--_Guardian_. "This is one of the most fascinating historical tales we have ever read."--_British Weekly_. "Throughout incident succeeds incident, and the interest never flags until the end is reached."--_Public Opinion_. "A very good story.... Of sterling value."--_Spectator_. THE TRIVIAL ROUND; or, Chapters of Village Life. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "A book that will interest and refresh dwellers in cities with this glimpse of a life in many respects different from their own."--_Academy_. "These scenes from village life will be a source of pleasure to very many readers. The story is ably worked out and pleasantly told."--_John Bull_. * * * * * By Rev. J. REID HOWATT. THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Extra crown 8vo. 6s. THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young. Extra crown 8vo. 6s. "The subjects are well selected; the style is always simple and forcible; and the lessons which the preacher desires to impress upon the mind are such as every youthful reader may appreciate. The sermons have another merit--that of brevity."--_Scotsman_. "Simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in illustration and treatment."--_Word and Work_. ^ THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. A Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. "Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is to be done, they are bound to be--they contain a collection of truths which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and clear, which is saying a great deal."--_Church Bells_. "These sermonettes are eminently practical, while their homely style and freedom from cant are delightful."--_Christian Commonwealth_. By Lady KENNETT-BARRINGTON. BIBLE HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. With a Short History of Christianity after the Days of the Apostles. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "This book is eminently adapted for children's capabilities, and has the great advantage of keeping as nearly as possible to Bible language. It is an excellent little book."--_Christian Commonwealth_. "A little work that will commend itself to all who have to do with the religious training of the young."--_Church Bells_. "The work is well and carefully done, the main current of the Bible story being rendered with point and brevity in the very spirit of the Scriptures."--_School Board Chronicle_. By WILLIAM CHARLES METCALFE. STEADY YOUR HELM; or, Stowed Away. With Six Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s. ABOVEBOARD. A Tale of Adventure on the Sea. With Six Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 5s. "This is a delightfully exciting tale of the adventures of two sailor lads, with icebergs, pirates, and similar horrors of the sea. Its chief defect is that it leaves off too soon, even at the end of more than 300 pages."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "This story of a cruise is about as full of adventures as it can well be. There is plenty of 'go' in the narrative, and the incidents succeed each other with a very plausible probability."--_Spectator_. "It is a long time since we have read anything racier, breezier, more healthful and invigorating than Mr. Metcalfe's fine sea story."--_Methodist Recorder._ FRANK WEATHERALL; or, Life in the Merchant Marine. A Sea Story for Youth. Illustrated. Small crown 8vo. 2s. By Mrs. SAXBY. TOM AND HIS CROWS. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. VIKING BOYS. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "Wholesome and manly in tone, the book is thoroughly fresh and natural." --_Morning Post_. "We prophesy that the tale of the Viking boys and their wild deeds will become as popular as 'The Lads of Lunda,' and all the other stories with which Mrs. Saxby has delighted us."--_Athenæum_. THE LADS OF LUNDA. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. "A perfect book for boys--generous, wholesome, manly in tone, and withal thoroughly young, fresh, and natural. We recommend the book heartily, not only to all boys, but to everybody who knows and likes brave boys."-_Guardian_. "A capital book. The tales are full of fun and pathos."--_Athenæum_. THE YARL'S YACHT. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. "'The Yarl's Yacht' is even superior in interest to its predecessor."-_Standard_. "Mrs. Saxby knows young people as few know them, and they will in return thoroughly appreciate her. As long as she writes such genuine, refreshing, happy family stories for them, they certainly will be most fortunate."--_Spectator_. "'The Yarl's Yacht' is a delightful sequel to the 'Lads of Lunda.'"--_Times_. THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY and the Rev. BIOT EDMONSTON. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "We would fain linger long over the scenes which this excellent volume brings up before us. The authors have put together a very refreshing set of memories."--_Saturday Review_. * * * * * By EVA TRAVERS EVERED POOLE. LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. GOLDEN LINKS IN A LIFE CHAIN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. "GOOD-NIGHT" THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD; or, Evening Readings for the Young. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. * * * * * By BARLEY DALE. A TALE OF OUGHTS AND CROSSES; or, Mr. Holland's Conquest. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. SPOILT GUY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "A pretty tale, and contains excellent religious teaching."--_Church, Sunday-School Magazine._ CISSY'S TROUBLES. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "A very charming story."--_Yorkshire Post_. "The book will be a favourite with young people, especially with our girls."--_Family Churchman_. LITTLE BRICKS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "The story is fascinating from the interest which is excited and maintained It is written with power and insight."--_Courant_. By ELLEN L. DAVIS. HIGH AND LOWLY: A Story of Hearts and Homes. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. YOKED TOGETHER: A Tale of Three Sisters. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. "A quiet domestic story of deep interest-, with several striking situations, described with considerable power."--_Leeds Mercury_. A BOY'S WILL. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. "The book is full of life and character, and would be a fitting gift alike to the Sunday-school teacher and the scholar."--_British Messenger_. By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A. YOUR SUNDAYS: Fifty-Two Short Readings. Especially intended for Schoolboys. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. "YOUR INNINGS:" A Book for Schoolboys. Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. EDIE'S LETTER; or, Talks with the Little Folks. 4to. 2s. 6d. By Miss HAVERGAL. STREAMLETS OF SONG FOR THE YOUNG. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. MORNING BELLS. Being Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. Royal 32mo, 9d.; paper cover, 6d. LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.; paper cover, 6d. MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo. 9d. THE FOUR HAPPY DAYS. 16mo. 1s. BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. Crown 8vo. 1s. BRUEY. A Little Worker for Christ. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.; paper cover, 1s. MEMORIALS OF LITTLE NONY. A Biography of Nony Heywood, who was the First Collector for the Bruey Branch of the Irish Society. By her Mother. With Preface by Miss HAVERGAL, and a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. By the Rev. J.B. MACDUFF, D.D. PARABLES OF THE LAKE; or, The Seven Stories of Jesus by the Lake of Galilee. A Sunday Book for Young Readers. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. THE STORY OF A SHELL. A Romance of the Sea: with some Sea Teachings. A Book for Boys and Girls. With Coloured Frontispiece and Other Illustrations. Small 4to. 6s. Cheaper Edition, paper cover, 1s.; limp cloth, 2s. THE STORY OF BETHLEHEM. A Book for Children. With Illustrations by THOMAS. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. HOSANNAS OF THE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. THE WOODCUTTER OF LEBANON. A Story Illustrative of a Jewish Institution. 16mo. 2s. TALES OF THE WARRIOR JUDGES. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. THE CITIES OF REFUGE; or, The Name of Jesus. A Sunday Book for the Young. 16mo. 1s. 6d. FERGUS MORTON. A Tale of a Scottish Boy. 18mo. 9d. THE EXILES OF LUCERNA; or, The Sufferings of the Waldenses during the Persecution of 1686. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle designed for Youth. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN; or, Christ the Light of the World. A Life of Our Lord for the Young. With Illustrations by A. ROWAN. Post 4to. 3s. 6d.; in paper cover, 1s.; limp cloth, 2s. WILLOWS BY THE WATERCOURSES; or, God's Promises to the Young. 64mo. 6d.; paper cover, 3d. By Rev. J. JACKSON WRAY. OLD CRUSTY'S NIECE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. WILL IT LIFT? A Story of a London Fog. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. JACK HORNER THE SECOND. With Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. 2s; SIMON HOLMES, THE CARPENTER IF ASPENDALE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. THE SECRET OF THE MERE; or, Under the Surface. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. GARTON ROWLEY; or, Leaves from the Log of a Master Mariner. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. HONEST JOHN STALLIBRASS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. THE CHRONICLES OF CAPSTAN CABIN. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. MATTHEW MELLOWDEW. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. NESTLETON MAGNA. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. PETER PENGELLY. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. PAUL MEGGITT'S DELUSION. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. A MAN EVERY INCH OF HIM. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. _THE "KNAPSACK" SERIES_. With Frontispiece. Small crown 8vo. 1s. each. 1. THE MAN WITH THE KNAPSACK; or, The Miller o Burnham Lee. 2. WIDOW WINPENNY'S WATCHWORD. 3. PRIMROSE GARTH. 4. "A SONG O' SIXPENCE" FOR THE BAIRNS. 5. GEOFFREY HALLAM; or, The Clerk of the Parish. By Mrs. BARBOUR. THE WAY HOME, AND HOW THE CHILDREN REACHED IT BY A RAILWAY ACCIDENT. With Illustrations. Eighteenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. 6d. limp; 2s. 6d. boards. THE IRISH ORPHAN IN A SCOTTISH HOME. A Sequel to "The Way Home." 16mo. 1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards. THE CHILD OF THE KINGDOM. Twenty-second Thousand. With Illustrations. 16mo. 1s. limp; 2s. 6d. boards. THE SOUL-GATHERER. Seventeenth Thousand. 16mo. 1s. limp; cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. * * * * * By Mrs. HAYCRAFT. SUNWOOD GLORY; or, Through the Refiner's Fire. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. * * * * * By ESM� STUART. A BRAVE FIGHT, AND OTHER STOKIES. With Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. * * * * * By EDITH RALPH. STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. Part I. A Scripture History for Little Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. Part II. From Death of Joshua to end of the Old Testament. A Scripture History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. MRS. LESTER'S GIRLS AND THEIR SERVICE. By the Author of "Miss Marston's Girls and their Confirmation." With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. "A good book for young servants, or for reading at a sewing-class attended by young women. Its tone and teaching are all we could wish."--_Record_.. "Its evident truthfulness and fidelity to nature make us think that it is founded upon much experience of young girls in the working class. To such it would, no doubt, be exceedingly interesting."--_Literary Churchman_. MISS MARSTON'S GIRLS AND THEIR CONFIRMATION. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 1s. * * * * * By the Rev. DAVID MacEWAN, D.D. THIS YEAR. Anniversary Addresses for the Young. Second Edition. Square 16mo. 1s. By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A. BIBLE OBJECT-LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. BIBLE ECHOES: Addresses to the Young. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. BIBLE CHILDREN. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "Mr. Wells has in these volumes been content to restrict himself to an endeavour to win and instruct the young. He has done this with admirable skill, with great transparency of meaning, vividness of treatment and nicety of discrimination, combined with a befitting freedom and an impressive earnestness."--_Literary World_. "Mr. Wells contrives by a studied plainness of diction, by the simplicity and directness of his style, by his evident earnestness and kindliness, and a wealth of illustrative anecdotes, to minimise the difficulties which children have to encounter in grasping new and especially abstract ideas."--_Scotsman_. By Lady DUNBOYNE. BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 2s. CHARITY. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. HER LIFE'S WORK. A Tale. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "The story, which is pleasantly and touchingly told, is thoroughly suitable for a gift-book for girls of the upper classes."--_Guardian_. * * * * * By the Rev. J.H. WILSON. THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "The union of solid teaching and fervent appeal with a cheerful outlook on life we have seldom, if ever, seen more happily exemplified. Dr. Wilson's book is as winsome as it is wise, thoroughly human in its spirit and robust in its tone and teaching."--_Christian Leader_. "No better book than this very thoughtful, clearly and beautifully written and tastefully illustrated volume, could be put into the hands of the young."--_Aberdeen Free Press_. THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "Exceedingly plain, practical, and pointed, full of striking and ingenious illustrations."--_Aberdeen Journal_. OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. "Dr. Wilson graduated long since as a prophet of God who has a voice for the young. His explanation of the Lord's Prayer has made him a dear friend to many a parent as well as child."--_Presbyterian Churchman_. "Dr. Wilson's addresses are admirable specimens of what productions of the kind should be, pithy, pointed, and practical, and abounding in anecdotes and illustrations."--_Congregational Review_. By L.T. MEADE. A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. "Very touching and sad, though the end is happy."--_Athenæum_. THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo, 2s.; gilt edges, 2s. 6d. "Displays vivid conception of character, and clear, graphic description. The story is full of incident and adventure."--_Literary Churchman_. * * * * * By Mrs. WINSCOM. DEAR OLD ENGLAND. A Description of our Fatherland. Dedicated to all English Children. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. "English children will find much that is well worth knowing, and well told, in this copiously illustrated volume."--_Christian World_. * * * * * By the Rev. W.W. TULLOCH, B.D. THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR WILLIAM. Told for Boys and Girls all over the World. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges, 3s. 6d. REVISED BY THE QUEEN. THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. Told for Boys and Girls. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges, 3s. 6d. THE STORY OF THE LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA. Told for Boys and Girls all over the World. With Two Portraits. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.; with gilt edges, 3s. 6d. THE "CHIMES" SERIES. _Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 3s. 6d. each._ By Mrs. MARSHALL. 1. SILVER CHIMES; or, Olive. 2. DAPHNE'S DECISION; or, Which Shall it Be. 3. CASSANDRA'S CASKET. 4. POPPIES AND PANSIES. 5. REX AND REGINA; or, The Song of the River. 6. STORIES OF THE CATHEDRAL CITIES OF ENGLAND. 7. DEWDROPS AND DIAMONDS. 8. HEATHER AND HAREBELL. 9. THE ROSES OF RINGWOOD. A Story for Children. 10. IN THE PURPLE. THE "LAUREL" SERIES. _Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. 6d. each_. 1. TOM AND HIS CROWS. By Mrs. SAXBY, Author of "Viking Boys," &c. 2. WATCH AND WATCH. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of "Frank Weatherall." 3. WINNING HIS LAURELS; or, The Boys of St. Raglan's. By F.M. HOLMES. 4. THAT AGGRAVATING SCHOOLGIRL. By GRACE STEBBING. 5. WHAT A MAN SOWETH. By GRACE STEBBING. 6. DULCIBEL'S DAY DREAMS; or, The Grand, Sweet Song. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 7. THE LADS OF LUNDA. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY. 8. THE YARL'S YACHT. By JESSIE M.E. SAXBY. 9. A NEW EXODUS; or, The Exiles of the Zillerthal. A Story of the Protestants of the Tyrol. By CATHERINE RAY. 10. GRACE MURRAY. A Story. By ELLA STONE. 11. MR. ORDE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By CECILIA SELBY LOWNDES. 12. WHERE THE DEW FALLS IN LONDON. By SARAH DOUDNEY. THE "SUNSHINE" SERIES. _Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 2s. each_. 1. THE BREAKING OF THE CLOUDS. By Lady DUNBOYNE, Author of "Charity," &c. &c. 2. THROUGH SHADOW TO SUNSHINE. By Mrs. HORNIBROOK. 3. A SUMMER IN THE LIFE OF TWO LITTLE CHILDREN. By Mrs. HOWARD. 4. OLIVER'S OLD PICTURES; or, The Magic Circle. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 5. RUBY AND PEARL; or, The Children at Castle Aylmer. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 6. LADY TEMPLE'S GRANDCHILDREN. By Miss EVERETT GREEN. 7. A LONDON BABY: The Story of King Roy. By L.T. MEADE. 8. HIDDEN HOMES; or, The Children's Discoveries. By M.A. PAULL RIPLEY. 9. AN UNWILLING WITNESS. By Miss LYSTER. 10. OUR NEIGHBOUR, WIDOW YATES. By GRACE STEBBING. 11. BIBLE PLANTS AND ANIMALS. Containing Illustrations of over 1000 Passages of Scripture from the Works of Travellers and other Sources. By ALFRED E. KNIGHT. * * * * * THE "MARBECK" SERIES. _Crown 8vo. Numerous Illustrations. 1s. 6d. each_ 1. THE STORY OF JOHN MARBECK: A Windsor Organist of 300 Years Ago. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 2. MY GRANDMOTHER'S PICTURES. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 3. THE OLD VIOLIN; or, Charity Hope's Own Story. By EDITH C. KENYON. 4. A BOY'S WILL. By ELLEN L. DAVIS. 5. SPOILT GUY. By DARLEY DALE. 6. HIGH AND LOWLY: A Tale of Hearts and Homes. By ELLEN L. DAVIS. 7. PETER PENGELLY. By Rev. JACKSON WRAY. 8. NELLIE GRAHAM; or, The Story of a Commonplace Woman. By ELLA STONE. THE "SWEETBRIAR" SERIES. _A New Series of Volumes. With Illustrations. Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each._ WORK, WAIT, WIN. By RUTH LAMB. THE ANDERSONS. By Miss GIBERNE, Author of "The Dalrymples," &c. SWEETBRIAR; or, Doings in Priorsthorpe Magna. By AGNES GIBERNE. COULYING CASTLE; or, A Knight of the Olden Days. By AGNES GIBERNE. AIM�E: A Tale of the Days of James the Second. By AGNES GIBERNE. LILLA THORNE'S VOYAGE; or, "That Far Remembrancer." By GRACE STEBBING. * * * * * THE "ROUNDABOUT" SERIES. _Extra crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each._ THE RIGHT ROAD. A Manual for Parents and Teachers. By J. KRAMER. THROUGH BIBLE LANDS. Notes of Travel in Egypt, the Desert, and Palestine. Profusely Illustrated. By PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., and an Essay on Egyptology and the Bible, by EDOUARD NAVILLE. * * * * * BIBLE HISTORY FOR THE YOUNG. +"THE WORD" SERIES.+ By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER, Authors of "The Wide, Wide World," "Queechy," &c. _With Illustrations, Plain and Coloured. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each_. The aim of this Series of Volumes is so to set forth the Bible incidents and course of history, with its train of actors, as to see them in the circumstances and colouring, the light and shade, of their actual existence. The volumes embody, as far as possible, all the known facts, natural, social, and historical, which are required for the illustration and elucidation of the Bible narrative. 1. WALKS FROM EDEN: The Scripture Story from the Creation to the Death of Abraham. 2. THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL: The Scripture Story from the Birth of Isaac to the Death of Jacob. 3. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH: The Scripture Story from the Death of Solomon to the Captivity. 4. THE BROKEN WALLS OF JERUSALEM AND THE REBUILDING OF THEM. In continuation of "The House of Israel" and "The Kingdom of Judah," and completing the work. 5. THE STAR OUT OF JACOB: The Scripture Story Illustrating the Earlier Portion of the Gospel Narrative. "These five books form a most comprehensive and attractive commentary on the Scriptures suited to the requirements of the young. More real knowledge in true child language, and within the understanding of children, it has never been our privilege to meet with before. We are disposed to envy those young friends who are fortunate enough to number them among their literary possessions, for although pre-eminently children's books, they are yet well able to impart instruction to children of a larger growth."--_Rock_. "There is a pleasant freshness and reality conveyed to the old, well-worn stories, which will make children understand the details of Eastern life and the manners and customs of the old pastoral times. 'The Word' Series will be a charming gift to young people."--_Athenæum_. "We doubt whether any one has ever told 'the old, old story' more attractively, for children at least, than the author of 'The Wide, Wide World.' Whatever fame she may have won by her works of fiction will be greatly increased by her success in writing these marvellous stories."--_Christian World_. THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES. _With Illustrations. Handsomely bound in cloth, gilt edges. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each_. "Children welcome with glee the volumes comprised in Nisbet's 'Golden Ladder Series,' for they are full of interest, even though they are stories with a moral, which is always a high-toned one."--_Liverpool Courier_. "'The Golden Ladder Series' of story-books, so much appreciated for their excellence. They can be all safely recommended to the notice of teachers as being especially suitable as rewards, while no school library can be said to be complete without a selection from them."--_Schoolmaster_. 1. THE GOLDEN LADDER: Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By SUSAN and ANNA B. WARNER. 2. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER. 3. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER. 4. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER. 5. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER. 6. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER. 7. THE OLD HELMET. By SUSAN WARNER. 8. NETTIE'S MISSION: Stories Illustrative of the Lord's Prayer. By JULIA MATHEWS. 9. GLEN LUNA; or, Dollars and Cents. By ANNA B. WARNER. 10. DRAYTON HALL. Stories Illustrative of the Beatitudes. By JULIA MATHEWS. 11. WITHIN AND WITHOUT: A New England Story. 12. VINEGAR HILL STORIES: Illustrative of the Parable of the Sower. By ANNA B. WARNER. 13. LITTLE SUNBEAMS. By JOANNA MATHEWS. 14. WHAT SHE COULD AND OPPORTUNITIES. By SUSAN WARNER. 15. TRADING AND THE HOUSE IN TOWN. 16. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS. THE GOLDEN LADDER SERIES-continued. 17. HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS. By the Author of "Within and Without." 18. GIVING HONOUR: Containing "The Little Camp on Eagle Hill" and "Willow Brook." By SUSAN WARNER. 19. GIVING SERVICE: Containing "Sceptres and Crowns" and "The Flag of Truce." By SUSAN WARNER. 20. GIVING TRUST: Containing "Bread and Oranges" and "The Rapids of Niagara." By SUSAN WARNER. *** _The Tales in the last three Volumes are Illustrative of the_ LORD'S PRAYER. 21. WYCH HAZEL. A Tale. By SUSAN and ANNA WARNER. 22. THE GOLD OF CHICKAREE. A Sequel to "Wych Hazel." By SUSAN and ANNA B. WARNER. 23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER. 24. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER. 25. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER. 26. THE LETTER OF CREDIT. By SUSAN WARNER. 27. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER. 28. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER. 29. A RED WALLFLOWER. By SUSAN WARNER. 30. DAISY PLAINS. By SUSAN WARNER. 31. CROSS CORNERS. By ANNA B. WARNER. 32. MISTRESS MATCHETT'S MISTAKE. By EMMA MARSHALL. 33. YOURS AND MINE. By ANNA B. WARNER. 34. ONE LITTLE VEIN OF DROSS. By Mrs. RUTH LAMB. 35. OAK BEND; or, Patience and her Schooling. By ANNA B. WARNER. 36. A CANDLE IN THE SEA; or, Winter at Seal's Head. A Book about Lighthouses. By Rev. E.A. RAND. THE "GOLDEN SILENCE" SERIES OF TALES. _With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. Attractively bound in cloth. 1s. 6d. each_. GOLDEN SILENCE; or, Annals of the Birkett Family of Crawford-under-Wold. By Mrs. MARSHALL. THE STORY OF OUR ENGLISH BIBLE AND WHAT IT COST. By Mrs. BAYLY. STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS. WHAT KATY DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. MORAG: A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAE, Author of "Rinaultrie," "Geordy's Tryst," &c. AUNT JANE'S HERO; or, Sorrow and Sunshine. By Mrs. PRENTISS. MAGGIE AND BESSIE, AND THEIR WAY TO DO GOOD. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS. BESSIE AT SCHOOL. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS. BESSIE AND HER FRIENDS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS. BESSIE IN THE MOUNTAINS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS. BESSIE AT THE SEASIDE. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS. BESSIE ON HER TRAVELS. By JOANNA H. MATHEWS. THE THREE LITTLE SPADES. By ANNA B. WARNER. WHEN I WAS YOUNG. By Mrs. MARSHALL. THE HOME AT GREYLOCK. By Mrs. PRENTISS. MICHAEL'S TREASURES; or, Choice Silver. By Mrs. MARSHALL. CISSY'S TROUBLES. By DARLEY DALE. LITTLE BRICKS. By DARLEY DALE. EFFIE'S FRIENDS; or, Chronicles of the Woods and Shore. MATTHEW FROST, CARRIER; or, Little Snowdrop's Mission. By Mrs. MARSHALL. MY LADY BOUNTIFUL. By Mrs. MARSHALL. A TALE OF TWO OLD SONGS. By Lady DUNBOYNE. ESTHER'S JOURNAL. A Tale of Swiss Pension Life. By a RESIDENT. THREE PATHS IN LIFE. A Tale for Girls. STELLAFONT ABBEY; or, "Nothing New." By EMMA MARSHALL. A SUNBEAM'S INFLUENCE; or, Eight Years After. By Lady DUNBOYNE. SUSY'S SACRIFICE. KENNETH FORBES. THE CHILDREN OF BLACKBERRY HOLLOW. THE SAFE COMPASS, AND HOW IT POINTS. By Rev. R. NEWTON, D.D. ME. RUTHERFORD'S CHILDREN. THERESA'S JOURNAL. GRAN. By E.A.B.D. PAT'S INHERITANCE. By Mrs. MARSHALL. IN THE MIST. A Tale. By Ross PORTER. THE OTHER HOUSE. A Tale. By MARY R. HIGHAM. NATURE'S GENTLEMAN. By Mrs. MARSHALL. THE BRIDE'S HOME. By Mrs. MARSHALL. MILES MURCHISON. By Miss GIBERNE. HOUSE IN TOWN. By the Author of "The Wide, Wide World." TRADING. By the Author of "The Wide, Wide World." Sequel to above. * * * * * _Bound in Paper Covers. 1s._ AUNT JANE'S HERO. By Mrs. PRENTISS. STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By Mrs. PRENTISS. WHAT KATIE DID. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. MORAG. A Tale of Highland Life. By Mrs. MILNE RAB. "DOLLY'S CHARGE" SERIES. _With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 1s. each._. 1. DOLLY'S CHARGE. By Miss MARSHALL. 2. THE LITTLE PEAT-CUTTERS; or, The Song of Love. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 3. PRIMROSE; or, The Bells of Old Effingham. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 4. THE BOY GUARDIAN. By C.E. BOWEN. 5. GENTLEMAN JIM. By Mrs. PRENTISS. 6. OUR LADDIE. By Miss L.J. TOMLINSON. 7. VIOLET IN THE SHADE. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 8. LIGHT ON THE LILY. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 9. A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 10. ALICE'S PUPIL. By Miss M'CLINTOCK. 11. HEATHERCLIFFE; or, It's no Concern of Mine. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 12. ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY PASCOE. By G. NORWAY. 13. MISS BROWN'S BASKET. By Mrs. HENRY CHARLES. 14. LOTTA'S LIFE MISTAKE. By Mrs. EVERED POOLE. 15. THE PRINCESSES OF PENRUTH. By MARY H. DEBENHAM. 16. SEE FOR YOURSELF. By GRACE STEBBING. 17. SUNDAY OCCUPATIONS FOR CHILDREN. BY Mrs. BARCLAY. 18. PARSON'S GREEN. By G. NORWAY. 19. HELEN; or, Temper and its Consequences. 20. THE CAPTAIN'S STORY; or, The Disobedient Son. 21. CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE. By A MISSIONARY'S WIFE. 22. FRANK GORDON, by F.R. GOULDING; and LITTLE JACK, by ANNA WARNER. 23. TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY. A Story of Summer and Winter Holidays. By Mrs. MARSHALL. 24. BOTH SIDES. By JESSIE W. SMITH. 25. STEPHEN GILMORE'S DREAM; or, Coals of Fire. By JESSIE W. SMITH. 26. JUDITH THE STRANGER. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN. 27. THE GATE IN PARK LANE. By the Hon. GERTRUDE BOSCAWEN. 28. SIMPLE LESSONS FROM NATURE. By the Hon. M.C. LEIGH. 29. THE SPOILT TWINS. By EMILY DIBDIN. 30. BEN BRIGHTBOOTS, and Other True Stories. HAVERGAL. 31. SAM'S MISSION. By BEATRICE MARSHALL, Author of "Dolly's Charge," &c. 32. KATIE: A Daughter of the King. NISBET'S JUVENILE LIBRARY. _With Illustrations. 16mo. 1s. 6d. each_. "Capital books, well printed, tastefully bound, and containing a good deal of letterpress. We do not know a cheaper series at the price."--_Sunday School Chronicle_. LILIES OF THE VALLEY. HERBERT PERCY. PASSING CLOUDS. WARFARE AND WORK. EVELYN GREY. THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING. SOWING IN TEARS AND REAPING IN JOY. SILVER SANDS. THE KNOTS TOM GILLIES TIED AND UNTIED. * * * * * THE SELECT SERIES OF BOOKS SUITABLE FOR PRESENTS AND PRIZES. _With Illustrations. Small Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each_. THE MOUNTAINS OF THE BIBLE: Their Scenes and their Lessons. By the Rev. JOHN MACFARLANE, LL.D. LIFE: A Series of Illustrations of the Divine Wisdom in the Forms, Structures, and Instincts of Animals. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S. LAND AND SEA. By P.H. GOSSE, F.R.S. THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. Gosse, F.R.S. Two Vols. TALES FROM ALSACE; or, Scenes and Portraits from Life in the Days of the Reformation. BYEWAYS IN PALESTINE. By JAMES FINN, M.R.A.S. THE "PILGRIM" SERIES. POPULAR EDITIONS OF STANDARD BOOKS. _Small Crown 8vo, numerous Illustrations, 2s. each; with gilt edges, 2s. 6d. each_. * * * * * 1. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 2. BUNYAN'S HOLY WAR. 3. FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS. 4. THE THRONE OF DAVID: From the Consecration of the Shepherd of Bethlehem to the Rebellion of Prince Absalom. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM, LL.D. 5. THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID; or, Three Years in the Holy City. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM, LL.D. 6. THE PILLAR OF FIRE; or, Israel in Bondage. By the Rev. J.H. INGRAHAM, LL.D. 7. BEN-HUR; or, The Days of the Messiah. By LEW WALLACE. 8. THE LAMPLIGHTER. By M. CUMINS. 9. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. By Mrs. H. STOWE. 10. ROBINSON CRUSOE. 11. MY DESIRE. By SUSAN WARNER. 12. NOBODY. By SUSAN WARNER. 13. THE FAIRCHILD FAMILY. By Mrs. SHERWOOD. 14. THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. 15. DERRY. A Tale of the Revolution. By CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. 16. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. By P.H. GOSSE. 17. GREAT MEN: A Series of Lectures. By the late Rev. FREDERIC MYERS, M.A. 18. TOO LATE FOR THE TIDE-MILL. By Rev. E.A. RAND. 19. LITTLE WOMEN. By L.M. ALCOTT. 20. DRAYTON HALL. By JULIA MATHEWS. THE "PILGRIM" SERIES-continued. 21. THE END OF A COIL. By SUSAN WARNER. 22. GLEN LUNA. By ANNA WARNER. 23. DIANA. By SUSAN WARNER. 24. STEPHEN, M.D. By SUSAN WARNER. 25. MELBOURNE HOUSE. By SUSAN WARNER. 26. BIBLE WARNINGS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON. 27. THE PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER. 28. THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. By SUSAN WARNER. 29. DAISY. By SUSAN WARNER. 30. DAISY IN THE FIELD. By SUSAN WARNER. 31. NOR'ARD OF THE DOGGER. By E.J. MATHER. 32. A DREAM OF THE NORTH SEA. By J. RUNCIMAN. 33. SCRIPTURE ANIMALS. By Rev. Dr. NEWTON. 34. QUEECHY. By SUSAN WARNER. 35. DARE TO DO RIGHT. By JULIA MATHEWS. 36. NETTIE'S MISSION. By JULIA MATHEWS. 37. WANDERING HOMES AND THEIR INFLUENCES. 38. FRANK WEATHERALL. By W.C. METCALFE, Author of "Above Board," &c. 39. SHORT LIVES OF MEN WITH A MISSION: Charles Kingsley, Lord Lawrence, Henry M. Stanley. With Portraits. 40. EXPELLED. By the Author of "Dorrincourt." 41. YOKED TOGETHER. By ELLEN DAVIS. 42. BESSIE HARRINGTON'S VENTURE. By JULIA MATHEWS. 43. OPENING OF A CHESTNUT BURR. By E.P. ROE. 44. ST. ELMO. By A.J.E. WILSON. 45. THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE. By L.T. MEAD. 46. ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. Second Series. By P.H. GOSSE. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W. SELECT LIST OF BOOKS DEVOTIONAL AND PRACTICAL PUBLISHED BY JAMES NISBET & CO. * * * * * +THE CHRISTIAN UNDER REVIEW+. A SERIES OF WORKS ON PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN LIFE Small crown 8vo. THE CHRISTIAN'S INFLUENCE. By the Ven. WILLIAM MACDONALD SINCLAIR, D.D., Archdeacon of London. 2s. THE CHRISTIAN'S START. By the Very Rev. the DEAN OF NORWICH. 1s. THE MORAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN, D.D. 1s. THE PATHWAY OF VICTORY. By the Rev. ROBERT B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., Hon. Canon of Christ Church, and late Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. 1s. THE CHRISTIAN'S RECREATIONS. By the Rev. HENRY SUTTON, M.A., Vicar of Holy Trinity, Bordesley. 1s. THE CHRISTIAN'S PROGRESS. By the Ven. G.R. WYNNE, D.D., Archdeacon of Aghadoe. 1s. THE CHRISTIAN'S DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. By the Very Rev. the DEAN OF NORWICH. 1s. THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A., Incumbent of St. Margaret's Church, Brighton. 1s. THE INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF THE CHRISTIAN. By the Rev. JAMES MCCANN, D.D. 1s. THE CHRISTIAN'S PRIVILEGES. By the Rev. W.J. DEANE, M.A. 1s. THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE. By the Rev. C.A. GOODHART, M.A., Incumbent of St. Barnabas', Highfield, Sheffield. 1s. "Simple and forcible as these books are in their teaching, and brief in extent, they deserve the attention of those who direct the religious teaching of the young."--_Scotsman_. "We dipped into these pages alike with pleasure and profit. The writers, each on his own theme, seem steadfastly to keep in view scriptural teaching, sound doctrine, and the trials and temptations which beset the daily life and walk of the believer."--_Word and Work_. "How completely they cover the field of Christian needs is sufficiently indicated by their titles. They are well fitted to stimulate the piety and clear the views of those holding the doctrines of the Church of England."-_Liverpool Mercury._ By H. BONAR, D.D. GOD'S WAY OF PEACE. A Book for the Anxious. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition, paper cover, 6d.; cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s. GOD'S WAY OF HOLINESS. 16mo, 1s. 6d. Cheap Edition, paper cover, 6d.; cloth, 9d. Large Type Edition, crown 8vo, 2s. By MATTHEW HENRY. EXPOSITION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS; With Practical Remarks and Observations--In Nine Volumes. Imp. 8vo, £2, 2s. _Net._ In Six Volumes. Medium 8vo, £1, 11s. 6d. _Net_. By LADY CATHARINE LONG. HEAVENLY THOUGHTS FOR MORNING AND EVENING HOURS. Selections in Prose and Verse, with Passages from Scripture. With a Short Introduction, 16mo., Cloth, 2s. 6d.; silk, 4s. 6d, each. By HARRIET E. COLVILE. THE WAY SHE TROD. A STUDY. Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. "'The Way She Trod' is a study of the development of religious sentiment and belief in a girl's character."--_Scotsman._ "She is Triplice, which, being interpreted, means threefold.... Her life-history, under these various phases, is ingeniously set forth."--_Glasgow Herald._ "An admirably written book for young women, who will be attracted by the interesting story, telling how Triplice was led by a way she knew not' until she finds rest and joy in God."--_The Christian_. "A good book for distribution among girls of the upper classes."--_Record_. FLOWER VOICES. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s. "A dainty little booklet, giving many sweet and useful lessons from the flowers."--_The News_. "A choice little book, in which flowers are made to typify men and women, and to whisper important lessons regarding life and duty."-_Christian_. "Short stories, which will both please and profit. There is life and point about them, and their association with flowers is by no means strained. We place this little book in the first class as to the quality of the writing."-_Sword and Trowel_. WAFTED SEEDS. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s. By Miss MARSH. THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS. Small crown 8vo, 1s. CROSSING THE RIVER. Small crown 8vo, 1s. SHINING LIGHT. Small crown 8vo, 1s. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. A True Story. Crown 8vo, 1s. By Rev. J. REID HOWATT. THE CHILDREN'S PEW. Sermons to Children. AFTER HOURS; or, The Religion of Our Leisure Time. With Appendix on How to Form a Library for Twenty Shillings. Small crown 8vo, 1s. THE CHILDREN'S PULPIT. A Year's Sermons and Parables for the Young. Second Edition. Extra crown 8vo, 6s. "It will be heartily welcomed. The subjects are well selected; the style is always simple and forcible, and the lessons which the preacher desires to impress upon the mind are such as every youthful reader may appreciate. The sermons have another merit--that of brevity. A child may read them with a good deal of pleasure, and, it need hardly be said, with much profit."--_Scotsman_. "The sermonettes are simple, suggestive, and singularly happy in illustration and treatment."--_Word and Work_. "All these fifty-three sermons and parables are worth reading, and would seem admirable either as models for addresses to children, or for reading in the home circle."--_Church Bells_. "Full of nature and of life, and flashing with happy illustrations. "_--Christian World._ THE CHILDREN'S ANGEL. Being a Volume of Sermons to Children. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. "Brief, fresh, and often original in thought. A preacher to children will find many suggestions and ideas in these discourses."--_Literary Churchman_. "Fifty-three brief addresses to children. Direct, as such things should be; clear, as they must always be; and interesting, as, if any good is to be done, they are bound to be--they contain a collection of truths which children ought to be taught, and the teacher is always bright and clear, which is saying a great deal."--_Church Bells_. "One of the most beautiful and helpful books we know of for ministers and others who are called upon to address the young."--_Methodist New Connexion Magazine._ By Miss NUGENT. THE PRINCE IN THE MIDST. Jesus our Centre. 16mo, 1s. By SAMUEL GILLESPIE PROUT. NEVER SAY DIE: A Talk with Old Friends. 16mo. 9d.; paper cover, 6d. By the Rev. JAMES WELLS, M.A. BIBLE OBJECT LESSONS. Addresses to Children. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. BIBLE ECHOES. Addresses to the Young. Small crown. 8vo, 3s. 6d. THE PARABLES OF JESUS. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, 5s. BIBLE CHILDREN. Studies for the Young. With illustrations. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. BIBLE IMAGES. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. By the Rev. J.H. WILSON, D.D. THE KING'S MESSAGE. A Book for the Young. With Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. THE GOSPEL AND ITS FRUITS. A Book for the Young With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN: The Lord's Prayer Familiarly Explained and Illustrated for the Young. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. By EDITH RALPH. STEP BY STEP THROUGH THE BIBLE. PART I FROM THE CREATION TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA. A Scripture History for Little Children. With a Preface by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D., and Twelve Illustrations. Crown. 8vo, 2s. 6d. FROM THE PREFACE. "Miss Edith Ralph, in this little book, shows herself exceptionally skilful in her delicate task.... The tone and spirit of her pages seem to me admirably suited to her subject--simple, tender, gentle, wise, and full of sweet Christian love, they point the little ones invitingly to heaven, and lead the way.... Nor is the careful and well-informed intelligence wanting which is needed to make the first steps in Bible knowledge a preparation for safe and healthy progress in it hereafter." Part II. FROM DEATH OF JOSHUA TO END OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. A Scripture History for Little Children. Revised and recommended by CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D., LL.D. Twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. "No sweeter, wiser, or more Christian story of the Scriptures could be given to a little child or read to it."--_Christian Commonwealth._ "Just the thing for Sunday afternoon,"--_Word and Work_. By FREDERICK A. ATKINS, Editor of "The Young Man," and Hon. Sec. of the National Anti-Gambling League. MORAL MUSCLE: AND How TO USE IT. A Brotherly Chat with Young Men. With an Introduction by Rev. THAIN DAVIDSON, D.D. Now ready. Small crown 8vo, 1s. Dr. CLIFFORD writes:--"It is full of life, throbs with energy, is rich in stimulus, and bright with hope." _The Methodist Times_ says:--"An excellent book for young men--manly, honest, straightforward, and full of Christian earnestness." FIRST BATTLES, AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM. Just Published. Small crown 8vo, 1s. "An excellent book for young men. The addresses are vigorous and to the point. The work would certainly help to develop in a thoughtful reader a truer manliness than generally prevails among our young men."--_Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette_. "Another of Mr. Atkins' capital little books for young men."--_British Weekly._ HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE. By Dr. CLIFFORD, M.A.; Professor ELMSLIE, D.D.; R.F. HORTON, M.A.; Rev. F.B. MEYEE, B.A.; Rev. C.H. WALLER, M.A.; Rev. H.C.G. MOULE, M.A.; Rev. C.A. BERRY; Rev. W.J. DAWSON. Third Edition. Small crown 8vo, 1s. "In this little book we have the choicest counsels of men who are themselves successful students of the Word. We very earnestly commend this volume. All those who desire to know how to study the Scriptures with the utmost profit should secure it at once."--_Christian Advocate_. "Young Bible students will find some very valuable hints in this little volume."--_Nonconformist_. "The whole of these essays are well worthy of perusal, and are as instructive as they are interesting-."--_Manchester Courier_. "In this small book are comprised eight practical and, we may say, delightful essays from well-known divines and authors,"--_Schoolmaster_. THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONS: "WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?" By SAMUEL WAINWRIGHT, D.D., Incumbent of St. Stephen's, Clapham Park. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. By Rev. THEODORE CUYLER, D.D. STIRRING THE EAGLE'S NEST, AND OTHER PRACTICAL DISCOURSES. Just Published. Extra Crown 8vo, 6s. "A volume of earnest and able sermons, full of life and vigour."--_Literary Churchman._ "In this volume Dr. Cuyler is at his best.... His sermons are full of practical teaching, and cannot fail to profit the reader."--_Rock_. "Dr. Cuyler has given us here some of his best work."--_Church Bells_. "This is a volume of short practical sermons, characterised by the simplicity and directness which we expect from Dr. Cuyler."--_Christian Leader_. "The discourses are vigorous expositions of simple texts."--_Scotsman_ HOW TO BE A PASTOR. Recently Published. Crown 8vo, 2s. "It is full of strong, cheery, sensible, hard-working Christianity. It ought to have a very large circulation."--_British Weekly_. "Twelve chapters well worthy of the study of pastors, and calculated to stimulate all who have at heart the cause of Christ."--_Christian_. "In this handy little volume Dr. Cuyler gives wise guidance, couched in graphic and telling style."--_Methodist Recorder_. "We lay down this book, brimful of wholesome advice, with the earnest wish that some of our wealthy laymen would place a copy of it in the hands of each of our ministers."--_Christian Advocate_. By the Rev. ALFRED PEARSON, M.A., INCUMBENT OF ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, BRIGHTON. CHRISTUS MAGISTER: SOME TEACHINGS FROM THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Just Published. Crown 8vo, 5s. _The Bishop of Bedford_ says:--"Old truths are felicitously expressed and beautifully illustrated. There is much that is original and suggestive in exposition." _The Dean of Winchester_ says:--"A delightful volume: the chapter on 'Non-Resistance' pleases me especially." THE CHRISTIAN'S AIMS. Small Crown 8vo, 1s. "Under Mr. Pearson's guidance the aims of life are considered with reference to God, to ourselves, and to our fellows. Self-denial, as required of every Christian, is sensibly considered in the chapter on Cross-bearing. "--_Guardian_. "Many Christians would derive benefit from reading the chapters 'On Glorifying God,' 'On Self-Mastery,' 'On Self-Fulfilment,' 'On Cross-Bearing' and 'On Tone.'"--_English Churchman_. By the Rev. ANDREW MURRAY. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. each. THE NEW LIFE. Words of God for Disciples of Christ. "This book stands out among many of its kind as distinguished by a new impulse and freshness of thought."--_Scotsman_. ABIDE IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Fellowship with the Son of God. Sixty-third Thousand. "The varied aspects of this practical truth are treated with much freshness, power, and unction. It cannot fail to stimulate, to cheer, and to qualify for higher service."--Mr. SPURGEON in _The Sword and Trowel_. LIKE CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Conformity to the Son of God. A Sequel to "Abide in Christ." Twenty-eighth Thousand. "The author has written with such loving unction and spiritual insight that his pages may be read with comfort and edification by all."--_Literary Churchman_. WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. Twenty-fifth Thousand. "A volume of rare excellence, and one which is much needed."--_Christian News._ HOLY IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy. Tenth Thousand. "This is one of the best books we have seen upon a subject which is happily attracting much attention nowadays. There is so much spurious sentimentalism abroad that we are glad to meet with a book in which this sacred theme--holiness--is dealt with so robustly and scripturally."--_Methodist N.C. Magazine._ THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. Thoughts on the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Believer and the Church. Eighth Thousand. "Mr. Murray's new work, like his former ones, will serve for the edification of those who are able to appreciate spirituality of thought, and inclined to give the attention needful to digest and profit by meditations presented in a manner more solid than lively."--_Record_. Small Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST. Thoughts for Christian Parents on the Consecration of the Home Life. Tenth Thousand. "There is a tone of fervour and devotion pervading the book that contrasts pleasantly with the trivially inane tone some writers think fit to adopt in writing for and about children. All Sunday-school teachers and parents would do well to lay its lessons to heart."--_Methodist Recorder_. By the Rev. J. HAMILTON, D.D. THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, and other Lectures on Prayer. 16mo, 1s. A MORNING BESIDE THE LAKE OF GALILEE, 16mo, 1s. THE PEARL OF PARABLES. Notes on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. 16mo, 1s. THE LIGHT TO THE PATH; or, What the Bible has been to Others, and What it can do for Ourselves. 16mo, 1s. EMBLEMS FROM EDEN. 16mo, 1s. THE HAPPY HOME. 16mo. With Illustrations. 1s. THE BLESSED LIFE: How to Find and Live It. By N.J. HOFMEYR, Senior Professor of the Theological College of the Dutch Reformed Church, Stellenbosch, Cape Colony. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. "The teaching is sound throughout, and expressed in vigorous language."--_Christian_. "We have seldom read a book which gives such a grasp of Redemption in its purpose, as in its enjoyment by the individual, in so brief and compact a manner as the one before us. The treatment is suited only to an intelligent, if not educated, Christian. To such it is calculated to give an intellectual, as well as spiritual, perception of the things which accompany salvation."--_Rock_. By the Rev. GEORGE MATHESON, D.D. MOMENTS ON THE MOUNT. A Series of Devotional Meditations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. "This little volume is not one to be read through at a sitting, and then laid aside. Rather each meditation is to be pondered over, and enjoyed singly and separately, and to be dwelt upon until it becomes a permanent possession. Their suggestions can hardly fail to stimulate to Biblical and theological research."--_Scotsman_. VOICES OF THE SPIRIT. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. "A choice little volume of devotional meditations. It is not only devout in spirit and tender in tone, but marked by freshness of thought, which volumes of this kind too often lack."--_Methodist Recorder_. WISDOM'S HOUSE AND "HER SEVEN PILLARS." By Lady BEAUJOLOIS DENT. Small crown 8vo, 1s. 6d. "An excellent little work, sound in doctrine, and thoroughly practical in its application to the reader's conscience."_--Record._ +By Mrs. A. RUSSELL SIMPSON.+ FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP. With Illustrations. Demy 16mo, 1s. "Twelve beautifully written chapters on friendship. Very suitable to give to young people on life's threshold. Fresh and charming as a sprig of heather or a morsel of thyme."--_Christian Treasury_. "Mrs. Simpson quotes many of the finest things that have ever been said or written on her subject; and some of her own remarks are quite as good, not less full of insight, expressed with equal felicity, and having in addition a searching spiritual power."--_Christian Leader_. BUILDING FOE GOD; or, Houses not Made with Hands. With Illustrations. 16mo, 1s. "A beautiful little book, rich in anecdote, allusion, and illustration."-_Pall Mall Gazette_. "Mrs. Simpson's prettily got-up books of devotional reading are always deservedly popular.... As usual, the writer has shown much ingenuity in the arrangement and choice of illustrations, and much fervent devotion in her meditations and comments thereon."--_Record_. STEPS THROUGH THE STREAM.. Morning Readings for a Month. Square 16mo, 1s. "A very sweet, quickening, stimulating volume. We trust that the work may secure an extended sale, and be of much spiritual blessing to God's believing people."--Mr. SPURGEON in _The Sword and Trowel_. BEAUTIFUL UPON THE MOUNTAINS. Evening Readings for a Month. Square 16mo, 1s. "A series of brief readings, thoroughly devotional, earnest and simple, full of true thought, and exceedingly interesting."--_Guardian_. GATES AND DOORS. Square 16mo, 1s. "Full of anecdote and illustration. Mrs. Simpson's pleasant pages are well calculated to fulfil their author's design."--_Churchman_. "Original and stimulating in a high degree."--_Liverpool Post_. WELLS OF WATER. A Series of Chapters Descriptive and Practical on the Wells mentioned in Scripture. Square 16mo, 1s. "A series of short studies, meditations, and expositions on some among the many passages of Scripture which refer to wells and springs. As in the preceding volumes of a similar kind from the same pen, there is here much earnest, unquestioning piety, and a felicity in illustration that many a minister may envy."--_Scotsman_. +By FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.+ ROYAL GRACE AND LOYAL GIFTS. Being the following Seven Volumes in neat cloth case, price 10s. MY KING; or, Daily Thoughts for the King's Children. ROYAL COMMANDMENTS; or, Morning Thoughts for the King's Servants. ROYAL BOUNTY; or, Evening Thoughts for the King's Guests. THE ROYAL INVITATION: Daily Thoughts on Coming to Christ. LOYAL RESPONSES; or, Daily Melodies for the King's Minstrels. KEPT FOR THE MASTER'S USE. STARLIGHT THROUGH THE SHADOWS. _The Volumes may be had separately, in limp cloth, 1s. each_. MORNING BELLS; or, Waking Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.; paper cover, 6d. LITTLE PILLOWS. Being Good Night Thoughts for the Little Ones. 32mo, 9d.; paper cover, 6d. TREASURE TROVE. A Selection from some of Miss HAVERGAL'S Unpublished Writings. With coloured borders. 32mo, 6d. MORNING STARS; or, Names of Christ for His Little Ones. 32mo, 9d. +By FRANCES BEVAN,+ Author of "Three Friends of God." THE RIVER OF GOD. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. +By Mrs. PEARSALL SMITH,+ Author of "Christian's Secret of a Happy Life." EVERY DAY RELIGION. Crown 8vo. THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE. By H.W.S. Revised Edition. Small crown 8vo, paper cover, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s.; cloth, gilt edges, 3s. "Full of bright and cheering thoughts."--_Church Bells._ "A book that is capable of doing untold good in the way of promoting a more entire surrender of the soul and consecration to the will of God."-_Rock_. THE THREEFOLD CORDS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. An Arrangement of upwards of Twelve Hundred Precepts, Prayers, and Promises, as Four Hundred Sacred Triads. By the Rev. WILLIAM LEE, formerly Minister of Holy Trinity Church, Kennington, &c. Small crown 8vo, 2s. THE PRECIOUS PROMISES; or, Light from Beyond. By the Rev. CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. Lectures on Ecclesiastical History delivered in Norwich Cathedral. _The following have already appeared_:-- ST. IGNATIUS AND ST. POLYCARP. By F.W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., Archdeacon of Westminster, Chaplain to the Queen and to the House of Commons. THE APOLOGY OF ARISTIDES. By the Rev. J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON, B.D., Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUSTIN MARTYR. By the Rev. FREDERICK MEYRICK, M.A., Rector of Blickling, Norfolk; Non-residentiary Canon of Lincoln. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF IREN�US. By the Rev. Prebendary STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. Other Lectures will be delivered by the following:--The Right Rev. the LORD BISHOP OF RIPON, and the Rev. G.A. SCHNEIDER, M.A., Vice-Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. By the Rev. G.S. BOWES, B.A. CONVERSATION: WHY DON'T WE DO MORE GOOD BY IT? Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. SCRIPTURE ITSELF THE ILLUSTRATOR. A Manual of Illustrations gathered from Scriptural Figures, Phrases, Types, Derivations, Chronology, Texts, &c. Crown 8vo, 3s, 6d. INFORMATION AND ILLUSTRATIONS FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. Helps gathered from Facts, Figures, Anecdotes, and Books, for Sermons, Lectures, and Addresses. Crown 8vo, 5s. ILLUSTRATIVE GATHERINGS FOR PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. A Manual of Anecdotes, Facts, Figures, Proverbs, Quotations, &c. 2 vols. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. each. IN PROSPECT OF SUNDAY. A Collection of Analyses, Arguments, Applications, Counsels, Cautions, &c. Crown 8vo, 5s. NEARER HEAVEN: A Help to the Deepening of the Spiritual Life. By the Rev. JOHN BAIRD. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d. +By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A.+ IN SECRET. A Manual of Private Prayer. 16mo, 1s. ALL THROUGH THE DAY. A Precept and Meditation for Every Day in the Month. 16mo, 1s. "IN THE MORNING." A Scripture Prayer and a Meditation for each Morning in the Mouth. 16mo, 1s. "IN THE EVENING." Thirty-one Scripture Promises, with a Meditation for Every Evening in the Month. 16mo, 1s. THE SHIELD, THE SWORD, AND THE BATTLE. Crown 16mo, 1s. FIVE STONES FROM THE BROOK. Counsel and Comfort for the People of God. Small crown 8vo, 2s. LINKS OF LOVING KINDNESS. Words of Hope and Consolation for the Flock of Christ. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. YOUR SUNDAYS. Fifty-two short Readings, especially intended for Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. THE BELLS OF ST. PETER'S, AND OTHER PAPERS ON GOSPEL TRUTH. 16mo, 1s. YOUR INNINGS. A Book for Schoolboys. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d. HIS STEPS AS TRACED IN THE GREAT BIOGRAPHY. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d. THE RIVER OF LIFE; or, Salvation Full and Free. 16mo, 1s. STRONG AND FREE. A Book for Young Men. 16mo, 1s. BRIGHT AND FAIR. A Book for Young Ladies. 16mo, 1s. FOLLOW THE LEADER. Counsels on the Christian Life. 16mo, 1s. 6d. DAY BY DAY; or, Counsels to Christians on the Details of Every-day Life. Cheap Edition. 16mo, 1s. 6d. NOT YOUR OWN, Counsels to Young Christians. 16mo, 1s. LITTLE FOXES: And How to Catch Them. 16mo, 1s. MY SPECTACLES: And what I Saw with Them. 16mo, 1s. BENEATH THE CROSS. Counsels, Meditations, and Prayers for Communicants. 16mo, 1s. SAFE AND HAPPY. Words of Help and Encouragement to Young Women. With Prayers for Daily Use. 16mo, 1s. By the Rev. CANON BELL, D.D., Rector of Cheltenham. THE SAINTLY CALLING. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. LIVING TRUTHS FOR HEAD AND HEART. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. By the Rev. ERNEST BOYS, M.A. THE SURE FOUNDATION; or, Thoughts on the Believer's Safety. 16mo, 1s. REST UNTO YOUR SOULS; or, The Enjoyment of Peace. 16mo, 1s. FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT; or, Scriptural Studies about the Holy Ghost. 16mo, 1s. THE CONSECRATED LIFE; or, Thoughts on Practical Religion. 16mo, 1s. CONSECRATED RECREATION; or, The Christian's Leisure Time. 16mo, 1s. MY LORD'S MONEY; or, The Consecration of Talents. 16mo, 1s. By ANNA WARNER. THE MELODY OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM. 32mo, 8d. SHOES OF PEACE. 16mo, 1s. TIRED CHRISTIANS. 16mo, 1s. THE OTHER SHORE. 32mo, 1s. THE FOURTH WATCH. 32mo, 10d. THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING. 32mo, 10d. WAYFARING HYMNS. Original and Translated. 32mo, 6d. UP AND DOWN THE HOUSE. Royal 16mo, 2s. 6d. NISBET'S MINIATURE CHRISTIAN CLASSICS. Red Line Editions. Crown 16mo. Uniformly bound in cloth, 1s. each; with gilt edges, 1s. 6d.; half bound, gilt top, 1s. 6d.; paste grain, 2s. 6d. each. 1. BOGATZKY'S GOLDEN TREASURY. 2. KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR. 3. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST (THOMAS A KEMPIS). 4. THE POEMS OF GEORGE HERBERT. 5. BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. +By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D.+ IN CHRISTO; or, The Monogram of St. Paul. Crown 8vo, 5s. CLEFTS OF THE ROCK; or, The Believer's Grounds of Confidence in Christ. Crown 8vo, 5s. PALMS OF ELIM; or, Rest and Refreshment in the Valley. Crown 8vo, 5s. NOONTIDE AT SYCHAR; or, The Story of Jacob's Well. With Frontispiece and Vignette. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. EVENTIDE AT BETHEL; or, The Night Dream of the Desert. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. THE GRAPES OF ESHCOL; or, Gleanings from the Land of Promise. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. SUNSETS ON THE HEBREW MOUNTAINS. With Frontispiece. Post 8vo, 3s. 6d. THE SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK; or, The Keeper of Israel and the Sheep of His Pasture. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. MEMORIES OF BETHANY. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. MEMORIES OF GENNESARET. With Frontispiece. Extra crown 8vo, 5s. MEMORIES OF OLIVET. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. MEMORIES OF PATMOS; or, Some of the Great Words and Visions of the Apocalypse, With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. CAST THY BURDEN ON THE LORD. A Scripture Text-Book. 32mo, 1s.; paper cover, 6d. STRENGTH FOR THE DAY. A Daily Book in the Words of Scripture for Morning and Evening. With an Introduction. 16mo, 1s. 6d. VOICES OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND SHADOWS OF THE GREAT ROCK. Square 16mo, 1s. 6d. THE GATES OF PRAYER. A Book of Private Devotion for Morning and Evening. 16mo, 1s. 6d. THE MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES AND FAITHFUL PROMISER. In one Vol. 16mo, 2s. FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL. Being a Life of the Apostle Designed for Youth. With Illustrations, Crown 8vo, 5s. +By the Rev. Prof. LEWIS F. STEARNS+, Author of "Evidence of Christian Experience." PRESENT DAY THEOLOGY. Extra crown 8vo, 10s. 6d. +By the Rev. HENRY WAGE, D.D.+, Principal of King's College, London. THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, and other Sermons. Extra crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. +By the late Rev. AUBREY L. MOORE, M.A.+ A VOLUME OF SERMONS. * * * * * AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE LATE REV. DONALD FRASER, D.D., and a Selection from his Sermons. With a Preface by J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. SUNRISE GLEAMS. A Series of Daily Readings for a Month. By Lady HOPE. 16mo, 1s. SUNSET RAYS. A Companion Volume to "Sunrise Gleams." By Lady HOPE. 16mo, 1s. DAILY EVENING REST; or, Thoughts of Peace about the Master. By AGNES GIBERNE. 16mo, 2s. 6d. THE VOICE OF JESUS DAY BY DAY. With Original Hymns. By F.M. MACRAE. And an Introduction by HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D. Small crown 8vo, 2s. ABBA, FATHER. Helps to Prayer and Meditation. By the Rev. C.G. BASKERVILLE, M.A. Crown 8vo, 1s. 6d. LIST OF BOOKS OF FAMILY PRAYERS. By the Right Rev. the LORD BISHOP OF RIPON. CHURCHMAN'S BOOK OF FAMILY PRAYERS. Printed in Red and Black. Cloth plain, pott 4to, 3s. 6d. Cloth gilt, burnished red edges, 5s. By the Rev. GORDON CALTHROP, M.A. FAMILY PRAYERS FOR FOUR WEEKS. Imperial 16mo, 2s. 6d. By the Rev. J. OSWALD DYKES, D.D. DAILY PRAYERS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD FOR A MONTH. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. By the Rev. GEORGE EVERARD, M.A., Vicar of Christ Church, Dover. BEFORE HIS FOOTSTOOL. Family Prayers for one Month. With Prayers for Special Occasions, and Introduction. Ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo, 3s. By the Rev. C.E. KENNAWAY, M.A. FAMILY PRAYERS FOR THE MORNINGS AND EVENINGS FOR A FORTNIGHT; to which are added, Prayers on Special Occasions. 16mo, 1s. 6d. By the Rev. J.R. MACDUFF, D.D. MORNING FAMILY PRAYERS. A Volume of Family Worship for each Morning of the Year. Founded on Selected Passages of Scripture from the Old and New Testaments. Small 4to. 6s. 6d. *** This volume is on a plan and arrangement of its own, in order to secure, as much as may be, variety and comprehension. FAMILY PRAYERS. Small crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. By M.L.M. DAWSON. FAMILY PRAYERS FOR A MONTH. Demy 8vo, 1s. 6d. DAILY PRAYERS FOR BUSY HOMES. 16mo, 6d. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET, W. +WORKS BY R.M. BALLANTYNE+. * * * * * "In his tales of the sea, of the forest and the flames, and in all that he writes, there is a fidelity to nature and a knowledge of many paths of life which are not surpassed by any author in his special field of literature."--_Morning Post_. _With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_. NEW VOLUME. +THE BUFFALO RUNNERS+. A TALE OF THE RED RIVER PLAINS. +CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE+. A TALE or THE SEA AND THE ROCKIES. "In 'Charlie to the Rescue' Mr. Ballantyne supplies his constituency --which is now a large and well-satisfied one--with a sufficiency of battles, sieges, and escapes; the troubles of ranchmen, whose lives are threatened both by white and by black scoundrels, are admirably reproduced. It is a capital story."--_Spectator_. +BLOWN TO BITS+; Or, THE LONELY MAN OF RAKATA. A TALE OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. "A capital story, written in the author's old style, and full of life and action from beginning to end."--_Standard_. "The book abounds in matter of exceptional interest, and should find its way into the hands of all young people who would properly estimate the wide-spreading and far-reaching influences and the extraordinary character of the Krakatoa outburst."--_Manchester Courier_. +BLUE LIGHTS+; Or, HOT WORK IN THE SOUDAN. A TALE OF SOLDIER LIFE IN SEVERAL OF ITS PHASES. "An exciting story, full of excellent moral lessons."--_School Board Chronicle_. "We heartily recommend 'Blue Lights'."--_Guardian_. "The soldier's career is graphically depicted, and the story is every way a good one."--_Literary Churchman_. _Works by R.M. Ballantyne-continued. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_. THE FUGITIVES; Or, THE TYRANT QUEEN OF MADAGASCAR. "There is plenty of adventure in the shape of imprisonment and combats with men and animals, and a negro and a sailor between them supply a comic element of the best quality. Everything considered, this is one of the best stories even Mr. Ballantyne has published."--_Academy_. RED ROONEY; Or, THE LAST OF THE CREW. THE ROVER OF THE ANDES. A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN SOUTH AMERICA. "We commend it to boys fond of adventure and of natural phenomena; a very fascinating book."--_British Quarterly Review._ "An admirable boy's story."--_Scotsman_. THE YOUNG TRAWLER. A STORY OF LIFE AND DEATH AND RESCUE IN THE NORTH SEA. "Few men have laboured so steadfastly in their generation to provide sound wholesome fare for 'our boys' as Mr. Ballantyne, and the 'Young Trawler' is worthy of his reputation. It is not a whit less spirited than his former tales, and conveys a large amount of useful information on a highly important subject."--_Academy_. DUSTY DIAMONDS, CUT AND POLISHED. A TALE OF CITY-ARAB LIFE. _With Illustrations, Crown 8vo. 5s. each_. +THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER+; Or, THE ELECTRICAL ADVENTURES OF A TELEGRAPH CABLE-LAYER. "There is not a dull page in it."--_Scotsman_. "The interest never flags."--_Academy_. +THE GIANT OF THE NORTH+; Or, POKINGS ROUND THE POLE. "Of variety of perilous adventures and peril, ingeniously surmounted, there is no lack."--_Daily News_. +THE LONELY ISLAND+; Or, THE REFUGE OF THE MUTINEERS. "Mr. Ballantyne weaves the romantic episode of the mutiny of the 'Bounty' into a most effective narrative."--_Graphic_. +POST HASTE+. A TALE OF HER MAJESTY'S MAILS. "The book should find a place in every boy's library; it is full of interest."--_Leeds Mercury_. +IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS+. A TALE OF MODERN WAR. "Mr. Ballantyne has blended with the incidents of war on the Danube a story of personal adventure spiritedly told."--_Daily News_. +THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE+. A TALE OF PEACE AND WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA. "A capital story of South African life. Mr. Ballantyne, through the medium of a thoroughly manly and healthy tale of sport and war, frolic and danger, full of stirring yet not exaggerated scenes, presents a sketch of a very important period of the early history of our colony at the Cape of Good Hope."--_Times_. _With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 5s. each_. +UNDER THE WAVES+; Or, DIVING IN DEEP WATERS. "Mr. Ballantyne enlarges the already gigantic debt due to him by the young, by his 'Under the Waves,' a story meant to illustrate the practice and peril of diving in deep water, which it does in not only an interesting, but often in amusing manner."--_Times_. +RIVERS OF ICE+. A TALE ILLUSTRATIVE OF ALPINE ADVENTURE AND GLACIER ACTION. "A tale brimful of interest and stirring adventure."--_Glasgow Herald_. +THE PIRATE CITY+. AN ALGERINE TALE. "The story is told with Mr. Ballantyne's usual felicity, and, as it is plentifully sprinkled with horrors, no doubt it will be greatly enjoyed by some boys."--_Athenæum_. +BLACK IVORY+. A TALE OF ADVENTURE AMONG THE SLAVERS OF EAST AFRICA. "A captivating story. We heartily recommend it."--_Record_. "Boys will find the book about as delightful a story of adventure as any of them could possibly desire."--_Scotsman_. +THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST+; Or, AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. "This thoroughly delightful book is an adaptation of the Saga of Iceland, and also of Mr. Laing's 'Heimskingla; or Chronicles of the Kings of Norway,' supplemented by Mr. Ballantyne's own experience and adventures in the wilderness of America. These ingredients are put together with the skill and spirit of an accomplished story-teller; and the result is a book that cannot possibly be laid down till the very last word of the last line has been read."--_Athenæum_. +THE IRON HORSE+; Or, LIFE ON THE LINE. A RAILWAY TALE. "A captivating book for boys."--_Guardian_. +ERLING THE BOLD+. A TALE OF THE NORSE SEA KINGS. "A capital tale of the Norse Sea Kings."--_Times_. "The story is interesting and full of moving incidents by flood and field, and it will therefore scarcely fail to be popular among lads."--_Scotsman_. "The story is clearly designed, and abounds with elements of romantic interest; and the Author's illustrations are scarcely less vigorous than his text."--_Athenæum_. +FIGHTING THE FLAMES+. A TALE OF THE LONDON FIRE BRIGADE. "Many a schoolboy will find keen enjoyment in the perusal of 'Fighting the Flames,' and assure his little sisters with suitable emphasis that Mr. Ballantyne is 'a stunning good story-teller.'"--_Athenæum_. +DEEP DOWN+. A TALE OF THE CORNISH MINES. "Mr. Ballantyne's book will not fail to delight boys, for it is full of deeds of daring and of 'hairbreadth escapes.'"--_Scotsman_. "By reading Mr. Ballantyne's admirable story a very large amount of knowledge concerning Cornish mines may be acquired; whilst from the fact of the information being given in the form of a connected narrative, it is not likely very soon to be forgotten.... A book well worthy of being extensively read."--_Mining Journal._ +THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS+. "The tale will be especially interesting to adventure-loving boys."--_Record_. +SHIFTING WINDS+. A TOUGH YARN. "A hearty, vigorous, bracing story, fresh with the pure breezes, and sparkling with the bright waters of the everlasting seas.'"--_Athenæum_. +THE LIGHTHOUSE+. BEING THE STORY OF A GREAT FIGHT BETWEEN MAN AND THE SEA. _Extract Letter from the Secretary of Northern Lighthouses_. " ... They (the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses) have been so much pleased with the way in which you have combined the fiction of a tale with the popular but correct account of the building of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, that they think it would be an interesting work to transmit to their Lightkeepers, and I have therefore to request that you will direct your publishers to transmit me--copies. (Signed) ALEXR. CUNNINGHAM." "Thoroughly at home in subjects of adventure, the Author has made this, like all his stories for boys, smart in style, thrilling in interest, and abounding in incidents of every kind."--_Quiver_. +THE LIFEBOAT+. A TALE OF OUR COAST HEROES. "ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION. "DEAR SIR,--I am directed by the Committee to request your acceptance of the accompanying Photograph of a Lifeboat proceeding off to a wreck, as a small permanent acknowledgment of the important service you have rendered to the Lifeboat cause by your very interesting work entitled 'The Lifeboat: a Tale of our Coast Heroes." I remain, yours faithfully, (Signed) "RICHARD LEWIS, _Secretary_." +THE GOLDEN DREAM+. A TALE OF THE DIGGINGS. +THE RED ERIC+; Or, THE WHALER'S LAST CRUISE. +GASCOYNE, THE SANDALWOOD TRADER+. A TALE OF THE PACIFIC. "Full of cleverly and impressively drawn pictures of life and character in the Pacific."--_Caledonian Mercury_. +FREAKS ON THE FELLS,+ AND +WHY I DID NOT BECOME A SAILOR.+ * * * * * +THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST.+ _With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d._ +BATTLES WITH THE SEA;+ Or, HEROES OF THE LIFEBOAT AND THE ROCKET. _With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s._ +THE KITTEN PILGRIMS;+ Or, GREAT BATTLES AND GRAND VICTORIES. "We have copied the title-page of this amusing and instructive quarto for little folks. Nothing further is necessary. Mr. Ballantyne stands at the head of all our children's story-tellers _facile princeps_."--_Churchman_. _With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each_. NEW VOLUME. +A COXSWAIN'S BRIDE+; Or, THE RISING TIDE: And other Tales. +THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN+; Or, Low LIFE HIGH UP: And +JEFF BENSON+; Or, THE YOUNG COASTGUARDSMAN. +THE CREW OF THE WATER-WAGTAIL+. A STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND. +THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS+. AN ALGERINE TALE. +THE PRAIRIE CHIEF+. +LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE+. A FIERY TALE. AND FORT DESOLATION; or, SOLITUDE IN THE WILDERNESS. +THE ISLAND QUEEN+; Or, DETHRONED BY FIRE AND WATER. A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. +TWICE BOUGHT+. A TALE OF THE OREGON GOLD FIELDS. +THE MADMAN AND THE PIRATE+. +PHILOSOPHER JACK+. A TALE OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS. +THE RED MAN'S REVENGE+. +MY DOGGIE AND I+. +SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE+. LETTERS TO PERIWINKLE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. A RECORD OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND ADVENTURE. * * * * * _Crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. each_. +TALES OF ADVENTURE BY FLOOD, FIELD, AND MOUNTAIN+. +TALES OF ADVENTURE+; Or, WILD WORK IN STRANGE PLACES. +TALES OF ADVENTURE ON THE COAST+. * * * * * LONDON: JAMES NISBET & Co., 21 BERNERS STREET, W. 
27422	----	Through the Malay Archipelago. BY EMILY RICHINGS. Author of "Sir Walter's Wife," "In Chaucer's Maytime," &c. LONDON: HENRY J. DRANE, LIMITED, DANEGELD HOUSE, 82A, FARRINGDON STREET, E.C. O hundred shores of happy climes! How swiftly streamed ye by the bark! At times the whole sea burned--at times With wakes of fire we tore the dark. New stars all night above the brim Of waters lightened into view; They climbed as quickly, for the rim Changed every moment as we flew. We came to warmer waves, and deep Across the boundless East we drove, Where those long swells of breaker sweep The nutmeg rocks, and isles of clove. For one fair Vision ever fled Down the waste waters day and night, And still we followed where she led, In hope to gain upon her flight. CONTENTS. Prologue. JAVA. Batavia and Weltevreden--Buitenzorg--Soekaboemi and Sindanglaya--Garoet and her Volcano-- Djokjacarta--Boro-Boedoer--Brambanam-- Sourakarta--Sourabaya and the Tengger. CELEBES. Makassar and Western Celebes--The Minahasa-- Gorontalo and the Eastern Coast. A Glimpse of Borneo. THE MOLUCCAS. Ternate, Batjan, and Boeroe. Ambon. Banda. The Solo-Bessir Isles. SUMATRA. The Western Coast and the Highlands. A View of Krakatau. PENANG. Epilogue. PROLOGUE. The traveller who reaches those enchanted gates of the Far East which swing open at the palm-girt shores of Ceylon, enters upon a new range of thought and feeling. The first sight of tropical scenery generally awakens a passionate desire for further experiences of the vast Archipelago in the Southern Seas which girdles the Equator with an emerald zone. Lured onward by the scented breeze in that eternal search for perfection destined to remain unsatisfied where every step marks a higher ideal than the one already attained, the pilgrim pursues his endless quest, for human aspiration has never yet touched the goal of desires and dreams. The cocoanut woods of Ceylon and her equatorial vegetation lead fancy further afield, for the glassy straits of Malacca beckon the wanderer down their watery highways to mysterious Java, where vast forests of waving palms, blue chains of volcanic mountains, and mighty ruins of a vanished civilisation, loom before the imagination and invest the tropical paradise with ideal attractions. The island, seven hundred miles long, and described by Marianne North as "one magnificent garden of tropical luxuriance," has not yet become a popular resort of the average tourist, but though lacking some of those comforts and luxuries found under the British flag, it offers many compensations in the wealth of beauty and interest afforded by scenery, architecture, and people. The two days' passage from Singapore lies through a green chain of countless islets, once the refuge of those pirates who thronged the Southern seas until suppressed by European power. The cliffs of Banka, honeycombed with tin quarries, and the flat green shores of Eastern Sumatra, stretching away to the purple mountains of the interior, flank the silvery straits, populous with native _proas_, coasting steamers, _sampans_, and the hollowed log or "dug-out" which serves as the Malayan canoe. Patched sails of scarlet and yellow, shaped like bats' wings, suggest gigantic butterflies afloat upon the tranquil sea. The red roofs of whitewashed towns, and the tall shafts of white lighthouses emphasise the rich verdure between the silvery azure of sky and water. The little voyage ends at Tandjon Priok, nine miles from Batavia, for a volcanic eruption of Mount Salak in 1699 filled up the ancient harbour, and necessitated the removal of shipping to a deep bay, as the old city was landed high and dry through the mass of mud, lava, and volcanic sand, which dammed up the lower reaches of the Tjiligong river, and destroyed connection with the sea. The present model harbour, erected at tremendous cost, permits ships of heavy burden to discharge passengers and cargo with comfort and safety at a long wharf, without that unpleasant interlude of rocking _sampans_ and reckless boatmen common to Eastern travel. A background of blue peaks and clustering palms rises beyond the long line of quays and breakwaters flanked by the railway, and a wealth of tropical scenery covers a marshy plain with riotous luxuriance. No Europeans live either in Tandjon Priok or Old Batavia, and the locality was known for two centuries as "the European graveyard." Flourishing Arab and Chinese _campongs_ or settlements appear immune from the terrible Java fever which haunts the morasses of the coast, and the industrial Celestial who absorbs so much of Oriental commerce, possesses an almost superhuman imperviousness to climatic dangers. In the re-adjustment of power after the Fall of Napoleon, Java, invaded by England in 1811, after a five years' interval of British rule under the enlightened policy of Sir Stamford Raffles, was restored to the Throne of Holland. The supremacy of the Dutch East India Company, who, after a prolonged struggle, acquired authority in Java as residuary legatee of the Mohammedan Emperor, ended at the close of the eighteenth century. Perpetual warfare and rebellion, which broke out in Central Java after the return of the island to the Dutch, taxed the resources of Holland for five years. Immense difficulties arrested and delayed the development of the fertile territory, until the "culture system" of forced labour within a certain area relieved the financial pressure. One-fifth of village acreage was compulsorily planted with sugar-cane, and one day's work every week was demanded by the Dutch Government from the native population. The system was extended to tea and coffee; and indigo was grown on waste land not needed for the rice, which constitutes Java's staff of life. Spices and cinchona were also diligently cultivated under official supervision, and the lives of many explorers were lost in search of the precious Kina-tree, until Java, after years of strenuous toil, now produces one-half of that quinine supply which proves the indispensable safeguard of European existence on tropic soil. The ruddy bark and scarlet branches of the cinchona groves glow with autumnal brightness amid the evergreen verdure of the Javanese hills, and the "culture system," as a financial experiment, proved, in spite of cavillers, a source of incalculable benefit to the natives as well as to the colonists of Java. As we travel through the length and breadth of an island cultivated even to the mountain tops with the perfection of detail common to the Dutch, as the first horticulturists of the world, we realise the far-reaching wisdom, which in a few decades transformed the face of the island, clearing vast tracks of jungle, and pruning that riot of tropical nature which destroys as rapidly as it creates. A lengthened survey of Java's political economy and past history would be out of place in a slight volume, written as a "compagnon de voyage" to the wanderer who adds a cruise in the Archipelago to his Eastern itinerary, but the colonial features of Dutch rule which have produced many beneficial results demand recognition, for the varied characteristics of national genius and racial expansion suggest the myriad aspects of that creative power bestowed on humanity made in the Divine Image, and fulfilling the great destiny inspired by Heavenly Wisdom. JAVA. BATAVIA AND WELTEVREDEN. From the railway station at Batavia the comfortless "dos-a-dos," colloquially known as the _sado_, a vehicle resembling an elementary Irish car, and drawn by a rat-like Timor pony transports us to the fashionable suburb of Weltevreden, away from the steamy port and fever-haunted commercial capital. The march of modern improvement scarcely affects old-world Java, where jolting _sado_ and ponderous _milord_ remain unchanged since the early days of colonisation, for time is a negligeable quantity in this lotus-eating land, too apathetic even to adopt those alleviations of tropical heat common to British India. The Java of the ancient world was considered "The Jewel of the East," and possesses many claims to her immemorial title, but the stolid Dutchman of to-day contents himself with the domestic arrangements which sufficed for his sturdy forefathers, scorning the mitigations of swinging punkah or electric fan. The word Batavia signifies "fair meadows," and these swampy fields of rank vegetation, exhaling a deadly miasma, were considered such an adequate defence against hostile attack, that forts were deemed unnecessary in a locality where 87,000 soldiers and sailors died in the Government Hospital during the space of twenty years. Batavia proper is a commonplace city of featureless streets, brick-walled canals, and ramshackle public buildings, but the residential town of Weltevreden, suggesting a glorified Holland, combines the quaint charm of the mother country with the Oriental grace and splendour of the tropics. The broad canals bordered by colossal cabbage-palms, the white bridges gay with the many coloured garb of the Malay population, the red-tiled roofs embowered in a wealth of verdure, and the pillared verandahs veiled with gorgeous creepers, tumbling in sheets of purple and scarlet from cornice to floor, compose a characteristic picture, wherein Dutch individuality triumphs over incongruous environment. Waving palms clash their fronds in the sea-breeze; avenues of feathery tamarind and bending waringen trees surround Weltevreden with depths of green shadow; the scarlet hybiscus flames amid tangled foliage, where the orange chalices of the flowering Amherstia glisten from sombre branches, and hang like fairy goblets from the interwoven roofs of tropical tunnels, pierced by broad red roads. On this Sunday afternoon of the waning year which introduces us to Weltevreden, family groups are gathered round tea tables canopied with flowers and palms, in the white porticos of the Dutch villas, and the startling déshabille adopted by Holland in the Netherlands India almost defies description. The ladies, with stockingless feet thrust into heelless slippers, and attired in the Malay _sarong_ (two yards of painted cotton cloth), supplemented by a white dressing-jacket, display themselves in verandah, carriage, or street, in a garb only fit for the bath-room; while the men, lounging about in pyjamas, go barefoot with the utmost _sangfroid_. The _sarong_, as worn by the slender and graceful Malay, appears a modest and appropriate garb, but the grotesque effect of native attire on the broad-built Dutchwoman affords conclusive proof that neither personal vanity nor a sense of humour pertain to her stolid personality. Dutch Puritanism certainly undergoes startling transformations under the tropical skies, and the Netherlands India produces a modification of European ideas concerning what have been called "the minor moralities of life," unequalled in colonial experience. An identical exhibition fills the open corridors of the Hotel Nederlanden, built round a central court, and the general resort of the guests during the hot hours of the January days. Evening dress is reserved for State occasions, and though _sarong_ and _kabaja_ be discarded at the nine o'clock dinner, the blouse and skirt of morning wear in England suffices even at this late hour for the fair Hollander, who also concedes so far to the amenities of civilisation as sometimes to put on her stockings. So much of life in Java is spent in eating, sleeping, and bathing, that but a small residuum can be spared for those outside interests which easily drop away from the European when exiled to a colony beyond the beaten track of travel, and destitute of that external friction which counteracts the enervating influence of the tropics. Comfort is at a discount according to English ideas, but the arrangements of the Hotel Nederlanden, under a kindly and capable proprietor, render it an exception to the prevailing rule. Each guest is apportioned a little suite, consisting of bedroom, sitting-room, and a section of the verandah, fitted up with cane lounge, table, and rocking-chair. The bathrooms, with porcelain tank and tiles, leave nothing to be desired, and the "dipper-bath," infinitely cooler than the familiar tub, becomes an unfailing delight. Ominous prophecies have emphasised the rashness of coming to Java in the rainy season, but it has expended its force before January arrives, and though daily showers cool the air, and the sky is often overcast, no inconvenience is experienced. Lizards and mosquitoes are few, and in the marble-floored dining hall of cathedral proportions the absence of a punkah is generally unfelt, though the fact of a tropical climate is realised at the slightest exertion. The day begins at 6 a.m. with a cup of the Java coffee, which, at first unpalatable, reveals by degrees the hidden excellence of the beverage, brought cold in a stoppered cruet, the potent essence requiring a liberal admixture of boiling water. At 9 a.m. a solid but monotonous breakfast of sausage, bacon, eggs, and cheese is customary, with the accompaniment of iced water, though tea and coffee are provided for the foreign traveller, unused to the cold comfort which commends itself to Dutch taste. The mid-day _riz-tavel_ from beginning to end of a stay in Java, remains the terror of the English visitor. Each plate is heaped with a mound of rice, on which scraps of innumerable ingredients are placed--meat, fish, fowl, duck, prawns, curry, fried bananas, and nameless vegetables, together with chilis and chutneys, sembals, spices, and grated cocoanut, in bewildering profusion. The Dutch digestion triumphantly survives this severe test at the outset of the meal, and courageously proceeds to the complementary courses of beefsteak, fritters and cheese. Fortunately for those of less vigorous appetite, mine host of the Nederlanden, far in advance of his Javanese fraternity, kindly provides a simple "tiffin" as an alternative to this Gargantuan repast. Afternoon tea is served in the verandah, and at eight o'clock the Dutch contingent, having slept off the effects of the rice table, prepares with renewed energies to attack a heavy dinner. New Year's Eve is celebrated by a very bombardment of fireworks from the Chinese _campong_, and crowds hasten to the fine Roman Catholic church for Benediction, Te Deum, and an eloquent, though to me incomprehensible, Dutch sermon. Crisp muslins and uncovered heads for the women, and white linen garb for the men, are the rule in church, for the slatternly undress of _sarong_ and pyjamas is happily inadmissible within the walls of the sanctuary, where the fair fresh faces and neat array compose a pleasing picture which imagination would fail to evolve from the burlesque ugliness of the slovenly déshabille wherewith the Dutch colonist disguises every claim to beauty or grace. On alluding to the shock experienced by this grotesque travesty of native garb, a Dutch officer asserts that there are in reality but few Dutch ladies in Java of pure racial stock, for one unhappy result of remoteness from European influence is shown by the gradual merging of the Dutch colonists into the Malay race by intermarriage. Exile to Java was made financially easy and attractive by the Dutch Government, but it was for the most part a permanent separation from the mother country, and a long term of years necessarily elapsed before the colonial planter could even return for a short visit to his native land. The overwhelming force of public opinion against mixed marriages, and the consequent degeneration of type, from a union which lowers one of the contracting parties without raising the other, beats but faintly against these remote shores, cut off from associations which mould and modify the crudities of individual thought in regions swept by the full tide of contemporary life. The idea of welding European and Asiatic elements into one race, as a defence against external aggression, possesses a superficial plausibility, but ages of historical experiment only confirm the unalterable truth of the poetic dictum that East is East, and West is West, And never the two shall meet. Until they stand on either hand, At God's great Judgment Seat! The sudden rise of an Oriental race to the position of a great world-power, and the apprehensions of coming struggles for supremacy in Eastern waters, present many future complications concerning Java, even if not weakened by the assimilation of her European colonists to an inferior race. Neither landlord nor secretary of the Hotel Nederlanden spare time or trouble in arranging the programme of sight-seeing, and but for their kindly help, only a partial success would be possible, owing to the difficulties presented by the two unknown tongues of Dutch and Malay. Ignorance of the former involves separation from the world as revealed by newspapers, and though a smattering of "coolie Malay" is picked up with the aid of a handbook, and the "hundred words" mastered, sanguinely asserted to suffice for colloquial needs, there are many occasions when even the practice of this elementary language requires a more extensive vocabulary. At a New Year's fête given by the proprietor of the hotel to his numerous Malay employés, we make our first acquaintance with native music. Dancing girls, in mask and tinsel, gyrate to the weird strains of the _Gamelon_, an orchestra of tiny gongs, bamboo tubes, and metal pipes. Actors perform old-world dramas in dumb show, and conjurors in gaudy attire attract people of all ages to those time-honoured feats of legerdemain which once represented the sorcery of the mystic East. The simple Malay has not yet adopted the critical and unbelieving attitude which rubs the gilt off the gingerbread or the bloom off the plum, and his fervid faith in mythical heroes and necromantic exploits gives him the key to that kingdom of fancy often closed to a sadder if wiser world. The electric tram provides an excellent method of gaining a general idea of Batavia and Weltevreden; the winding route skirting canals and palm groves, _campongs_ of basket-work huts, and gay _passers_, the native markets, with their wealth of many-coloured fruit. Stacks of golden bananas, olive-tinted dukus, rambutans like green chestnut-shells with scarlet prickles, amber star-fruit, brown salak, the "forbidden apple," bread-fruit, and durian offer an embarassing choice. Pineapples touch perfection on Java soil; cherimoya and mango, papaya and the various custard-fruits, the lovely but tasteless rose-apple, and the dark green equatorial orange of delicious flavour, afford a host of unfamiliar experiences. The winter months are the season of the peerless mangosteen, in beauty as well as in savour the queen of tropical fruits. The rose-lined purple globes, with the central ball of ivory whiteness in each fairy cup, suggest fugitive essences of strawberry and nectarine combined with orange to produce this equatorial marvel, also considered perfectly wholesome. The mangosteen, ripening just north or south of the Equator, according to the alternations of the wet and dry seasons, cannot be preserved long enough to reach the temperate zone, and though every year shows fresh varieties of tropical fruit successfully transported to European markets, the mangosteen remains unknown outside the narrow radius of the equatorial region to which the tree is indigenous. The flower markets blaze with many-coloured roses, tons of gardenias and a wealth of white heavy-scented flowers, such as tuberoses and Arabian jasmine. All the spices of the East, in fact, seem breathing from these mounds of blossom, as well as from gums and essences distilled from them in archaic fashion. Transparent sachets, filled with the scented petals of _ylang-ylang_, fill the air with intoxicating sweetness, and outside the busy _passer_, a frangipanni-tree, the native _sumboya_ or "flower of the dead," just opening a white crowd of golden-hearted blossoms to the sun, adds another wave of perfume to the floral incense, steaming from earth to sky with prodigal exuberance. Batavia possesses few objects of interest. The dismal green-shuttered Stadkirche, a relic of Dutch Calvinism; the earliest warehouse of the Netherlands Company, a commonplace lighthouse, and the gate of Peter Elberfeld's dwelling (now his tomb), with his spear-pierced skull above the lintel, as a reminder of the sentence pronounced on traitors to the Dutch Government, comprise the scanty catalogue. Antiquities and archæological remains fill a white museum of classical architecture on the Koenig's Plein, a huge parade ground, flanked by the Palace of the Governor-General. Gold and silver ornaments, gifts from tributary princes, shield and helmet, dagger, and _kris_, of varied stages in Malay civilisation, abound in these spacious halls, where every Javanese industry may be studied. Buddhist and Hindu temples have yielded up a treasury of images, censers, and accessories of worship, the excavations of ruined cities in Central Java, long overgrown with impenetrable jungle, opening a mine of archæological wealth in musical instruments, seals, coins, headgear, chairs and umbrellas of State. Golden pipes and betel-boxes show the perfection of the goldsmith's art, and metal statues vie with those of sculptured wood or stone. Here Captain Cook left his treasure trove from the Southern seas, and the Council Chamber of the Museum contains portraits and souvenirs of the great navigators who sailed into the uncharted ocean of geographical discovery, and in various stages of their adventurous careers anchored at Java, to display the wondrous trophies of unknown lands in the island then regarded as the farthest outpost of contemporary civilisation. The _toelatingskaart_, or Javanese passport, formerly indispensable for insular travel beyond the radius of forty miles from Batavia, though not yet obsolete, proves practically needless, and is never once demanded during a six weeks' stay. The small addition contributed to the rich revenue by this useless official "permit," appears the sole reason for retaining it, now that vexatious restrictions are withdrawn. In the intervals of arranging an up-country tour from monotonous Weltevreden, destitute of any attraction beyond the white colonnades and verdant groves flanking sleepy canals and quaint bridges, the local industry of _sarong_ stippling affords a curious interest. Every city in Java possesses a special type of this historic dress, represented on the walls of temples dating before the Christian era, and worn by the Malay races from time immemorial. This strip of cotton cloth, which forms the attire both of men and women, is twisted firmly round the body, and requires no girdle to secure it. Palm-fronds, birds, and animals, geometric patterns, religious emblems, fruits and flowers, are represented in bewildering confusion. The girls, with flower-decked hair and scanty garb, occupy a long, low shed, filled with rude frames for stretching the cloth, painted in soft-tinted dyes--brown, blue, and amber for the most part--with tapering funnels. These waxed cloths allow infinite scope for native imagination, only a small panel of formal design being obligatory, the remaining surface fancifully coloured at will in harmonious hues. No two _sarongs_ are alike, and the painted _battek_, notwithstanding the simplicity of the cotton background, represents an amount of labour and finish which makes the archaic garment a costly, though almost indestructible production. The graceful _slandang_, a crossed scarf of the same material, only serves as a shoulder-strap, wherein the brown Malay baby sits contentedly, for the ugly white jacket of the Dutchwoman is now compulsory on the native. Every variety of _battek_, basket-work, mats, and quaint silver or brass ware, is brought by native peddlers to the broad verandahs of the hotel, the patient and gentle people content to spend long hours on the marble steps, dozing between their scanty bargains, or crimsoning their months with the stimulating morsel of betel-nut, said to allay the hunger, thirst, and exhaustion of the steaming tropics. The conquered race, cowed by ages of tyranny under native princes, possesses those mild and effeminate characteristics fostered by a languid and enervating climate. That the salient angles of the sturdy Dutch character, which accomplished so many feats of endurance in the earlier days of the colony, should undergo rapid disintegration by intermarriage with the native stock, must arouse regret in all who realise the claims to respect possessed by the fighting forefathers of Holland's tropical dependencies. Educational matters were for centuries in abeyance, and until 1864 the Malays were forbidden to learn the language of their European rulers. Many dialects are found in Java's wide territory, but Low Malay has been declared the official tongue, and with the advance of public opinion, wider views prevail concerning the rights of the subject race. A good Roman Catholic priest, one of the most enlightened and liberal Dutchmen encountered in Java, asserts that in the schools of the Colonial Government, the Malay boy possesses a mathematical facility superior to that of the Dutch scholar, in spite of the advantage accruing from hereditary education. At the sunset hour, Batavian life awakens from the long slumbers of the tropical afternoon, and as the golden light filters through the waving palms, the long Schul-Weg, beside the central canal, fills with saunterers, enjoying the delights of that brief spell, when peace and coolness fall on the world before the sudden twilight drops veil after veil of deepening gloom, merging into the "darkness which may be felt," for the twelve hours of the tropical night. Gathering clouds reveal but scanty glimpses of the moon in these January weeks, but through rifts in the sombre canopy, the Southern stars hang low in the dome of heaven, and shine like burning lamps, appearing almost within reach of an outstretched hand. BUITENZORG. The first destination of the up-country traveller in Java is Buitenzorg, the Dutch "Sans Souci," containing the Governor-General's rural Palace, the houses of Court officials, and the superb Botanical Garden, which ranks first among the horticultural triumphs of the world. The two hours' journey by the railway, which now traverses the whole of Java, shows a succession of tropical landscapes, appearing unreal in their fantastic and dream-like beauty. The glowing green of rice-fields, the dense forests of swaying palms, the porphyry tints of the teeming soil, and the purple mountains, carved into the weird contours peculiar to volcanic ranges, frame myriad pictures of unfamiliar native life with dramatic effect. Villages of woven basket-work cluster beneath green curtains of banana and spreading canopies of palm, the central mosque surmounting the tiny huts with many-tiered roofs, and walls inlaid with gleaming tiles of white and blue. Brown figures, with gay _sarong_ and turbaned headgear, bring bamboo buckets to moss-grown wells, gray water-buffaloes crop marshy herbage, a little bronze-hued figure seated on each broad back, and busy workers stand knee-deep in slush, to transplant emerald blades of rice or to gather the yellow crops, for seedtime and harvest go on together in this fertile land. Our train halts at Depok, a Christian village unique in Java, for the religious history of the island shows little missionary enterprise among a race strangely indifferent to the claims of faith, and lightly casting away one creed after another, with a carelessness which has ever proved a formidable bar to spiritual progress. The Portuguese Jesuits were expelled by the Dutch, and English efforts at conversion were succeeded by a general exclusion of foreign missionaries. Public opinion eventually prevented the continuance of this despotic rule, and at the present day a certain number of Roman and Protestant clergy are supported by the Government, but Roman zeal outstrips the niggardly spiritual provision, and proves the appreciation in which it is held by full churches and devout worshippers. The Mohammedanism of the Malay lacks the fiery fervour common to Islam, and his slack hands are ever ready to forego all symbols of faith. From the region of rice and tapioca, maize and sugar-cane, we reach the great cacao plantations, hung with chocolate-coloured pods, and the ruddy kina-groves on the lower slopes of the mountain chain. The palms are everywhere, clashing their huge fronds, and undulating in waves of fiery green, the light and shadow of the golden evening reflected on the swaying foliage. Stately Palmyra, slender areca, graceful pandang with a length of scarlet crowning each smooth grey stem, the mighty royal palm, king of the forest, spreading cocoanuts, and a hundred unknown varieties, soaring among bread-fruit and teak, nutmeg and waringen, reveal the inexhaustible powers of tropical Nature. Buitenzorg occupies an ideal position between the blue and violet peaks of Gedeh and Salak, the guardian mountains of the fairy spot, perennially green with spring-like freshness, from the daily showers sweeping across the valley from one or other of the lofty crests, and possessing a delicious climate at an altitude of eight hundred feet. The Hotel Bellevue, where _back_ rooms should be secured on account of a superb prospect, comprising river, mountain and forest, stands near the great entrance of the world-famous Gardens, and our balcony commands a profound ravine, carved by a clear river, winding away between forests of palm to the dark cone of Mount Salak, the climax of the picture. The artist destined to interpret the soul of Java is yet unborn, or unable to grasp the character of her unique and distinctive scenery, but a village of plaited palm-leaves, accentuating this tropical Eden, brings it down to the human level, where soft Malay voices, glimpses of domestic life, and a canoe afloat on the brimming stream, remind us that we are still on _terra firma_, and not gazing at a dreamland Paradise beyond earthly ken. Sleeping accommodation in the hills suggests little comfort. A hard mattress beneath a sheet is the sole furniture of the huge four-poster, surrounded by thick muslin curtains to exclude air and creeping things; pillows are stuffed hard with cotton-down, and no coverings are provided--an unalterable custom possessing obvious disadvantages in a climate reeking with damp, where the walls of a room closed for a day or two become green with mould. Rheumatic stiffness on waking is a matter of course in humid Java, for the hour between darkness and dawn contains a concentrated essence of dew, mist, and malaria, which penetrates to the very marrow of unaccustomed bones, even when it lacks the frequent accompaniment of the violent cascade known as "a tropical shower." The glorious Botanical Garden is approached by a mighty avenue of colossal kanari-trees, over a hundred feet high, with yellow light filtering through the fretted roof of interlacing boughs, which suggests a vast aisle in some primeval forest. Stately columns and spreading roots garlanded with stag-horn ferns, waving moss, white and purple orchids, or broad-leaved creepers, falling in sheets and torrents of shining foliage and knitting tree to tree, attest the irrepressible growth of vegetation, which flings a many-coloured veil of blossom and leaf over root, branch, and stem. A fairy lake glows with the pink and crimson blossoms of the noble Victoria Regia, the huge leaves like green tea-trays floating on the water, where a central fountain adds prismatic radiance to the scenic effect of the splendid lilies. Climbing palms and massive creepers, splashed with orange, scarlet, and gold, tumble in masses from lofty branches, and the dazzling Bougainvillea flings curtains of roseate purple over wall and gateway. A dense thicket of frangipanni scents the air with the symbolic blossoms, shining like stars from grey-green boughs of sharp-cut leaves. A copse of splendid tree-ferns flanks the forest-like plantation known as "The Thousand Palms," and beneath dusky avenues of waringen (a variety of the banyan species, which strikes staff-like boughs into the earth and springs up again in caverns of foliage), herds of deer are wandering, snatching at drooping vines, or sheltering from the fierce sun in depths of impenetrable shade. Tufts of red-stemmed Banka palms cluster on the green islets of lake and river, vista after vista opens up, each mysterious aisle appearing more lovely than the last, and luring the wanderer to the climax formed by a terraced knoll, commanding a superb view of Gedeh and Salak, the twin summits of chiselled turquoise, gashed by the amethyst shadows of deep ravines, with Gedeh's curl of volcanic smoke staining the lustrous azure of the sky. Many-coloured tree carnations, gorgeous cannas and calladiums, copses of snowy gardenia, and flowering shrubs of rainbow hues, blaze with splendour, or exhale their wealth of perfume on the languid air, thronged with the invisible souls of the floral multitude. Graceful rattans shoot up in tall ladders of foliage-hidden cane, climbing to the topmost fronds of the loftiest palm, and, unless ruthlessly cut down, overthrowing the stately tree with their fatal embrace. Sausage and candle trees, with strange parodies of prosaic food and waxen tapers, climbing palms, sometimes extending for five hundred feet, and gigantic blossoms like crimson trumpets, or delicately-tinted shells of ocean, comprise but a tithe of Nature's wonders, crowned by the mighty "Rafflesia," the largest flower in the world, with each vast red chalice often measuring a circumference of six feet. A hundred native gardeners are employed in this park-like domain, and seventy men work in the adjacent culture-garden of forty acres, where experiments in grafting and acclimatizing are carried on, as well as in the supplementary garden of Tjibodas, beautifully situated on the lower slopes of Mount Salak. The white palace of the Governor-General faces the lake, fed by the lovely river Tjiligong, winding in silver loops round verdant lawn and palm-clad hill, or expanding into bamboo-fringed lakes, and bringing perennial freshness into the tropical Eden of sun-bathed Java. Beyond the fretted arches of the great kanari avenue, the white tomb of Lady Raffles, who died during her husband's term of office in the island, forms a pathetic link with the past. When the colony was restored to Holland, a clause in the treaty concerning it, made the perpetual care of this monument, to one deeply loved and mourned, binding upon the Dutch Governor--a condition loyally observed during the century since the cessation of English rule. Cinnamon and clove scent the breeze which whispers mysterious secrets to the swaying plumes of the tall sago-palms, and dies away in the delicate foliage of tamarind and ironwood tree. A network of air roots makes a grotesque circle round the spreading boughs of the banyan grove, mahogany and sandal-wood, ebony and cork, ginger-tree and cardamom, mingle their varied foliage, the translucency of sun-smitten green shading through deepening tones into the sombre tints of ilex and pine with exquisite gradation. Flamboyant trees flaunt fiery pyramids of blossom high in the air, and the golden bouquets of the salacca light up dusky avenues, where large-leaved lianas rope themselves from tree to tree in cables of vivid green. Bare stems, except in the palms, are unknown in this richly-decorated temple of Nature; climbing blade-plants with sword-like leaves of gold-striped verdure, huge orchids like many-coloured birds and butterflies fluttering in the wind, wreathe trunk and branch with fantastic splendour, and matted creepers weave curtains of dense foliage from spreading boughs. The austere and scanty vegetation of Northern climes, which gives a distinct outline and value to every leaf and flower, has nothing in common with the prodigal and passionate beauty of the tropical landscape, where the wealth of earth is flung broadcast at our feet in mad profusion. Day by day the marvellous gardens of Buitenzorg take deeper hold of mind and imagination. The early dawn, when the dark silhouettes of the palms stand etched against the rose-tinted heavens, the hot noontide in the shadows of the colossal kanari-trees, the sunset gold transfiguring the foliage into emerald fire, and spilling pools of liquid amber upon the mossy turf, or the white moonlight which transmutes the forest aisles into a fairy world of sable and silver, invest this vision of Paradise with varied aspects of incomparable beauty. The surrounding scenery, though full of interest, seems but the setting of the priceless gem, and when inexorable Time, the modern angel of the flaming sword, at length bars the way, and banishes us from our Javanese Eden, the exiled heart turns back perpetually to the floral sanctuary, the antitype of that Divinely-planted Garden on the dim borderland of Time which revealed and fulfilled the primeval beauty of earth's morning hours. SOEKABOEMI AND SINDANGLAYA. Soekaboemi (Desire of the World), a favourite sanatorioum of the Dutch, is approached by an exquisite railway, curving round the purple heights of forest-girt Salak. The usual afternoon deluge weeps itself away, palm plumes and cassava boughs, overhanging the silvery Tjiligong, drop showers of diamonds into the current, and giant bamboos creak in the spicy wind, redolent of gardenia and clove. The hills, scaled by green rice-terraces, each with tiny rill and miniature cascade, are vocal with murmuring waters. Lilac plumbago, red hybiscus, and golden allemanda mingle with pink and purple lantana, yellow daisies, and hedges of scarlet tassels, enclosing wicker huts in patches of banana and cocoanut. Brown girls, in blue and orange _sarongs_, occupy the steps of a basket-work shrine, from whence an unknown god, smeared with ochre, extends a sceptred hand, for Hinduism left deep traces on inland Java, dim with the dust of vanished creeds. The expense and trouble of former travel by the superb post-roads, made at terrible sacrifice of life in earlier days, is now done away with, though the noble avenues and picturesque shelters, erected for protection from sun or rain, suggest a pleasant mode of leisurely progress. No trains may run at night, not only on account of native incompetence, but from dangers caused by constant geographical changes on this volcanic soil, where rivers suddenly alter their course, and earthquakes obstruct the way with yawning chasms or heaps of debris. A paternal Government provides the traveller with a half-way house, erecting a large hotel at Maos, with uniform rates, entirely for the benefit of the passenger by rail. Trains are built on the American plan, stations are spacious and airy, refreshments easily secured, and every halting-place offers an _embarras de richesses_ in the shape of tropical fruits, wherewith to supplement or replace the solidity of the Dutch commissariat. Coffee and tea plantations in ordered neatness, contrast with the untamed profusion of forest vegetation, clothing sharp promontory and shelving terrace. Dusky villages cling like birds' nests to ledges of rock, screw-palms with airy roots frame mountain tarns, and a Brazilian Emperor-palm, with smooth column bulging into a pear-shaped base, accentuates the sunset glory from a crag crowned by the black canopy of colossal fronds. The Preanger Regency was the heart of ancient Mataram, that historic kingdom of old-world Java round which perpetual warfare waged for centuries. Language and customs change as we cross the saddle between the blue peaks of Salak and Gedeh; gay crowds bring fruits to picturesque wayside markets, bearing bamboo poles laden with golden papaya and purple mangosteen, or plaited baskets containing the conglomerate native cuisine. The elastic and gracefully-modelled figures of the Soendanese populace betoken a purer race than that of the steamy Batavian lowlands, where foreign elements deteriorate the native stock. The Hotel Victoria at Soekaboemi consists of detached white buildings round tree-filled courts, erected on the "pavilion system." Every two visitors occupy a tiny bungalow of two bedrooms, opening on a spacious verandah divided by a screen, and each section provided with lamp, rocking-chair, and tea-table, the long public dining hall being approached by a covered alley. The rain, swishing down through the night in torrents and cataracts, clears at sunrise, and though heavy clouds still veil the heights of Salak, the transparent beauty of the morning crystallises the atmosphere, and sharply defines every feature of the landscape. The country roads, shaded by towering palms and fruit-laden mangos, glow with a continuous procession of brown figures, the women clad in the universal _sarong_, but men and children often in Nature's garb, with touches of orange or crimson in scarf and turban. Water-oxen and buffaloes, goats and sheep, vary the throng, but cattle fare badly in fertile Java, where the all-pervading rice ousts the pasture-land. Glorious bamboos form arches of feathery green meeting across the road, and the busy China _campong_, or _désar_ in Preanger parlance, is full of life and movement with the first streak of day, for all trade in Java depends upon the indefatigable industry of the Celestial. The idle gambling Malay, though an expert hunter and fisher, takes no thought for the morrow, and is protected by the Dutch Government from ruin by an enforced demand of rice for storage, according to the numbers of the family. Every village contains the great Store Barn of plaited palm leaves, so that, in case of need, the confiscated rice can be doled out to the improvident native, who thus contributes to the support of his family in times of scarcity. This regulation relieves want without pauperising, the common garner merely serving as a compulsory savings bank. Many salutary laws benefit the Malay, possessing a notable share of tropical slackness, and the lack of initiative partly due to a servile past under the sway of tyrannical native princes. The little brown people of Java, eminently gentle and tractable, are honest enough for vendors of eatables to place a laden basket at the roadside for the refreshment of the traveller, who drops a small coin into a bamboo tube fastened to a tree for this purpose. The customary payment is never omitted, and at evening the owner of the basket collects the money, and brings a fresh supply of food for future wayfarers. Country districts demonstrate the fact of Java being a creedless land. This is Sunday, and the Feast of the Epiphany, but the only honour paid to the day consists in a gayer garb, and a band playing for an hour in the palm-shaded garden. Work goes on in rice-field and plantation, but no church bell rings from the closed chapel outside the gates, and no sign of religion is evident, whether from mosque, temple, or church. Lovely lanes form alluring vistas. The pretty _désas_ of plaited palm and bamboo, hiding in depths of tropical woodland, with blue thunbergia clambering over every verandah, and the Preanger girls, with their brilliant _slandangs_ of orange and scarlet, amber and purple, make vivid points of colour in the foreground of blue mountain and dusky forest. A copper-coloured boy carries on his head a basket of gold-fish large as salmon, the westering sun glittering on the ruddy scales. Traditional servility remains ingrained in Preanger character, and the crouching obeisance known as the _dodok_, formerly insisted upon, is still observed by the native to his European masters, the humble posture giving place to kneeling on a nearer approach. The kind proprietor of the Soekaboemi Hotel offers every facility to those guests anxious to penetrate below the surface of Soendanese life, placing his carriage and himself at the disposal of the visitor, and affording a mine of information otherwise unattainable, for books on Java are few and far between, and the work of Sir Stamford Raffles continues the best authority on island life and customs, though a century has elapsed since it was written. Why, one asks in amazement, did England part with this Eastern Paradise? rich not only in vegetation, but containing unexplored treasures of precious metal and the vast mineral wealth peculiar to volcanic regions, where valuable chemical products are precipitated by the subterranean forces of Nature's mysterious laboratory. In the far-off days when "the grand tour" of Europe was the climax of the ordinary traveller's ambition, beautiful Java was relinquished on the plea of being an unknown and useless possession, too far from the beaten track of British sailing ships to be of practical value. The remonstrances of Sir Stamford Raffles, and his representations of future colonial expansion, were regarded as the dreams of a romantic enthusiast, and the noble English Governor, in advance of his age, while effecting during his brief tenure of office results unattainable by a century of ordinary labour, found his efforts wasted and his work undone. Instead of returning home, he applied himself heroically to the developement of Singapore, the eternal monument of patriotic devotion and invincible courage. The line to Tjandjoer, the starting point for Sindanglaya, traverses one of the exquisite plains characteristic of Java. Mountain walls, with palm-fringed base and violet crest, bound a fertile expanse, where myriad brooks foam through fairy arches of feathery bamboo and long vistas of spreading palm fronds. Rice in every stage of growth, from flaming green to softest yellow, covers countless terraces, the picturesque outlines of their varied contours enhancing the beauty of the fantastic scene. A _sado_, with a team of three tiny ponies, dashes up the long avenue leading to the palm-fringed hills, the mighty Amherstia trees forming aisles of dark green foliage, brightened with the vivid glow of orange red blossoms. The broad road is a kaleidoscope of brilliant colour, for native costume vies with the dazzling tints of tropical Nature as we advance further into the Preangers. The gay headgear, worn turbanwise, with two ends standing upright above plaited folds, and magenta _kabajas_, with _slandangs_ of apple green, amber or purple, make a blaze of colour against the forest background, or glow amidst the dusky shadows of palm-thatched sheds, where thirsty travellers imbibe pink and yellow syrups, the favourite beverages of the Malay race. The ascending road commands superb views of the mountain chain, and the rambling two-storied hotel, widened by immense verandahs, stands opposite cloud-crowned Gedeh, half-veiled by the spreading column of volcanic smoke. The misty blue of further hills leads the eye to the three weird peaks of the Tangkoeban Prahoe, the boat-shaped "Ark" regarded as the Ararat of Java, for the universal tradition of the great Deluge underlies the religious history welded from Moslem, Buddhist, and Hindu elements. Legendary lore clusters round the petrified "Ark" in which the progenitors of the Malayan stock escaped from the Noachian flood. The storm-tossed and water-logged boat, lodged between jutting rocks, was reversed that it might dry in the sun, but the weary voyagers who traditionally peopled the Malay Archipelago remained in the lotus-eating land, and the disused "Ark" or _Prau_, fossilizing through the ages, became a portion of the peaks whereon it rested. The sacred mountain developed into a place of pilgrimage and prayer, and the ruins of richly-carved temples, together with four broken flights of a thousand steps, denote the former importance ascribed to the great Altar of Nature, and the power of religion on the social life of the past. Generations of later inhabitants, dwelling in flimsy huts of bamboo and thatch, regarded the mysterious ruins of the Tankahan Prahoe as the work of giants or demons, and the haunted hill as a mysterious resort of evil spirits. In lofty Sindanglaya, the swaying palms of the lowlands yield to glorious tree-ferns, shading road and ravine with feathery canopies of velvet green. A lake of azure crystal mirrors a thick fringe of the great fronds, and on every parapet of the ruddy cliffs the living emerald of the lanceolated foliage glows in vivid contrast with the splintered crags. Sindanglaya is the refuge of fever-stricken Europeans from malarial coast or inland swamp, but the hotel is now empty of invalids. The kind proprietor lavishes time and care on English guests, and the attentive Malay "room-boys," squatting on the verandah outside our doors, fear to lose sight of their charges for a moment, lest some need of native help should arise. They watch hand and eye like faithful dogs, for their language is unintelligible to us as ours to them, and the only attempt at speech is "_Chow-chow, mister!_" when the dinner-bell rings, the mystic words accompanied by a realistic pantomime of mouth and fingers. The following morning dawns like an ideal day of June, and we start in chairs, carried by four coolies, for the beautiful Falls of Tjibereum. A mountain road winds through rice-fields and tree-ferns towards fold upon fold of lilac peaks, until we reach the mountain garden of Tjibodas, the beautiful supplement of incomparable Buitenzorg. A strange sense of remoteness belongs to this lonely pleasaunce of the upper world, on a sheltered slope of ever-burning Gedeh, quiescent now save for the blue curl of sulphurous smoke, which gives perpetual warning of those smouldering forces ever ready to devastate the surrounding country. Subterranean activity increases during the rainy season, and tremors of earthquake occasionally startle the equanimity of those unused to the perils of existence on this thin crust of Mother Earth, for Java's teeming soil and population rest upon an ominous fissure of the globe's surface, and twelve of the forty-five volcanos on this island of terror and beauty are still moderately active, sometimes displaying sudden outbursts of energy. The green lawns and towering camphor trees of Tjibodas suggest the spellbound beauty of some enchanted spot, unprofaned by human foot. A glassy lake mirrors the tall bamboos and feathery tamarinds, their slender and sensitive foliage motionless in the still air of the dewy dawn. Huge coleas accentuate the spring verdure with heavy masses of bronze and crimson, and magnolias exhale intoxicating odours from snowy chalices. Blue lilies and flaxen pampas grass grow in thickets upon the emerald slopes, and the ordered loveliness of the mountain Paradise, walled in by dense jungle and savage precipice, brings the glamour of dreamland into the stern environment of mysterious forest and frowning peak. A rudely-paved and mossy path, shadowed by the black foliage of stately casuarinas, leads into the gloomy jungle. The forest monarchs are curtained with tangled creepers and roped together with serpent-like lianas, stag-horn ferns, and green veils of filmy moss fluttering from every bough. A swampy path through rank grass and rough boulders pierces the dense thickets, matted together with inextricable confusion, teak and tamarind, acacia and bread-fruit, palm and tree-fern losing their own characteristics and merging themselves into concrete form. The appalling stillness and solemnity of the dense jungle appears emphasised by a solitary brown figure, with pipe and betel-box, beneath a thatched shed at an angle of the narrow track, where he presides over a little stall of cocoanuts, bananas, and coloured syrups, for the refreshment of coolies on their way from the Tjibodas garden to villages across the heights of Gedeh. No voice ever seems raised in these remote recesses of the mountains, where even the children of each brown hamlet play silently as figures in a dream. Our bearers, swishing through wet grass and splashing across brimming brooks, push with renewed energies up a steep ascent to the heart of the wild solitude, where three mighty waterfalls dash in savage grandeur from a range of over hanging cliffs into a churning river, descending by continuous rapids over a stairway of brown-striped trap-rock and swirling between lichen-clad banks, to lose itself in the green gloom of the impenetrable woods. One of these huge cascades would make the fortune of a Swiss valley, and we need no further efforts of our willing bearers in the cause of sight-seeing, but as neither words nor gestures prove intelligible to Western obtuseness, a brown coolie seizes each arm, and rushes us up a grassy hill to a huge cavern, hung with myriad bats, and containing a pool of crystal water. The simple minds of these kindly mountaineers shirk no trouble for the benefit of the stranger, who, though regarded as a madman, must be humoured as such, not only to the top of his bent, but often beyond it. A descent through rice-fields and _désas_ skirts the serrated cliffs of Gedeh's northward side, though tree-ferns growing in thousands afford shelter from the daily showers. The sudden passion of tropical rain dies away, leaving an atmosphere of unearthly transparency. Gedeh, carved in amethyst, leans against a primrose sky, streaked by the puff of white smoke from the crater. Villagers returning from work brighten the road with patches of scarlet and yellow; children, clad only in necklaces of red seeds and silver bangles, running about amid groups of women in painted _battek_, with brown babies carried in the orange or crimson folds of the _slandang_, pause before the doorways of woven basket-work huts, or carry crates of yellow bananas and strings of purple mangosteens, to supplement the "evening rice" of their frugal meal. The Malay races have been called "the flower of the East," noted for their soft voices and courteous manners in the days of old, but European intercourse obliterates native characteristics, and the inhabitant of the sea-coast, or of the larger towns, unpleasantly imitates the brusquerie of his Dutch masters, and even exaggerates it. The Soendanese of the Preanger hills, less in contact with the external world, retains traces of life's ancient simplicity, and though a keen intelligence forms no part of his mental equipment, his desire to please and satisfy his employer is of pathetic intensity. The Governor-General of Java, whose stipend is of double the amount received by the American President, owns a country palace at Sindanglaya, in addition to the splendid official residences at Batavia and Buitenzorg. A lovely walk leads from this flower-girt mansion to a pavilion on the Kasoer hill, commanding a prospect of four mountain ranges, outlined in tender hues of lavender and turquoise against the cobalt sky. In the foreground stretches a fertile plain, with bamboo and sugar-cane varying the eternal rice in brilliant shades of green and gold, always decorative, from the first emerald blade to the amber-tinted straw, for the sacred grain possesses a beauty far exceeding that of wheat, barley, or rye. Undulating lines and ascending terraces break the uniformity of the lovely plains with the fascination of weird contour and fanciful design, intricate as the pattern traced on the native _sarong_. The rice-culture of these fields and valleys is a perfect survival of the primeval system, unchanged since the days when "the gift of the gods" was first bestowed on primitive man in this land of plenty. The peasant, toiling in the flooded _sawas_, and occupied from seedtime to harvest in the arduous labour demanded by the rice-field, combines with his agricultural work the idea of a sacred duty to the divinities who gave him the staple commodity whereon his life mainly depends. Cocoanut and sugar-cane, maize and tapioca, banana and cassava, supplement the rice, but it ranks above all other products of the teeming soil, for sacramental efficacy and supernatural origin have hallowed the "grain of heaven" from the very dawn of history, and the hereditary belief in the efficacy of the sacred crop still remains mystically rooted in the sub-consciousness of the Malay race. GAROET AND HER VOLCANO. The occasional drawback of weeping skies is counterbalanced by the gorgeous vegetation only seen to perfection in the rainy season, and that clouds should sometimes veil the burning blue to mitigate Equatorial sunshine proves a source of satisfaction to those who fail to appreciate the Rip Van Winkle life of womankind in Java. The journey to Garoet supplies a succession of vivid pictures, illustrating the individuality of the insular scenery. The weird outlines of volcanic ranges, shading from palest azure to deepest plum-colour, the dreamlike beauty of Elysian plains, and the stately palm-forests extending league upon league, with mighty vans clashing in the mountain breeze, assume magical charm as we penetrate into the heart of the alluring land. Two pyramidal peaks, Haroeman and Kaleidon, rise sheer from the fair plain of Lelés in colossal stairways of green rice-terraces. Knots of palm shelter innumerable villages which dot the mountain flanks, the woven huts fragile as houses of cards, but built up on identical sites through countless ages, recorded in perennial characters of living green on these twin trophies of primitive agriculture. Many travellers have commented on the strange undertone of music, echoing from a thousand silvery rills and tiny cascades, which follow the verdant lines of terrace or parapet, and make the shimmering air vocal with melody, like the distant song of surf on a coral reef. Variety of form belongs to all Javanese agriculture as the result of handicraft, for the peasant unconsciously puts his own personality into his toil. The exquisite tints of the rice in different stages of growth display a translucence indescribable except in terms of light and fire. The amber gleam of young shoots, the green flames of the springing crop, the pulsating emerald of later growth, and the golden sheen of ripened ears, invest the "gift of the gods" with unearthly radiance. The Eastern mind has ever responded to Nature's touch, for the great Mother whispers her closest secrets to simple hearts, and science now realises that civilisation has broken many of the subtle links which in earlier days were mystic bonds of union between man and the universe. Malay idiosyncracy evidences the survival of many primal influences forgotten or denied by races of higher type and deeper culture. Very little is known concerning the Malayan people who mingled with almost every Oriental stock. Amphibious tastes suggest picturesque traditions of prolonged voyaging in search of fresh fishing grounds to supply the needs of a rapidly multiplying population. A strong Malay element exists even in far-off Japan, and the wide ramifications of the nomadic stock can be traced to broad rivers encountered on the southward journey, and luring stragglers from the main body by the mysterious glamour of winding water-ways piercing the tangled forests, and pointing to unknown realms of hope or promise. The Malay retains many of the hereditary gifts bestowed on the untaught children of Nature, and, in spreading his language and customs far over the vast Pacific, adopted few extraneous ideas from the world through which he wandered. His primeval instincts still sway his life under other conditions. Marvellous skill in hunting, fishing, boat-building, and navigation in tornado-swept waters, remains to him. The deft weaving of palm-leaf hut and wall of defence creates a village or destroys it at lightning speed. Even now his basket-work home is never built on dry land, if water can be found wherein to plant the supporting poles of the fragile dwellings, suggesting the impermanence of a nomadic race. The Malay never travels on foot to any place which can possibly be reached by water, his native element; winds and tides have imbued him with something of their own unstable and changing character, and the sea which nurtured him is still the supreme factor in his life. Feet vie with fingers in marvellous capacity, and to see a native cocoanut gatherer run up the polished stem of a swaying palm, with greater ease and swiftness than anyone shows in mounting a ladder, transports thought to the distant past, when the ancestral stock, disembarking from the rude canoes at nightfall, sought an evening meal on the edge of the palm-forest, bowed beneath the weight of green and yellow nuts a hundred feet overhead. What wonder if in lands of perpetual summer the syren song of some "long bright river" should lure the storm-tossed mariners from the perilous seas to the comparative security of inland life! The stern environment of Northern poverty stands out in terrible contrast with the teeming prodigality of tropical Nature, offering all the richest fruits of earth in full measure to these early wanderers across the Southern seas. The mountain railway, curving round ridge or precipice and spanning sombre gorge with bridge and aqueduct, affords superb views of the unrivalled plains. Waterfalls foam over granite cliffs; a sinuous river flings a silver chain round the symmetrical base of Kaleidon, and from our lofty vantage point we gaze into the luminous green of a million palms, where the warm heart of a deep forest opens to display the lustre and colour of molten emeralds. The Soendanese quarter of the island gives place to the ancient Javanese territory, and Malay characteristics, though underlying and mingling with every insular stock, are here modified by a strain of Hindu ancestry, which gives refinement of feature and grace of carriage. Well-modelled figures and delicate hands and feet are attributed to the liberal admixture of royal and noble blood with that of the peasantry, for the ancient Rulers of Java respected no rights but their own, and the domestic arrangements of King Solomon prevailed in a kingdom of tyrants and slaves. Hindu thraldom was intensified under Arab priests, who, following in the train of piratical Moormen, claimed the sovereignty of Java under their protection. The gold-embroidered jacket of civil or military rank, with the _kris_ thrust into a brilliant sash, here supplements the universal _sarong_, itself of bolder design and glowing colour in this old-world realm of Mataram, the centre of Java's historic interest. The crooked blade of the _kris_ is still used in divination, light and shadow playing over the wavy steel, ever suggesting cabalistic signs inscribed by an invisible hand on the azure surface. The _kris_ is popularly endowed with healing efficacy, and the availing touch of the sacred talisman is an article of Javanese faith. A hundred varieties of the weapon are found in the Malay Archipelago, from the gold-hilted and diamond-studded royal _kris_ to the boat-handled dagger of common use, permitted to all but peasants; women of the higher class wear it in the girdle, and though unrepresented in the sculpture of Javanese temples, the _kris_ is ascribed to the days of Panji, a Hindu warrior whose feats form the libretto of a popular drama, though his authenticity appears uncertain. The changes in local costume and character, as seen in wayside villages, enliven the journey until we reach the mountain gateway of Tjadas Pangeran, "the Royal Stone," flanked by flashing waterfalls, and forming the entrance to the region supreme in natural scenery, archaic art, and literary interest. The black cone of Goentoer, "the thunder peak," accentuates the red blaze of the declining sun on the intricate rice-mosaic of green and gold in the divinely beautiful plain revealed through the rocky cleft. Amid the many glories of Javanese landscape, the poetic glamour of these palm-girt levels lingers longest in the memory, for the world-famed picture known as "The Plains of Heaven" might have been inspired by the haunting loveliness of these rolling uplands. Our railway carriage contains a native Regent, his principal wife, and a pretty daughter. Javanese princes are made ostensible rulers of native districts, but associated with Dutch Residents as "Elder Brothers," who may be more accurately termed compulsory advisers. Without a measure of despotic authority exercised by the fraternal partner, the spendthrift Malay would cause perpetual hindrance to insular development and commercial prosperity. The old Regent, with embroidered military jacket glittering above his elaborately-patterned _sarong_, looks a grim and forbidding figure, and evidently regards his womenkind as beneath notice. His head is tied up in a black kerchief, and a brilliant Order conferred by the Queen of Holland adorns his breast. Madame, in magenta shawl and purple gown, travesties European costume. Diamonds blaze incongruously on arms and neck, a scarlet flower in oily black braids completing her startling attire. The girl, in yellow _sarong_ and pink cotton jacket glorified with rubies and pearls, shows her high breeding in slender wrists, delicate hands, and bare feet of exquisite modelling, a red stain of henna drawing attention to their statuesque contour. She staggers beneath a load of impedimenta belonging to her princely father: bags, bundles, and a heavy cloak. Javanese parents of exalted rank treat their daughters with disdain, the approved discipline of family life consisting in stamping an impression of abject insignificance deeply on the plastic mind of girlhood. Fertile plain and wooded slopes are alike destitute of domestic animals. The sheep was unknown to native races in this pastureless land, and, though introduced by the earliest colonists, is still spoken of as "the Dutch goat," no other term existing for it in Malay parlance. Monkeys chatter and rustle in forest trees, gorgeous birds flit past on jewelled wings, and frogs in this rainy season make a deep booming like the tuning of numerous violoncellos. At length the little town of Garoet appears in a green valley, encircled by a diadem of peaks which suggest a tropical Engadine. Volcanic mountains replace Alpine crests, but the white battlements of Papandayang's smoking crater give the effect of distant snow, and the dark pines of the Swiss valley are merely translated into the lustrous green of crowding palms. Brawling river, rustic bridge, and brown hamlets foster the strange illusion, and if it be true that somewhere in the wide world every face finds a counterpart, natural scenery may be subject to an identical law, and various ice-bound landscapes be mirrored under Southern skies in pictures wreathed with palm-fronds and tropic flowers. The Hotel Rupert, garlanded with creepers, the open lattices trellised with ivy and roses, shows a more poetic aspect than any hostelry of the distant Engadine. Our hostess is the widow of a German physician, and her fair young daughter, alert and capable as the typical _Hausfrau_ of her native land, has established a reputation for supplying the guests with the home comforts and restful atmosphere which make the Hotel Rupert an ideal abiding-place in stagnant Java, where as a rule the sole luxuries are out-of-doors, and of Nature's providing. That the Dutchman flourishes on his diet of tinned meat, his appalling rice-table, and the extraordinary sequence of dishes which probably belonged to the early days of colonisation, either proves herculean strength or the triumph of mind over matter, but to those of less heroic mould the unwonted amenities of a more familiar civilisation are welcome as a green oasis in a sandy desert. A cool and healthy mountain climate gives unwonted zest for the lovely excursions of which Garoet is the centre. From the little lake Setoe Bajendit, a covered raft plies to a cupola-crowned hill, facing a noble panorama of volcanic peaks the Soendanese _désa_ of basket-work huts, through which we pass, presents a curious spectacle, with the village street lined on either side by rows of kneeling children, clad in Dame Nature's brown suit alone; each little figure holding up a long-stemmed flower--red hybiscus, creamy tuberose, or snowy gardenia--the imploring faces raised in silent entreaty to the white strangers for the infinitesimal coins which suffice to purchase a sheaf of blossom. Changing lights and shadows sweep across the glancing emerald of the rice-filled vale, darken the purple rifts of mountain gorges, or intensify the luminous azure of soaring crests. Wayside fruit-stalls make gay patches of colour among green piles of banana leaves, and thin yellow strips of bamboo, the approved paper and string of the tropics, in which every parcel is packed. Tall sugar-cane and plumy maize surround each brown _désa_ beneath the knot of palms, and fields of tapioca vary the prevailing rice-grounds with sharp-pointed leaves and paler verdure. The entire tapioca crop of Java belongs to Huntley and Palmer, for use in the manufacture of the biscuits which make a valuable supplement to the Javanese commissariat, for unlimited rice seldom commends itself to English tastes. Hot springs abound in this volcanic soil, and in the "five waters" of Tjipanas, each of different temperature, the native finds a panacea wherein he can indulge to his heart's content, the healing springs rushing into stone tanks set in sheds of bamboo. The principal excursion from Garoet is to the active crater of the Papandayang, a long drive of twelve miles leading to the foot of the volcano. From this point a chair carried by six coolies is required for the steep road, formed by hundreds of moss-grown steps. Plantations of coffee, cinchona, and tapioca girdle the lower slopes of the mountain, hedges and thickets of red and purple coleas bordering the primeval jungle of orchid-decked trees on the higher levels, the moss-grown boughs wreathed with epiphytal plants, the trunks covered with branching ferns, and the thick ropes of matted lianas strangling the dense forest in their green embrace. Wild oleander mingles rosy blossoms with bushes of living gold like tall growths of double buttercups, and at length the cooler regions show the familiar ferns, violets, and primroses of the temperate zone. The weird silence of the jungle is emphasised by an occasional cry of a wild bird, flitting among the tall tree tops, or the crash of a bough, dragged down by the weight of some climbing rattan. A walk up a boulder-strewn slope reaches the old crater, or Solfatara, almost surrounded by steep walls of rock. Boiling and wheezing springs, fast-forming sulphur columns, and clouds of choking steam, rise from the yellow and orange-powdered earth. A deafening noise issues from the self-building architecture of ruddy pillars, the bubbling of boiling mud, and the shrill spouting of hot vapours from narrow orifices in the trembling crust of the fire-charged earth. Golden sulphur-pools shower burning drops on every side, and from the mysterious _kawa_ or crater, echoes of subterranean thunder sound at intervals, from the traditional forge where native legends assert that a chained giant is condemned to work eternally in the service of the Evil One. At night the broad verandah of the Hotel Rupert is transformed into a stage for a performance of the _topeng_ or national drama, chartered by an American guest. The weird spectacle, accompanied by the _gamelon_ music, transports us to the days of old-world Java, story and performance being of ancient origin and religious signification. The subjects of the _topeng_ are derived from the Panji group of dramatic poems, the ancient costumes, the curious masks, and the office of the _dalang_ or reciter, whose ventriloquial skill is required for the entire wording of the _libretto_, comprise a valuable memento of bygone days, otherwise entirely forgotten. The _wayang-wayang_ or "shadow dance" of puppets, vies with the _topeng_ in popularity, but the latter ranks as classic and lyrical drama. A graceful girl in pink, with floating scarf, and gleaming _kris_ in her spangled sash, exhibits wonderful skill in the supple play of wrist and fingers, through the process known as devitalization, a form of drill which gives to the arm a plastic power of detached movement, fascinating but uncanny. The dusky garden is filled with a native crowd, moved alternately to tears and laughter by exploits unintelligible to the European spectator, for the story of every national hero is known to the poorest and most ignorant of the people, from perpetual attendance on theatrical performances. The _al fresco_ entertainments necessitated by the climate provide exceptional opportunities of dramatic education in the legends of Java's heroic age. The spacious verandahs gleaming with the soft light of Chinese lanterns, and set in depths of shadow, the scented gloom of the tropical night veiling the dusky lawns, crowded with mysterious figures drawn by the weird music from every quarter, the brilliant robes and grotesque masks of the actors, compose a picture of archaic charm. Passers-by pause on their way to look, and listen with unwearied interest to the oft-told tales, for the stories of the world's childhood, like the fairy lore of our own early days, deepen their significance to the untaught mind by perpetual repetition. The Hindu cloudland which veils the Javanese past "was reached by a ladder of realities," for the exploits of gods and mythical heroes were afterwards attributed to native Rulers, until the medley of truth and fiction, history and mythology, became an inextricable tangle. The birds' beaks, and hooked noses of the masks in the _topeng_, and of the puppets in the shadow-play, were made compulsory after the Arabic conquest, in order to reconcile the national pastime with the creed of Islam, which forbade the dramatic representation of the human form. The reigning _Susunhan_ evaded the decree by distorting mask and puppet, but although the outside world might no longer recognise the heroes of the play, Javanese knowledge of national tradition easily pierced the flimsy disguise, and credited their deified heroes with a new power of metamorphosis. The fantastic play lasts so far into the night that the prolonged _libretto_ is brought to a summary conclusion by the hostess, since European nature can stand no more, though the rapt attention of the Malay would continue till morning. The satiety of modern days has never touched these simple minds, and an entire absence of that critical element which disintegrates so many of life's simple joys, ministers to the supreme satisfaction derived from the crude ideals of native drama. Silently the brown spectators slip away like shadows from the dim and dewy garden, for the simple and untaught Malay, though eagerly welcoming the privileges permitted to him, never encroaches upon them, and the conduct of these Eastern playgoers affords an example of order and sobriety which shames many an audience of higher education and social superiority in distant Europe. DJOKJACARTA. A long day's journey lies between Garoet and Djokjacarta, which popular parlance abbreviates into Djokja. From the blue Preanger hills and palm-shadowed upland plains, the railway descends by steep gradients to the dense jungle and fever-laden swamp known as the Terra Ingrata. Malarious mists steam from marsh and mere, pink and purple lantana, yellow daisies, and the pallid blossoms of strangling creepers emphasise the gloom of the matted foliage, forming an impenetrable screen on either side of the narrow embankment across the dreary morass. The railway through the hundred miles of this miasma-haunted region was laid at immense sacrifice of human life, even the native workmen being compelled to sleep in camps far away from the scene of their daily toil. No white man could even direct the work, and the ubiquitous Chinaman, proof against every ill that flesh is heir to in Java, was deputed to superintend the solution of abstruse professional problems, between the short and hasty visits of Dutch and English engineers. Quagmire and quicksand, stagnant pool and sluggish stream, succeed in weary iteration. Bleached skeletons of dead trees writhe in weird contortions against the dark background of jungle, as though some wizard's curse had blighted life and growth amid the rank vegetation rising from this dismal Slough of Despond. The brooding melancholy of atmosphere and scenery penetrates mind and soul, oppressed by an intangible weight, and escape from the Dantesque horrors of this _selva oscura_ is accompanied by a sudden relief and buoyancy of spirit which perceptibly heightens the interest of the old-world city, once isolated by the woodland fastness of Nature, and belonging to an ageless past, surrounding the authentic origin of Djokjacarta with thick clouds of fable and myth. The modern name is derived from Arjudja, a city recorded in Java's ancient annals as being established by Rama, the incarnate Sun-God. Na-yud-ja, the first king of this Divinely-founded capital, also memorialises in his name the place which became the nucleus of the ancient Hindu empire. Temples and palaces, walls and watch-towers, ruined by earthquake, buried in jungle, and blackened by smoke of war, testify to the splendours of old Mataram. A bitter resistance was offered by the invading hordes of Islam, whether pirates or prophets, princes or soldiers, and the Hindu territory remained independent until the fierce conflict in the 18th century with usurping Mohammedans and Dutch colonists, when family influence was undermined by political intrigues. The Dutch, after many vicissitudes, became absolute rulers of Java, though native princes, as tributaries, were suffered to retain a semblance of sovereignty. The shadowy paraphernalia of vanished power is still accorded to the Sultan of Djokjacarta, in melancholy travesty of past authority, though every hereditary privilege has been wrested from his grasp. A curious relic of primitive days remains in the _al fresco_ Throne of Judgment, a block of stone beneath a rudely-tiled canopy, moss-grown and hoary. Two ancient waringen-trees, their aerial roots, drooping branches, and colossal main trunks denoting an almost fabulous age, flank the historic seat, where the turbaned Ruler administered justice to the surging crowd which thronged around him, the indigo garb of the Soendanese contrasting with the gay _sarongs_ of Central Java, glowing in the hot sunlight as it poured through the dark trellis of fluttering boughs. The city in the course of ages moved away from this ancient centre, and the rustic Throne is now remote from the heart of civic life. The streets of Djokjacarta, and the surrounding roads, consist of shady avenues, where open _tokos_ (the native shops) vary the monotony of Dutch villas, their white colonnades and porticos gleaming against the background of stately trees, and rising from a mass of tropical vegetation. The prevailing indigo of Soendanese dress gives a dull aspect to the wide but squalid streets, for in native capitals, though Dutch cleanliness may enforce perpetual "tidying up," the lacking sense of order produces a strange impermanence in the conditions insisted upon. The inner court of the Sultan's Kraton, or Royal Enclosure, is now taboo to visitors, for the barbaric monarch, on the plea of age and infirmity, has obtained the privilege of privacy, and the Palace can only be seen through a personal interview. The outer courts are accessible to carriages, which make the square-mile circuit of the spacious quadrangles. Massive gates and crumbling machicolated walls command a green plain, where immense waringen-trees, clipped into the semblance of evergreen umbrellas, display the Eastern symbol of sovereignty. Officials passing to and fro show a continuous procession of these State _pajongs_. The Sultan's august head is canopied with gold, edged by an orange stripe, the Crown Prince sporting an umbrella with a golden border. Sultanas and royal children are known by white _pajongs_, while the vast concourse of Court officials, with umbrellas of pink, blue, red, black, purple and green, show their status to the initiated eye through the sequence of colour by which the _pajongs_ form a complete system of heraldry. In the dusky angle of a mossy wall, four elephants, used in State processions, feed upon bundles of bamboo and sugar-cane. Mud huts and bamboo sheds prop themselves against tiled eaves and windowless houses. Open doors afford glimpses of squalid interiors, crowded with slatternly women and dirty children, the hereditary retainers and hangers-on of this effete and moribund royalty. Private troupes of dancing _bedayas_, _gamelon_ players, actors, pipe, fan, and betel-box bearers, pertain to the tumbledown Palace, and the patriarchal system of ancient Java permits the presence of whole families belonging to these indispensable ministers of the royal pleasure. The people show the same indifference to Mohammedanism as to the perished faiths of olden time, and a large funeral party encountered on leaving the Kraton displays painful irreverence, though scattering rice and lighting incense sticks before a white coffin borne shoulder-high, and decked with a tracery of yellow marigolds and rosettes of pink paper. No priest accompanies the procession, and the laughter of the white-scarved mourners, preceded by men carrying ropes and planks, suggests an utter heartlessness and barbarity. Gay _passers_, a busy _campong Tchina_, a very hive of Celestial industry, and innumerable drives beneath over-arching trees, with distant views of purple peaks, comprise the interests of old-world Djokja, with the one exception of the famous Taman Sarie, or Water Castle, ruined by earthquake, but remaining as a pathetic memorial of bygone power and pride. Pavilions and baths, grottoes and fish-ponds, set in the tangled verdure of a neglected garden, surround the arcaded parapets of a colossal tower. Green plumes of fern wave from wall and battlement, velvet moss and orange lichen tapestry the blackened stone, and matted creepers sway their woven curtains in the evening wind. A Dancing Hall, which formerly rang with the weird music accompanying the "woven paces and waving hands" of Court _bedayas_, in their spangled pink robes, now echoes to the tread of alien feet; the dim arcades teem with ghostly memories, and the mournful desolation of the Taman Sarie borrows fresh poignancy in the former scene of mirth and music. A moss-grown and slippery stairway leads to the green twilight of a subterranean grotto, containing the richly-carved stone bedstead of the Sultan, who sought this cool retreat from the ardour of a tropical sun. A silvery curtain of murmuring water fell before his sculptured couch, and supplied this haunt of dreams with an ideal, if rheumatic environment of poetic beauty and lulling charm. Superstition clings to the deserted resting-place, and to touch even the stone columns of the royal couch is to invoke the powers of evil, and the presence of Death. The _Sumoor Gamelon_, or "Musical Spring," echoing with the voice of flowing waters, flanks the ancient banqueting hall, and cools a circle of vaulted grottoes, their shadowy depths bathed in the emerald twilight, deepened by the veil of verdure and the transparent foliage drooping over open window spaces. The Sultan's oval bathing tank, with stone galleries and spiral pavilions, occupies a hollow tower, but a touch of young life dispels the gloom, for a group of brown children swim and dive in the cool depths, shouting and splashing with a merriment unsubdued by the solemn sadness of the deserted halls. A Portuguese architect designed this fantastic retreat for an old-time Sultan, who brought the idea of the Water Castle from a far-off Indian home. The earthquake of 1867 rendered the Taman Sarie uninhabitable, choked the lake in which it stood, and destroyed the subaqueous tunnel which ensured the absolute seclusion of Sultan and harem. The famous Marshal Daendels, weary of waiting for an interview with a dilatory Sultan, yielded to natural impatience, and hearing the sound of distant music from the watery depths, dashed through the thicket of tamarinds which concealed the entrance to the water pavilion, and, dragging the Sultan from the place of dreams, scattered _bedayas_ and _gamelon_ players in terror, forcing the so-called "Regent of the World" and "Shadow of the Almighty" to accompany him to the Dutch headquarters. Rose garden and shrubbery, palm grove and pleasaunce, are fast relapsing into impenetrable jungle. Broken fountains, and mouldering vases once filled with orange-trees, outline the balustraded terraces; gilt pavilions lift their upcurved eaves above a wild growth of oleander, but the enchanted scene of old romance is given up to bats and lizards, for the crumbling Taman Sarie is now a fast-vanishing monument of Java's buried past. The number of _rechas_, or sacred stone figures of Brahmin and Buddhist origin, in the garden of the Dutch Residency, shows the scant care bestowed on the ancient temples, for years used as mere quarries of broken statuary, and still receiving inadequate recognition as historical remains, though Sir Stamford Raffles a century ago realised the supreme importance of Javanese sculpture as an indispensable link in archæological science. Djokjacarta, interesting in itself as the survival of an ancient dynasty, borrows double attraction from the architectural wonders which surround it, buried for ages in the deep green grave of tropical vegetation, but now laid bare as an open book, wherein we may read those graven records which unveil the mysteries of the past, and enable us to gaze down the long vista of Time and Change. BORO-BOEDOER. The archæological interest of Java culminates in the mysterious temple known as Boro-Boedoer, "the aged thing," with an actual history lost in mist and shadow, though recorded in imperishable characters on this spellbound sanctuary of a departed faith. The little tramway from Djokjacarta traverses fields of rice and sugar-cane, indigo and pepper; a range of dreamlike mountains bounds the view, crowned by the turquoise cone of Soemboeung, the traditional centre of Java, a green knoll at the base of the volcanic pyramid being regarded as the "spike" which fastens the floating isle to some solid rock in unfathomed depths of ocean. The fitful fancy of a wandering race, ever drifting across the changing seas, reflects itself in the legendary lore of the Malay Archipelago, often represented by weird traditions as though in perpetual motion. The vicissitudes of volcanic action, whereby islands were sometimes submerged or created, gives a colouring of fact to the vague ideas entertained by these nomads of the sea. Merbaboe, the "ash-ejecting," and Merapi, the "fire-throwing," flank the loftier crest, honeycombed with dim cave temples, now deserted and forgotten, but formerly sanctifying those watch-towers of Nature which guard the hoary shrine of Boro-Boedoer. At Matoelan we hear that the swift river separating the great Temple from the secular world is in flood, the bridge broken down, and the supplementary raft impossible through the swirling current. This untoward event involves a further expedition to Magelang, a sordid town of continuous markets, the Javanese population being of pronounced Hindu type, silent and sad, according to the idiosyncracy of their mysterious ancestors across the sea. The conversational difficulties presented by the Dutch and Malay languages, combined with the incapacity of our brown driver, eventually land us at Mendoet, on the wrong side of the turbid stream--the Jordan which divides the weary traveller from his Land of Promise. Evening draws on, the clear sky flushes pink above the darkness of the palm-woods, and hope sinks apace, for the surging flood shows no sign of abatement. Suddenly the apathetic driver rouses himself from what proves a profitable meditation, and, with folded hands, breathes the magic word _pasteur_, whipping up his sorry steeds to fresh exertions. We draw up at a white bungalow on the roadside, close to a rustic church, and find a friend in an English-speaking Dutch priest, who, after giving us tea on his verandah, suggests inspection of Mendoet's little moated temple, on the edge of the forest. An ever-growing tangle of lianas and vines buried this ancient shrine through the lapse of ages, until accident revealed the entombed sanctuary about eighty years ago. A processional terrace surrounds the walled pavement supporting the grey edifice, and the sculptured bas-reliefs denote the transitional stage of Buddhist faith, as it materialised through Jainism into the Puranic mythology of Hindu creed. The central chapel contains the famous picture in stone known as "The Tree of Knowledge," and represents the Buddha beneath the sacred Bo-Tree of Gaya. A fluted _pajong_, propped against the boughs, canopies his head, one hand being raised in benediction over kneeling converts, offering rice and incense. Listening angels hover overhead, birds peep out from nests among the leaves, and kids lean with necks outstretched over fretted crags, magnetised by the mystic attraction of the inspired Teacher. Long-eared statues show Nepalese influence, even the Buddhist images being girt with the sacred cord of Brahma. A controversy exists as to their identification with the Hindu Trinity, but as Eastern cults frequently bestow Divine attributes on mortals, the mysterious figures may possibly represent the murdered wives of the Rajah who founded the Mendoet temple in expiation of his crime. Another legend suggests the petrification of a princely family, as a punishment for marrying within the forbidden degrees, but myth grows apace in this haunted land, and every century offers fresh variations of old-world stories, until original form is lost beneath a weight of accretion, like the thick moss blurring the chiselled outlines of some carven monument. After careful scrutiny of the miniature temple which suggests so many interpretations of symbolic imagery, we return to the little presbytery to hear of the subsiding river, and the good priest, announcing that the raft can now be safely negotiated, accompanies us to the tottering structure, a straw matting laid over three crazy boats punted across the turbulent stream. A half-hour's stroll beneath the arching boughs of a kanari avenue, ends at a picturesque Rest House, facing the temple-crowned hill. Surely we have reached the peace and silence of Nirvana at last! and the exquisite beauty of the surrounding landscape, mountain and forest, park-like valley and winding glen, transfigured in the deepening gold of sunset, stamps an ineffaceable impression of Boro-Boedoer in that mystic gallery of imagination and memory which retains earth's fairest scenes as eternal possessions of mind and soul. A shadowy garden, fragrant and dim, stretches up to the pyramidal pile which covers the hill. A frangipanni grove scents the air, with gold-starred blossoms gleaming whitely amid the silvery green of lanceolated leaves, and a shaft of ruby light striking the stone Buddhas which guard the portico, emphasises the inscrutable smile of the tranquil faces. Like all stupendous monuments of Art or Nature, Boro-Boedoer at first sight seems a disappointment, simply because the mind fails to grasp the immensity of the noblest Temple ever dedicated to the gentle Sage whose renunciation typified the greater Sacrifice offered by the Saviour of the World. Who that reads the story of Sakya Munyi can doubt that through the Prince who gave up kingdom, throne, and earthly ties for the sake of downtrodden humanity, a prophetic gleam of heavenly light pierced the darkness of the future, and pointed to the distant Cross? Twenty-five centuries have rolled away since Prince Siddartha closed his unique career, and twelve centuries later the wondrous sanctuary of Boro-Boedoer was erected in honour of the creed eternally dear to the heart of the mystic East. The eight stately terraces which climb and encircle the sacred hill rise from a spacious pavement of blackened stone, and the walled processional paths display a superb series of sculptured reliefs, which would measure three miles in length if placed side by side. The grey and black ruins, with their rich incrustations of sacred and historic scenes, remain in such splendid preservation that fancy easily reconstructs the bygone glory of the golden age, when this mighty Altar of Faith witnessed the glittering pageantry of Oriental devotion; when gaily-clad crowds flocked to the morning sacrifice of flowers and music, while monarchs brought their treasures from far-off lands to lay at the feet of the mystic Sage, prophetically revealed as an incarnation of purity and peace vouchsafed to a world of oppression and sorrow. Life-size Buddhas, enthroned on the sacred lotus, rise above the crumbling altars of five hundred arcaded shrines, and stone stairways ascend from every side, beneath sharply-curved arches bordered with masks or gargoyles. The last three terraces form sweeping circles, flanked by bell-shaped _dagobas_ resembling gigantic lotus-buds. Each open lattice of hoary stone reveals an enthroned Buddha, mysteriously enclosed in his symbolical screen, for these triple terraces typify the higher circles of Nirvana. Each dreamy face turns towards the supreme Shrine of the glorious sanctuary, a domed _dagoba_ fifty feet high, and once containing some authentic relic of the Buddha's sacred person. Certain archæologists recognise in this spire-tipped cupola a survival of Nature-worship, incorporated with the later Buddhism in a form derived from the tree temples of primeval days, and built over a receptacle for the cremated ashes of the Buddhist priesthood. A touch of mysticism added by an unfinished statue in the gloom of the shadowy vault, suggests the unknown beauty of the soul which attains Nirvana's supremest height, for the supernal exaltation of purified humanity to Divine union may not be interpreted or expressed by mortal hands, but must for ever remain incommunicable and incomprehensible. From the central _dagoba_, ascended by a winding stair, the intricate design of the spacious sanctuary discloses itself with mathematical precision, and the changing glories of dawn, sunset, and moonlight idealize the sacred hill, rising amid the palm-groves and rice-fields of a matchless valley, sweeping away in green undulations which break like emerald waves against the deepening azure and amethyst of the mountain heights. The solemn grandeur of Boro-Boedoer blinds the casual observer to many details which manifest the ravages of time, the ruthlessness of war, and the decay of a discarded creed. Headless and overthrown figures, broken _tees_, mutilated carvings, and shattered chapels abound, but the vast display of architectural features still intact conveys an impression of permanence rather than of ruin. For six centuries, Boro-Boedoer was blotted from the memory of the people, and the heavy pall of tropical verdure which veiled the vast Temple remained unlifted. Superincumbent masses of trees, parasites, and strangling creepers wove their intricate network of root, branch, and stem round the monumental record of a dead faith and a buried dynasty. The riotous luxuriance of tropical Nature triumphed over the glories of Art, hewn with incalculable toil and skill in the living rock. Seeds borne on the wind, or sown by wandering birds, filled every interstice of the closely-matted verdure; stair and terrace, dome and spire, sank out of sight into the forest depths, and when English engineers arrived to excavate the monumental pile, the task of clearing away the tangled masses of foliage occupied two hundred coolies during six weeks of arduous toil. The brief English occupation of the island necessarily left the work unfinished, but Dutch archæologists continued the labour, though with slower methods and feebler grasp of the situation. A transient cult sprang up among the Javanese populace as the ancient sanctuary revealed itself anew. The statues were invoked with reverential awe, incense was offered; the saffron, used as a personal decoration on festive occasions, was smeared over the impassive faces, unchanged in the eternal calm of a thousand years, and fragrant flower petals were heaped on the myriad altars. Vigils were kept on the summit, and the sick were laid at the feet of favourite images. This spurious devotion, hereditary or instinctive, sprang up in responsive hearts with simultaneous fervour, though the forgotten doctrines of Buddhism were never reinstated. Sentiment survived dogma in the subconscious soul, and the faint shadow cast by an immemorial past indicates the depths plumbed by the early creed in the abyss of Eastern personality. The vague simulacrum quickly faded, like a flickering flame in the wind which fanned it into life; but simple souls, as they pass Boro-Boedoer in the brief twilight, mutter incantations, and brown hands grasp the silver amulets which ward off the powers of evil, for the deserted temple is still regarded as the haunt of unknown gods, who may perchance wreak vengeance on the world which has forsaken them. The long scroll of ancient history, unrolled by the sculptured terraces, represents the birth, growth, and development of Buddhist faith. Queen Maya, jewelled and flower-crowned, with the miraculous Babe on her knee, sits among her maidens, the earth breaking into blossom at the advent of her star-born child. His education in the mental and physical achievements imperative on Eastern royalty, when the sword-pierced heart of the mother who typified the Virgin Queen of Saints was translated to Nirvana's rest, is contrasted with the sudden realisation of life's vanity when brought face to face with the world's threefold burden of sorrow, sickness and death. The renunciation of power, wealth and love follows, liberating the soul for the pilgrimage along the mystic "path," pursued until "the dew-drop fell into the shining sea" of Eternity. The manifold details of the Buddha's traditional career are vividly pourtrayed on the hoary walls of volcanic trachyte in outline clear and sharp, as though the sculptors of the eighth century had just laid down burin and chisel. The indented leaves of the Bo-Tree, beneath which the Sage meditates, are so exquisitely carved that they almost seem to flutter in the breeze. The scene of the deer-park wherein he judges beasts and men, carefully weighing the tiniest birds in the balance of the sanctuary, suggests a prophetic vision of the greater Saviour, Who declared that even the humble sparrow is remembered by the Creator. Countless scriptural truths throw their anticipatory shadows across the life of the Eastern mystic who approached so closely to the Christian ideal of a later age, for the Buddha's spiritual experiences became the inspiration of unnumbered hearts, and exercised a purifying influence over every creed of the philosophic East. The social life of ancient Java, comprising public ceremonials, domestic occupations, architecture, agriculture, navigation, drama and music, is memorialised by succeeding terraces of the igneous rock which sufficed for the old-world sculptor as the medium of his Art. An unknown King and Queen, the traditional founders of Boro-Boedoer, appear in varied guise, throned and crowned, walking in religious processions beneath State _pajongs_, kneeling before Buddha with open caskets of treasure, and receiving the homage of the people, accompanied by bearers of smoking censers and waving fans. Armed warriors guard the jewelled thrones, and the popular attitude in every scene of the royal progress evidences the semi-sacred character awarded to Indian sovereignty. The eighth century A.D. was the meridian of the Javanese Empire, and in the subsequent changes of nationality the facial type of the past has altered beyond recognition, for in the ancient civilisation depicted on these sculptured terraces, archæologists assert that every physiognomy is either of Hindu or Hellenic character. Ships of archaic form, with banks of rowers; palm-thatched huts built on piles, in the unchanging fashion of the Malay races; graceful _bedayas_, the Nautch girls of Java, performing the old-world dances still in vogue; and women with _lotahs_ on their heads, passing in single file to palm-fringed tanks, might be represented with equal truth in this twentieth century. Seedtime and harvest, ploughing and reaping, bullock-carts and water-buffaloes, fruit-laden wagons and village _passers_, pass in turn before the spectator in this wondrous gallery of native art. Richly-caparisoned elephants suggest Indian accessories of royal life and State ceremonial, an occasional touch of humour enlivening the solemn pageantry. In one grotesque relief a _bedaya_ and an elephant stand _vis-a-vis_, the ponderous monster imitating the steps of the slim maiden in floating veil and embroidered robes, her slender limbs contrasting with the outflung feet of her clumsy partner. Weird myths of the great fishes which guided and propelled the coracle-like boats of the first Buddhist missionaries to the shores of Java are perpetuated in stone, and the forest, sloping down to the wave-beaten coast, shows the rich vegetation which still clothes this island of eternal summer. The _sumboya_ or flower of the dead, droops over stately tombs; bamboo and palm, banana and bread-fruit, mingle their varied foliage; mangosteen and pomegranate, mango and tamarind, acacia and peepul, show themselves as indigenous growths of the fertile soil; while palace and temple, carven stairway, and flower-girt pavilion, suggest the wealth and prosperity of the ancient empire. The mighty Temple of Boro-Boedoer, built up through successive ages, indicates the gradual change from the simplicity of the early faith, at first supplanting, and eventually becoming incorporated with, the Brahminism which succeeded it in modified form, as though rising from the ashes of the earlier Hindu creed which Buddhism virtually destroyed. In the higher terrace, the last addition to this stupendous sanctuary, the images of Buddha represent the ninth _Avatar_ or Incarnation of the god Vishnu, though he still sits upon the lotus cushion and holds the sacred flower in one hand. This inclusion of Sakya Munyi within the Puranic Pantheon was a masterly feat of strategy accomplished by reviving Brahminism, the heresy of the Jains supplying the link between the rival creeds. All the sculptured figures, leaning forward in veneration of the mystic statue in the central cupola, are invested with the sacred thread of the Vishnavite Brahmin. The images of the highest circular terrace are carved in four symbolical attitudes. The "teaching" Buddha rests an open palm on one knee; in the posture of "learning" his hands are outstretched to receive the gift of knowledge. In "exposition," one hand is raised towards Heaven, and in the act of "demonstration," thumbs and index fingers are joined. Ferguson points out that within the grey lattice of each lotus-bell _dagoba_, the right palm of the enthroned Buddha curves over the left hand. This restful posture indicates the state of final comprehension, when the aspiring soul, raised to the different spheres of Nirvana by steps of ascending sanctity, receives increasing peace and satisfaction from gradual absorption into the Infinite. No creed passes unaltered through any crucible of national thought; Indian Buddhism borrowed both form and colour from races which, in accepting the new faith, retained their own individuality and modes of assimilation. They gave as well as received, and the value of the gift depended on the character of the giver. No inscriptions exist on the stones of Boro-Boedoer. The sculptured reliefs tell their own story, which admits of diverse interpretations. The relics of the world-renowned Mystic were dispersed throughout Asia in the sudden impulse of missionary enterprise three centuries after his death, and every Buddhist temple received some infinitesimal treasure. No record is found of the date when the precious relic, probably a hair or an eyelash, was deposited in the great _dagoba_ of Boro-Boedoer, but an Indian prince sailed with an imposing fleet to found a Buddhist empire in Java at the opening of the 7th century A.D., and a subsequent inscription discovered on the coast of Sumatra commemorates the completion of a seven-storeyed _Vihara_, evidently the colossal Temple of Boro-Boedoer, by the contemporary King of "Greater Java," the ancient name of Sumatra. In the tenth century, a reigning monarch sent his sons to India for religious education. They brought back in their train artists, sculptors, monks, priests, and the gorgeous paraphernalia then used in the ceremonial of Buddhist worship, but the heart of the ancient faith was atrophied by the indifference of the people, and the zealous attempt to galvanise a moribund creed into fresh life failed even to arrest the progress of decay. National thought, fickle as the wind, had turned from an impersonal philosophy to the materialistic cult of Hindu deities, as the Israelites of old hankered after the visible symbol of Isis and Osiris in the Golden Calf. No definite creed succeeded in gaining a permanent hold upon the wandering minds and shallow feelings of a race whose deepest instincts reveal the fleeting fancies and inconstant ideas indigenous to a sea-faring stock, imbued with the spirit of change and unrest. A magical charm broods over the mysterious Temple, the materialised dream of a mighty past rescued from the sylvan sepulchre of equatorial vegetation, and restored to a vivid reality beside which the paintings of Egyptian tombs sink into comparative insignificance. The seclusion of the memory-haunted pile enhances the thrill of an unique experience. Vista after vista opens into the world of long ago so graphically depicted on the monumental tablets of the processional paths, while type and symbol point also to the infinite future intensely realised by Eastern mysticism. Mortal life was but a fleeting mirage besides this vision of the life beyond. For the words "_Shadow_, _Unreality_, _Illusion_," perpetually repeated by the yellow-robed monks on the beads of the Buddhist Rosary were inscribed on the inmost heart of the faithful disciple, who strove to attain that detachment from the world of sense inculcated by the creed expressed on the hoary stones of Boro-Boedoer. BRAMBANAM. The ruined temples of Brambanam memorialise that phase of Java's religious history, when the altars of Buddha were finally deserted, and Hinduism became the paramount creed of the fickle populace. An archæological report sent to Sir Stamford Raffles a century ago, describes the remains of Brambanam as "stupendous monuments of the science and taste belonging to a long-forgotten age, crowded together in the former centre of Hindu faith." A rough country road leads from the little white railway station, perched on a desolate plain, to these far-famed temples. A brown village, shaded by the dark foliage of colossal kanari-trees, shows the usual fragility of structure in basket-work walls and roofs of plaited palm-leaves, but the humble dwellings, destroyed and rebuilt myriad times on the ancient site of Java's Hindu capital, have supplemented native workmanship by a multitude of carven stones, broken statues, and moss-grown reliefs, for the ruins, theoretically guarded from the spoiler's hand, are still inadequately protected, and the grey _recha_ have been used as seats, landmarks, or stepping-stones over muddy lane and brimming water-course. The conversion of Java to the materialistic creed for which she forsook the subtleties of an impersonal Buddhism, though shallow was complete, and the doctrine of impermanence, inculcated by the discarded faith, continued an essential factor in spiritual development, for the inconstancy of the national mind only found a temporary halting-place in each successive creed which arrested it. The seed was sown, the bud opened, and the flower faded, with incredible rapidity, but the growth while it lasted, showed phenomenal luxuriance. The erection of these Hindu sanctuaries signalised the zenith of Javanese power; their fame travelled across the seas, and numerous expeditions sailed for this early El Dorado of the Southern ocean. Kublai Khan came with his Mongol fleet, but was repulsed with loss, and branded as a felon. A second and stronger attempt from the same quarter met with absolute defeat. Marco Polo, compelled to wait through the rainy season in Sumatra for a favourable wind, came hither in the palmy days of mediæval Portugal, but returned discomfited. Goths from the Northern bounds of Thuringian pine forests followed in their turn, but the power and prestige of Hindu Java remained invincible until destroyed by the wayward fickleness of her own children. Brahminism was finally discarded for the specious promises of Arabian invaders, and the lightly-held faith succumbed to the creed of Islam. Mosques were built, Hindu temples were forsaken, and Nature's veil of vegetation was once more suffered to hide altar and statue, wall and stairway, until every sculptured shrine became a mere green mound of waving trees, strangling creepers, and plumy ferns. The memory of the past was entirely obliterated from the hearts of the people, and every year buried the relics of the former religion in a deeper grave. Siva the Destroyer, and also the Life-Giver, the Third Person of the Hindu Trinity, together with Parvati and Brahma, were worshipped here in their original character, and an exquisite statue of Lora Jonggran (Parvati in her Javanese guise) remains enshrined in a richly-decorated chapel, surrounded by dancing houris, inspired in their sacred measure by the flute-playing of Krishna. A further instance of the mode already mentioned by which sentiment survives dogma in the Malay races, is shown by the fact that Lora Jonggran still receives the homage of Javanese women. Flowers are laid at her feet, love affairs are confided to her advocacy, and as the shadows deepen across the great quadrangle, a weeping girl prostrates herself before the smiling goddess, and, raising brown arms in earnest supplication, kisses the stone slab at the feet of the beautiful statue, popularly endowed with some occult virtue which the loosely-held Mohammedanism of a later day has failed to discredit or deny. The temples of Brambanam were erected shortly after the completion of that upper terrace in the great sanctuary of Boro-Boedoer which marks the traditional epoch between Buddhism and the later Hinduism, including Sakya Munyi among the _avatars_ of Vishnu. The sacred trees and lions carved here on the walls of the temple quadrangle, give place in the galleries to scenes from the great Hindu epic of the Ramayan. The familiar form of Ganesh, the elephant-headed God of Wisdom, looms from the shadows of a vaulted shrine; Nandi, the sacred bull, stands beneath a carven canopy, and the great memorial of a bygone faith contains the identical galaxy of gods found in the Indian temples of the present day, for the thin veil of Javanese thought is a transparency rather than a disguise, softening rather than hiding the clear-cut outlines of the original idea. The "fatal beauty" of the graceful waringen-tree has played an ominous part in the destruction of the Brambanam temples, for the interlacing roots, like a network of branching veins, make their devious way through crevice and cranny, splitting and uplifting the strongest slab, wherein one tiny crack suffices for the string-like fibres to gain foothold. Masks and arabesques, fruit and flowers, fabulous monsters and sacred emblems, encrust the grey balustrades and bas-reliefs of the noble stairways. Roof and column teem with richest ornament, for Hindu art had reached the climax of splendour when the great city, formerly surrounding the monumental group of stately temples, attained to her utmost power and fame. The Greek influences which prevailed in Northern Hindustan were translated to Brambanam in their attributes of dignity and grace, for the flowing robes and easy postures of the sculptured figures correct and modify the grotesque and over-laden character of original Hindu art. The great stone-paved court once contained an imposing group of twenty pyramidal shrines, but only three remain in the original contour of the so-called "pagoda style," peculiar to the Dravidian temples of Southern India, from whence Java derived her special form of faith. The ruins on the opposite side of the grey quadrangle are mere cone-shaped piles of rubbish, dust, and broken stone, but the tapering pyramids, with their graceful galleries and processional terraces, richly carved and adorned with images, enable us to reconstruct in imagination the stately beauty of the architectural panorama once displayed by the temple courts. Scenes from the Ramayan and Mahabharata adorn the great blocks of the boundary wall, sculptured in high relief. The Vedic Powers of Nature, with Indra as the god of storm and hurricane, manifest the recognition of that earlier belief which became submerged in the vast system of Pantheistic mythology. The faith of further India takes form and colour from the idiosyncracy of Java, and the goddess Parvati, or Kali, worshipped under these different names according to her attributes of glory or terror, becomes Lora Jonggran, the benignant goddess of Java, popularly known as "the maiden of the beauteous form." Four lofty stairways ascend to the hoary chapels within each sculptured pyramid, every dusky vault containing the broken image of the tutelary _Deva_. Only separated from Brambanam by a winding path and a green belt of jungle, stands the great Buddhist temple of Chandi Sewon, and the colossal figures flanking the entrance gate indicate a decadent phase of the ancient creed which Boro-Boedoer illustrates in the purity of earlier developement. Chandi Sewon, the "thousand temples," includes in the number myriad unimportant shrines, ruined, overthrown, or covered with a green network of interlacing creepers. The great architectural pile, built at a uniform level, surrounds the central sanctuary with five great enclosures. All the ancient faiths of the world contain foreshadowings or reflections of Christian truth, and the cruciform temple which forms the climax of this monumental erection shows the mystic value attached to the sacred Sign so frequently encountered in Buddhist shrines, and known as the _Shvastika_. The numerous chapels of Chandi Sewon contained the galaxy of Tirthankas or Buddhist saints which the materialism of the Jains added to the impersonal subtleties of esoteric Buddhism. The blank emptiness and desertion of this vast sanctuary produces an impression of unutterable desolation. The weed-grown courts, the ruined altars, and the moss-blackened arches, encumbered with indistinguishable heaps of shattered sculpture, lack all the reposeful charm of Boro-Boedoer, still a sermon in stone which he who runs may read. The degenerate creed memorialised by Chandi Sewon, has failed to impress itself on the colossal pile which bears melancholy witness to the evanescent character of the heretical offshoot from the parent stem. Jungle and palm-forest in Central Java contain innumerable vestiges of pyramidal temples, palaces, and shrines; vaults hidden beneath the shrouding trees have yielded a rich store of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments, household utensils, and armour. For many years the peasants of the region between Samarang and Boro-Boedoer paid their taxes in gold melted from the treasure trove turned up by the plough, or dug from the precincts of some forgotten sanctuary, buried beneath the rank vegetation of the teaming soil. The discarded Hindu gods still haunt the forest depths, and the superstitious native, as he threads the dark recesses of the solemn woods, gazes with apprehensive eyes on the trident of Siva, or the elephant's trunk of Ganesh emerging from the trailing wreaths and matted tapestry of liana and creeper, veiling the blackened stone of each decaying shrine. Nature has proved stronger than Art or Creed, in the eternal growth beneath an equatorial sun, of the kingdom over which she reigns in immortal life. Silently and insidiously she undermines man's handiwork, and realisation of his futile conflict with her invincible power enters with disastrous effect into the popular mind, lacking that immutable force without which the spiritual temple of faith rests on a foundation of shifting sand. Kawi literature, popularised by translation, and familiar through the medium of national drama, interprets Javanese creeds and traditions. This "utterance of poetry" derived from Sanskrit, fell into disuse after the Mohammedan conquest, though a few Arabic words became incorporated into the two-fold language comprising _Krama_, the ceremonial speech, and _Ngoko_, the speech of "thee and thou," or colloquial form of address. The island of Bali, and the slopes of the Tengger range, retain a modification of Hinduism, and Bali treasures a Kawi version of the Ramayan and Mahabharata epics. Many inspiring thoughts and noble sentiments, expressed in story and song, have become well-known maxims identified with Javanese life. "Rob no man of due credit, for the sun, by depriving the moon of her light, adds no lustre to his own." "As the lotus floats in water, the heart rests in a pure body." "Ye cannot take riches to the grave, but he who succoureth the poor in this world shall find a better wealth hereafter." A _babad_ or rhythmical ballad of semi-religious character belongs to every province, but though many details of temple worship--Buddhist, Hindu, and Mohammedan--may be gathered from the lengthy scroll, heroic and princely exploits, myths and traditions, encumber the sacred text, which Eastern imagination transforms into a fairy tale. Creeds lose their chiselled outline, and crumble away in the disintegrating medium of Javanese thought, which blends them into each other with changing colour and borrowed light. The inconstant soul of the Malay knows nothing of that rigid adherence to some centralising truth which often forms the heart of a living faith, and his religious history is an age-long record of failure, change, desertion, and oblivion, repeated in varying cadences, and inscribed in unmistakeable characters on the ruined sanctuaries of old Mataram. SOURAKARTA. The imperial city of Sourakarta, commonly abbreviated into "Solo," was the hereditary capital of the Mohammedan emperors, now mere puppet-princes held in the iron grasp of Holland. The present Susunhan, descended from both Hindu and Arab ancestry, maintains a brilliant simulacrum of royal state, and his huge Kraton, far surpassing that of Djokjacarta, contains 10,000 inhabitants. The pronounced Hindu type, though debased and degraded, remains noticeable even amid the all-pervading environment of squalor and disorder, which dims the gorgeous colour and brilliant ceremonial, producing the effect of jewels flung in the dust. A dense throng of brown humanity, clad and unclad, walks to and fro beneath the dusky avenues of feathery tamarinds which shield Solo from the ardour of the tropical sun. Old crones, with unkempt locks streaming over brown and bony necks, pass by, their wide mouths distorted and discoloured with sucking the scarlet lumps of _Sarya_, from which the native derives unfailing consolation, even the Javanese girl showing absolute disregard of the disfigurement produced by this favourite stimulant. Deep moats, lichen-stained walls, and hoary forts, invest Solo with a feudal aspect, and the grim tower of Vostenberg menaces the Kraton with bristling cannon, reminding the hereditary Ruler of his subserviency to modern Holland, for only a melancholy illusion of past glory remains to him. The dragon-carved eaves of the Chinese quarter, the open _tokos_ beneath waringen boughs, the shadowy _passer_ brightened by mounds of richly-coloured fruits, and the stuccoed palaces of Court dignitaries, framed in dark foliage, give character and interest to the city, where the life of the past lingers in a series of street pictures remaining from bygone days of pomp and show. Ministers of State walk beneath many-coloured official umbrellas, held by obsequious attendants; graceful _bedayas_, in glittering robes, execute intricate dances, and _gamelon_ players discourse weird music on pipe and drum. Court ballet-girls, known as _Serimpi_, are borne swiftly through the crowd in gilded litters, and masked actors give _al fresco_ performances of the historic _Wayang-wayang_, represented by living persons, for the actual "shadow-play" is impossible in broad daylight. The colour of the mask indicates the character assumed by the actor. The golden mask signifies Divinity, heroes wear white, and evil spirits black or red. Here, as elsewhere, the profile of the grotesque disguise invariably shows either the Greek, or the hawk-nose strangely suggestive of Egyptian origin, and which, as a variation on human physiognomy, specially commended itself to Mohammedan thought as a skilful evasion of an inconvenient dogma. Elsewhere the spirit of concession to alien ideas is almost unknown, even flower and leaf being conventionalised on those architectural monuments of Islam which form the supreme expression of Mussulman genius. The suppression of national amusements has ever proved a perilous step, and in the heart of this ancient kingdom the original setting of Javanese life remained in stereotyped form. The moving panorama of the tree-shadowed streets possesses a strange fascination, and the light of the past lingers like a sunset glow over the human element of the changed and modernised city. The twang of double-stringed lutes, the tinkle of metal tubes, and the elusive melody of silvery gongs, echo from the ages whence dance and song descend as an unchanged inheritance. An itinerant minstrel recites the history of _Johar Mankain_, the Una of Java, who shone like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought. In the intricate byways of the crumbling Kraton, a professional story-teller draws a squalid crowd of women from their dark hovels and cellars, with the magic wand of enchantment wielded by the reciter of heroic deeds from the _Panji_, exaggerated out of all recognition by the addition of fairies and giants, demons and dwarfs, to the simple human element of the original story. The apathy and decay of native life, lacking all the scope and interest common to a strenuous age, appears galvanised into some fleeting semblance of vitality by the extravaganza presented to it, for the language of hyperbole is the natural expression of Eastern thought, and penetrates into mental recesses unknown and unexplored by the relater of unvarnished facts. The quick response of the native mind to Nature's teaching, and the wealth of tradition woven round flower and tree, mountain and stream, foster the love of marvel and miracle in those whose daily wants are supplied by the prodigality of a tropical climate, for the innate poetry of the race has never been crushed out by the weight of practical necessities. A permit being obtained to view the interior of the Susunhan's palace under a Dutch escort, we present ourselves at the colonnaded portico, where the Prince Probolingo, brother of the Susunhan, receives his visitors with simple courtesy. This descendant of a hundred kings is simply attired in a dark brown _sarong_ and turban, the _kris_ in his belt of embroidered velvet ablaze with a huge boss of diamonds. Attendants, holding State umbrellas over the favoured guests, usher them through marble-paved courts, in one of which a little prince is seated, with furled golden umbrella behind him to denote his rank, a group of royal children playing round him, their lithe brown forms half-hidden in the green shadows of a great tamarind tree. A superb marble ball-room with crystal chandeliers, forms an incongruous modern feature of the spacious Palace, but helps to popularise the so-called "Nail of the Universe" among the European inhabitants of Solo, by the splendid entertainments continually given at the imperial command. The porcelain and glass rooms convey an idea of the boundless hospitality bestowed; the thousands of wine-glasses being especially noticeable, for 800 guests are often invited at a time. Treasures of linen and costly embroidery, silken hangings and velvet banners, gorgeous carpets and mats of finest texture, are displayed to our admiring eyes, but possession rather than enjoyment is the keynote of Eastern character, and the bales and bundles of priceless value, kept in huge cabinets of fragrant cedar-wood, seldom see the light of day. Long counting-houses are crowded with native scribes, their brown bodies naked except for _sarong_ and _kris_, the perpetual rattle of the abacus making a deafening din, for apparently the smallest sum cannot be added up under Eastern skies without the assistance of this wire frame with the ever-shifting marbles. Cramped fingers move wearily over the yellow parchments, with their long lists of undecipherable hieroglyphics, and the turbaned heads are scarcely raised until the entrance of the Prince necessitates the time-honoured salute of the _dodok_, the crouching posture assumed in the presence of a superior. The needs and luxuries of the immense royal household render the counting-house a feature of the utmost importance. The Prince Probolingo has himself forty wives, and a Harem in proportion to their numbers, the Susunhan's Imperial Harem far exceeding that of his brother. Wonderful tales are told of the fairy-like loveliness belonging to these inner palaces, with their treasures of ivory and sandalwood, cedar and ebony, but they are jealously guarded from intrusion, and a glimpse of their fantastic glory seldom permitted to Western eyes. After an exhibition of gold-encrusted litters and painted coaches of State, used in royal processions, the Prince, a clever-looking man of forty, takes wine with his guests. Each stand of solid silver contains six bottles, the crouching attendants also carrying silver trays of tumblers and wine-glasses, a gaily clad servitor with a huge silver ice-bowl bringing up the rear. After drinking the health of His Royal Highness in iced Rhine wine, we make our adieux, and escape from our splendid _pajongs_ of rainbow hue on the steps of the Great Entrance, conveying our thanks through the medium of an interpreter. These fainéant princes learn no tongue but their own, greatly to the advantage of their Dutch masters. The colossal incomes assigned to scions of the royal stock only serve the double purpose of political expediency and personal extravagance, for the luxury of a licentious Court remains unchecked, and the idea of educating or reforming tributary princes is unknown in Java. Territorial rights were relinquished for pecuniary gains, and the entire Court of the Susunhan is in the pay of the Dutch, the wealth amassed from the richest island in the world affording ample compensation for the pensions lavishly bestowed on the former owners of the tropical Paradise. The Dutch Resident, in his capacity of "Elder Brother" to the indigenous race, claims the full privileges of his assumed position, but the advancing tide of social reform has even touched these distant shores, and the alien authority tends on the whole to the welfare of the community. Hygienic regulations are compulsory, and even here the traditions of Holland enjoin an amount of whitewashing and cleaning up unique in tropical colonies. The green and vermilion panelled _sarongs_ of Solo are renowned for their elaborate designs, and the painting of _battek_, or cotton cloth, remains a flourishing industry of the ancient capital. The intricate beauty of the hand-made patterns far surpasses that of the woven fabrics wherewith new mills and factories begin to supply the market. Centuries of hereditary training, from the days when royal Solo was a self-supporting city, contribute to the amazing skill of the _battek_ girls, but the elaboration of native Art is doomed to decay, for Time, hitherto a negligeable quantity in this "summer isle of Eden," begins to reveal a value unknown to the Javanese past, and as the poetry of illumination vanished before the prose of the printing press, so the painting of _battek_ must inevitably give way to the wholesale methods of Manchester in the near future of Java, just awakening from her spellbound sleep to the changed conditions of life and labour. An exquisite plain, described by de Charnay as unrivalled even in Java, surrounds Sourakarta with belts of palm, avenues of waringen, and picturesque rice-fields of flaming green and vivid gold. Azure peaks frame the enchanting picture. The storied heights are rich in traditions of gods and heroes, with innumerable myths haunting the ruined temples which cluster round the base of the mountain range, and suggest themselves as relics of an earlier creed than Buddhism or Brahminism. Archaic sculptures, obelisks, and gateways, massive and undecorated, recall the architecture of Egyptian sanctuaries, but no record exists which throws any light on the origin of the extensive monuments of a forgotten past, though the triple pyramid of Mount Lawu is still a place of sacrifice to Siva the Destroyer. Pilgrims climb the steep ascent to lay their marigold garlands and burn their incense-sticks at the foot of the rude cairn erected in propitiation of the Divine wrath, typified by the cloud and tempest hovering round the jagged pinnacles of the volcanic range, which frowns with perpetual menace above the verdant loveliness of plain and woodland. The instinctive worship seems one of those hereditary relics of a perished faith so frequently encountered in Java; a blind impulse for which no reason can be ascribed by the devotee, swayed by those mysterious forces of the subconscious self which seem imperishable elements in the brown races of the Malay Archipelago. The native Court attracts myriad parasites, and the wealthy Chinese half-castes, or _Paranaks_ of Solo, with their inborn commercial genius, surpass all competitors in the pursuit of fortune. The three centuries of mixed marriages have modified Chinese conservatism, and though the _Paranak_ is severely taxed, and excluded from all political offices, he remains supreme in the kingdom of finance, regarded even by the Dutch as an indispensable factor in the complicated affairs of the island. The great _passer_ of Solo becomes an endless delight, and the interminable corridors, where the fumes of incense mingle with the breath of flowers, convey strange suggestions of antiquity. Simple meals of rice and bananas progress round cooking-pots of burnished copper. Pink pomelo and purple mangosteen vary the repast; strips of green banana leaf folded into cups fastened with an acanthus thorn, or serving as plates for Dame Nature's prodigality, provide the accessories of the feast as well as the provisions. The Javanese populace, wonderfully free from those household cares which involve so much time and trouble in Northern nations strenuously occupied in keeping the wolf from the door, and left to carry out their own inventions, have evolved numerous methods of blending the different metals--steel and iron, brass and silver. The veinings of the _kris_, beautiful as those of any Toledo blade, are produced by the welding of metals steeped in lime-juice and arsenic, which destroy the iron and retain the ingrained pattern. The chains of mingled brass and silver show exquisite designs and a special charm of colour, in the soft golden hue and subdued gleam of the heavy links, with their richly-enamelled talismans of ruby and turquoise enamel. Soft voices, tranquil movements, and courteous manners are the age-long heritage of Malay idiosyncracy, and even in the crowded _passer_, with its horde of buyers and sellers, noise and dispute are non-existent. It is a market of dreamland, and though echoes of marching feet and music of native bands remind us that we are in imperial Sourakarta, the busy hive of the _passer_ suggests a panoramic picture of native life, rather than the pushing, jostling crowd represented by the ordinary idea of a market in that Western hemisphere which, in bestowing so many priceless gifts on humanity, has taken from it the old-world grace of repose. SOURABAYA AND THE TENGGER. The port of Sourabaya, supreme in mercantile importance, ranks as the second city of Java, as it contains the military headquarters, the principal dockyards, and the arsenal. Leagues of rice and sugar-cane lie between Solo and Sourabaya, the landscape varied by gloomy teak woods, feathery tamarinds, and stately mango trees. White towns nestle in rich vegetation, and the green common known as the _aloon-aloon_ marks each hybrid suburb, Europeanized by Dutch canals, white bridges, and red-tiled houses, planted amid a riotous wealth of palm and banana. A broad river, brimming over from the deluge of the previous night, flows through burning Sourabaya; a canal, gay with painted _praus_ connecting it with the vast harbour, where shipping of all nations lies at anchor, the sheltered roads bristling with a forest of masts and funnels. Bungalows, in gorgeous gardens, flank dusky avenues of colossal trees, for even Sourabaya, the hottest place in steaming Java, enjoys "a boundless contiguity of shade." In the _sawa_ fields broad-eaved huts, set on stilts above the swamp, protect the brown boys who frighten birds from the rice, for the clapping and shouting must be carried on under shelter from the ardent sun. No air blows from the rippling water, set with acres of lotus-beds, the fringed chalices of rose and azure swaying on their plate-like leaves of palest green. The heterogeneous character of Sourabaya gives unwonted interest to the streets, uniquely brilliant in grouping and colour. Gilded eaves of Chinese houses, many-tiered Arab mosques, encrusted with polished tiles of blue and purple, white colonnades of Dutch bungalows, and pointed huts of woven basket-work within wicker gate and bamboo fence, mingle in fantastic confusion to frame a series of living pictures. Cream-coloured bullocks and spirited Timor ponies, in creaking waggons and ramshackle carriages, pass in endless procession. Bronze-hued coolies balance heavy loads on the swaying _pikolan_, a sloping pole of elastic bamboo, and strolling players, rouged and tinselled, collect crowds in every open space where a fluttering tamarind-tree offers a welcome patch of shadow to each turbaned audience, clad in the paradisaical garb of the tropics. Graceful Malay women flit silently past, in pleasing contrast to their burly Dutch mistresses, clad in a caricature of native garb which the appalling heat of Sourabaya renders a more slatternly disguise than even colonial _sans géne_ accomplishes elsewhere. Orchids spread broad spathes of scented bloom from grey trunks of courtyard trees, and cascades of crimson and purple creepers tumble over arch and wall. Insinuating Chinamen untie bundles of _sarongs_, scarves, and delicate embroideries on the marble steps of hotel porticoes, where the prolonged "shopping" of the drowsy East is catered for by the industrious Celestial, when _tokos_ are closed, and the tradesman sleeps on the floor amid his piled-up wares, for the slumber of Java is too deep to be lightly disturbed, and the solemnity of the long siesta seems regarded almost as a religious function. In this far-off land of dreams it seems "always afternoon," and the complacency wherewith the entire population places itself "hors de combat" becomes a perpetual irritation to the traveller, anxious to seize a golden opportunity of fresh experience. The sun sinks out of sight before the sultry atmosphere begins to cool. The weird "gecko," a large lizard which foretells rain, screams "Becky! Becky!" in the garden shadows, and a cry of "Toko! Toko!" echoes from another unseen speaker of a mysterious language, while wraith-like forms of his tiny brethren make moving patterns on the white columns, as the hungry little reptiles hunt ceaselessly for the mosquitos which form their staple diet. Lashing rain and deafening thunder at length cool the fiery furnace, blue lightning flares on the solid blackness of heaven, and the storm only dies away when we start at dawn for Tosari, the mountain sanatorium of the Tengger. The flat and flooded land glows with the vivid green of springing rice, tremulous tamarind and blossoming teak bordering a road gay with pilgrim crowds, for the great volcano of the Tengger remains one of Nature's mystic altars, dedicated to prayer and sacrifice. Moslem girls in yellow veils jostle brown men with white prayer-marks and clanking bangles. The _sari_ of India replaces the _sarong_ of Java, with fluttering folds of red and purple; children, clad only in silver chains and medals, or strings of blue beads, dart through the crowd, from whence the familiar types of Malay and Javanese personality are absent. We change carts in a busy roadside _passer_, which drives a roaring trade in rice-cakes and fruit, syrups and stews, to mount through changing zones of vegetation, where palms give place to tree ferns, and luscious frangipanni or gardenia yields to rose and chrysanthemum. From the half-way house of Poespo, a forest road ascends to Tosari. Sombre casuarina, most mournful of the pine tribe, mingles with teak and mahogany in dense woods falling away on either side from the shadowy path. Innumerable monkeys swing from bough to bough, eating wild fruits, and breaking off twigs to pelt the intruders on their domains. At length the sylvan scenery gives place to endless fields of cabbage, potatoes, maize, and onions, for the cool heights of the Tengger range serve the prosaic purpose of market-garden to Eastern Java, and all European vegetables may be cultivated here with success. A patchwork counterpane of green, brown, and yellow, clothes these steep slopes, but the extent of the mountain chain, and the phantasmal outlines of volcanic peaks, absorb the incongruities grafted upon them. Valerian and violet border the track between swarthy pines with grey mosses hanging down like silver beards from forked branches, and sudden mists shroud the landscape in vaporous folds, torn to shreds by gusts of wind, to melt away into the blue sky, suddenly unveiled in dazzling glimpses between the surging clouds. A long flight of mossy steps ascends to the plateau occupied by the Sanatorium, with wide verandahs and a poetic garden, like some old Italian pleasaunce, with fountain and sundial, espaliered orange boughs, and ancient rose-trees overhanging paved walks, gay parterres, and avenues of myrtle or heliotrope. Flowers are perennial even on these airy heights, and dense hedges of datura, with long white bells drooping in myriads over the pointed foliage, transform each narrow lane into a vista of enchantment. Eastern Java spreads map-like beneath the overhanging precipice, the blue strait of Madoera curving between fretted peak and palm-clad isle. The velvety plum-colour of nearer ranges fades through tints of violet and mauve into the ethereal lilac of distant summits. The lowlands gleam with brimming fish-ponds and flooded _sawas_, as though the sea penetrated through creek and inlet to the heart of the green country, the vague glitter of this watery world investing the scene with dream-like unreality. Brown _campongs_ cling to mountain crest and precipitous ledge. These almost inaccessible fastnesses were colonised after the Moslem conquest by a Hindu tribe which refused to relinquish Brahminism. Driven from place to place by the fanatical hordes of Islam on the downfall of the Hindu empire, the persecuted race, a notable exception to native inconstancy and indifference, retreated by degrees to this mountain stronghold, where they successfully retained their religious independence, and defended themselves from Mohammedan hostility. Brahminism through centuries of isolation, has assimilated many extraneous heathen rites, and wild superstitions have overlaid the original creed. The worship of the Tenggerese is now mainly directed to the ever-active crater of the awe-inspiring Bromo, always faced by the longer side of the windowless communal houses, built to contain the several generations of the families which in patriarchal fashion inhabit these spacious dwellings. Huge clouds of smoke from the majestic volcano curl perpetually above the surrounding peaks, and float slowly westward, the thunderous roar of the colossal crater echoing in eternal menace through the rarefied air, and regarded as the voice of the god who inhabits the fiery Inferno. These lonely hills, ravaged by tempest and haunted by beasts of prey, are the hiding-places of fear and the cradles of ever-deepening superstition. Wild fancies sway the untaught mountaineers, responsive to Nature's wonders, though powerless to interpret their signification. The constant struggle for existence produces a character utterly opposed to that of the suave and facile Malay. The graces of life are unknown, but the strenuous temperament of the Tenggerese is shown by indefatigable industry in the difficult agriculture of the mountain region, and the careful cultivation of the vegetables for which the district is renowned. Day by day, the Tenggerese women--gaunt, scantily-clad, and almost unsexed by incessant toil in the teeth of wind and weather--carry down their burdens to the plain, their backs bent under the weight of the huge crates, while the brown and wizened children are prematurely aged and deformed by their share in the family toil. The more prosperous inhabitant carries his vegetables on a mountain pony, trained to wonderful feats in the art of sliding up and climbing down walls of rock almost devoid of foothold, for the riding of Tenggerese youth and maiden rivals that of the Sioux Indian. Misdirected zeal strips the hills of forest growth; the scanty pines of the higher zone serving as fuel, and the ruthless destruction of timber brings the dire result of decreasing rainfall. Only bamboo remains wherewith to build the communal houses, formerly constructed of tastefully blended woods, and the flimsy substitute, unfitted to resist drenching rain and raging wind, is dragged with the utmost difficulty from cleft and gorge along rude tracks hewn out in the mountain side. Rice, elsewhere the mainstay of life in Java, has never been cultivated by the Tenggerese, the sowing and planting of the precious crop being forbidden to them during the era of gradual retreat before the Mohammedan army centuries ago, and the innate conservatism of the secluded tribe, in spite of life's altered environment, clings to the dead letter of an obsolete law. The tigers, once numerous round Tosari, have retreated into the jungle clothing the lower hills, and seldom issue from their forest lairs unless stress of weather drives them upward for a nightly prowl round byre and pen. The destruction of covert renders Tosari immune from this past peril, and the tragic tiger stories related round the hearthstone of the communal house are becoming oral traditions of a forgotten day, gathering round themselves the moss and lichen of fable and myth. The main interest of Tosari centres round the stupendous Bromo, possessing the largest crater in the world, a fathomless cavity three miles in diameter, veiled in Stygian darkness, and suggesting the yawning mouth of hell. This bottomless pit, bubbling like a boiling cauldron, pouring out black volumes of sulphureous smoke, and clamouring with unceasing thunder, was for ages a blood-stained altar of human sacrifice. Every year the fairest maiden of the Tengger was the chosen victim offered to Siva, who, in his attribute of a Consuming Fire, occupied the volcanic abyss. The worship of the Divine Destroyer has ever been a fruitful source of crime and cruelty, and a tangible atmosphere of evil lingers round those hoary temples of India dedicated to the Avenging Deity, whose fanatical followers are reckoned by millions. Through the inversion of creed peculiar to Hindu Pantheism, the propitiation of Divine wrath has become the fundamental principle of religion, and pathetic appeals for mercy continually ascend from darkened hearts to those unseen powers vividly present to Hindu thought, which, amid countless errors and degradations, has never ceased to grasp the central fact of Eternity. The impalpable air teems with Divinity. Watchful eyes and clutching hands surround the pilgrim's path, and unseen spirits dog faltering footsteps as they stumble through the snares and pitfalls of earthly life. In the rude tribes of the Tengger, hereditary faith reflects the uncompromising features of local environment. The lotus-eating races of the tropical lowlands, with their feeble grasp on the sterner aspects of creed and character, have nothing in common with this Indian tribe, remaining on the outskirts of an alien civilisation. The creed for which the early Tenggerese fought and conquered, has cooled from white heat to a shapeless petrifaction, and weird influences throng the ruined temple of a moribund faith, but the shadows which loom darkly above the mouldering altars still command the old allegiance, and a thousand hereditary ties bind heart and soul to the past. The expedition to the Bromo, by horse or litter, affords the supreme experience of Javanese volcanoes. The broken track, knee-deep in mud and rent by landslips, traverses fields of Indian corn, rocky clefts, and rugged water-courses. The familiar flora of Northern Europe fringes babbling brooks, their banks enamelled with wild strawberries and reddening brambles. Curtains of ghostly mist lift at intervals to disclose the magical pink and blue of the mountain distance, as sunrise throws a shaft of scarlet over the grim cliff's of the Moengal Pass. A chasm in the stony wall reveals the famous Sand Sea below the abrupt precipice, a yellow expanse of arid desert encircling three fantastic volcanoes. The pyramidal Batok, the cloud-capped Bromo, and the serrated Widodaren, set in the wild solitude of this desolate Sahara, form a startling picture, suggesting a sudden revelation of Nature's mysterious laboratories. The deep roar of subterranean thunder, and the fleecy clouds of sulphureous smoke ever rising from the vast furnaces of the Bromo, emphasise the solemnity of the marvellous scene. Native ideas recognise this terror-haunted landscape as the point where Times touches Eternity, and natural forces blend with occult influences. Tjewara Lawang, "the gate of the spirits," traditionally haunted by the countless _Devas_ of Hindu Pantheism, bounds the ribbed and tumbled Sand Sea with a black bridge of fretted crags, from whence the invisible host keeps watch and ward over the regions of eternal fire. By a fortunate coincidence, the annual festival of the Bromo is celebrated to-day, when Siva, the Third Person of the Hindu Triad, is propitiated by a living sacrifice. Goats and buffaloes were flung into the flaming crater long after the offering of human victims was discontinued, but, alas for the chicanery of a degenerate age! even the terrified animals thrown into the air by the sacrificing priest never reach the mystic under-world, their downward progress being arrested by a skilled accomplice, who catches them at a lower level, and risks great Siva's wrath by preserving them for more prosaic uses. The silence of the Sand Sea is broken to-day by the bustle of a gay market on the brink of the yellow plain. The terrific descent through a gash in the precipice, carved by falling boulders, landslips, and torrential rains, lands the battered pilgrim in the midst of a lively throng in festal array. Girls in rose and orange _saris_, with silver pins in sleek dark hair plaited with skeins of scarlet wool, dismount from rough ponies for refreshment, or gallop across the Sand Sea to the mountain of sacrifice. The turbaned men in rough garb of indigo and brown show less zeal than their womenkind, and betel-chewing, smoking, or the consumption of syrups and sweetmeats, prove more attractive than the religious service, for modern materialism extends even to these remote shores, and the Avenging God is often worshipped by proxy. The Sand Sea was originally the base of the Tengger volcano, split from head to foot by an appalling eruption, which forced mud, sand, and lava from the enclosing walls into the surrounding valley. Fresh craters formed in the vast depths of sand and molten metal; the three new volcanoes--Bromo, Battok, and Widodaren--casting themselves up from the blazing crucibles hidden beneath the fire-charged earth. We stand on the thin and crumbling crust of the globe's most friable surface, a mere veil concealing fountains of eternal fire, foaming solfataras, and smoking fumaroles. Circle after circle, the great belt of volcanic peaks rises around us, visible outlets of incalculable forces, ever menacing the world with ruin and havoc. On the steep descent, a few devout pilgrims offer preliminary sacrifices of food, or flowers, to the _Devas_ of the mountains, laying the little treasures in oval vaults dug by human hands, before entering the inner courts of the fiery sanctuary. The yellow Sand Sea, swept by a moaning wind, sends up whirling eddies, and the dusky haze shimmers in fantastic outlines, which probably originated the idea of spiritual presences hovering round the scene. Grey heather and clumps of cypress-grass dot the wild Sahara with their dry and colourless monotony, but give place on the southern side to patches of fern and turf, the scanty pasture of the mountain ponies, herding together until sickness or accident breaks the ranks, when the hapless sufferer, deserted by his kind, falls an easy prey to the wild dogs of the Tengger ranges. A heap of bleaching bones points to some past tragedy, and terrifies the swerving horses of the native pilgrims. The ascent of the Bromo is negotiated from the eastern side to the lip of the gigantic crater. Slanting precipices of lava, their grey flanks scored with black gullies below the volcanic ash which covers the upper slopes, rise to the jagged pinnacles bordering the black gulf of eternal mystery and night. A rickety ladder of bamboo, approached through a chaos of boulders, mounts to the edge of the profound abyss. The ladder has been renewed for this Day of Atonement, and worshippers clad in rainbow hues crowd round the base of the volcano, while the priests of Siva, in motley robes of brilliant patchwork, adorned with cabalistic tracery in white, ascend the swaying rungs, bearing their struggling victims, bleating, crowing, and clucking in mortal terror. Stalwart arms toss the black goat with accurate aim to an assistant priest, who passes on his clever "catch" to a third expert in the task of hoodwinking Siva and depriving him of his lawful prey. Sundry cocks and hens, evidently toothsome morsels, are then thrown from one priest to another, and saved for the cooking-pot, but a tough-looking chanticleer of the Cochin China persuasion is finally selected, and cast into the seething pit to propitiate the terrible wrath of the Avenging Deity at the smallest expense and loss to the astute priesthood. At the close of the sacerdotal is sacreligious performance, we mount the shaking ladder to a thatched shed on the rim of the crater. From hence, between the dense volumes of smoke, the huge cavity is visible to a depth of 600 feet. Sallow clouds of sulphur emerge from a pandemonium of tumultuous clamour; red-hot stones shoot upward, but fall back into the chasm before they reach us; burning ashes strike the smooth walls with a weird scream, and then whirl back into the darkness; yellow solfataras rise in foaming jets, with the fierce hiss of unseen serpents, and bellowing thunders shake the earth. The superb spectacle of nature's power in her armoury of terror is unique among the volcanos of Java, for unless the Bromo blazes in the throes of a violent eruption, when the ascent to the crater becomes impossible, no danger exists in gazing down into the mysterious abyss. At every gust which rages round this laboratory of Nature, the vast clouds--black, yellow, and blue--floating away into space, assume grotesque forms suggesting primeval monsters or menacing giants, darkening the skies with their ghostly presence. Driving rain and a rising gale hasten a rapid descent to the Sand Sea, but the sudden storm dies away into sunlit mists. The climb to the Moenggal Pass is complicated by a series of pools and cascades; the horses pick their own perilous way, but the management of the chairs by the noisy coolies demands superhuman strength and security of hand and foot, the crazy and battered _doolie_ escaping falls and collisions by a continuous miracle. The expedition to Ngandwona, in the heart of the hills, skirts green precipices and traverses brown _campongs_ forlorn and neglected, like this stranded Hindu race, incapable of adjustment to life's law of change, and retaining the form without the spirit of the past. The glens lie veiled in cloud, but the peaks bask in sunshine. Waterfalls dash through thickets of crimson foxglove, and daturas swing their fragrant bells over the dancing water. A little goatherd, leading his bleating flock, plays on a reed flute to summon a straggler from a distant crag. The brown figure, in linen waistcloth and yellow turban, suggests that Indian personality which has survived ages of exile on these lonely heights. The route to Ngandwona discloses the Tengger in a different aspect; the volcanos are far away, and this central region is rich in pastoral pictures full of lulling charm. The voice of the Bromo still breaks the silence of the deep valley with a mysterious undertone, but only benignant _Devas_ haunt this flower-filled hollow, remote alike from the terrors of Nature and the influences of the external world. The following day varies the character of the range, exposed to every vicissitude of temperature and climate. White billows of fog beat upon the mountain tops like a silent sea, and blot out the landscape with an impenetrable veil. Thunder echoes through the rocky caves with incessant reverberations, and rain settles down in a drenching flood. The chill of the wooden Hotel penetrates to the bone; enthusiasm wanes below zero, and even scorching Sourabaya appears preferable to this wet and windy refuge on the storm-swept heights. The hurricane proves brief in proportion to the violence displayed, and the walk to Poespo at dawn, behind the baggage-coolie, is a vision of delight. Violet mountains lean against the pale blue of a rain-washed sky, tjewara and teak glisten with jewelled lustre, and the Tengger, bathed in amethystine light, lifts itself above the world as the realm of purity and peace, ever revealed and prophesied by the glory of mountain scenery. CELEBES. MAKASSAR AND WESTERN CELEBES. Each island of the great Archipelago offers distinctive interests, for many alien races grafted themselves on the original stock, after those age-long wanderings across the Southern seas which probably coincided with the westward march from Central Asia, whereby primeval man fulfilled the decrees of destiny. A long pull in a rickety _sampan_ across the harbour of Sourabaya involves numerous collisions with fruit-boats, canoes, and rafts, before reaching the steamer in the offing. Intervals of comparative safety permit cursory observation of the gorgeously-painted _praus_ with upturned stern, curving bamboo masts, and striped sails, the outline of the gaudy boats accentuated by a black line, and producing the effect of huge shells tossing on the tide. The green isle of Madoera, and the level morasses of Eastern Java, bound the wide harbour, the blue cloud of the distant Tengger soaring abruptly on the horizon. The ship becomes our home for a month, and affords a welcome relief from divers struggles on land, involved by a dual language, official red tape, and native incompetence. A brilliant sunset flames across the heavens, and we glide across a golden sea as a fitting prelude to unknown realms of enchantment. The dreamful calm of the two days' passage obliterates the memory of bygone difficulties and perturbations, the interval between past and future experiences falling like refreshing dew on the weary spirit, and increasing the receptive capacity required for the assimilation of new impressions. The vast extent of the Malay Archipelago, and the stupendous size of the principal islands, comes as a fresh revelation to travellers whose ideas have been limited by vague recollections of schoolroom geography. The seven hundred miles of Java's length, Sumatra's vast extent of fourteen hundred miles, the area of Borneo equalling that of France and Germany combined, and the fact of Celebes, for which we are bound, exceeding the dimensions of Norway and Sweden, convey startling suggestions of the limitless space occupied by the great Equatorial group. The palms and flowers of myriad smaller isles break the blue monotony of these summer seas traversed by the Malay wanderers of olden days, striving to sail beyond the sunset, and to overtake that visionary ideal flitting ever before them, and luring them on with the fairy gold of unfulfilled desires. At length the high blue peaks of central Celebes pierce the silver mists of a roseate dawn, and beyond a cluster of coral islets, the white town of Makassar gleams against a green background of palms. Miles of brown _campongs_ fringe the shore, but the gay scene on the wooden wharves at first occupies undivided attention. _Sarongs_ of crimson, orange, purple, or boldly-contrasting plaids, enhance the deep bronze of native complexion, the ample folds of the wide skirts drawn up above the knees. High turbans of white or red cambric, elaborately twisted, add dignity to the stately figures, deeply-cut features and hawk noses denoting Arab origin, for the Makassarese is a lineal descendant of the Moslem pirates, once the terror of these island-studded seas. Proud, courageous, and passionately addicted to adventurous travel in far-off lands, these sturdy islanders have little in common with the inert races of Java. The normal Malay element appears extinguished by the fiery superstructure of Arab nature, retaining the vindictive and fanatical traits of ancestral character. The women, in rainbow garb, use their floating _slandangs_ as improvised _yashmaks_, holding the red and yellow folds before their faces in approved Moslem fashion, when passing a man. Makassar, formerly ruled by a line of powerful princes as an independent fief, but now subject to a Dutch Governor, has become the capital of Celebes, and occupies an important commercial position. The wharves are filled with bales of _copra_, mother-of-pearl shells, plumage of native birds, dried fish, bundles of rattan, and precious woods from the primeval forests of the interior. The boom of the fisherman's drum echoes across the water in constant reverberations, a secularised relic of the religious past, originally serving the purpose of the Mohammedan call to prayer, but now fulfilling the prosaic office of signalling the arrival or departure of boats, though the devout mariner still appeals by drum to the Heavenly Powers for fair weather and a good haul of fish. The official buildings of Makassar, including the Dutch Governor's palace, face a green _aloon-aloon_, flanked by superb avenues of kanari and tamarind trees. The hoary fort, scarcely distinguishable from the solid rock which supports it, was captured from the King of Goa by a Dutch admiral, who thrust his sword through an adjacent cocoanut palm, to symbolise his intention of piercing the hearts of all who resisted the Treaty afterwards drawn up. The sword and cocoanut now form part of the heraldic arms belonging to Makassar. Local costume affords a continuous feast of colour, and streets and avenues appear like moving tulip beds, the broad blue sky and dazzling sunshine of this tropical land intensifying every glowing tint of robe, fruit, and flower. In the umber shadows of dusky _tokos_, gold-beaters fashion those red-gold ornaments rich in barbaric beauty, for which Makassar has ever been renowned. Portuguese art glorifies native workmanship, and the Dutch carry on the traditions of the past, merely simplifying the old methods by introducing modern tools to lighten the labour of production. Silken scarves, and elaborately-painted _battek_, woven with gold and silver thread, swing from the black rafters of dim corridors, and countless treasures of the deep, in shells and coral of rich and delicate colouring, manifest the infinite variety of Nature's handiwork. From the crowded lanes, with their busy markets and hybrid population, we drive through the long line of _campongs_ bordering the palm-fringed coast. The bamboo walls of the fragile houses, standing on stilts or rocking on poles in the rippling sea, show a multitude of fantastic designs, the broad roofs of thatched grass or plaited palm-leaves extending in penthouse eaves above carven panels let into the gables. A riot of glorious vegetation frames and overshadows the clustering huts of deftly-woven cane. Dark faces peer through the narrow slits of bamboo window-spaces, but Makassar pride contains the elements of self-respect, and though the stranger attracts a certain amount of interest, no discourtesy mars the pleasure of exploration. A red road beneath towering palms, skirts rice-fields and bamboo thickets to the beautiful ford of the Tello, a broad river flowing between vast woods of cocoanut and bread-fruit trees, with only a tiny dug-out, steered by a brown boy in a scarlet turban, to dispel the loneliness of the scene. The vicinity of Makassar offers no special characteristics beyond those of a tropical garden, but the changing aspects of native life provide subjects of unceasing interest. To-day a great Chinese festa takes place, which attracts all the inhabitants of town and _campong_, for amusements are scarce on these distant shores, and no questions of race or faith complicate the determination to secure a share in the pleasures of the ceremony. When the usual burst of squibs and crackers, lighting of bonfires, and tossing of joss-papers into the air, marks the commencement of the holiday, spectators line the roads, climb the trees, and crowd the fiat roofs of Portuguese houses. The afternoon is the children's portion of the festival, and the little bedizened figures, with rouged faces, tinsel crowns, and spangled robes, bestride grotesque wooden dragons, fishes, and birds, brilliantly painted, and drawn on wheels by masked men in robes of pink and green. A crowd of high-class babies, also bedizened and spangled, follows in perambulators wreathed with flowers, and pushed by their Chinese nurses. Hideous gods in glittering robes, and appalling demons painted in black and scarlet, bring up the rear of the long procession, which traverses every street and lane of the Chinese _campong_, the open houses displaying the lighted altars and tutelary gods of Buddhist and Taoist creed, for the mystic philosophy of the Eastern sages materialises into grossest realism by passing through the crucible of Chinese thought. A visit to the so-called "Kingdom of Goa" fills up our last day in Makassar. The Palace of the tributary Sultan, ten miles from the capital, consists of steep-roofed houses built upon huge trunks of forest trees, and connected by carved galleries and crumbling stairs with the Harem at the back of the main edifice. Squalid women in blue yashmaks loll on the crazy verandah, whence a native secretary marshals us through the dusty and ruinous building. The Sultan, taking to the hills as a necessary precaution after inciting his subjects to rebellion against the Dutch, has just been captured, but, whether by accident or design, fell over a cliff, and until his dead body is brought back to receive the Mohammedan rites of burial, the royal residence remains in charge of the police. The grass-grown road to the decaying Palace intersects the rambling and sordid village of Goa, the feudal appanage of the sorry chieftain, a perpetual thorn in the side of the Dutch Government. The surrounding country appears almost a solitude, the silence stirred by the song of the distant surf, the chirping of myriad grasshoppers, and the ceaseless clash of waving palms in the breeze which steals up from the sea. A quaint water-castle, shaped like a Chinese junk, stands on a rock in a fish-pond reflecting the rosy sky, and the fretted marble of a beautiful Arabian tomb gleams from a clump of white-starred _sumboya_ exhaling incense on the air. As the magic and mystery of night shroud Makassar in a mantle of gloom, the surrounding sea becomes a vision of phosphorescent flame to the furthest horizon. The sheet-lightning of the tropical sky repeats the wonders of the deep, the glamour of romance gilds the prose of reality, and we apprehend that spirit of wondering awe which breathes through the records of old-world voyagers across uncharted oceans, when witnessing the phenomena of Nature in the sanctuary of her power, before Science had torn the veil from the mystic shrine. The steamer's course follows the bold and mountainous coast; steep cliffs alternate with forest-clad ravines, the purple ranges of the foreground melting into the azure crests of soaring peaks. Skilful navigation is required in threading the blue water-lanes of the Spermunde group, the scores of palm-clad islets like bouquets of verdure thrown on the tranquil sea. The wicker-work _campongs_ of the fishing population form a ring round each white beach of sparkling coral sand. The black bow of the "Bromo," a ship which broke her back on a reef twenty years ago, stands high above the treacherous rocks, and accentuates the vivid colouring of water and foliage. At Paré-Paré, a native _campong_ in a deep bay at the edge of a forest, the steamer stops to discharge cargo, and affords an opportunity of landing. A gay crowd lines the shore of the picturesque village, the houses of palm-thatched bamboo adorned with carved ladders and upcurving eaves of white wood. One of the numerous military expeditions to turbulent Celebes has lately been successful, and the _campong_, where every hut was closed for a year in consequence of the local Rajah forcing his people to join in his insurrection, has at last been re-opened, though under a guard of Dutch and Malay troops. A brown bodyguard of native children, mainly clad in silver chains and medals, escorts the strangers with intense delight to a shabby little mosque, where a Dervish, in the orange turban rewarding a pilgrim to Mecca, beats a big drum in the stone court. The little savages encountered at Mandja on the following day seem equally free from clothes and cares, but Europeans, though possessing the charm of novelty, are regarded with awe; a sudden stop, a word, or even a lifted hand, sufficing to make the whole juvenile population take to their heels, and hide among the palms and bananas until a sudden impulse of fresh curiosity banishes fear. Clothing is at a discount, but ornaments of brass, silver, and coloured beads, are evidently indispensable. Natural flowers, like immense red fuchsias with long white bells, serve as ear-rings, and scarlet caps adorn the sleek black heads of the elder girls. An _al fresco_ picnic party from the hills occupies a green mound, and boils a kettle on sticks of flaming bamboo, though a stray spark might easily burn down the entire _campong_. A great part of Celebes is uninhabited and uncultivated, but the tribes of the interior, warlike and treacherous, have never been completely subjugated. The slave trade flourishes among these lonely hills, murder and violence are rife; the methods of warfare, comprising poisoned arrows, and bullets containing splinters of glass, denote absolute barbarism, and the enormous island, which ought to be a field of emigration for some of Java's twenty-seven millions, except for the coast _campongs_ and the rice-grounds of the far interior, remains one of the waste places of the earth, in spite of a perfect climate and a teeming soil. Day by day the scenery becomes more wild and dreary; the forests disappear, and the sun-baked hills encroach on the low brushwood beyond the white beaches of coves and inlets, without any sign of habitation. An atmosphere of crystalline purity discloses the highest range of the interior, a long chain of azure peaks. Our course traverses league upon league of melancholy solitude, emphasised rather than relieved by the brilliant sunlight and balmy breezes playing over this realm of neglected possibilities, where the wants of countless sufferers might be abundantly supplied. Anchoring for an hour in the deep blue bay of Tontoli, we come once more into the haunts of men, and two picturesque _campongs_ buried in cocoa-palms beneath the wooded mountains of Tomini are pointed out as exclusively peopled by descendants of the pirates who infested this western coast of Celebes. From this point the interest of the cruise increases. Pretty _campongs_ line the shore of every sheltered creek. Boats of quaint form and colour push off to meet the steamer, quickly surrounded by _sampans_, _blotos_ (the native canoes), or carved and painted skiffs, all manned by an amphibious race in Nature's suit of brown, which renders the wearers indifferent to overturned boats, water-logged _blotos_, and collapsing rafts, though the encouraging statements of our Malay crew as to the warmth and shallowness of the water in case of any contretemps, is less reassuring to the travellers who venture shoreward on the risky craft. The loan of the captain's boat makes the visit to Dongalla an experience of unalloyed pleasure, but the people appear morose and sullen. A dignified youth, in purple turban and checked _sarong_, attempts to do the honours of his native place, but his comrades, oppressed by vague suspicions, close the heavy doors of their wooden houses, and peep through the interstices of the bamboo shutters as we thread the narrow alleys, escorted by the deck steward. A more genial crowd welcomes us to the palm-groves of Palehle, where a light-hearted bodyguard of children shows us every nook and corner of the brown _campong_, with smiling faces and merry laughter. The heart-whole mirth of these little savages might brighten the saddest soul. Living in the present, with no artificial wants to create dissatisfaction, and free from the pains or penalties of poverty, as experienced in Northern climes, the simple life close to the heart of Nature suggests ideas of Eden's unshadowed joy. Amid the treasures of memory garnered during the winter's wanderings through the Malay Archipelago, the unclouded merriment which endows these children of Nature remains as the deepest impression stamped on the memory of the Western pilgrim. European childhood, at the best and brightest, but faintly approaches this spontaneous gaiety, the special attribute of untutored souls in a world of primal innocence. At Soemalata the steep declivities of wooded mountains enclose the harbour, and a narrow pass leads to the gold mines, where the process of smelting and separating the ore takes place in a primitive series of conduits, sluices, mills, and pounding machines. The gold concession granted by the local Rajah prospers in European hands, but the barbaric chieftain adheres to the ancient custom of having the gold washed from the river sand by his own slaves. The English engineer of the mines hails a compatriot with delight, and his explanation of the complicated machinery ends with a welcome invitation to tea in his pretty bungalow. A solitary Englishman is frequently found stationed in the remotest outposts of civilisation throughout the Malay Archipelago, enduring a life of unexampled loneliness with the tenacity and determination inherent in national character. The oft-receding vision of a successful future inspires the dauntless heart less than a sense of present duty, and these exiles from the social ties of nation and kindred possess special claims on sympathy and remembrance. Lovely lanes of palm and banana, brightened by trees of crimson poinsettia, wind upward to the hills, and a cluster of green islets gems the blue waters; the scarlet-stemmed Banka palm offering a glowing contrast to the sweeping emerald of the feathery fronds. The little settlement of Kwandang, with a gold _fabrik_ occupying a wooded islet, completes the circuit of the western coast, for the North-Eastern Cape comprises a distinctive province, requiring a separate chapter. Intervening mountains, with jagged cliffs and towering summits, rise like Titanic fortresses from the creaming surf which washes the yellow bastions, leaving no space for the wicker _campongs_, impermanent as a child's house of cards, but perpetually rebuilt in identical fashion, and never developing into substantial dwellings, or adjusted on the new lines required by varieties of environment. THE MINAHASA. Steaming slowly through the phosphorescent seas of the starlit night, we anchor at dawn in the forest-lined bay of Amoerang, the principal harbour of the Minahasa. The picturesque Northern Cape of Celebes contains a population differing in origin and character from all other races of the vast island, and conveys the idea of a distinctive country. The mountain panorama of shelving ridges and fretted promontories, breaking the outlines of the rocky coast with infinite variety, culminates in the chiselled contours of volcanic peaks, cutting sharply into the silvery blue of a stainless sky. Amoerang, half-buried in sago-palms, on the green rim of the secluded haven, shows slight resemblance to the _campongs_ generally encountered on the western coast. Wooden cottages, though built on piles of wood or stone, and thatched with _atap_ (plaited palm leaves) possess many features in common with the screened and balconied dwellings of Japan. The people, in aspect and feature, also convey suggestions of the Japanese origin ascribed to them, for ancient traditions assert that the Minahasa was colonised by an Asiatic tribe, driven out of Formosa by native savages, in one of those wild raids upon the peaceful maritime population which drove them to face the perils of an unknown sea, rather than fall into the ruthless hands of the bloodthirsty aborigines who inhabited the forests and mountains of the interior. Many of the hapless exiles perished through hunger, thirst, storm, and shipwreck of their slightly-built craft, during the long wanderings which ended as though by chance for the survivors, in the distant Minahasa. The Malay element in those Japanese refugees, displayed the usual characteristics of skill in boat-building and navigation, together with that accurate observation of natural phenomena which alone could compensate for the lack of scientific knowledge. The women, with oblique eyes and oval faces, wear the gay _sarong_ and white _kabaja_ customary in Eastern Java. The men, in shapeless gowns and wide trousers, with broad hats of battered straw on their close-cropped hair, afford a sorry spectacle of unbecoming and disorderly attire, conveying grotesque hints of Japanese ideas beneath the squalid ugliness overlaying them. The fishermen, conveniently unclad for the necessities of their calling, wear only a yellow or scarlet waist-cloth, the bright touch of colour emphasising the deep bronze of their slight but athletic forms. The people of the Minahasa, Christianised after the Calvinistic methods of Dutch and German missionaries a century ago, have always been specially favoured by the Government of Holland, and large sums are annually expended in improving the status of this distant colony. The making of roads, the building of schools and churches, and the improvement of social conditions, are liberally catered for, not only for the advantage of the Minahasa, but that no excuse may exist for any rebellion against such paternal rule. Tribal insurrections continually recur in the great Archipelago, where a storm in a teacup often swells into dangerous proportions, and the peaceful adherence of the Minahasa to the powers that be becomes an important factor in turbulent Celebes. The race, so strangely amalgamated with alien interests, shows the apathy of a temperament incapable of developement on foreign lines, though unable to resist the pressure imposed upon it. The pretty _campong_ seems silent as the grave. No native _warongs_, or restaurants, enliven the straight roads with their merry crowds or cheerful gossip, and sellers of food and drink, whose cries echo through the streets of Makassar, are unknown in this northern port, where even the arrival of the fortnightly steamer fails to excite much interest in the public mind. A rash determination to drive across the Minahasa, and pick up the boat at Menado, involves unimagined difficulties. Heavy waggons drawn by brown _sappies_ (_i.e._, bullocks), which travel at the rate of two miles an hour, suffice for native use in remote Amoerang, but at length a dilapidated gig, with two sorry steeds harnessed in tandem fashion by sundry bits of old rope, is produced. Having frequently experienced the pace accomplished by many a Timor pony of emaciated and dejected aspect, faith accepts even this unpromising team for the long drive of thirty miles. Quaint _campongs_, with bamboo fences and curiously arched gateways, flank the woodland road. Each little garden flames with red poinsettia, purple convolvulus, and yellow daisies. The latticed screens pushed back from open verandahs, show Japanese-looking rooms, furnished with the European lamps, chairs, and tables, exported by thousands to the Minahasa, but the same atmosphere of stagnation broods over these quiet villages, and even the children, returning from a bamboo schoolhouse on the edge of the forest, show the staid and solemn demeanour of their elders. For a few miles all goes well, with the trifling exception of occasional breakages in the countless knots of the rope harness. The last whistle of the steamer floats upward as she leaves her anchorage, and refusing to yield to a faint misgiving as to the success of the present enterprise, eyes and thoughts concentrate themselves on the increasing beauty of the mountain road, the living emerald of the rice-fields, and the picturesque mills for husking the grain, which give special character to this unique district of Celebes. Suddenly the rickety conveyance comes to a full stop, and a kicking match begins, the plunging ponies refusing to budge an inch. The incapable Jehu implores his fare's consent to an immediate return, but meets with an inexorable refusal, the halting Malay sentences eked out with an unmistakable pantomime of threats and warnings. The driver's whip, supplemented by an English umbrella, produces no effect on the obtuse animals, which have to be led, or rather hauled, on their unwilling way. One obstreperous steed becomes so unmanageable that it becomes necessary to hitch him to the back of the cart, at the imminent risk of overturning it, in his determination to thwart his companion's enforced progress. Mile after mile the wearisome struggle continues. Even a lumbering bullock waggon passes us again and again, in the numerous stoppages required for fresh conflict. The endless hours of the weary day drag on like a terrible nightmare, but a descent into a profound ravine of these mountain solitudes at length enables the driver to start the team at a rate which makes it impossible for them to stop, and he vaults lightly into his place as we spin merrily downhill. Our troubles are not over, for on the next upward grade the old game of rearing, backing, and futile attempts at buck-jumping, begins again. Despairing eyes rest on a thatched booth at the roadside, containing a row of bottles hung up by a string, with the bamboo tube for coins. Holding the ropes, and currying favour with the ponies by leading them to a patch of grass, it becomes possible for the boy to leave them for a sorely-needed drink of the sago-wine. The fiendish animals try to upset the cart, and the fight recommences for the fiftieth time, but the brown huts of a _campong_ in a cactus thicket inspire hope, and after a furious battle in the street, to the intense delight of the Japanese-looking people, a man comes to the rescue with a stout pony. The boy mounts one battered steed, the other is left behind in a hospitable stable, and we trot briskly on through lovely scenery of forest and mountain to Kanas, at the head of the beautiful lake of Tondano, hitherto seen in glimpses at an immense depth between encircling peaks. Wearied almost to stupefaction by eleven hours of a combat, after which victory seems scarcely less ghastly than defeat, we would gladly remain for the night at the little Rest House of Kanas, but prudence compels us to push on to Tondano, at the other end of the lake, while a capable pony remains at disposal. The lake road is a vista of entrancing loveliness, overhung by arching bamboos and great sago-palms, the vanguard of the forest which clothes the lower spurs of the purple mountain ranges, shutting off the long blue lake from the outside world. A rudely-built _bloto_, merely the hollowed trunk of a tree, crosses the water, with a torch flickering at the prow, for the sun has set, and the crimson afterglow begins to fade from the serrated crests of the opposite heights. The ripple of the water in the reeds at the edge of the road, and the sigh of the evening breeze, fluttering the leaves and creaking the yellow canes of the great bamboos, alone stir the silence, which comes as a welcome relief after the toil and excitement of the day; but alas! we have all forgotten the perils of the road at nightfall, and in the sudden darkness, deepened by the shadowy trees, a false step might precipitate cart and passengers into the deep water. Any advance becomes dangerous on the winding way, which follows every curve of the irregular shore, so a halt is called, while the boy rides on towards some twinkling lights denoting a lakeside _campong_. After a long wait, he returns in triumph with three matches and a piece of flaming tow in a bottle. By observing due precaution, we can now follow his guidance, while he holds out the flaring light with extended arm. As we turn round the foot of the lake into a raised causeway above fields of ripening rice, the full moon comes up behind the sombre hills, and transfigures the night with a sparkling flood of silver glory. We reach the white Dutch town of Tondano as the clock strikes ten, but everyone is in bed at this dissipated hour, and difficulty is experienced even in getting admission to the little Hotel, though the delight of finding an English-speaking landlord atones for a somewhat ungracious reception after a long and painful pilgrimage, which should serve as a solemn warning against the rash attempt to penetrate the wilds of the Minahasa under native guidance. Tondano, with houses and verandahs gleaming in spotless whiteness among green spaces and luxuriant trees, appears a typical Dutch town, incongruous but picturesque. The absolute purity and transparency of the atmosphere give value and intensity to every shade of colour, and the scarlet hybiscus flowers show the incandescent glow belonging rather to lamps than to blossoms. The river Tondano forms a series of lovely cascades below the town, situated four miles from the lake at the present time, for the marshy flats have been reclaimed as rice-grounds, thus somewhat diminishing the stretch of water. The steep drive down to Menado offers a succession of lovely views. The little port, in a nest of verdure, encircles the azure bay, where our steamer, merely a white speck in the distance, lies at anchor. A turn of the road discloses a glimpse of the mountain lake, a sheet of sapphire sparkling in the morning sun, but retrospective thoughts in this instance convey pain as well as pleasure, for "mounting ambition" has for once "o'erleapt itself," and failure counterbalances success. Menado, divided by the river, is inhabited by two distinct tribes of the mysterious colonists who came from the farthest East to these unknown shores. The ubiquitous Chinaman has found a firm footing in the northerly port of Celebes, and the splendidly-carved dragons of a stately temple, rich in ornaments of green jade, blue porcelain, and elaborate brass-work, denote the important status of the wealthy community. A busy _passer_ supplies the usual pictures of native life, but the people of the Minahasa, here as elsewhere, lack both the gay insouciance of the South, and the strenuous energy of the Northern mind, the residuum of apathetic dullness, deprived of all the salient characteristics which constitute charm and interest. European houses of Dutch officials stand in ideal gardens of brilliant flowers and richest foliage. The little Hotel Wilhelmina is a paradise of exotic blossoms, but Menado, apart from a lovely situation, and the usual riot of glorious verdure which makes every tropical weed a thing of beauty, offers little inducement for a prolonged stay. The bay, exposed to contrary winds and chafed by conflicting currents, tosses in perpetual turmoil, though a long jetty diminishes the former difficulties of the stormy passage between ship and shore. In the amber light of sunset, the dark mountain ranges stand out with unearthly clearness. The jagged peaks of Klabat and Soedara in the background, bringing into prominence the grey cliffs and purple ravines of the smoking Lokon. The wonderful scenery of the Malay Archipelago seldom lacks that element of terror which enhances the radiant loveliness of Nature by painting it on a tragic background of storm and cloud, the vague suggestion of evanescence intensifying the mysterious charm with poetic significance. The receding coast discloses a striking panorama of the mountain heights piled one upon another, the grey towers and bastions guarding this narrowing Cape of the Minahasa, a veritable outpost of Nature, eternally washed by the restless seas. As the steamer rounds the savage promontories, and threads the blue straits formed by two rocky islets at the northern extremity, the weird and desolate landscape conveys a strange sense of separation even from the alien humanity which peoples the far-reaching peninsula of the Minahasa, and this northern extremity appears a limitless waste. Chaotic masses of imperishable granite, splintered reefs thrusting black spikes through the creaming surge, and wind-swept cliffs of fantastic form, characterise the solemn headland, unpainted and unsung, although the sea-girt sanctuary of Nature demands interpretation through the terms of Art and Poetry. GORONTALO AND THE EASTERN COAST. The steamer's first halt on the wild eastern coast of Celebes is the gold-mining settlement of Todok, where the Company's rustic offices of palm-thatched bamboo border an enchanting bay, with a string of green islets studding the shoaling blue and purple of the gleaming depths. Two passengers disembark for the ebony plantations on the slopes of a volcanic range, declaring itself by a slight earthquake rocking the _atap_ shanty, where the ship's officer who tallies the cargo, offers hospitality until the fierce heat modifies sufficiently for a stroll. A dusty and shadeless road leads up into the wooded hills which bound the prospect, but the _campong_, largely consisting of recently-constructed dwellings, occupied by alien employés in the service of the Gold Syndicate, offers no inducements for exploration, and until the launch returns, a shadowy palm-grove by the wayside makes a welcome retreat from the dust and glare, the creaking of innumerable bullock-waggons, and the shouts of crew and coolies, disputing over the loading of a raft. The arrival at Gorontalo in the radiant dawn provides a more interesting experience. The river which forms the beautiful harbour, rushes through a profound ravine of the forest-clad mountains, which descend sharply to the water's edge. The scene resembles a Norwegian fiord, translated into tropical terms of climate and vegetation. A narrow track climbs the ledges of a cliff behind the brown fishing _campong_ of Liato, but a rude wharf on the opposite side affords a less picturesque though safer landing, for the swirling currents of the swift stream require more careful navigation than the amphibious boatman, unembarrassed by clothing, is wont to bestow on craft or passenger. The spirit of enterprise is also in abeyance, scotched if not killed by the struggles of the memorable pilgrimage through the Minahasa. The quiet haven in the shadow of the guardian hills looks an ideal haunt of peace. A Dutch battleship lies at anchor, and the red sails of a wide-winged _prau_ make broken reflections in the rippling clearness of the green water. A wooden bridge crosses the river at the narrow end of the funnel-shaped harbour, connecting it with the town in the steaming valley, the usual medley of open _tokos_ and _atap_ huts, supplemented by two dubious hotels, a green _aloon-aloon_, and a few stone houses denoting the presence of the European element. The original inhabitants of Gorontalo are of Alfoer race--dark, glum, and forbidding. How this ancient stock, indigenous to some of the southern islands in the Malay Archipelago, wandered from thence to distant Celebes has not been satisfactorily accounted for. The records of savage tribes depend on oral tradition, but the outlines of an oft-told tale become blurred and dim during the lapse of ages, when the mental calibre of the racial type lacks normal acumen. The graces of life are ignored by the Alfoer woman, her mouth invariably distorted by the red lump of betel-nut, accommodated with difficulty, and rendering silence imperative. Her bowed shoulders become deformed with the heavy loads perpetually borne, for the rising trade of Gorontalo supplies the men with more congenial employment than the field work, which frequently becomes the woman's province. A straight road between crowding palms crosses a wide rice-plain, opening out of the cleft carved by the mountain river, and leads to the curious Lake of Limbotto, a green mass of luxuriant water-weeds, the dense vegetation solidifying into floating islands of verdure, intersected by narrow channels, only navigable to a native _bloto_ skilfully handled, for Nature alternately builds up and disperses these flowery oases, blocking up old water-ways and opening new ones with bewildering confusion. Buffaloes wallow between the tangled clumps of pink lotus and purple iris, and wild ducks nest in the waving sedges, or darken the air in a sudden flight down the long lake. A noisy market flanks the water, and bronze figures, in red turbans row gaily-clad women, laden with purchases, to some distant _campong_, reached through the mazes of verdure. The country _passer_, a shifting scene of gaudy colouring, contains greater elements of interest than commercial Gorontalo, where the native _campong_ loses individuality in gaining the prosaic adjuncts of a trading centre. The lovely harbour dreams in the moonlight as we steam slowly out of the widening estuary to pick up cargo in the great bay of Tomini, which sweeps in a mighty curve round half the Eastern coast of Celebes. The conical island of Oena-Oena rises sheer from the waves, the red peak of a lofty volcano composing the apex of a green pyramid, formed by a forest of palms. Until six years ago no anchorage for ships was possible at this forest-clad isle, but a volcanic eruption deepened the bay, and a thriving trade in _copra_ was initiated, for the whole surface of Oena-Oena is clothed with a dense mass of drooping cocoanut trees. Scattered dwellings nestle in the thick woods, but no regular _campong_ exists in this thinly-peopled spot, a vernal Eden set in the purple sea. The heat of the day, though intense, is everywhere tempered by the interlacing canopies of the feathery fronds, until sunset fuses them into the vivid transparency of green fire, and a fluttering zephyr stirs the whispering foliage. The shy brown people, who at first hide in their _atap_ huts at the approach of strangers, venture out to see the last of the departing steamer, which forms the sole link between barbarism and civilisation, and a month must elapse before any contact with the outside world can vary the seclusion of this lonely spot, a dreamland vision of repose. At Posso, the next port on Celebes, we land a Dutch officer, bound for the important barracks on a hill above the straggling _campong_, after a successful expedition against the tree-dwellers, cannibals, and slave-traders of the interior, still sunk in barbarism. An olive-green river, infested with crocodiles, flows sluggishly through rank vegetation into the sea below the dilapidated huts of the depressing native town. This forlorn outpost of military duty involves exile from civilisation, and the risk of occasional raids from the wild tribes of the surrounding hills. At Parigi, canopied by spreading palms, the _atap_ houses, with bamboo rafters strengthening the fragile walls, stand in neglected gardens, overgrown with a tangle of flower and foliage. The low tide makes the dangerous _bloto_ a necessity, though the hollowed tree, top heavy and water-logged, is in imminent peril of capsizing every minute of the long course between ship and shore. Objections to a boat upsetting in shallow water being beyond Malay comprehension, the only way of accomplishing the transit in safety is by a summary command that two brown boys should immediately jump overboard to lighten the rocking craft. Nothing loth, they swim to shore in our wake, rolling over in the sand to dry themselves like Newfoundland dogs, and with less embarrassment on the score of clothing. A native Queen or Maharanee rules Parigi from her bamboo palace in the deepest recesses of the adjacent palm-forest, but she is invisible to her subjects, and dwells in the seclusion of _purdah_, possibly a relic of Indian origin. Her nominal authority proves insufficient to keep the peace between the native population and the Dutch, for Parigi has been for months in a state of insurrection and unrest. Only a year ago a raid was made on the Eurasian merchant's office wherein I take shelter from the noonday sun, and two white men were attacked by a band who rushed down from the mountains and cut off their heads. The ringleader of the assassins is now imprisoned for life in the gaol of Batavia, no capital punishment being permitted in the Netherlands India. An immense cargo of _copra_ and rattan fills a fleet of boats and rafts. The great stacks of cane cause no annoyance, but the sickening smell of _copra_ (the dried and shredded cocoanut used for oil) pervades the ship, and an occasional cockroach of crab-like dimensions clatters across the deck in his coat of mail from a hiding place in the unsavoury cargo. The philosophic Hollander accepts these horrors of the tropics with undisturbed composure, but happily for the peace of the English passenger, the Malay "room-boy" welcomes a new idea, and becomes gradually inspired with the ardour of the chase. Ominous clouds darken over the Bay of Tomini as we embark once more on the rolling waters, having completed the circuit of the vast island, possessing a coast-line of 2,500 miles. Blue peaks and waving palms recede into the mists of falling night. We are once more afloat on a sleeping sea, the restful monotony of wind and wave enabling indelible impressions of each varying scene to sink deeply into mind and memory, and preventing the too rapid succession of travelling experiences. A GLIMPSE OF BORNEO. An element of uncertainty attends the cruise among the Malayan islands, through sudden orders to include strange ports of call in the programme of the route. During the stay at Makassar, a cable from Batavia necessitates a flying visit to Borneo, and though the détour was made from the western coast of Celebes, the great sister island demands a special notice. In steaming thither through the radiant glory of an Equatorial sunset, strange atmospheric effects denote fresh variations of climate and temperature. The rounded horizon, which suggests the rim of the terrestrial globe, seems within a stone's throw of the ship, and as the crimson sun sinks below the sharply-defined curve outlined by the sea, a glowing hearth of smouldering embers appears burning on the edge of the water. The eastern sky blooms into vivid pink from the reflection of this fiery incandescence, which fades only to give place to the leaping brightness of phosphorescent waves, and the nightly pageant of tropical skies ablaze with lambent flames of summer lightning. Morning reveals the dark forests of mysterious Borneo, rolling back to the misty blue of a mountain background. The pathless jungles of teak and iron wood, inextricably tangled by ropes of liana or ladders of rattan, latticed with creepers and wreathed with clambering fern, make an impenetrable barrier between the settlements of the coast and the unknown interior, where barbarism still reigns triumphant, and "head-hunting" remains the traditional sport. Insurmountable difficulties of transit and progress are reported, even by the few enthusiastic botanists, who merely penetrate the outworks of Nature's stronghold in search of rare orchids, worth more than a king's ransom if we take into account the sacrifice of life, and the hardships suffered in wresting these floral gems from their forest casket. Any complete exploration of these tropical wilds seems at present beyond human means and capacities, but even a few months of the soil and climate of Borneo can transform a forest clearing into a wilderness of riotous vegetation, more impassable than that woodland maze of a century's growth encircling the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the loveliest of old-world fairy tales. Our present quest has no connection with the mysteries of the interior, and only concerns itself with the prosaic task of taking in a cargo of oil, used as the ship's fuel. We steam into a wooded bay, beneath a hill covered with the brown _atap_ bungalows of European colonists. Colossal oil-tanks, painted red, disfigure the shore. Each tank holds 4,000 tons of oil, 30,000 tons per month being the usual export. Kerosene taints the air, but is considered to be innocuous, and to drive away the curse of mosquitos. The unimaginable and ferocious heat makes every step a terror, during a snail's progress up a wooded road. Sun-hat and white umbrella scarcely mitigate the scorching rays on this perilous promenade, but there is only a day at disposal, and it cannot be wasted. Towards noon a breeze springs up, and exploration of the long line of _tokos_ beyond the wharves is simplified by the spreading eaves of palm-leaf thatch. A row of workmen's dwellings forms a prosaic continuation of the _campong_, inhabited by a mixed population, chiefly imported to Balik-Papan in the interests of the oil trade. A chance rencontre with the Scotch doctor of the European settlement affords an opportunity of visiting the Oil Refinery, with the varied distillations, culminating in the great tank of benzine, a concentration of natural forces like a liquid dynamite, capable of wrecking the whole settlement in a moment. Endless precautions and vigilant care alone secure the safety of Balik-Papan from the perils incidental to the vast stores of explosive material. The raw petroleum brought from the mines of Samarinda, farther down the coast, by a fleet of _hoppers_ (the local steamers which ply round the indented shore), is extracted by boring a stratum of coal known as "antichine," and always containing indications of mineral oil. Dutch and English Companies work this valuable product; fortunes are quickly made, and the industrious inhabitants, absorbed in dreams of a golden future, appear untroubled by any consciousness of metaphorically sleeping on the brink of a volcano. Iced soda-water, and a brief siesta, revive drooping spirits after the broiling exertions of the morning, and as the shadows of the palm-trees lengthen on the edge of the jungle, it becomes possible to mount the hill behind the wharf to the picturesque bungalow of another kindly Scot, who invites me to tea. The pretty tropical dwelling of plaited _atap_, through which every precious breath of air can penetrate, stands in the midst of a gorgeous thicket, composed of scarlet hybiscus and yellow Allemanda, the splendid blossoms growing in wild luxuriance on this sandy soil. The glare of the sun still requires the _atap_ screens to be closed on the broad-eaved verandah, but the freshness of the evening breeze steals into the twilight of the pretty drawing-room, the simple but refined appointments of a restful home intensely refreshing after weeks of ship and hotel existence. The fragrant tea, with dainty cups and saucers, and the home-made cakes, seem almost forgotten luxuries, for the amenities of British civilisation stop short at Singapore. A cheery party assembles round the table, and these exiles on a foreign shore extend the warmest of welcomes to the stray bird of passage, who will soon leave behind only the shadowy "remembrance of a guest who tarrieth but a day." The idea so familiar to the self-seeking spirit, that "it is not worth while" to trouble about a passing acquaintance, finds no echo in this hospitable coterie. To the visitor, the bright hours of that afternoon, ten thousand miles away from England, remain as an evergreen memory of genuine human sympathy, the true "touch of Nature" linking hearts and lives. A long walk through the encroaching jungle fills up the day. The narrow track skirts dark depths of matted foliage, with strange bird-calls echoing through the gloom. The phenomenal growth of vegetation in Borneo is so rapid that a month's neglect in cutting back branches, and rooting up masses of strangling creeper, would entirely obliterate the path. In six months a tree, supposed to be cut down beyond possibility of resurrection, lately shot up to the height of seventeen feet, with a girth of several inches in diameter, so tenacious is the exuberant life of this irrepressible vegetation, eternally renewing itself in immortal strength and primeval freshness. From the edge of the sombre jungle the azure bay, set in the dark frame of forest and gilded with sunset light, resembles a Scotch loch at midsummer, and the poignant counterpart brings a sigh to the lips of my companion, exiled for years from his Highland home. A long slow river, navigable for native craft, widens into an estuary as it approaches the sea, through the shadowy and impenetrable mazes of the virgin woods traversed by the winding waterway. The Dyaks and other wild aborigines of Borneo still haunt the forest depths, though the fringe of civilisation drives them further inland, and some of the local Sultans begin to fraternise with the settlers, who alone can develope the riches of the extensive island. At present the northern territory of Sarawak, successfully governed by an alien race, finds no adequate counterpart on the island, though coast towns, springing up at wide intervals, open small districts to the enterprise of the European world. Balik-Papan, rising tier above tier on the dark hillside, and brilliant with a multitude of flashing lights, looks picturesque as Naples itself, when we steam away in the gathering gloom, and the dazzling illumination, reflected in the tranquil sea, appears a miraculous transfiguration. Oil tanks and warehouses, refineries and factories, vanish under the veil of night, and only a fairy vision of unearthly brightness remains as a final recollection of our brief visit to Borneo. THE MOLUCCAS. TERNATE, BATJAN, AND BOEROE. The Birds of Paradise (known by the Malay as _Manuk Devata_, "birds of God") were traditionally represented as lured from their celestial home by the spicy perfume of these enchanted isles, from whence perpetual incense steals across the sea, and rises heavenward with intoxicating fragrance. A Dutch naturalist in 1598 says, "These birds of the sun live in air, and never alight until they die, having neither feet nor wings, but fall senseless with the fragrance of the nutmeg." Linnaeus asserts that "they feed on the nectar of flowers, and show an equal variety of colour, blue and yellow, orange and green, red and violet." Portuguese naturalists also represent the _passaros de sol_ as footless, their mode of flight concealing the extremities. Birds of Paradise were articles of tribute from native chiefs, and a sacred character belonged to the feathered tribe, wheeling between earth and sky above the spicy groves of the alluring Moluccas. This island group, for ages the coveted prize of European nations, exercised an irresistible attraction on Arabia and Persia. Various expeditions were organised, and in the ninth century Arab sages discovered the healing virtues of nutmeg and mace, as anodynes, embrocations, and condiments. A record remains of a certain Ibn Amram, an Arabian physician, whose uncontrolled passion for the _nux moschata_ overthrew his reason. The story, continually quoted as a warning to subsequent explorers of the Spice Islands, has apparently kept his memory green, for no previous details of his career have come down to us. Eastern spices were favourite medicines in Persia during the tenth century, and fifty years later the _karoun aromatikon_ was added to the Pharmacopeia of Europe. In A.D. 1400, Genoa and Barcelona became the principal spice markets, though the attention of Northern Europe had been directed to the Moluccas by those voyages of Marco Polo which, especially in lands of fog and snow, fired popular imagination with myriad visions of realised romance. Camöens, in the Lusiad, chanted the praises of the _verde noz_ in those poetic groves, which he regarded as a new garden of Hesperides, when the magic lure of an untravelled distance, and the dreamful wonder of an untracked horizon, wove their spells over the mind of an awakening world. Powers of observation and comparison were still untrained and untried; superstition was rife, and a necromantic origin was frequently ascribed to the unfamiliar products of the mystic East. Portugal, in the zenith of her maritime power, became the first European trader in the Southern Seas, and in A.D. 1511 Albuquerque reached the Moluccas, but was quickly followed by the Spaniards under their great Emperor Charles V. Incessant war continued for the possession of "the gold-bearing trees," until Spain and Portugal, united by a common danger, combined their forces to exclude the northern nations from any share in the coveted spoil. The rage for spices spread throughout Europe, and kindled a fire of international animosity which lasted for centuries. In A.D. 1595 the unwieldy Dutch ships started on a perilous voyage round the Cape, to trace the unknown path to the mysterious Moluccas, described as "odorous with trees of notemuge, sending of their fragrance across the sea on the softe breath of the south winde," and Holland, at the climax of her power, eventually secured the monopoly of spices. The islands so fiercely contested were twice owned by England, but finally relinquished in that readjustment of power necessitated by the fall of Napoleon. Although the Moluccas were declared open to the flag of every friendly nation in 1853, it was not until twenty years later that every vestige of monopoly disappeared, and the Spice Islands were liberated from the political chicanery of rival Powers. Peace brooded at last over the sea-girt Elysium, where "Nature tries her finest touch," and in the green shades of these "ultimate islands," the tumult of the world died away into silence. Old German and Flemish ballads borrow quaint anachronisms from that sylvan sanctuary of incense-laden sweetness, which coloured the thoughts and dreams of contemporary poets, and added exotic traits to their descriptions of northern scenery. "The nutmeg boughs in the Garden of Love," droop over the fair-haired Teutonic maiden in her home amid German pine-forests, and she gathers "the scented fruit of gold," as a worthy _gage d'amour_ for her stalwart Saxon lover, with that picturesque incongruity of poetical license permitted to mediæval versifiers. The canvas of many an early painter depicts the sacred figures of Madonna and Child on an incongruous background of German or Italian landscape, and the mediæval poet seldom hesitates to enrich his verse with whimsical allusions, full of fantastical inaccuracy, but valuable as revelations of current thoughts and ideas. Only a slight sketch of the prolonged conflict waged for centuries round the nutmeg groves of the remote Moluccas is possible in this little record, but even the briefest account of the Spice Islands demands mention of evidence proving the value attached to the precious "fruit of gold," then outweighing every other product of tropical climes in popular estimation. Three volcanic peaks tower up before us on reaching Ternate, the first of the Molucca group. This mountain chain includes types representing every period of volcanic agency. The smoking cone of Ternate slopes in sweeping contours to the blue strait unbroken by bay or creek, and smaller satellites flank the central height, grooved by wooded gorges. The serrated ridge of Tidore, the opposite island, culminates in the red pinnacle formed by a fresh pyramid of lava above the ruined wall of a broken crater, the gap creating a sheltered inlet, where a fishing boat with yellow sails skims like a huge butterfly across the shimmering purple of the flowing tide. The fretted turquoise of the further range rises on the great island of Halmaheira, inhabited by an Alfoer population of Papuan origin, but beyond the scope of the present cruise. The port of Ternate, on the southern slope of the volcano, shows the pointed gables of palm-thatched dwellings rising from masses of glorious greenery, brightened by purple torrents of bougainvillea, or golden-flowered ansena trees, wreathed and roped with a gorgeous tangle of many-coloured creepers. The breath of heavily-scented flowers mingles with the pungent sweetness of clove and nutmeg. An avenue of dadap trees skirts the shore, with varied foliage of amber and carmine. The dark figures sauntering in the shade, and clad in rose-colour, azure, or orange, add deeper notes to the symphony of colour, only marred by the white-washed Dutch conventicle, like an emphatic protest against Nature's response to her Creator. Ruined arches and pillars of white Portuguese houses, standing in a wilderness of verdure amid tumbled heaps of stone and concrete, testify to the earthquakes which have continually wrecked the little port. The mixed population includes Chinese, Arabs, and Malays. The original native race also contains Malay, Dutch, and Portuguese elements, European descent resulting here as elsewhere in darkening the native brown of the pure-blooded Ternatian to ebony blackness in the second and succeeding generations. The discovery of an English-speaking schoolmistress simplifies the day's itinerary, which begins with the thatched palace or _kedaton_ of the Sultan. The tiered roofs of the royal _Messighit_ rise above the _atap_ dwellings of the rustic Court, still professing a slack Mohammedanism. The Dutch territory includes the Chinese and Oriental _campongs_ divided by Fort Orange, but though the palmy days of Ternate's hereditary Ruler have long since passed away, he retains a shadowy authority over a limited area. Sir Francis Drake, on one of his romantic voyages, touched at Ternate in the early days of the 16th century, and in graphic words records his amazement at "the fair and princely show" of this barbaric potentate, who sat robed in cloth of gold, beneath a gold-embroidered canopy, and wore "a crown of plaited golden links." Chains of diamonds and emeralds clasped his swarthy neck, and on the royal right hand "there shone a big and perfect blue turky." This regal splendour was attained by monopoly of the Spice Trade, the incalculable profits inducing Europeans to exchange fortunes of gold and jewels with native magnates. The Dutch, when seizing the islands, often compelled the local Sultans to destroy acres of spice-bearing trees, in order to concentrate the focus of commerce. The thriving industries of _copra_, rattan, and _damar_ (the gum used in making varnish) were increased tenfold by the abolition of private spice-trading, and by emancipation of the slaves in 1861, when the Dutch Government placed the liberated population under police surveillance, compelling each individual to prove honest acquirement of the slender means necessary for subsistence. Contact with the world begins to sharpen native intelligence, already heightened by the fusion of European blood with the island race, and external cleanliness being enforced systematically in Dutch territory, the concrete cottages which alternate with the thatched dwellings are dazzlingly white, the diligent sweeping and watering at fixed hours helping to energise the indolent people of the Moluccas. The warm air, redolent of spices and flowers, the riotous profusion of richest foliage, and the depth of colour in sea and sky, imbue Ternate with the glow and glamour of fairyland. Bright faces and gay songs manifest that physical _joie de vivre_ of which Northern nations know so little. The grass screens hanging before the open houses are drawn to keep off the burning sun, but the twang of lutes (a relic of the Portuguese occupation), and the sound of laughter echo from the dusky interiors. A forest of mangos, mangosteens, bread-fruit, and cocoa-palms, extends between the town and Fort Teloko, the first Portuguese stronghold, and now a rocky outpost of Fort Orange, the headquarters of the Dutch troops. Beyond shadowy nutmeg groves lies the Laguna, a volcanic lake between mountain and sea. In the poetic Moluccas one draws closer to the warm heart of Nature than in any other part of the vast Archipelago, for the great Mother seems calling her children to rest, as she raises the veil from her inmost shrine and discloses her altar of peace. The presence of the smoking volcano which dominates the landscape, supplies that poignant note which, like a minor chord, accentuates the sweetness of the melody. "Gather ye roses while ye may," sounds Nature's admonition to humanity amid the lavish loveliness of blossom and foliage, clothing the mysterious height which hides the smouldering fountains of eternal fire beneath the vivid splendours of tropical vegetation. The population of Ternate--native, Malay, Dutch, and half-caste--throngs the wharf; the pretty schoolmistress, in spotless muslin, waves a smiling farewell. Though we are to each other but as "ships that pass in the night," the memory of cheery words and gracious deeds throws rays of light across the surging seas, and the golden cord of kindness anchors heart to heart. Passengers are few from these remote parts. A Dutch officer, with a half-caste wife and two unruly children, whose violent outbreaks would even give points to the juvenile English of British India, are returning from a three years' exile at Ternate. The incompetence of Malay nurses is equalled by the maternal indifference to kicking and squealing, which threatens pandemonium for the remainder of the voyage. At the last moment the native Sultan of Batjan embarks for his island home, after commercial negotiations in Ternate, for this native prince, a keen-faced man in European dress and scarlet turban, trades largely in _damar_, the basis of his wealth. When at anchor next morning in the wooded bay of Batjan, the green State Barge of his Highness, with drums beating and banners flying, flashes through the water, the blades of the large green oars shaped like lotus-leaves. A horse's head carved at the prow, and a line of floating pennants--red, black, and white--above the gilded roof of the deck-house, enhance the barbaric effect of the gaudy boat, the brown rowers clad in white, with gay scarves and turbans. Although our ship possesses a launch, various modes of landing are required by the vagaries of the tide, the outlying reefs, and the position of the ports. A wobbling erection of crossed oars, a plank insecurely poised on the shoulders of two men, a rocking _bloto_, and an occasional wade to shore, with shoes and stockings in hand, vary the monotony of the proceedings. Landing at Batjan is accomplished in a chair, borne aloft on two woolly black heads, but the shore, being cut off by a crowd of fishing craft, can only be reached by sundry scrambles over intermediate boats. The Sultan's modest mansion stands in the midst of the palm-thatched _campong_, ostensibly guarded by a grey fort, among rustling bamboos and tall sugar-canes. A friendly native offers me a palm-leaf basket, filled with nutmeg sprays of glossy leaves and yellow fruit from a roadside plantation, and a tribe of children, dancing along through the delicious shade of a palm-grove, leads the way to a point of view on a green knoll, with merry laughter and eager gesticulation. Blue mountain crests soar above dark realms of virgin forest, where the sombre conifers exude the precious _damar_, which glues itself to the red trunks in shining lumps often of twenty pounds' weight, or sinks deeply into the soft soil, from whence the solidified gum needs excavation. The _damar_, pounded and poured into palm-leaf tubes, serves for the torches of the fishermen, and for the lighting of the dusky native houses. Batjan--rich in gold, copper, and coal--awaits full development of the mineral treasures hidden in the mountains of the interior. The island was colonised in early days by a band of wandering Malays, who exchanged the perils of the sea for the tropical abundance of this unknown anchorage, sheltered within the reefs of the lagoon-like bay. If an aboriginal element existed in Batjan, it probably died out or mingled with the immigrant race, which broke off from the main body of the nomadic Malays, and formed one of the numerous sub-divisions of the stock eventually planted on almost every island and continent of the vast Pacific. The weaving of a bark cloth, stained with the red juice of water-plants, suggests an industry of these early days. The native cuisine still includes the unfamiliar Malay delicacy of flying fox cooked in spice, and the hereditary skill in hunting finds endless satisfaction in forests abounding with deer, wild pig, and edible birds. A touch of barbarism lends a charm to mysterious Batjan, and the marked individuality which belongs to every portion of the Molucca group is nowhere more apparent than in this island, which lies on the borderland of civilisation without losing the distinctive character stamped upon it by the influences of an immemorial past. Crescent-shaped Boeroe, where difficulties in landing involve launch, _bloto_, and paddling through a long reach of shallow water to a black swamp, possesses a commercial rather than an artistic value, being the only place in the Archipelago which exports eucalyptus oil, locally known as _kajopoetah_. A fleet of _praus_, with graceful masts of bending bamboo, surrounds the steamer, the aromatic cargo packed in long bamboo cases. The head-man of the _campong_, lightly attired in his native brown, with a few touches of contrasting colour in scarf and turban, acts as escort through a maze of weedy paths, and across bamboo bridges in various stages of dilapidation to a couple of dreary villages. The religious interests of Boeroe are represented by two ruinous _Messighits_, and a deplorable Dutch conventicle. Some Hindu element underlies native idiosyncracy, for nearly every forehead bears a white prayer-mark, but the unchanging conservatism of localities almost untouched by the lapse of Time, often retains symbolic forms when their original meaning is entirely forgotten, and the lack of missionary or educational enterprise among the Dutch exercises a paralysing effect on the small communities of distant islands. Only a relative poverty belongs to a clime where the shaking of a sago-palm provides a large family with rations for three months, but the physical energies of Boeroe have ebbed to a point where "desire fails," and the unsatisfactory conditions of life meet for the most part with apathetic acceptance. The marshy coast abounds with harmless snakes, but these gruesome inmates of the tropical morass seldom leave their hiding-places before sunset. The presence of the steamer awakens a faint simulacrum of life and interest in sleepy Boeroe, and a native woman, in the rusty black calico wherewith Dutch Calvinism counteracts the Eastern love of glowing colours, brings a rickety chair from her dingy hut, and sets the precious possession under a shadowy nutmeg-tree in the village street. A little crowd assembles, for local excitements are few, and the Malay phrase-book, an inseparable companion, aids in carrying on a halting conversation, eked out with signs and facial contortions. No school is found on Boeroe, and the simple people assert with submissive sadness that nothing is done for them. The tone of regret suggests an underlying consciousness of the hopeless ignorance inevitable under the conditions of their narrow lot. The watery plain, covered with tangled verdure, extends to the foot of the twin peaks which merge into a low range of wooded hills, their lower slopes glistening with the grey-green foliage of the great _kajopoetah_ trees. The writhing roots of screw-palms rise above the green marshes, and patches of tobacco alternate with ripening millet, but every crop seems allowed to degenerate into unpruned disorder, and the feeble attempts at cultivation soon lapse into the surrounding wilderness. The ruddy trunk of the candelabra-tree towers above the ferns and oil-palms of the tall undergrowth, the glossy sword-like leaves, often ten feet long, being woven into the _cocoyas_, or sleeping mats, peculiar to Boeroe. The whistle of the steamer proves a welcome summons from this melancholy island, a solitary exception to the divine beauty and irresistible witchery of the Molucca group. AMBON. The fiord-like Bay of Ambon flows into the heart of the fragrant Clove Island, between the peninsulas of Heitor and Léitemor, which gradually ascend from the harbour's mouth until their heights of glowing green merge into wooded mountains, behind the white town of Amboyna. This old European settlement ranks as the tiny capital of the Molucca group. _Praus_ and fishing smacks dot the blue inlet with tawny sails and curving masts, the local craft varied by a fantastic barque from the barbarous Ké isles, with pointed yellow beak and plume of crimson feathers at the prow, suggesting some tropical bird afloat upon the tide. The glossy darkness of the clove plantations enhances the paler tints of the prevailing foliage, and the virginal tints of the sylvan scenery indicate a climate of perpetual spring. Thatched roofs, and walls of plaited palm-leaf, stand among white-washed cottages of coral concrete, for low houses, or slight material, afford comparative security against collapse by earthquake. The brown population throngs the pier, and a little fleet of _dug-outs_ escorts the steamer through the bay with gay songs and merry laughter, for the lively Ambonese value every link that binds them to the outside world, and this is their gala day. Bold, eager, craving for foreign intercourse, and possessing the quickened intelligence due to the mixture of Dutch and Portuguese blood with the native strain, a roving spirit of adventure counteracts the lazy independence of a life where daily needs are supplied without exertion. The sea swarms with fish, the woods teem with sago, and cultivation of the clove procures extra wages when any special purpose requires them. The Portuguese who colonised Ambon, in the zenith of their maritime power, were of vigorous stock, and the mental heritage of the island was permanently enriched by elements derived from a foreign source. The Ambonese soldiers of the Netherlands India manifest a courageous and warlike character; their rate of payment equals that of their European brothers-in-arms, and in the raids or skirmishes frequent throughout the wild districts of Celebes and Sumatra they play a spirited part. The burghers of Ambon show more of the Dutch element in their composition. The island, Christianised in the dreary mode of Calvinistic Holland, accepts in half-hearted fashion the creed so incongruous with tropical Nature. Dutch missionaries, waging aimless war against brightness and colour, arrayed their brown converts in funereal gloom. The Sunday attire of the men consists of black calico coats down to the heels, and flopping black trousers. The women wear a shapeless gown of the same shabby and shiny material, with a white scarf dangling from the left arm. These blots on the brilliancy of the scene produce a curious impression when approaching the wharf, where the native bronze of children and coolies, the blue robes of Chinamen, and the gay turbans of Mohammedans, blend harmoniously with the scheme of colour in flower and foliage. The _praus_ which follow in our wake make ready the rustic Malay anchor, a forked branch of stout timber, strengthened by twisted rattan, which also secures the stone cross-piece. This relic of a distant past can scarcely have changed since the days when the wandering tribe first launched upon the blue waters of the Pacific, in that mysterious voyage which moulded the destinies of the Malay race. A rudimental feeling for art co-exists with imperfect civilisation, and elaborate carving adorns rude skiffs, floats of fishing lines, and even wooden beaters of the clay used in native pottery. A dervish, in turban of flaming orange and garb of green and white, beats a huge drum in the pillared court of a large mosque, for the followers of the Prophet are numerous, and though the usual deadly conventicle occupies a conspicuous place, it produces no effect on the Arab element. The son of the Dutch pastor who, after his grim fashion, Christianised the former generation, proves better than his condemnatory creed, and acts as personal conductor to the sights of Amboyna. After a rest in the flower-wreathed verandah of his home, and a chat with his kindly half-caste wife, we visit the gilded and dragon-carved mansion of a leading Chinese merchant, friendly, hospitable, and delighted to exhibit his household gods, both in literal and figurative form. A visit to the Joss Temple follows, liberally supported by this smiling Celestial, whose zeal and charity may perchance plead for him in that purer sanctuary not made with hands, and as yet unrevealed to his spiritual sight. The appalling green and vermilion deities who guard the temple courts, indicate fear as the chosen handmaid of faith in this grotesque travesty of religion, but the costly tiling of violet and azure, the rich gilding of the curling eaves terminating in scarlet dragons, and the deeply-chiselled ebony, falling like a veil of thick black lace before the jade and porphyry shrines, prove that even the despised Chinaman offers of his best to the Divinity dimly apprehended by his darkened soul. The large Malay School of Amboyna manifests an educational position in advance of the smaller islands, and knowledge of the wider world beyond the Archipelago stimulates the spirit of enterprise inherited in different degrees and varying conditions, both from Malay and Portuguese ancestry. A dilapidated carriage is chartered with difficulty, as only three vehicles belong to the island, and the driver evidently expects his skeleton steed to collapse at any pace quicker than a walk. The green lanes, with their hedges of scarlet hybiscus overhung by the feathery foliage of tamarind and bamboo, wind along the shore, and penetrate into the depths of the hills. Rustling sago-palms sway their tall plumes on the mountain side, and shadow luxuriant clove gardens, their pungent aroma mingling with nutmeg and cinnamon to steep the soft sea-wind in a wealth of perfume. European houses of white stone nestle among palm and tamarind, the broad seats flanking the central door, and the bulging balconies of old Dutch style recalling the 16th century dwellings on the canal banks of distant Holland, but the crow-stepped gable here gives place to the flat roof. Every green garden contains a refuge of interwoven _gaba-gaba_ stalks, as a retreat during earthquakes, when the overthrow of the flimsy arbour would entail no injury, though it serves as a shelter from the torrential rains which often accompany volcanic disturbances. A wayside stall of palm-thatched bamboo provides _sageroe_ for thirsty pilgrims. This fermented beverage often excites the Ambonese nature to frenzy, though only made from the juice of the _arên_ or sugar palm. The brown dame who presides over the bamboo buckets, in her eagerness to honour a white customer, wipes an incredibly dirty tumbler on her gruesome calico skirt before dipping the precious glass into the foaming pail, and tastes the draught by way of encouragement. With some difficulty she is induced to wash the tumbler, and to omit the last reassuring ceremony. The _sageroe_, sweet and refreshing, gains tonic properties from an infusion of quassia, which sharpens the flavour and strengthens the compound, packed in bamboo cases or plaited palm-leaf bags for transport to the neighbouring islands. A grey fort, and weather-worn Government offices, flank the green _aloon-aloon_ of Amboyna, surrounded by tamarind avenues. The Dutch Resident finds ample employment, owing to the mania for litigation among the Ambonese. The honour of appearing before a Court of Justice is eagerly sought, and imaginary claims or grievances are constantly invented in order to satisfy the ambition for publicity. A modest and retiring temperament forms no part of native equipment, and the slight veneer of Christianity, in the crudest phase of Dutch Protestantism, increases the aggressive tendency. The missionary agencies of Calvinistic Holland seem incapable of practical sympathy with the island people; but half a loaf is better than no bread, and in any form of Christian faith the Heavenly Husbandman scatters grains of wheat among the tares, that all His wandering children may reap a share of harvest gold even from a stubborn and sterile soil. Amboyna shows signs of commercial prosperity in the crowded _passer_ and the busy Chinese _campong_, for the enterprising Celestial forms an important element of the mercantile community in the Clove Island. Three memorial tablets erected in front of the hoary fort, the bare Dutch church, and the crumbling guard-house, record the worthy name of Padrugge, a Dutch Governor who restored Amboyna after complete destruction by a violent earthquake, that ever-haunting terror within the great volcanic chain of the Malay Archipelago. The steep acclivity behind the palm-shaded park of the Residency contains a stalactite grotto, infested by a multitude of bats, which cling to the sparkling pendants of the fretted roof, unless disturbed by the Ambonese coolies, who regard them as culinary delicacies, and catch them in this ancient breeding-place, with a noise which brings down the terrified creatures into unwelcome proximity, cutting short any attempts at exploration, and causing rash intruders to beat a hasty retreat. In the hush of dawn, when the intensity of calm steals colour as well as sound from the motionless waters, we embark on an expedition to the _Zeetuinen_, or Sea Gardens, the fairy world of the coral reefs, revealed through the magic mirror of the watery depths. As we gaze steadily through the silvery blue of the glassy sea, a misty vision of vague outline and shifting colour materialises into an enchanted forest, and appears rising towards the surface. Coral trees, pink and white, gold and green, orange and red, wave interlacing branches of lace-like texture and varying form, above the blue water-ways which divide the tremulous masses of rainbow-tinted foliage. The sinuous channels expand at intervals into quiet pools, bordered with azure and purple sea-stars, or studded with clumps of yellow lilies, spotted and striped with carmine. A circle of rock, enclosing a miniature lake, blazes with rose and scarlet anemones, and the boat, floating over the wilderness of marine vegetation, pauses above a coral growth, varied in form as any tropical woodland. Majestic trees, of amber and emerald hue, stand with roots muffled in fading fern, or sunk in perforated carpets of white sponge, and huge vegetable growths or giant weeds, lustrous with metallic tints of green and violet, fill clefts and ravines of coral rock. A grove of sea-palms mimics the features of the upper world, as though Nature obeyed some mysterious law of form, lying behind her operations, to regulate expression and bring order out of chaos. Giant bunches of black and mauve grapes, like the pictured spoils of the Promised Land, lie on soft beds of feathery moss, but the familiar greens of the velvety carpet shade into orange and pink. A weird marine plant shoves long black stems, crowned with a circle of azure blue eyes, which convey an uncanny sensation of being regarded with sleepless vigilance by mysterious sentinels, transformed and spellbound in ocean depths. Tree-fern and hart's-tongue show verdant fronds, flushed with autumnal red or gold, and a dense growth of starry flowers suggests a bed of many-coloured tulips. Dazzling fish dart through the crystal depths. A shoal of scarlet and green parrot-fish pursue a tribe striped with blue and orange. Gold-fish flash like meteors between uplifted spears of blood-red coral, and the glittering scales of myriads, splashed with ruby, or flecked with amethyst, reflect the colours of the gorgeously-frilled and rosetted anemones in parterres between red coral crags. Tresses of filmy green floating from the mouth of a cavern, suggest a mermaid's hair, and her visible presence would scarcely add to the wonders in this under-world of glamour and mystery. Shells, pink and pearly, brown and lilac, scarlet and cobalt, strew the flower-decked floor with infinite variety, concave and spiral, ribbed and fluted, fretted and jagged--the satin smoothness of convoluted forms lying amid rugged shapes bristling with spines and needles. We gaze almost with awe at the lovely vision of a dainty Nautilus, sailing his fairy boat down a blue channel fringed with purple and salmon-coloured anemones, beneath a hedge of rosy coral. The shimmering sail and carven hull of iridescent pearl skim the water with incredible swiftness, and tack skilfully at every bend of the devious course, not even slackening speed to avoid collision with a lumbering star-fish encountered on the way. These submarine Gardens contain the greatest natural collection of anemones, coral beds, shells, and fish, discovered in the ocean world. The richest treasures of Davy Jones's Locker lie open to view, as the boat glides through the ever-changing scenery mirrored in the transparent sea. Opalescent berries resemble heaps of pearls, and the lemon stalks of marine sedge gleam like wedges of gold in the crystalline depths. The long oars detach pinnacles of coral like tongues of flame, and a cargo of seaweed, shells, and anemones, fills the boat as each enchanted grotto contributes a quota of treasure trove, but the vivid colouring fades apace when the sea-born flora leaves the native element, and the deep blue eyes, gazing from their dark stems with weird human effect, lose their radiance in the upper world. We land at the pretty valley of Halong, where a rippling brook traverses a wood of sago-palms, and falls in a white cascade over the rocks of a sheltered bathing-pool, screened by green curtains of banana and tall mangosteens, laden with purple fruit. Makassar-trees rain their yellow blossoms into the water, cloves fill the air with pungent fragrance, and lychees droop over the clear current. A melancholy Malay song floats up from the sea, but the sad sweet notes only accentuate the haunted silence of the fairy glen, with an echo from that distant past which breathes undying music round these enchanted isles. Woodland shadows and wayside palms disclose the sweeping horse-shoe curves of numerous Chinese tombs, the white stone elaborately carved and covered with hieroglyphics. Plumy cocoanut and tremulous tamarind wave over the last resting-places of these exiles from the Holy Land of the Celestial Empire, for the second generation established on an alien soil is forbidden to seek burial in China. The so-called _Paranak_ of the Malay Archipelago frequently marries a native wife, and, as purity of race becomes destroyed, ancestral obligations lose their power even over the mind of the most conservative people in the world. The woods of Ambon teem with the abundant bird-life peculiar to the Moluccas. An exquisite kingfisher, with golden plumage and emerald throat, darts across the stream, and the scarlet crests of green parrots resemble tropical flowers, glowing amidst the verdant foliage hardly distinguishable from the fluttering wings of the feathered tribe, which includes twenty-two species indigenous to the islands. The megapodius or mound-maker, an ash-coloured bird about the size of a small fowl, grasps sand or soil in the hollow of a powerful claw, and throws it backwards into mounds six feet high, wherein the eggs are deposited, to be hatched by this natural incubator, through the heat of the vegetable matter contained in the rubbish heap. The young birds work their way through the mound, and run off at once into the forest, where they start on an independent career. They emerge from their birthplace covered with thick down and provided with fully-developed wings. The maternal instinct of the megapodius ceases with the laying of eggs, and, having supplied a safe cradle for the rising generation, she takes no further thought for her precocious progeny, capable of securing a livelihood in the unknown world from the moment of their first appearance in public. A merry group, half-hidden in the shadows of clustering sago-palms, gathers the harvest of precious grain, the pith of a large tree producing thirty bundles, each of thirty pounds weight. The baking of the sago-cakes made from this lavish store occupies two women for five days, and the housekeeping cares of the largest family only need quarterly consideration in this island of plenty, where the struggle for the necessaries of existence is unknown and unimaginable. Leisure and liberty, those priceless gifts which can only be attained where the pressure of poverty is unfelt, serve valuable purposes in Ambonese hands, for the European energies fused into the native race prevent mental stagnation, and spur tropical indolence to manifold activities. A variety of thriving industries belong to this far-off colony. Mother-of-pearl shells, and _bêche-de-mer_ (the sea-slug of Chinese cuisine) supplement the important export of the cloves, the speciality of Ambon, chosen by the East India Company as the sole place of cultivation for this spice-bearing tree, when the system of monopoly extirpated the clove gardens of the other islands. Vases, mats, and miniature boats, of fringed and threaded cloves, are offered as fantastic souvenirs of Amboyna, and the spirit of the place seems imprisoned in these tiny curios which revive so many haunting memories of the romantic island. Nominal adherence to Dutch Calvinism fails to repress the natural instincts of a gay and pleasure-loving race. The national dance known as _Menari_, and often performed on the shore in honour of the outgoing steamer, no longer satisfies Ambonese requirements, with the slow gyrations and studied postures of Oriental tradition. The eager and passionate temperament finds truer expression in the walzes and galops of European origin, known as _dansi-dansi_, enthusiastically practised on those festive occasions, when the full dress of funereal black and white seems specially inappropriate to the wild abandon of the merry-making populace. In sunny Amboyna the cowl does not make the friar, and the last recollection of the little Moluccan capital is a vision of whirling figures and twanging lutes at the water's edge, while the receding steamer furrows the milky azure of the land-locked bay. The vivid green of one palm-clad shore burns in the gold of sunset, but the eastern side lies veiled in shadow, and as the sheltered inlet gives place to the open sea, the luminous phosphorescence of the Southern ocean bathes the rocky bastions of enchanted Ambon in waves of liquid fire. A strange history belongs to the physical conformation of volcanic shores, alternately raised and depressed by the agitation of earth and sea. The coast-line has varied from time to time; straits have become lakes, islands have severed or united, occasionally rising suddenly from the waves, or vanishing in the bosom of the deep. Geologists assert that the Malay Archipelago was originally thrown off by volcanic action from Asia and Australia, and that an interchange of animal and vegetable life has frequently taken place. Hurricanes have uprooted forest trees, and floods have borne them out to sea, the tide eventually washing them up on the shores of distant islands. A fresh growth of foreign vegetation was thus inaugurated, as these sylvan colonists struck their saplings into an alien soil. Insects, preserved by the bark, propagated themselves in new surroundings, and seeds drifting on the waves, or clinging to roots and fibres, wreathed unfamiliar shores with exotic flowers. Animal migration has frequently been caused by natural catastrophes, and to birds directing their swift flight by faculties now attributed to keen observation rather than to unreasoning instinct, the change of locality was infinitely simplified. In the Moluccas we may read a compendium of the wide-spread history which applies to the vast regions comprised in the mighty Archipelago. The doctrine of earthly changes and chances, too often accepted as a mere figure of speech, is here recognised as a stern reality; the tragedies of destruction repeat themselves through the ages, the laboratories of Nature eternally forge fresh thunderbolts, and the fate of humanity trembles in the balance. Meanwhile a profusion of flowers wreathes the sacrificial altars, the fairest fruits ripen above the thin veil which hides the fountains of volcanic fire, and the sweetest spices of the world breathe incense on the air. The uncertain tenure of earthly joys gives them redoubled zest and poignancy, the passionate love of life becomes intensified by the looming shadows of Death, and the light glows with clearer radiance against the blackness of the menacing thunder-cloud. BANDA. The exquisite islands of Banda, dominated by the stately volcano of Goenoeng Api (the mountain of fire), form the climax of the enchanting Moluccas. Contour and colour reach their utmost grace and softest refinement in this ideal spot, a priceless jewel resting on the heart of the Malay Archipelago. The mists of dawn have scarcely lifted their gossamer veils from the dreaming sea, when the pinnacled rocks of Rum and Aye, the outposts of the Banda group, pierce the swathing vapours. The creamy cliffs of Swangi (the Ghost Island), traditionally haunted by the spirits of the departed, show their spectral outlines on the northern horizon, and the sun-flushed "wings of the morning" span the sapphire arch of heaven as we enter the sheltered gulf of the Zonnegat, fringed by luxuriant woods clothing a mountain side, and brushing the water with a green fringe of trailing branches. Gliding between Cape Lantaka and two isolated crags, the steamer enters a glassy lake, encircled by sylvan heights, with the menacing cone of the Goenoeng Api rising sheer from the water's edge. A white town climbs in irregular tiers up the shelving terraces of a fairy island, the central hill crowned by the crenellated battlements of a grey citadel. The largest ship can anchor close to shore, for the rugged boundaries of Banda descend by steep gradients into the crystalline depths. Chinese and Arab _campongs_ border European streets of concrete houses, long and low, with flat roofs and external galleries. The southern shore of Banda Neira faces the forest-clad heights of Great Banda, clothed from base to summit with nutmeg trees, shadowed by huge kanaris, their interlacing canopies protecting the precious spice plantations from the sun. A slender rowing boat, known as a _belang_, makes a brilliant point of colour on the blue strait between the sister islands. Red and yellow flags and pennants flutter above the green deck; the clash of gongs and cymbals echoes across the water, and a weird chant accompanies the rhythmic plash of the short oars, as the brown rowers toss them high in air, and bring them down with a sharp splash. A splendid avenue of kanari-trees extends along the shore, the usual Dutch church symbolises the uncompromising grimness of Calvinistic creed, and the crumbling fort of Orange-Nassau, the scene of many stirring incidents in the island past, adjoins the beautiful thatched bungalow of the Resident, the broad eaves emerging from depths of richest foliage. A subterranean passage connects the deserted stronghold on the shore with Fort Belgica, the citadel now used as barracks, but formerly for the preservation of the nutmegs from the fierce raids of foreign powers, when the new-born passion for spices intoxicated the mind of the world, and kindled the fires of war between East and West. The lofty peak of the Goenoeng Api still smoulders, although the main crater is supposed to be extinct. The lower slopes, where not planted with vegetables by enterprising invaders from the island of Boeton, abound with delicate ferns and rare orchids, for the fertility of the volcanic soil, rich in metallic ingredients, creates a luxuriant growth. Sulphureous vapours rise continually from a plateau beneath the summit, where tumbled boulders of blackened lava lie sunken in deep layers of volcanic ash. Banda Neira evidently rose from the sea in some long-past eruption of the larger island, now the long ridge of a ruined crater which collapsed in a fierce outburst, and threw off the fragments of rock which compose the outer group. A curious fatalism characterises the inhabitants of volcanic districts, and the incalculable value of Banda in the middle ages outweighed all risks of eruption and earthquake. The history of island colonisation by Portugal, Spain, and Holland, forms a continuous record of battle, loot, and persecution, in which the native population was decimated, and even now the inhabitants would be quite insufficient to cultivate and gather the "golden fruit," without the aid of innumerable emigrants from Java. Hard measures were dealt out in order to maintain the monopoly of spices, and the injury to the native races, by destroying the nutmeg trees of the other islands, crippled the trade which had found a natural outlet in Asia. All the nutmegs were sent to Europe, but one-fifth of the yearly produce was diverted by smuggling into forbidden channels, though severe punishment was inflicted upon offenders. Economic administration was unknown in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the holocaust of spices burnt in the market-place of Amsterdam, and the extermination of the nutmeg trees in Moluccan islands, sent a thrill of horror through the European world, which placed such an exaggerated value on the possession of spices that the wars waged to secure them breathe the romantic fanaticism of a wild crusade. Monopoly and slavery were at length definitely abolished, and in 1873 the Dutch Government, realising the necessity of Free Trade, sanctioned the independence of the nutmeg planters. The far-seeing views of Sir Stamford Raffles during the second brief English occupation of the Moluccas, from 1810 to 1816, were disregarded in England (knowing little, and caring less, about the remote Spice Islands), though his counsels were eventually adopted by the Dutch Government as the only means of ensuring an increased profit. A high-prowed native boat, known as an _orembai_, plies across the narrow strait which separates the islands of Banda Neira and Banda Lonthar, or Great Banda. The long range of hills covered with a dense forest of the precious nutmeg trees, attains an ideal of sylvan scenery surpassing even the glorious palm-woods of Java. These may be described in terms of comparative accuracy, and their beauty painted in realistic language, but none can translate into words the irresistible charm and glamour of the nutmeg aisles, the exquisite foliage and contours of the spice-bearing trees, the wealth of delicate blossom and peach-like fruit, and the flickering emerald light from hues shading through the whole gamut of colour, from the tender verdure of spring to the glossy darkness of winter evergreen. Colossal kanari-trees, veritable monarchs of the forest, tower over the nutmegs, and form an unbroken roof of interlacing boughs, for the nutmeg, needing shelter to bring the fruit to perfection, is not suffered to attain a height of more than seventy feet. The columnar trunks of the majestic kanaris wreathe their huge girth with lace-like fern and broad-leaved epiphytal plants, and the symmetrical beauty of the conical nutmeg-trees in these forest aisles suggests a vast sanctuary of Nature, enshrining the mystic presence of Divinity. Here, as amid the shades of unfallen Eden, we can imagine a trysting-place of God and man in the perennial "cool of the day," which breathes through the green twilight of these solemn groves, redolent with the incense from myriad sprays of creamy blossom and ripened nuts in shells of pink-flushed amber, for flower and fruit deck the "gold-bearing tree" without intermission, and every day produces a fresh harvest of nutmegs. The brown kernel of the opening fruit, contained in a network of scarlet mace, falls to the ground in twenty-four hours, and unremitting care is needed in gathering and handling the nutmegs with the _gaai-gaai_, a long stick ending with a prong, to break off the ripe fruit into the woven basket accurately poised beneath the wooden fork. Only the female trees yield the precious crop, and the highest point of production, attained at the twentieth year, continues undiminished through four subsequent decades, after which the strength of the average tree declines, although it often lives for a century. The cooing of the nutmeg pigeon, which feeds on the abundant fruit, echoes through the shadowy glades with soothing monotony. Yellow canaries flit through the vivid green of the pointed foliage, and the scarlet crests of parrots glow through the dark canopies of the giant kanari-trees. The voices of children at play, the distant songs of the nutmeg-gatherers, the plash of the waves on the coral reef, and the scented breeze whispering in the green crowns of a million trees, blend in harmonious concord to fill the sylvan temple of tropical Nature with mysterious music. At wide intervals the white houses of the planters gleam amid the drooping boughs, the prevailing green of the spacious woods relieved by the rosy purple of Bougainvillea mantling a pillared verandah, or by great vases of crimson and yellow flowers, bordering broad flights of stone steps. Life on a great nutmeg plantation retains patriarchal character and archaic charm; the multitude of dependents calls forth, in the present day at any rate, much of kindly solicitude, and though the unvarying sameness of existence sometimes proves the serpent which destroys the peace of the idyllic Eden in young and eager hearts, the ramifications of the large family party, gathered under one roof, mitigate the monotony of daily tasks, and supply the necessary mental friction. Work in the nutmeg-woods begin at 5 a.m., when a pealing bell summons the labourers to each plantation for their different duties of gathering the nuts, drying the mace, or sorting and liming the fruit. The beautiful forest constitutes the world of the nutmeg-gatherer, both for labour and recreation. In these dusky avenues youth and maiden tell each other Love's eternal story, wandering away into the dreamland shadows, vocal with sweeter melody than that of bird or breeze. The musical call of the nutmeg-pigeon serves as a danger-signal, uttered by sympathising friends, when love must yield to life's stern realities in the person of the overseer. An ardent courtship often contributes to the rapid filling of the nutmeg-basket in the hand of a rustic beauty, whose admirers strive to secure for her the premium awarded for special diligence, and a judicious official learns on occasion to be conveniently deaf to the feigned voice of the _manoek faloer_. If the chivalrous zeal of the brown lover is apt to overleap frontiers, and to fill the baskets of one plantation with the produce of the other, the ethics of Banda demonstrate the identity of human nature when swayed by the passion which, according to circumstances, wrecks Troy or raids a nutmeg orchard. A story is told of a planter who, in consequence of engaging a bevy of attractive maidens for the year's work, was rewarded by a phenomenal harvest of nutmegs, though the adjacent estates were barren of fruit. Evening shadows darken apace in the woodland world, and work ceases at three in the afternoon, when the store of gathered fruit is brought to the _pagger_, where drying and liming sheds surround the central warehouse. The nutmeg-pickers sort the ripe nuts in an open gallery before taking them to the drying-shed, where they are spread on a platform of split bamboo, twelve feet above a smouldering fire. The process continues for six weeks, the nuts being repeatedly turned until they begin to rattle. Only a slow method of drying prevents the escape of the essential oil, necessary to the flavour of the fruit, which must afterwards be dipped in slaked lime to preserve it from insects. The coral-like mace contains a rich supply of aromatic balm, and when loosened from the nutmeg can be dried in the sun. The delicate scarlet branches, spread on wickerwork frames in open spaces of the woods, contrast vividly with the shaded verdure of the beautiful trees. The mace, trodden flat for facility in packing, resembles a dainty growth of finest seaweed, and in the 16th century shared popularity with the nutmeg which produced it. Even in the present day a pewter spice box is an indispensable present on that sixth anniversary of a Dutch marriage still known as "the pewter wedding," and a nutmeg-box, with a grater, remains as a favourite bridal gift, the fashion originating when the passion for spices first pervaded mediæval Europe. Trade, as well as Science, wrote many chapters of romantic adventure in the long history of the world's social development, and modern thought but dimly realises the magnetic spell of the days when the veil was first lifted between East and West, and the wonders of untrodden shores disclosed to the pioneer. Heine, in his _Lieder_, chants of the mystic nutmeg-tree as the ideal growth of the tropical forest, for every stage of life and growth reveals some fresh beauty in delicate bloom, glistening foliage, and fruit of roseate gold. The spreading boughs, with their perfect contour and emerald depths of light and shadow, suggest a typical picture of that unfading Tree of Life in the midst of the earthly Paradise, round which the passing ages weave innumerable dreams, while faith transplants it to a fairer Garden than that of Eden. Where the winding woodland roads lead along the shore, colossal screw-palms and silver-flowered Barringtonias border the rocks, the sparkling azure of the sea visible through the fantastic boughs, and the eternal song of the surf vibrating through the still air with mysterious undertones. The brown _campong_ of Banda Lonthar stands at the foot of the mossy steps which lead to the summit of the wooded range, and command a superb view of the island group. A further flight of stairs descends to the outside coast or Achterval, but wherever we go, to quote the words of a modern traveller, "we may imagine ourselves transported to the holy groves whereof ancient poets sing." From the rich carpet of velvety moss and plumy fern to the green vault of the leafy roof, the eye for once seems "satisfied with seeing," for no hint of imperfection breaks the fairy spell of enchantment in this poetic nutmeg-forest. Among serpentine kanari roots, which stream across the mossy turf as though poured out in liquid form and then petrified, we come across brown babies sleeping in the shade, and cradled softly in the tender lap of earth, while the mother, crooning a low song, pursues her work among the rustling leaves. Terrace after terrace, the green aisles mount to the summit of the great ridge, and the ruined forts on each wooded promontory recall the long-past days when the "fruit of gold" demanded the increasing vigilance of military power to defeat the onslaught of merchantman or privateer, willing to run every risk in order to capture a cargo of spices, and secure fabulous gains by appeasing the frantic thirst of Europe for the novel luxury of the aromatic spoils. The mediæval craze has died away, and the pungent spices of the Orient have taken a permanent position of reasonable proportion in the culinary art of modern times, but the glamour of the past, like the amber haze of a tropical sunset, still environs the poetic tree in the island home where, amid evergreen foliage and waxen flowers, the famous "fruit of gold" still opens each coral-lined censer to exhale a wealth of undying fragrance on the balmy air. THE SOELA-BESSIR ISLES. Outside the fairy circle of the exquisite Moluccas, a tiny cluster of palm-clad islets gems the wide blue spaces of the lonely sea, unbroken for many leagues by any foothold possible for human habitation. The Dutch steamer only calls thrice a year at the remote Soela-Bessir group, in quest of rattan, a plentiful product of these fertile isles, where the leafy ladders of the aspiring parasite climb to the green crowns of the tallest palms, wrapping them in the fatal embrace which eventually levels the strongest monarch of the tropical forest to the earth. The thick mantle of glossy foliage often hides the multitude of hooks, loops, and nooses which the pliant cane flings round branch and stem, gripped by long ropes of flexible fibre, hardening into thick coils, rigid and unyielding as iron. The immense export of rattan for chairs, couches, and innumerable domestic purposes, indirectly results in the preservation of myriad palm-trees, by releasing them from the deadly grasp of the tenacious creepers. The waving cocoanut trees of Senana, the principal island of the Soela-Bessir group, kiss the blue water with sombre plumes, bowed down by the wealth of heavy fruit lying in green and golden clusters between frond and stem. The steamer anchors far from the shore, and the launch proving unable to cross the shallow bay, the landing of passengers can only be accomplished by two crossed oars, carried and steadied by four of the crew. The mode of progression is wobbling and risky, but the improbability of revisiting Senana supplied a mental argument of unfailing force in balancing pros and cons. The secluded island, so slightly influenced by the outside world, changes but little with the lapse of time, and the triple-tiered roofs of numerous thatched _Messighits_ rising above the palm-leaf huts of the brown _campong_, assert the hereditary creed. The green banner of Islam was planted here centuries ago by a fanatical horde of Arab pirates, who added religious enthusiasm to love of plunder and thirst of conquest. Their fiery zeal, though not according to knowledge, ensured a vigorous growth of the foreign offshoot from the questionable faith of these Arab corsairs, who left indelible traces on the whole of the Malay Archipelago. The _Messighits_ of Senana are now only the ruined shrines of a decadent creed, but the simple islanders remain nominal adherents to the Monotheism of the past. Canoes and _blotos_, rowed by lithe brown figures, come out to welcome the steamer, and a fantastic boat, with carven prow, darts from beneath a green bower of tangled foliage, laden with golden bananas. Merry-faced little savages line the shore, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the white strangers, who supply them with the amusement afforded by a travelling circus to the more sophisticated children of the West. An eager desire to please and gratify the extraordinary visitors, mingles with the uncontrollable delight, manifested in capering, dancing, and gay laughter, as they beckon us to follow them through the narrow lanes of the long _campong_. Naked brown forms dash into their native huts at sundry points of the route, to summon friends and kinsfolk, until the procession swells into formidable proportions, for the whole _campong_ is eventually in tow, with the exception of the men and boys occupied in lading cargo. Through the dappled sunlight and shadows of the sweeping palms which flank the glassy bay, we are personally conducted to the principal _Messighit_, a bare, whitewashed building, without any decoration beyond the blue and white tiles outlining the horse-shoe arch of the _Mihrab_ looking towards Mecca. The exterior with three roofs of mossy thatch supported on bamboo poles, offers a shelter from the sun on a flight of crumbling steps, overshadowed by the spreading eaves. A big cocoanut frond serves as an improvised broom in a dusky hand, and the central step is carefully swept before the stranger, with respectful salaams and gesticulations, is invited to sit down. A turbaned _Imaum_, the custodian of the decaying sanctuary, comes forth from his dilapidated hut among the palms behind the shrine, at the unwonted excitement breaking the silence and solitude of the ancient mosque, but he evidently belongs to the dreamland of the past, and retires quickly from the disturbing present to meditations or slumbers in his obscure dwelling, closing the bamboo door against all intruders. This day's incident of the cruise in the Malay Archipelago seems absolutely cut off from ordinary experience--a solitary Englishwoman, resting in the shadow of the rustic mosque, and surrounded by a half-barbaric tribe of unfamiliar aspect, the dark woolly hair, flat noses, wide mouths, and dazzling teeth suggesting a liberal admixture of negro or Papuan blood. Native intelligence simplifies a halting conversation, carried on by means of the indispensable Malayan phrase-book. Wistful eyes rest on the stranger whose lot is cast under happier auspices, and unmistakeable characteristics manifest the Soela-Bessir islanders as a gentle and teachable race. Alas! the Dutch Government plants neither schools nor missions in distant Senana, too far from the beaten track to commend itself to the religious or educational care of a nation apparently indifferent to the claims of small communities, in the vast Archipelago subject to Holland. Only the quarterly call of the Dutch steamer stirs the stagnation of ages on the Soela-Bessir isles, but although the young, sharing in that wondrous heritage of mirth and gladness peculiar to the joyous early life of the tropics, recognise no limitations in their lot, the mothers sadly repeat the complaint heard elsewhere that no chance of improvement is given to them. The steamer, frequently bringing hither the inhabitants of more favoured islands in the interests of trade, already begins to stir feelings of unrest, and vague longings for the better things as yet withheld. A chieftain's daughter joins the throng round the old _messighit_. A red-cotton drapery, thrown over bronze limbs, is her only garment, but a diamond glistening on her dark hand looks incongruous with the scanty clothing. The gem seems a talisman or heirloom, but a request to examine it terrifies the owner, and she rushes away into the woods to safeguard the precious possession from perils suggested by the presence of the white pilgrim from across the seas. The delicious breeze which always spring up after ten o'clock in these latitudes renders walking a delight, the two following hours being invariably cooler than the trying time between eight and ten, when the fierce sun, on a level with the face, creates an atmosphere of blistering glare. The brown procession forms an orderly escort to the lading shed beneath a clump of tall cocoa-palms, and the kindly merchant who negotiates the commerce of the Soela-Bessir isles for the Dutch Government, sends a native boy up the smooth stem of a colossal tree in search of a fresh cocoanut, which fills two tumblers with refreshing sap. The thatched _campong_ stands against a background of green hills and dense woods, rich in tropical verdure, but lacking the loveliness of the Moluccas. The return to the ship involves a _bloto_ across the bay, with many misgivings as to the seaworthy capacities of the clumsy craft, but four bamboo safety-poles, fastened by forked sticks to the sides of the hollowed log, suffice to steady it enough to avoid capsizal. In the Soela-Bessir Isles, as in many other far-off and forgotten regions, the genius of commerce begins to awaken the desire of civilisation in untutored hearts, for Trade sharing in the romance no longer regarded as the exclusive attribute of Art or Science, now helps to fuse opposing elements into unity and order. The simple inhabitants of distant Senana seem only waiting for an outstretched hand to lift them to a higher level of creed and culture, for the modern pioneers of missionary enterprise raise the superstructure of Christianity with unexampled success on the substratum of truth contained even in imperfect and erroneous creeds. That solid foundation stone of belief in the One Eternal God, laid by Arab pirates centuries ago, amid the lust of rapine and the smoke of war, which ever heralded the onward march of conquering Islam, should serve as a firm basis for building up these simple children of Nature into the mystical sanctuary of the Christian Church. The lapse of time obliterates countless landmarks of Moslem creed in localities removed from external contact, but amid the dust of disintegrating forces and forgotten forms, the central Truth remains imbedded, like a wedge of gold trodden in the mire, but retaining intrinsic value and untarnishable purity. SUMATRA. THE WESTERN COAST AND THE HIGHLANDS. Passing through the straits of Saleir, between a cliff-bound island and the south-eastern Cape of Celebes, the returning steamer in due time reaches her moorings in Sourabaya, and a rapid railway journey through Java connects with the outgoing boat from Batavia to Padang, a three days' voyage through a chain of green islands breaking the force of the monsoon on a desolate and harbourless shore. The forest-clad ranges of Sumatra draw nearer at Benkoelen, buried in cocoa-palms on the rim of a quiet bay, within a terrific reef which makes landing impossible in stormy weather. Fort and Residency, villas and gardens, manifest Benkoelen as an oasis of civilisation, the steeply-tiled roofs remaining as relics of the English occupation a century ago. Beyond the little military settlement, the Sumatran mountains tower in majestic gloom beyond a broken line of bristling crags, like granite outworks guarding the eleven hundred miles of coast-line facing the Indian Ocean. The rugged backbone of mysterious Sumatra, descending sharply to the western sea, overlooks a vast alluvial plain on the eastern side, where rice and sugar-cane, coffee and tobacco, flourish between the wide deltas of sluggish rivers, though rushing streams and wild cascades characterise the opposite shore. Ridges and bastions of rock, above profound valleys, culminate in cloud-capped Indrapura, at a height of 12,000 feet. Geologists affirm the vast age of Sumatra, indicated by the Silurian rock, the bastions of granite, the extraordinary vegetation fossilised in the huge coal-beds, and the sandstone formation, often a thousand feet thick, carved by time and weather into fantastic ravines. Inexhaustible mineral wealth lies hidden in these weird ranges, together with the costly chemical products of a volcanic soil, but the rich treasures of the virgin rocks are for the most part unknown and unexplored. Columns of smoke rise continually from numerous active volcanos, and the beautiful mountain lakes fill extinct craters. The great island, lying north-west and south-east, possesses a glorious climate, and the superb vegetation shows a distinctive character from that of Java. The Dutch, though supreme on the coast, have never yet subdued the interior, and unconquerable Acheen remains a perpetual centre of unrest. The flower of the Malay race belongs to Sumatra, and the wild Battek tribes of alien origin are fast merging themselves into the dominant stock, though the Redjanger clan, retaining curious customs of a remote past, and possessing a written character, cut with a _kris_ on strips of bamboo, is slow to assimilate itself to the Malayan element. The Sumatran language shows traces of Indian and Arabic influence, and that the early civilisation of the huge island was of Hindu origin is evidenced by innumerable Sanskrit words, and by the fact that the consecrated pipal tree, the "Ficus Religiosa" of India, remains to this day the sacred tree of the Batteks. Native chronicles record the descent of Sumatran princes from Alexander the Great, but though the pages of Javanese history are comparatively legible, those of Sumatra, designated in early days as "the older Java," resemble a dim palimpsest, marred by erasure or hiatus, and barely decipherable beneath the lettering on the surface of the age-worn parchment. Little _campongs_ of palm-thatched huts stand on piles at the water's edge, and skirt the over-shadowing forest; fairy islands, encircled with red-stemmed _arén_-palms, lie like green garlands on the indigo sea, dotted with the yellow sails of native _proas_, and the little train which conveys us to Padang, the western capital, seems an incongruous feature in a scene suggestive of primeval peace and solitude. A sylvan charm belongs even to this Sumatran township, for the wooden houses, with pointed roofs of dried palm-leaves, and broad eaves forming shady verandahs, stand far apart in flowery gardens, aflame with orange or scarlet cannas, and fragrant with golden-hearted frangipanni. The sweeping boughs of giant cocoanut trees make a green twilight beneath their interwoven fronds, Bougainvillea drapes crumbling wall and forest tree with curtains of roseate purple, and thatched stalls of tropical fruits and glowing flowers brighten the dusky avenues with patches of vivid colour. The determined aspect of the Sumatran people denotes the superior calibre of the ancestral stock which colonised the Archipelago, for foreign intercourse, which elsewhere modified national character, scarcely affected the Sumatran Malays, independent of the servile yoke imposed by the mighty princes of Java. The forty _Soekoes_, or clans, of Sumatra, are sub-divided into branches consisting of numerous families, all descended from a common stock in the female line. This curiously constituted pedigree is known as the Matriarchate, an ancient social system only retained in Western Sumatra, and among certain South American tribes. The resolute mien and dignified carriage of the Sumatran woman denote clear consciousness of her supreme importance. The cringing submission so painfully characteristic of Oriental womanhood is wholly unknown, and though nominally of Mohammedan faith, the humble position prescribed by the Korán to the female sex is a forgotten article of Sumatra's hereditary creed. After marriage (forbidden between members of the same clan) both man and woman remain in their own family circle. The husband is only an occasional visitor, and the wife is regarded as the head of the house. Her children remain under her exclusive care, and inherit her property, together with the half of what their father and mother earn together. The other half goes to the brothers and sisters of the husband, whose titles descend to his own brothers and sisters. Sumatra is veritably El Dorado to the Eastern wife and mother, conversant with every detail respecting the management of land or money, and jealously guarding the time-honoured rights and privileges of her exalted position. The hereditary chieftains of Sumatran clans exercise a patriarchal rule of uncompromising severity, and combine in every district to form the _Laras_ or local Council, the distance separating forest and mountain _campongs_ often necessitating sub-division into a village assembly. The _Laras_, and those rural chieftains nominated by popular consent, possess a seat on the Supreme Council of the Dutch Government, thus forming the transitional element between Asiatic and European rule. There is no Sumatran nobility, and although the hereditary chief of a clan is invested with official authority, the stringent regulations of the Matriarchate acknowledge no superiority of social status as an appanage of his power. The hothouse atmosphere of Padang is gladly exchanged for the freshness of the mountain heights, approached by a cog-wheel railway, and affording truer pictures of Sumatran life than the hybrid port of the steaming Lowlands. The luxuriant verdure of the swampy plain basks in the sunshine of a blazing March day, and children in gaudy _sarongs_ drive a brisk trade at palm-thatched wayside stations, with bamboo trays of sliced pineapple sprinkled with capsicum, the approved "pick-me-up" of Sumatra. The little train burrows through a forest-lined pass, and skirts the chafing waters of the Anei river, foaming over swarthy boulders. The turbulent stream, now deeply sunk between granite cliffs, rises with terrific violence when lashed by the wild mountain wind known as the _bandjir_, and rushes up the rocky walls, overthrowing bridges, and dragging along immense crags with resistless impetus. The shrill laughter of the black bush-apes echoes from sombre masses of matted foliage, as the train ascends the lofty range, and curves round the basin of a sparkling waterfall, dashing from a fern-draped height. Granite cliffs soar above tropical jungle and solemn forest; the narrow gap of the Anei widens into a luxuriant valley; sago-palms rustle in the breeze, and tree-ferns spread their green canopies over the brawling river. The splendid scenery is viewed to advantage from a platform of the foremost railway carriage, the train being pushed up the mountains by an engine in the rear. Beyond the climbing forests, a bare plateau affords a glimpse of ever-burning Merapi, with wooded flanks and lava-strewn summit, from whence a grey cloud of smoke mounts in a spiral curl to the azure sky. Beyond this point of view lies the green plain of beautiful Fort de Kock, the gem of the Sumatran Highlands, to be numbered henceforth among those ideal scenes which remain permanently photographed on mind and memory. The crystalline atmosphere seems the very breath of life after a long sojourn in the steaming tropics, and Fort de Kock, under the shadow of mysterious Merapi, an Elysium of health and repose. The little Hotel Jansen offers clean and comfortable accommodation, the kindly German hostess proving a model landlady. As a Residency and the headquarters of a Dutch garrison. Fort de Kock provides all the necessaries of life, and the broad military roads of the vicinity simplify exploration. The little white settlement beneath the wooded volcano possesses a bright and cheery character, in keeping with the exhilarating climate, and the beautiful Sturm Park, from palm-crowned hill and flowery terrace, commands an exquisite prospect of the blue peaks belonging to the borderland of those Native States extending to the Dutch possessions on the Eastern coast. The curious houses of the Sumatran Highlands, with their adjacent rice-barns, form distinctive features of this unique island. The ridge of the steep thatch rises in sharp horns, interlaced with black fibres of _arén_ palm, or covered with glittering tin. These tapering points are considered talismans of good fortune, a fresh horn being added on every occasion of marriage, for the married daughters, under the provisions of the Matriarchate, remain in the home of their childhood, and portions of the central division belonging to the house are reserved for their use. Manifold horns frequently bristle above the lofty roof, and the front of the main building is the common living room for unmarried members of the large household. Houses and rice-barns stand on high poles, after the Malay fashion, which originated in the malarious districts of the Lowlands. The typical rice-barns are lavishly decorated with gilding, carving, and colour, inlaid with glass mosaic, and edged with balls of red and blue crystal, the upward sweep of the slender horns sharply silhouetted against the glowing cobalt of heaven. In every _kota_ (the Sumatran word signifying a fortified place, or village), the beauty of the picturesque roofs culminates in _Messighit_ and _Balei_, respectively the Mosque and Hall of Consultation for the Village Council. The roofs of the Mosque rise on thatched tiers, mounted on slender pine-stems, and the long _Balei_, with mossy thatch prolonged into an open verandah on either side, shows a multitude of curving horns pointing to Heaven, and symbolically invoking celestial aid for the solemn assembly gathered beneath them, when the full moon floods upland Sumatra with molten silver. Primitive hospitality provides a _roemah negari_, or "House of Strangers," in every village rich enough to erect this refuge for the toil-worn wanderer, but where no special resting-place for pilgrims can be offered, lodging can always be had in the open _Balei_, on application to any member of the Village Council. The primitive simplicity of Sumatran life remains practically unchanged in these remote hamlets of the Western Highlands, and though Fort de Kock poses as the nucleus of modern progress, European influences glance off the indurated surface of native character like water poured over a granite slab. Across the rice-plain of Agam, dotted with brown _kotas_, crowned by myriads of interweaving horns, we reach the scattered village of Paja-Kombo, shadowed by dense woods of cocoanut palms, and famed for one of the most picturesque native markets in the East. The women of Paja-Kombo are noted for their beauty, enhanced by the splendour of many-coloured _sarongs_, gleaming with gold and silver thread. Gay turbans swathe the stately heads, and the golden filagree of barbaric breastplates, heavy earrings, and broad armlets, lights up the shadowy gloom of stone galleries and _al fresco_ stalls, beneath the drooping boughs of ancient waringen-trees. The Sumatran Malays are energetic traders, and the dignified personality of the Sumatran woman is perpetually in evidence. Keen, thrifty, economical, and thoroughly versed in all the details of commerce, she shows herself the predominant partner in domestic life, and to her all decisions on financial matters are referred, in accordance with the laws of the Matriarchate, which protects her independence. The husbands and fathers in attendance on their womankind at the great Market, submissively defer to the gentler sex, which in Sumatra has ever held the reins of social and domestic management, exercising authority wisely and well within the wide area deputed to feminine sway. The Fair of Paja-Kombo is a treasury of native Art in most delicate filigree, silver-threaded cloth, baskets or fans of scented grass, and the heavy jewellery of burnished brass which copies the designs of the many golden heirlooms treasured by Sumatran womanhood. Streets of palm-thatched stalls, alleys of eating-houses, and the wide enclosure of a Mule-Fair, cover an open meadow, fringed by great sago-palms, the central grain and rice Market crowded with picturesque figures in striped _sarong_ and gold-flecked turban. The feast of colour provided by Paja-Kombo is scarcely surpassed even by the famous Fair of Darjeeling, the remoteness of the little settlement in the Sumatran Highlands preserving the unfaded charm of an immemorial past. The wonderful Gap of Harau may be reached by cart from Paja-Kombo; the palm-shaded road narrows at the mighty gorge, where vermilion cliffs, grooved and ribbed as though by some convulsion of Nature, tower up in colossal majesty on either side. Splendid waterfalls flash down in foam and thunder, scoring deep channels in the perpendicular heights, and bathing thickets of tree-fern and maidenhair in pearly spray. A wild river swirls through the deep ravine, opening towards the ethereal blue of clustering peaks, which lie fold upon fold in the hazy distance of the Native States, and disclose a mystic pathway into dreamland. Another deep gully of yellow tufa-rock behind Fort de Kock, forms the first stage of the romantic route to Lake Manindjoe. Crossing the twin rivers which have carved their winding gorge in the bosom of the hills, the rude track through the mountains ascends to smooth plateaux forming a flight of gigantic stairs, supported by rocky girders like natural cross-beams. In early days of Dutch colonisation these successive points of vantage, occupied by hostile tribes, were stormed in vain by the invading army, and eventually only captured by surprise. The beauty of upland Sumatra culminates at this mountain lake, lying within the foundered crater of the Danau. The volcanic walls rise fourteen hundred feet above the dark blue mere, a glitting sheet of _lapis lazuli_ set within the black cleft of the profound chasm. Brown and purple rocks enamelled with orange lichen, and garlanded with waving verdure, open to display a mysterious vision of the glistening sea, with one white sail like a butterfly's wing, crossing the distant waves. The flushing rose-tints of a tropical sunset glorify the landscape into transcendent beauty; the rude sculpture of the river crags, the black shadows of primeval forest, and the far-off gleam of the Indian Ocean, composing an ideal picture, enhanced by vague impressions of Infinity and Eternity. The great Lake of Sinkarah, flanked by volcanic ridges, and by the dense foliage of palm forests and coffee plantations, also presents a succession of entrancing landscapes. White and purple orchids wreathe the forest trees, troops of red monkeys chatter among the boughs, and woodland vistas reveal leagues of emerald rice and golden millet. Beyond Sinkarah lies the famous coal district of the island, where Chinamen, convicts, and Hindu coolies, in perpetual bustle and commotion, manifest an activity unique in the thinly-populated interior of Sumatra, dependent on the labour of alien races. Javanese act as woodmen, gardeners, and road-makers; the Klings serve as cowherds and drivers of ox-waggons; the Bengalese prove efficient policemen, and the Boyans skilful carpenters; the clearing of the forest pertaining to Malays and Batteks, also responsible for the building of the marvellous rice-barns, the apotheosis of Sumatran architecture. The ordinary tourist omits Sumatra from his itinerary. Occasional elephant-hunters penetrate the dense forests of the interior, and engineers or tobacco-planters flock to the monotonous levels of the eastern coast, but the glorious Western Highlands, the Sumatran _Bovenland_, is seldom visited. Warlike Acheen, for ever at feud with the Dutch Government, is forbidden ground to the European traveller. The unconquerable independence of the Achinese, fiercely resenting the sovereignty of Holland, proves an insoluble problem to the Dutch methods of subjugation. The bold and lawless character of this rebellious clan defies military discipline. The spirit of insurrection animates every man, woman, and child of the brave but treacherous race, and Acheen remains the dark centre of countless tragedies, due to the spurious patriotism which counts a stab in the dark, a poisoned arrow, or a cruel betrayal, as heroic and laudable modes of resistance to the hated invader of Sumatra's ancient liberties. The forest-clad interior of the vast island remains an unknown wilderness. Cannibals still lurk in the black depths of the pathless jungle; weird tribal customs linger unchanged in barbarous _campongs_, where strange gods are worshipped with the immemorial rites of an ageless past, rude carvings and weird symbols showing the personification of those natural phenomena deified by primeval tribes. Sumatra, with her wealth of mines and forests and her important geographical position, remains as yet an almost undiscovered country, and though her undeveloped resources excite the cupidity and arouse the envy of European nations, political greed and private enterprise have proved powerless to open up the hidden treasures of the vast island, apparently intended by Nature to become the key of the Southern Seas. A VIEW OF KRAKATAU. Emma-Haven, the little port of Padang, twenty minutes by train from the palm-girt Sumatran capital, scarcely mars the beauty of the secluded inlet with the red and white warehouses standing against the sylvan verdure which fringes the blue arc of the deep bay. Cloud upon cloud, the spectral vision of distant mountains gleams through the vanishing veil of mist melting in the sunrise, and the departing steamer, hugging the shore, but halting for cargo at sundry barbaric _campongs_, affords numerous glimpses of native life. Passengers are forbidden to land at these rural ports of call, for a herd of twenty frolicsome elephants battered down one brown village of palm-thatched bamboo only a week ago, and although the ruined architecture possesses the advantage of being as easily restored as destroyed, the unpleasant proximity of the dark jungle suggests the need of prudence. At another point of the little voyage, we anchor for a cargo of rattan before a thatched shed on a shell-strewn beach, but even here a solitary elephant, disturbed in bathing, has lately attacked a woman, rescued with difficulty from formidable tusks and lashing trunk. A tribe of coolies come on board from the pepper plantation on a terraced hill, covered with the vivid green of the festooning creeper, twined round long poles, and resembling hop-vines in growth and foliage. The landing of this contingent involves a call at Anjer, the northern extremity of Java, distinguished by the white column of the colossal Pharos on the green headland. A halt at nightfall outside a bristling reef, in consequence of a Malay lighthouse-keeper omitting to trim his lamp, after the fashion of his unthinking kind, secures the compensation of steaming within sight of world-famous Krakatau, the volcanic cone, which in 1883 was split in half by the stupendous eruption affecting in various degrees the whole of the world. The successive waves of atmospherical disturbance, travelling with the velocity of sound, were traced three times completely round the globe. Krakatau, though uninhabited, was the occasional resort of fishermen who plied their calling in the Sunda Straits. A Dutch record exists of a violent eruption in 1680, but the Krakatau volcano was afterwards considered extinct, and until the spring of 1883 no signs of activity occurred. At this date, smoke, pumice, and cinders, fell without intermission. For eight weeks Krakatau blazed and thundered, the explosions being audible at Batavia, eighty miles off. As the fatal dawn of an August morning broke with lurid light, the culminating shock of an appalling detonation, described as "the very crack and crash of doom," echoed across the ocean, and was heard even in India and Australia, two thousand miles away. Gigantic tidal waves swept the Sundanese shores, destroying the adjacent villages, 36,000 people being either washed away or buried under the boiling rain of mud, fire, and ashes. The Royal Society estimated the altitude of the vast black and crimson column of flame and smoke, mounting from the volcano, at seventeen miles. The ashes fell at Singapore and on the Cocos Isles, respectively five and eight hundred miles away, the ejection of volcanic matter being computed at more than four cubic miles in extent. Krakatau, reduced from thirteen to six square miles, from the northern portion of the symmetrical pyramid being completely blown away by the volcanic fires, retains the conical peak of Mount Radaka, nearly three thousand feet high. Some of the contiguous islands sank beneath the waves, others changed their shape, and the formation of various banks and shoals added fresh difficulties to the intricate navigation of reef-bound seas. Thrilling stories are told of the enveloping pall of smoke and ashes, which shrouded Java in midnight gloom, amid the continuous roar of violent explosions which led up to the awful climax of the final catastrophe. Red-hot stones and burning cinders fired the ships, the weight of pumice sinking _praus_ and fishing smacks as it fell into the hissing sea, and a 600-ton schooner, thrown by the force of the world-shaking concussion into a mountain cleft of the opposite coast, still lies wedged between the black walls of rock. The floating pumice, which filled the harbour of Batavia with layers so deep that planks resting upon it made a safe bridge over a mile in length, drifted even to Zanzibar and Madagascar. The fine dust, expelled into the upper air, painted the sunset heavens with these translucent green and violet tints which enhanced the pageantry of cloudland throughout the world for many months after the fiery forces had expended themselves. Smoke still issues from Krakatau, though the vast rent in the cloven pyramid must materially diminish the power of any future eruption, and Nature's busy hand already covers the torn side of the precipitous cone with a green veil of sparse vegetation. A curious marine growth of weed and moss rooted itself on Krakatau three years after the phenomenal eruption, from seeds floating on the tide or carried by the wind. The thin soil formed by these decaying plants, and enriched by the chemical ingredients of disintegrating volcanic ash, in time produced a more luxuriant verdure, and in the interval elapsing since the threefold ravages of fire, flood, and earthquake, caused by Krakatau, convulsed the East with terror, the dread mountain has become wreathed with flower and fruit, for orchards and gardens, tended by the Malays from the surrounding islands, now flourish at the foot of the quiescent peak. Javanese colonists, who experienced the terrors of the overwhelming catastrophe, assert that no similes drawn from the most appalling thunderstorm, or from the roar of the heaviest artillery, could convey an adequate idea of the stupendous detonation which seemed to shatter earth and sky, as the pent-up fires burst forth in the final explosion, which tore the mountain asunder and poured forth the devastating forces of the abysmal depths over land and sea. Crimson lava-flood and burning hail, blackened heaven and rocking earth, roaring sea and clamouring volcano, represented an Apocalyptic vision of Divine wrath, but probably no survivor remained to record the actual sight of the unprecedented phenomenon, transcending every terrestrial convulsion recorded in the chronicles of scientists. Only a slender feather of grey steam now issues from the lofty crater. Leaves and grasses flutter in the soft breeze, and a shower of white petals drifts upon the iron boulders, once incandescent amid the red torrents of rushing fire. A sheer precipice remained as the severed half of the shattered cone, when the rent cliffs shivered into fragments, and toppled over into the sea. Nature again breathes "peace and safety," as she did before "the sudden destruction" gave the lie to her mocking voice, and as the ruined pyramid of terrible Krakatau sinks below the horizon, and the good ship speeds on her way, a weight of awe seems lifted from the mind, oppressed by imagination and association with the ghastly tragedy of those untameable forces which defy calculation or comprehension. History has often proved the truth of the assertion that Time turns memories into dreams, but in the presence of Krakatau's smoking crater, the memories looming over the haunted volcano translate themselves into a nightmare of horror, for the shadows of doom still cling to the monumental pyramid, a menacing witness to the existence of those occult laws which baffle human investigation with their insoluble problems, and compel the defeated scientist to acknowledge himself a mere chronicler of inexplicable mysteries. The extent of the volcanic zone encircling the Malay Archipelago minimises the risk of catastrophe by numerous safety valves for the imprisoned forces of Earth's fiery abyss. In isolated Krakatau only one outlet existed for the vast accumulations of destructive agencies, gathering irresistible impetus through the protracted period of condensation and suppression which heated this mighty furnace of Nature's subterranean laboratory with sevenfold power. A generation has grown up since the hell of devouring fire swept across land and sea from this solitary mountain peak; villages have been rebuilt on their ancient sites, and the activities of life go on from year to year undisturbed. The story of Krakatau, told under the drooping boughs of dusky waringen-trees in the evening hour of leisure, seems veiled in the mists of legendary lore to youth and maiden, listening to the oft-told tale. Poverty clings to familiar soil, and in the deep groove of a narrow existence the popular mind takes little thought for the future. The realities of life are bounded by the daily needs, and the shadow of Krakatau fails to destroy the present peace of the simple folk, who, like children gathering flowers on the edge of a precipice, heed none of the grim possibilities of a perilous environment. PENANG. Poelo-Penang, _The Isle of the areca-nut_, separated by a narrow strait from the Malay Peninsula, was ceded to England in 1785 by the Rajah of Kedah, from whom the present Sultan of Johore is lineally descended. The little territory, chiefly consisting of a mountain covered with palm-forests, was then almost uninhabited, but the strategetic importance of the position resulted in the establishment of an English Presidency, until the phenomenal growth of Singapore made it the eventual centre of local authority. "Sinhapura," "the City of Lions" (or, more accurately, of tigers), founded by the Hinduized Malays, and developed by Sir Stamford Raffles into the principal trading port of the Eastern seas, of necessity drew off from Penang a large contingent of the polyglot races which flocked thither from all parts, when the British flag first waved above the newly-built fort, but at least 100,000 inhabitants still occupy the verdant island, where the graceful areca palm attains unexampled perfection. Penang was merely regarded as an unimportant appendage of ancient Malacca, captured in 1311 by Albuquerque, and though the territory of the principal Sultan underwent innumerable vicissitudes through the changing fortunes of war, the royal line retained Johore at the foot of the Peninsula, up to the present day, the last scion of the old-world dynasty now accepting the suzerainty of England. A tribe of Klings (the Malay corruption of the word Telinga), sailing from the Coromandel coast, were the first immigrants under British rule. The half-breed Indian Malays, or _Jawi-Pekan_, followed, and the Chinese, finding a new outlet for their commercial genius, soon secured a firm footing on the fairy isle, a cone of emerald set in a sapphire sea. As the rickshaw wheels away from the noisy wharves of busy Georgetown into green aisles of areca and cocoanut, the spice-laden breeze blowing from the heights, and mingled with the breath of a thousand flowers, suggests Penang as "the mountain of myrrh, and hill of frankincense," described in the Canticle of Canticles. Present surroundings atone for the lack of life's amenities in the Dutch dependencies. The ripple of the sea, and the rustle of swaying palms, just stir the silence of the wave-washed terrace above the glassy straits. The gloomy blue of the Kedah mountains on the peninsula of Malacca, with black thunderclouds gathering round their serrated crests, heightens the brilliant loveliness of immediate surroundings, steeped in the ruby glow of the magical evening. Every road is an over-arching avenue of gorgeous foliage--dark tunnels of interwoven cocoa-palms, huge Amherstias alight as with lamps of fiery orange, tremulous tamarinds, and, more wonderful than all, a wide highway roofed by a continuous aisle of ansena-trees, the golden canopy of blossom overhead rivalled by the thick carpet of yellow petals, which deadens every sound, for the prodigal bounty of tropical Nature quickly replaces the loss of falling flowers. Exquisite lanes, smothered in glorious vegetation, surround the picturesque Racecourse, that _sine-qûa-non_ of English occupation. Stately emperor palms, kitools with crimped green tresses, fan and oil palms, with the slender areca in countless thousands, vary the shadowy vistas branching out in every direction, with huge-leaved creepers and glossy rattans garlanding the gnarled trunks of forest-trees. The sculptured outlines of the splendid traveller's palm adorn the green lawns of European bungalows, embowered in torrents of trailing creepers, the scale of colour descending from white and pink to royal purple and burning crimson. Snowy arums and golden lilies choke the brooks, overflowing from the constant showers combining with a vertical sun to foster the wealth of greenery, the incandescent scarlet and yellow of hybiscus and allemanda glowing with the transparent depth of hue, beside which the fragile fairness of European flowers, is but a spectral reflection of those colour-drenched blossoms fused into jewelled lustre by the solar fires. Night drops her black curtain suddenly, with no intervening veil of twilight to temper Earth's plunge into darkness. Great stars hang low in the sombre sky, and the open interiors of Malay huts, aglow with lamp or torchlight, produce Rembrandtesque effects, revealing brown inmates cooking or eating their "evening rice." Georgetown, loyally named by British pioneers after a monarch eminently incongruous with any ideas belonging to a tropical fairyland, possesses neither architectural beauty nor salient character; wooden warehouses, Malay shanties, and white-washed streets being merely attractive from the ever-changing scheme of colour painted by varieties of race and costume. Tamils of ebon blackness drive picturesque teams of humped white oxen in red waggons laden with purple sugar-cane. Noble-looking Sikhs, in spotless linen, stride past with kingly gait. Brown Siamese, in many-coloured scarves and turbans gleaming with gold thread, chaffer and bargain at open stalls with blue-robed Chinamen, and the bronze figures of slim Malays, brightened by mere wisps of orange and scarlet added to Nature's durable suit, slip through the crowds, pausing before an emporium of polished brass-work, or a bamboo stall of teak wood carving. The sloping black mitre of a stout Parsee merchant, accompanied by a pretty daughter in white head-band and floating _sari_ of cherry-coloured silk, varies the motley headgear of turban and fez, straw hat and sun-helmet, worn by this cosmopolitan population, the pink headkerchiefs, tinselled scarves, and jewelled buttons of the beautiful Burmese dress, drawing attention to the energetic bargaining of two astute customers for cooking utensils; these elegantly-attired but mahogany-coloured dames, rivalling the Sumatran women in business capacity, and equally determined on securing the _quid pro quo_. The long esplanade between town and sea borders a series of green lawns, where carriages draw up round a bandstand, and the youthful element of European Penang plays tennis with laudable zeal in the atmosphere of a stove-house. Chinese and Malay boyhood look on, and listen to the regimental music. The pallid English occupants of the carriages, in spite of diaphanous muslins and fluttering fans, appear too limp and wilted to bestow more than a languid attention to their surroundings, until the sea-breeze, springing up as the sun declines, revives their flagging spirits. The smartest turnout and the finest horses generally belong to John Chinaman, got up in irreproachable English costume, with his pigtail showing beneath a straw hat, though considerably attenuated, and lacking those adornments of silken braid and red tassels, generally plaited into the imposing queue of the orthodox Celestial. The indefatigable Chinese, frequently arriving on an alien shore without a dollar in their pockets, continually prove potential millionaires. Immune from climatic diseases, working early and late, tolerant and unaggressive, the iron hand in the velvet glove disentangles and grasps the threads of the most complicated commercial enterprise, for the idle Malay, "the gentleman of the East," here as elsewhere, cares for little beyond the sport of hunting and fish-spearing, which satisfies the personal necessities of his indolent existence. The wonderful solidarity of domestic life is an important factor in the Chinese career, for centuries of ancestor-worship, in spite of their arrestive tendency, have strengthened the bonds of family union and filial obedience by insisting on the supreme sanctity of blood-relationship. The luxuriant Botanical Garden, situated in a green cleft of an angle formed by encircling hills, is a paradise of dreamland, though but a miniature when compared with Buitenzorg for extent and variety. In the restful charm of the Penang garden Art and Nature go hand in hand, giving it an unique character among the horticultural pleasaunces of the Eastern world. The rolling lawns of the exquisite valley, the song of the waterfall which bounds the view as it leaps down the lofty cliffs, the abundant shade of tamarind and palm, and the gorgeous flowering shrubs, suggest nothing artificial or conventionalised in the deep seclusion of the fairy glen. Tall bamboos mirror fluffy foliage and white or golden stems in stream and pool. Orchids of the Brazils festoon unknown trees with the rose and purple butterflies formed by their brilliant blossoms, and colossal traveller's palms, so-called from the draught of water obtained by incision of the stem, stud the glades with stiffly-fluted fans. Lilac thunbergia wreaths over-arching boughs, and passion-flower flings white and crimson garlands over turf flushed with the pink blossoms of the sensitive plant. Gold mohur and red poinsettia blaze with fiery splendour, and huge crotons, with velvety leaves of pink, violet, and chocolate, grow to the height of forest trees. The tangle of brilliant flowers, systematically arranged by the concealed art of the Eastern horticulturist, shows many weird botanical forms. Green spears, bristling on mossy banks, are starred with crimson and barred with orange. Wine-coloured cacti twist blue-green spikes and stems in grotesque contortions, and topaz or ruby-tinted calladiums flame in thickets of hot colour outside cool green dells, filled by a forest of tropical ferns, mosses, and creepers. Lack of botanical knowledge constitutes a sore disadvantage in this treasury of floral beauty, but happily we may "consider the lilies," without cataloguing them, in this garden, "beautiful for situation," and worthy to be a "joy of the whole earth." The sombre jungle on the mountain side supplies the atmosphere of mystery which enhances the ideal peace of the cloistered Paradise, wrapt in the embrace of the haunted hills, and numbered among those visions of an earlier Eden, only realised in the Asiatic birthplace of Humanity which contained the typical Garden of the World, Divinely planted, where the Voice from Heaven deepened the music of whispering leaves and sighing breeze. A purple-red pat--for even the jasper-tinted tropical soil is beautiful, climbs through the glorious woods to the chief Sanatorium of the Malay Peninsula. A free fight among the coolies before starting demands a lengthy exercise of that stolidity with which the Western pilgrim must invest himself, as the invulnerable armour needed by the conflict of daily life. As a mere matter of personal convenience, this quality bears scant resemblance to the weapons enumerated by S. Paul in the Christian panoply. The oppressive heat, the futility of argument in an almost unknown tongue, and the general uncertainty of the subject in dispute, gradually producing this spurious virtue as the external decoration of sorely-exasperated souls. The exertion of the long ascent in the steaming heat requires six coolies for every chair. The red road mounts through enchanting vistas of palms and creepers, on the edge of the dark jungle, each turning point bringing a whiff of cooler air, as the evening gold flickers through the velvety fronds of tree-ferns, and the green feathers of spreading bamboos. From the white hotel near the summit, the blue Straits and the flats of Province Wellesley, the English portion of the Malay Peninsula, stand out against the frowning ridge of mountains, for black thunder-clouds continually brood over Malacca. Monkeys caper and chatter in the teak-trees bordering a circular terrace, and an ideal sylvan path leads to the Signal Station, Hospital, and Post Office, on an opposite height, dotted with the bungalows of summer visitors. A palm-shaded plateau beneath the hotel offers an ideal resting-place, but the impenetrable jungle covering the Penang Hills makes expeditions on foot or by chair, impracticable, and the wild deluges of rain, with terrific thunder peals bursting in uncontrolled fury on this exposed peak, minimise the delights of a mountain sojourn. The invasion of an army of jungle rats, behind the walls and above the ceiling of a room sodden and dripping with the afternoon's flood, completes the disillusion, and compels a hasty descent to the warmer damp of the lowlands, for the Equatorial climate, and the general absence of bed-coverings, causes a rheumatic stiffness on rising, which has to be steamed out by the atmospheric vapour-bath of the tropical island. A long rickshaw ride to Tanjong Bungah ("Flowery Point") completes the day's cure in a sweltering heat, which on the return journey at 8 a.m. causes even the Chinese coolies to stop perpetually at wayside stalls, for the coloured syrups and sticky sweetmeats on which they perform prodigies of endurance and speed. An English planter, in his solitary cacao-garden on the edge of the sea, hails his compatriots with delight, and leads the way through the rocky ravines bordering his solitary bungalow. The glories of the tropics seldom alleviate the sense of exile, and cloudy England, with her "green fields and pastures dim," remains dearer than all the pageantry of Nature elsewhere to most of her absent sons. The Buddhist temple of Ayer-Etam, built in ascending tiers on a steep acclivity, varies the natural interests of Penang, with the marvels of Chinese architecture elaborated in the deep seclusion of mountain and forest. The dewy areca-palms throw a dark network of interlacing shadows across the red road, winding for miles through the sylvan scenery, the alchemy of the rising sun transmuting the myriad feathery fronds into fountains of green fire. Only the creaking of a bullock-waggon, or the thud of a falling cocoanut, breaks the hush of the tropical daybreak, when the leaves only whisper in their dreams, and the vernal earth, fresh as from her Creator's hand, renews her strength for the heat and burden of the coming day. The colossal pile, consisting of temple, monastery, and innumerable shrines, amid fountains and fish-ponds, bridges and balconies, courts and terraces, gleams whitely against the green gloom of the vast palm-forest on either side, sloping sharply to the shimmering sea. The usual appalling images of vermilion and gold guard every sculptured gateway, and surmount the painted shrines encircled by parterres of votive flowers, for the philosophic Buddhism of Ceylon and Siam gathers the moss and weeds of many an incongruous accretion in countless ages of pilgrimage through the Eastern world. The transcendental mysticism which spun the finest cobwebs of human thought, crystallises into concrete form when interpreted in the terms of China, where dim reminiscences of early Nature worship, and the terrors which upheld the authority of many obsolete creeds, have been incorporated into the vague ideals of Prince Gautama's prophetic soul. Altars, strewn with fragrant champak-flowers, stand beneath lace-carved alcoves of black teakwood, on the broad plateaux which form welcome resting-places beside each flight of steps on the marble stairway, the gilded pinnacles and aerial spires of the white temple sparkling against the sea of rich foliage. A knot of Burmese worshippers, with rose-coloured scarves and turbans, throw their infinitesimal coins on the palm-leaf mats of a red-roofed shrine, and tell the wooden beads of the Buddhist rosary, chanting the perpetual refrain of "_Pain_, _Sorrow_, _Unreality_," as a warning against the temptations of _Maya_, the world of illusion. The brown faces raised imploringly to the presiding deity, a leering demon with green face and yellow body, inspire the hope that the grotesque monster may prove his own unreality by vanishing from the hearts of his devotees into the limbo of nightmares from which he has emerged, for the philosophic quietism of Buddhist creed offers no disguise to the horrors of a hell far surpassing the terrific literalism of Dante's Inferno. Rippling conduits edge pillared courts and cloistered arcades, resplendent with frieze and cornice of blue and scarlet, a central fountain falling in prismatic showers over a sacred pond of golden carp. A white-robed monk smilingly conducts us across hump-backed bridges and colonnaded galleries to a bench beneath a grey frangipanni tree, starred with fragrant flowers, and brings welcome cups of tea, before another struggle up the interminable steps, which symbolise the mystic "path" leading to Nirvana's rest. Further hospitality meets us at a yellow kiosk, higher up the sacred hill, where a dainty breakfast of eggs, cakes, and honey stands on a white table-cloth, bearing a steaming coffee-pot. The temple paraphernalia of Buddhist worship strangely resembles Catholic imagery. Incense rises from open censers on the dais, the blue cloud enveloping a gorgeous altar, encrusted with gold. The central figure of Gautama Buddha, on the lotus leaf expresses supernal calm, and the symbolic flower, in bud, blossom, or foliage, forms the prevailing design of vase and amphora, within golden lattice-work. Hanging lamps glow on rapt faces of attendant saints, or on those supplementary local Buddhas which Chinese doctrine adds to the comparative simplicity of the original system. The foreshadowing of Christian truth culminates in the fact stated by a Buddhist priest, that bread and wine of mystic meaning are reserved on the altars of many among the forty subdivisions of Buddhism. The mountain Sanctuary, though marred by debased decoration and heathenised by the lurid figures of the guardian demons, inspires a reverent devotion, and exercises a solemnising influence on many souls whose faith differs from that of the white-clad monks, who seek to scale the dim heights of perfection from this lofty peak. "The Light which lighteth every man" must needs throw a faint and far-off ray even on an erroneous creed, groping through the darkness for the outstretched Hands which embrace all Humanity with boundless Love. Penang, as a little field of missionary enterprise, possesses many privileges often denied to the further islands of Malaysia. The variety of immigrant races, the constant intercourse with the Indian mainland, and the needs of travellers belonging to every nation, keep the settlement in touch with a multitude of spiritual needs. Christianity, both in Anglican and Roman guise, sows diligently in fields gradually whitening to harvest. The English Church, with reverent services and kindly priest, remains a little centre of cherished associations. The S. Francis Xavier Institute, which brings many Chinese boys into the Christian fold, through the labours of another Communion, carries on the work of the great mediæval missionary, who reached the farthest East in his apostolate of love. The scarlet, yellow, and white veils of Eastern converts, the crowd of Eurasian Christians in both churches, and the presence of a devout Malay priest assisting at the English service, add unfamiliar notes of colour among the snowy muslins and flower-decked hats of English residents, but correctness of costume, both in men and women, contrasts refreshingly with the slovenly déshabille of the Netherlands India, the last and easily-snapped link between civilisation and barbarism. An opportunity occurs for a visit to Taiping, the capital of the Native Federated States, and situated in Province Wellesley. The launch crosses to Prai, the rising port of Malacca, and the northern terminus of the railway, sure to upset the passenger lists of the great steamers by traversing the entire peninsula to Johore. Through a channel bordered with weird mangroves, the boat enters a long, slow river, flowing between boundless palm-forests. The "black but comely" captain of the snorting boat escorts his European passengers to the station, arranges tickets, and waits on the platform till the train starts; the portly sailor in spotless linen, surmounted by his genial ebony face, waving encouragement as long as we remain in sight. The perils and dangers of the way are _nil_, and none of the threatened contingencies arise, but to Eastern thought risks, however remote and improbable, add to the value of a journey. Real drawbacks seem seldom mentioned, but imaginary lions in the way offer unlimited scope to Oriental fancy, and help to create a thrilling drama of destruction. Green paddi-fields, tall sugar-canes, and a world of palms, rise from the alluvial flats of Province Wellesley. The great rubber plantations, which form the chief source of wealth in Malacca, follow in endless succession, but, as usual, the astute Chinaman has obtained almost a monopoly of the industry, from which the greatest fortunes of the tropics are now derived. The bushy trees, with their black stems and ragged foliage, are destitute of the beauty so lavishly bestowed even on the weeds of this fertile soil. The tangled splendour of the wild jungle, which presently borders the track, demonstrates the immense difficulty of pioneering in a tropical forest, where the interlacing boughs of the myriad trees, with their impenetrable screen of climbing parasites, make perpetual walls of living green, defying human progress. Malay villages, brown and palm-thatched in the immemorial style, stand on piles above the swampy ground, which seems the approved site of habitation. A barren district devastated by a forest fire, contains the disused pits of ancient tin-mines, but these unsightly hollows have been decorated by Nature's hand with a luxuriant growth of the frilled pink lotus. Malay children, themselves unadorned, stand on wayside platforms, every brown hand filled with the rosy chalices of the sacred Buddhist emblem. Tradition says that the blossom, drawn up from the mire by the rays of the morning sun, symbolised the earth-stained soul, made pure and stainless by the attraction of that Divine Glory which Buddhism, though in distorted form, strove to attain. At the end of the sixty-mile journey, the English station-master at Taiping proved a veritable friend in need, arranging for a hot breakfast at the station, chartering rickshaw coolies, and--greatest blessing of all--directing the route, with a menacing pantomime concerning any shirking of duty, which saved all further trouble. Taiping is in an early stage of progress, and the open _tokos_ in waringen-shaded streets, show nothing but the necessaries of life, with terrible mementos of Birmingham in petroleum lamps, hideous oleographs, and machine-made household goods. Pretty bungalows stand beyond the interlacing avenues of dusky trees, and a framework toy of a church in the green outskirts, contains numerous brass tablets recording English lives laid down in this weary land. These pathetic memorials seem the only permanent features of the frail edifice in the shadowy God's-acre already filled with graves. The newly-planted park, with a lake fringed by a vivid growth of allemanda and hybiscus, stands below the purple heights of a long mountain chain, but Taiping offers few inducements to a prolonged stay, and after a hurried glimpse of terrific beasts and snakes of the jungle, preserved in the local museum, we return to the station, the kindly chef-de-gare disturbing his wife from her siesta in the adjacent bungalow, to feast us on tea and bananas. Darkness falls before the train reaches Penang, but a Chinese gentleman acts as pilot across some rocking boats, with only a faint flare from expiring torches to light the way, and starts the cringing coolies, with true politeness to the "foreign devils," but manifest wonder at their eccentric customs. Chinese womanhood, painted, bedizened, and tottering on the pink and gold hoofs which cause a sickening shudder to the Western spectator, indicates the barrier of prejudice to be surmounted before China can mould national ideals into harmony with modern progress. The vicinity of Penang to the Equatorial junction of the maritime world, widens local interests by the development of the Malay Peninsula, partly governed through the instrumentality of native Sultans under English guidance, but the abiding charm of the island lies beyond the radius of the thriving port. Nature still reigns supreme in this jewel of the Equator, where the amber swathes of Indian laburnum, the golden-hearted whiteness of luscious frangipanni blossom, and the red fire of the flamboyant tree, light up the endless aisles of swaying palms, where temple-flower and tuberose mingle their fragrance with the breath of clove and cinnamon, interpreting the imagery of the Eastern monarch's bridal song, and luring each lover of Earth's manifold beauty to "go down into her garden of spices and gather lilies." EPILOGUE. The infinite variety of interests connected with the vast Malay Archipelago, mainly dominated by European authority, can only be inadequately mentioned in the simple record of a half-year's wandering through scenes which stamp their unfading beauty indelibly on mind and memory. Virgin fields of discovery still invite scientific exploration, and the green sepulchre of Equatorial vegetation retains innumerable secrets of Art and architecture. The geological mysteries of these volcanic shores offer a host of unsolved problems, the surpassing magnificence of flower and foliage makes every island a botanical Paradise, and the varieties of race and language which moulded and coloured the destinies of the Equatorial world, supply historian and philologist with opportunities of unlimited research. The dim chronicles of a distant past, inscribed in vague characters with faint traces of the earliest Malay wanderers, link their shadowy pages with historic records of falling dynasties and warring creeds, preceding the eventful period of colonial enterprise, initiated by the wild campaigns in quest of the precious spices. Although the Malay voyagers remain veiled in the twilight which clouds the verge of authentic history, the track of their keels may yet be followed through the conflicting currents of that hitherto unknown ocean which they opened to a future world. The forests and fishing grounds of every coast and island still support the manifold divisions of the nomadic race which forms the substratum of island life, and the star of hope which led them onward, shone for many subsequent adventurers across those Southern seas which aroused the energies and ambitions of later ages. The symbolical stories of the world's infancy join the actual experience of struggling humanity to the dreamland from whence it emerged, as some syren song lured it into unknown regions. The old-world legends of mankind "launching out into the deep, and letting down the nets for a draught," repeat themselves from age to age, for the human heart has ever sacrificed comfort and safety in order to set sail upon some trackless ocean, on the chance of reaping that harvest of life's sea for which man yearns with insatiable desire. The wanderings of Odysseus, in the youth of the world, illustrate the eternal pursuit of a visionary ideal, in those adventures which breathe the undying romance of the sea. The resemblance between the traditions of savage and civilised nations appears too strong to be fortuitous, and indicates the underlying unity of feeling and purpose implanted in the human race. Modern environment renders it impossible to calculate the tremendous force of the mysterious impulse which swayed the onward march of primeval tribes; even the later obstacles, overcome by bold spirits who followed in their wake, can never be adequately realised amid the artificial conditions of our present life. The charmed circle of the "Equator's emerald zone," encloses a region of marvel and mystery, where Imagination, the fairy with the magic mirror, helps to interpret and reveal the secrets of Beauty and Truth, which transfigure material form and colour with the halo of idealism. The tale of the mysterious ages when "the threads of families" were first "woven into the ropes of nations," still sways mind and fancy, but the romance of the world continues, though the progress of Humanity varies the pictured page. In the warm heart of the tropical Archipelago, Nature, triumphing in eternal youth, seems to mock the transient phases of aspiration and achievement, which vanish by turn into the misty past. The great Mother chants her "Song of Songs" throughout the myriad changes of Time, in terms so similar to the imagery of the Divine Epithalamium that, from a human standpoint, it seems swept by the spice-laden breezes of the Malayan Lotus-land, rather than by the fainter fragrance wafted from the orchards and gardens of Palestine or Egypt. Possibly the Syrian fleet, in search of ivory and peacocks, touched at the enchanted shores where "all trees of frankincense" perfumed the air, and produced those aromatic "powders of the merchant," regarded as priceless treasures both in primitive and mediæval days. The story might well capture the fancy of the royal poet, and enrich the music of his verse with the luscious fragrance of a more luxuriant land than even his own pastoral Canaan, flowing with milk and honey. The hyperbole of Eastern thought often rests on a solid foundation of fact, and the Hebrew love-song weaves tropical Nature's lavish wealth of flower, fruit, and fragrance into a symbolic garland, flung in passionate rapture at the feet of the beloved one. The spiritual significance of the sacred lyric only transposes the mystic melody into a higher key, and heaps the thurible of the sanctuary with the frankincense of praise, to celebrate the typical bridal of Earth and Heaven. The diadem of palms on the last outlying islet of the Malay Archipelago, stands out in dark relief against the golden haze of the afterglow, which floods the sky, and changes the purple waters into a sea of fire. The pageant of sunset lingers for a moment, and then vanishes beneath of the pall of the swiftly-falling night. The fairyland of eternal summer sinks below the horizon, and realities melt into the shadows of that mental subconsciousness which holds the wraiths of departed joys. Memories of the golden hours spent in threading the flowery maze of the vast Archipelago, seem a mere handful of shells gathered on the surf-beaten shores, but if even the empty shell can hold the sound of the waves, this brief record of a cruise in sunny seas may also convey faint whispers of that syren voice which echoed through the ages of the past, and still allures the spellbound listener to the swaying palms and spice-scented bowers of Malaya's Island Paradise. Transcriber's Notes: The preference has been to retain inconsistencies and idiosyncracies in spelling, especially of proper nouns, except in the case of obvious typographical errors. Any corrections made are noted below. Many Javanese names use the "oe" group of vowels. In a few cases, the original text uses "oe" ligatures. Since such usage is inconsistent, even for the same name, and the number of instances are few, the "oe" ligatures have not been retained. Inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words retained. (dream-like, dreamlike; ear-rings, earrings; re-adjustment, readjustment; sandal-wood, sandalwood; sub-consciousness, subconsciousness; sub-divisions, subdivisions; thunder-clouds, thunderclouds; waist-cloth, waistcloth; white-washed, whitewashed; wicker-work, wickerwork) In the original text, the entire Table of Contents was printed in italic typeface. For the plaintext version of this ebook, in order to reduce clutter, the standard markup for italics has not been used for text in the Table of Contents. Table of Contents, entry for "The Solo-Bessir Isles". The chapter heading in the main text reads "THE SOELA-BESSIR ISLES." The original wording has been retained in both cases. Pg. 34, "int oa" changed to "into a". (forest aisles into a) Pg. 35, "sanatorioum" changed to "sanatorium". (a favourite sanatorium of the Dutch) Pg. 38, "possing" changed to "possessing". (possessing a notable) Pg. 79, unusual spelling "pourtrayed" retained. Pg. 89, "ominious" changed to "ominous". (played an ominous part) Pg. 94 and 202, "unmistakeable" is also spelled "unmistakable" on page 140. Original spellings retained in all cases. Pg. 114 and 115, "sulphureous" is also spelled "sulphurous" on page 44. Original spellings retained in all cases. Pg. 118, "prisets" changed to "priests". (while the priests of Siva) Pg. 144, "elswhere" changed to "elsewhere". (here as elsewhere) Pg. 155, "benath" changed to "beneath". (beneath a hill covered) Pg. 156, "pentrate" changed to "penetrate". (of air can penetrate) Pg. 166, "smoulderng" changed to "smouldering". (which hides the smouldering) Pg. 179, "he" changed to "the". (from the motionless waters) Pg. 187, "inagurated" changed to "inaugurated". (growth of foreign vegetation was thus inaugurated) Pg. 189, "Calvanistic" changed to "Calvinistic". (grimness of Calvinistic creed) Pg. 223, "violents" changed to "violent". (continuous roar of violent explosions) Pg. 239, "Buddhim" changed to "Buddhism". (philosophic Buddhism of Ceylon) Pg. 239, extraneous dot in between sentences: "through the Eastern world. . The transcendental". It does not appear to be an ellipsis and has thus been removed. Pg. 243, extraneous dot in between sentences: "derived. . The bushy trees". It does not appear to be an ellipsis and has thus been removed. Pg. 247, "Archipegalo" changed to "Archipelago". (the vast Malay Archipelago) 
2539	----	THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO VOLUME II. (of II.) by Alfred R. Wallace CHAPTER XXI. THE MOLUCCAS--TERNATE. ON the morning of the 8th of January, 1858, I arrived at Ternate, the fourth of a row of fine conical volcanic islands which shirt the west coast of the large and almost unknown island of Gilolo. The largest and most perfectly conical mountain is Tidore, which is over four thousand Feet high--Ternate being very nearly the same height, but with a more rounded and irregular summit. The town of Ternate is concealed from view till we enter between the two islands, when it is discovered stretching along the shore at the very base of the mountain. Its situation is fine, and there are grand views on every side. Close opposite is the rugged promontory and beautiful volcanic cone of Tidore; to the east is the long mountainous coast of Gilolo, terminated towards the north by a group of three lofty volcanic peaks, while immediately behind the town rises the huge mountain, sloping easily at first and covered with thick groves of fruit trees, but soon becoming steeper, and furrowed with deep gullies. Almost to the summit, whence issue perpetually faint wreaths of smoke, it is clothed with vegetation, and looks calm and beautiful, although beneath are hidden fires which occasionally burst forth in lava-streams, but more frequently make their existence known by the earthquakes which have many times devastated the town. I brought letters of introduction to Mr. Duivenboden, a native of Ternate, of an ancient Dutch family, but who was educated in England, and speaks our language perfectly. He was a very rich man, owned half the town, possessed many ships, and above a hundred slaves. He was moreover, well educated, and fond of literature and science--a phenomenon in these regions. He was generally known as the king of Ternate, from his large property and great influence with the native Rajahs and their subjects. Through his assistance I obtained a house; rather ruinous, but well adapted to my purpose, being close to the town, yet with a free outlet to the country and the mountain. A few needful repairs were soon made, some bamboo furniture and other necessaries obtained, and after a visit to the Resident and Police Magistrate I found myself an inhabitant of the earthquake-tortured island of Ternate, and able to look about me and lay down the plan of my campaign for the ensuing year. I retained this house for three years, as I found it very convenient to have a place to return to after my voyages to the various islands of the Moluccas and New Guinea, where I could pack my collections, recruit my health, and make preparations for future journeys. To avoid repetitions, I will in this chapter combine what notes I have about Ternate. A description of my house (the plan of which is here shown) will enable the reader to understand a very common mode of building in these islands. There is of course only one floor. The walls are of stone up to three feet high; on this are strong squared posts supporting the roof, everywhere except in the verandah filled in with the leaf-stems of the sago-palm, fitted neatly in wooden owing. The floor is of stucco, and the ceilings are like the walls. The house is forty feet square, consists of four rooms, a hall, and two verandahs, and is surrounded by a wilderness of fruit trees. A deep well supplied me with pure cold water, a great luxury in this climate. Five minutes' walk down the road brought me to the market and the beach, while in the opposite direction there were no more European houses between me and the mountain. In this house I spent many happy days. Returning to it after a three or four months' absence in some uncivilized region, I enjoyed the unwonted luxuries of milk and fresh bread, and regular supplies of fish and eggs, meat and vegetables, which were often sorely needed to restore my health and energy. I had ample space and convenience or unpacking, sorting, and arranging my treasures, and I had delightful walks in the suburbs of the town, or up the lower slopes of the mountain, when I desired a little exercise, or had time for collecting. The lower part of the mountain, behind the town of Ternate, is almost entirely covered with a forest of fruit trees, and during the season hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, go up every day to bring down the ripe fruit. Durians and Mangoes, two of the very finest tropical fruits, are in greater abundance at Ternate than I have ever seen them, and some of the latter are of a quality not inferior to any in the world. Lansats and Mangustans are also abundant, but these do not ripen till a little later. Above the fruit trees there is a belt of clearings and cultivated grounds, which creep up the mountain to a height of between two and three thousand feet, above which is virgin forest, reaching nearly to the summit, which on the side next the town is covered with a high reedy grass. On the further side it is more elevated, of a bare and desolate aspect, with a slight depression marking the position of the crater. From this part descends a black scoriaceous tract; very rugged, and covered with a scanty vegetation of scattered bushes as far down as the sea. This is the lava of the great eruption near a century ago, and is called by the natives "batu-angas"(burnt rock). Just below my house is the fort, built by the Portuguese, below which is an open space to the peach, and beyond this the native town extends for about a mile to the north-east. About the centre of it is the palace of the Sultan, now a large untidy, half-ruinous building of stone. This chief is pensioned by the Dutch Government, but retains the sovereignty over the native population of the island, and of the northern part of Gilolo. The sultans of Ternate and Tidore were once celebrated through the East for their power and regal magnificence. When Drake visited Ternate in 1579, the Portuguese had been driven out of the island, although they still had a settlement at Tidore. He gives a glowing account of the Sultan: "The King had a very rich canopy with embossings of gold borne over him, and was guarded with twelve lances. From the waist to the ground was all cloth of gold, and that very rich; in the attire of his head were finely wreathed in, diverse rings of plaited gold, of an inch or more in breadth, which made a fair and princely show, somewhat resembling a crown in form; about his neck he had a chain of perfect gold, the links very great and one fold double; on his left hand was a diamond, an emerald, a ruby, and a turky; on his right hand in one ring a big and perfect turky, and in another ring many diamonds of a smaller size." All this glitter of barbaric gold was the produce of the spice trade, of which the Sultans kept the monopoly, and by which they became wealthy. Ternate, with the small islands in a line south of it, as far as Batchian, constitute the ancient Moluccas, the native country of the clove, as well as the only part in which it was cultivated. Nutmegs and mace were procured from the natives of New Guinea and the adjacent islands, where they grew wild; and the profits on spice cargoes were so enormous, that the European traders were glad to give gold and jewels, and the finest manufactures of Europe or of India, in exchange. When the Dutch established their influence in these seas, and relieved the native princes from their Portuguese oppressors, they saw that the easiest way to repay themselves would be to get this spice trade into their own hands. For this purpose they adopted the wise principle of concentrating the culture of these valuable products in those spots only of which they could have complete control. To do this effectually it was necessary to abolish the culture and trade in all other places, which they succeeded in doing by treaty with the native rulers. These agreed to have all the spice trees in their possessions destroyed. They gave up large though fluctuating revenues, but they gained in return a fixed subsidy, freedom from the constant attacks and harsh oppressions of the Portuguese, and a continuance of their regal power and exclusive authority over their own subjects, which is maintained in all the islands except Ternate to this day. It is no doubt supposed by most Englishmen, who have been accustomed to look upon this act of the Dutch with vague horror, as something utterly unprincipled and barbarous, that the native population suffered grievously by this destruction of such valuable property. But it is certain that this was not the case. The Sultans kept this lucrative trade entirely in their own hands as a rigid monopoly, and they would take care not to give, their subjects more than would amount to their usual wages, while: they would surely exact as large a quantity of spice as they could possibly obtain. Drake and other early voyagers always seem to have purchased their spice-cargoes from the Sultans and Rajahs, and not from the cultivators. Now the absorption of so much labour in the cultivation of this one product must necessarily have raised the price of food and other necessaries; and when it was abolished, more rice would be grown, more sago made, more fish caught, and more tortoise-shell, rattan, gum-dammer, and other valuable products of the seas and the forests would be obtained. I believe, therefore, that this abolition of the spice trade in the Moluccas was actually beneficial to the inhabitants, and that it was an act both wise in itself and morally and politically justifiable. In the selection of the places in which to carry on the cultivation, the Dutch were not altogether fortunate or wise. Banda was chosen for nutmegs, and was eminently successful, since it continues to this day to produce a large supply of this spice, and to yield a considerable revenue. Amboyna was fixed upon for establishing the clove cultivation; but the soil and climate, although apparently very similar to that of its native islands, is not favourable, and for some years the Government have actually been paying to the cultivators a higher rate than they could purchase cloves elsewhere, owing to a great fall in the price since the rate of payment was fixed for a term of years by the Dutch Government, and which rate is still most honourably paid. In walking about the suburbs of Ternate, we find everywhere the ruins of massive stone and brick buildings, gateways and arches, showing at once the superior wealth of the ancient town and the destructive effects of earthquakes. It was during my second stay in the town, after my return from New Guinea, that I first felt an earthquake. It was a very slight one, scarcely more than has been felt in this country, but occurring in a place that lad been many times destroyed by them it was rather more exciting. I had just awoke at gun-fire (5 A.M.), when suddenly the thatch began to rustle and shake as if an army of cats were galloping over it, and immediately afterwards my bed shook too, so that for an instant I imagined myself back in New Guinea, in my fragile house, which shook when an old cock went to roost on the ridge; but remembering that I was now on a solid earthen floor, I said to myself, "Why, it's an earthquake," and lay still in the pleasing expectation of another shock; but none came, and this was the only earthquake I ever felt in Ternate. The last great one was in February 1840, when almost every house in the place was destroyed. It began about midnight on the Chinese New Year's festival, at which time every one stays up nearly all night feasting at the Chinamen's houses and seeing the processions. This prevented any lives being lost, as every one ran out of doors at the first shock, which was not very severe. The second, a few minutes afterwards, threw down a great many houses, and others, which continued all night and part of the next day, completed the devastation. The line of disturbance was very narrow, so that the native town a mile to the east scarcely suffered at all. The wave passed from north to south, through the islands of Tidore and Makian, and terminated in Batchian, where it was not felt till four the following afternoon, thus taking no less than sixteen hours to travel a hundred miles, or about six miles an hour. It is singular that on this occasion there was no rushing up of the tide, or other commotion of the sea, as is usually the case during great earthquakes. The people of Ternate are of three well-marked races the Ternate Malays, the Orang Sirani, and the Dutch. The first are an intrusive Malay race somewhat allied to the Macassar people, who settled in the country at a very early epoch, drove out the indigenes, who were no doubt the same as those of the adjacent mainland of Gilolo, and established a monarchy. They perhaps obtained many of their wives from the natives, which will account for the extraordinary language they speak--in some respects closely allied to that of the natives of Gilolo, while it contains much that points to a Malayan origin. To most of these people the Malay language is quite unintelligible, although such as are engaged in trade are obliged to acquire it. "Orang Sirani," or Nazarenes, is the name given by the Malays to the Christian descendants of the Portuguese, who resemble those of Amboyna, and, like them, speak only Malay. There are also a number of Chinese merchants, many of them natives of the place, a few Arabs, and a number of half-breeds between all these races and native women. Besides these there are some Papuan slaves, and a few natives of other islands settled here, making up a motley and very puzzling population, till inquiry and observation have shown the distinct origin of its component parts. Soon after my first arrival in Ternate I went to the island of Gilolo, accompanied by two sons of Mr. Duivenboden, and by a young Chinaman, a brother of my landlord, who lent us the boat and crew. These latter were all slaves, mostly Papuans, and at starting I saw something of the relation of master and slave in this part of the world. The crew had been ordered to be ready at three in the morning, instead of which none appeared till five, we having all been kept waiting in the dark and cold for two hours. When at length they came they were scolded by their master, but only in a bantering manner, and laughed and joked with him in reply. Then, just as we were starting, one of the strongest men refused to go at all, and his master had to beg and persuade him to go, and only succeeded by assuring him that I would give him something; so with this promise, and knowing that there would be plenty to eat and drink and little to do, the black gentleman was induced to favour us with his company and assistance. In three hours' rowing and sailing we reached our destination, Sedingole, where there is a house belonging to the Sultan of Tidore, who sometimes goes there hunting. It was a dirty ruinous shed, with no furniture but a few bamboo bedsteads. On taking a walk into the country, I saw at once that it was no place for me. For many miles extends a plain covered with coarse high grass, thickly dotted here and there with trees, the forest country only commencing at the hills a good way in the interior. Such a place would produce few birds and no insects, and we therefore arranged to stay only two days, and then go on to Dodinga, at the narrow central isthmus of Gilolo, whence my friends would return to Ternate. We amused ourselves shooting parrots, lories, and pigeons, and trying to shoot deer, of which we saw plenty, but could not get one; and our crew went out fishing with a net, so we did not want for provisions. When the time came for us to continue our journey, a fresh difficulty presented itself, for our gentlemen slaves refused in a body to go with us; saying very determinedly that they would return to Ternate. So their masters were obliged to submit, and I was left behind to get to Dodinga as I could. Luckily I succeeded in hiring a small boat, which took me there the same night, with my two men and my baggage. Two or three years after this, and about the same length of time before I left the East, the Dutch emancipated all their slaves, paying their owners a small compensation. No ill results followed. Owing to the amicable relations which had always existed between them and their masters, due no doubt in part to the Government having long accorded them legal rights and protection against cruelty and ill-usage, many continued in the same service, and after a little temporary difficulty in some cases, almost all returned to work either for their old or for new, masters. The Government took the very proper step of placing every emancipated slave under the surveillance of the police-magistrate. They were obliged to show that they were working for a living, and had some honestly-acquired means of existence. All who could not do so were placed upon public works at low wages, and thus were kept from the temptation to peculation or other crimes, which the excitement of newly-acquired freedom, and disinclination to labour, might have led them into. CHAPTER XXII. GILOLO. (MARCH AND SEPTEMBER 1858.) I MADE but few and comparatively short visits to this large and little known island, but obtained a considerable knowledge of its natural history by sending first my boy Ali, and then my assistant, Charles Allen, who stayed two or three months each in the northern peninsula, and brought me back large collections of birds and insects. In this chapter I propose to give a sketch of the parts which I myself visited. My first stay was at Dodinga, situated at the head of a deep-bay exactly opposite Ternate, and a short distance up a little stream which penetrates a few miles inland. The village is a small one, and is completely shut in by low hills. As soon as I arrived, I applied to the head man of the village for a house to live in, but all were occupied, and there was much difficulty in finding one. In the meantime I unloaded my baggage on the beach and made some tea, and afterwards discovered a small but which the owner was willing to vacate if I would pay him five guilders for a month's rent. As this was something less than the fee-simple value of the dwelling, I agreed to give it him for the privilege of immediate occupation, only stipulating that he was to make the roof water-tight. This he agreed to do, and came every day to tally and look at me; and when I each time insisted upon his immediately mending the roof according to contract, all the answer I could get was, "Ea nanti," (Yes, wait a little.) However, when I threatened to deduct a quarter guilder from the rent for every day it was not done, and a guilder extra if any of my things were wetted, he condescended to work for half an hour, which did all that was absolutely necessary. On the top of a bank, of about a hundred feet ascent from the water, stands the very small but substantial fort erected by the Portuguese. Its battlements and turrets have long since been overthrown by earthquakes, by which its massive structure has also been rent; but it cannot well be thrown down, being a solid mass of stonework, forming a platform about ten feet high, and perhaps forty feet square. It is approached by narrow steps under an archway, and is now surmounted by a row of thatched hovels, in which live the small garrison, consisting of, a Dutch corporal and four Javanese soldiers, the sole representatives of the Netherlands Government in the island. The village is occupied entirely by Ternate men. The true indigenes of Gilolo, "Alfuros" as they are here called, live on the eastern coast, or in the interior of the northern peninsula. The distance across the isthmus at this place is only two miles, and there, is a good path, along which rice and sago are brought from the eastern villages. The whole isthmus is very rugged, though not high, being a succession of little abrupt hills anal valleys, with angular masses of limestone rock everywhere projecting, and often almost blocking up the pathway. Most of it is virgin forest, very luxuriant and picturesque, and at this time having abundance of large scarlet Ixoras in flower, which made it exceptionally gay. I got some very nice insects here, though, owing to illness most of the time, my collection was a small one, and my boy Ali shot me a pair of one of the most beautiful birds of the East, Pitta gigas, a lame ground-thrush, whose plumage of velvety black above is relieved by a breast of pure white, shoulders of azure blue, and belly of vivid crimson. It has very long and strong legs, and hops about with such activity in the dense tangled forest, bristling with rocks, as to make it very difficult to shoot. In September 1858, after my return from New Guinea, I went to stay some time at the village of Djilolo, situated in a bay on the northern peninsula. Here I obtained a house through the kindness of the Resident of Ternate, who sent orders to prepare one for me. The first walk into the unexplored forests of a new locality is a moment of intense interest to the naturalist, as it is almost sure to furnish him with something curious or hitherto unknown. The first thing I saw here was a flock of small parroquets, of which I shot a pair, and was pleased to find a most beautiful little long-tailed bird, ornamented with green, red, and blue colours, and quite new to me. It was a variety of the Charmosyna placentis, one of the smallest and most elegant of the brush-tongued lories. My hunters soon shot me several other fine birds, and I myself found a specimen of the rare and beautiful day-flying moth, Cocytia d'Urvillei. The village of Djilolo was formerly the chief residence of the Sultans of Ternate, till about eighty years ago, when at the request of the Dutch they removed to their present abode. The place was then no doubt much more populous, as is indicated by the wide extent of cleared land in the neighbourhood, now covered with coarse high grass, very disagreeable to walk through, and utterly barren to the naturalist. A few days' exploring showed me that only some small patches of forest remained for miles wound, and the result was a scarcity of insects and a very limited variety of birds, which obliged me to change my locality. There was another village called Sahoe, to which there was a road of about twelve miles overland, and this had been recommended to me as a good place for birds, and as possessing a large population both of Mahomotans and Alfuros, which latter race I much wished to see. I set off one morning to examine this place myself, expecting to pass through some extent of forest on my way. In this however I was much disappointed, as the whole road lies through grass and scrubby thickets, and it was only after reaching the village of Sahoe that some high forest land was perceived stretching towards the mountains to the north of it. About half-way we dad to pass a deep river on a bamboo raft, which almost sunk beneath us. This stream was said to rise a long way off to the northward. Although Sahoe did not at all appear what I expected, I determined to give it a trial, and a few days afterwards obtained a boat to carry my things by sea while I walked overland. A large house on the beach belonging to the Sultan was given me. It stood alone, and was quite open on every side, so that little privacy could be had, but as I only intended to stay a short time I made it do. Avery, few days dispelled all hopes I might have entertained of making good collections in this place. Nothing was to be found in every direction but interminable tracts of reedy grass, eight or ten feet high, traversed by narrow baths, often almost impassable. Here and there were clumps of fruit trees, patches of low wood, and abundance of plantations and rice grounds, all of which are, in tropical regions, a very desert for the entomologist. The virgin forest that I was in search of, existed only on the summits and on the steep rocky sides of the mountains a long way off, and in inaccessible situations. In the suburbs of the village I found a fair number of bees and wasps, and some small but interesting beetles. Two or three new birds were obtained by my hunters, and by incessant inquiries and promises I succeeded in getting the natives to bring me some land shells, among which was a very fine and handsome one, Helix pyrostoma. I was, however, completely wasting my time here compared with what I might be doing in a good locality, and after a week returned to Ternate, quite disappointed with my first attempts at collecting in Gilolo. In the country round about Sahoe, and in the interior, there is a large population of indigenes, numbers of whom came daily into the village, bringing their produce for sale, while others were engaged as labourers by the Chinese and Ternate traders. A careful examination convinced me that these people are radically distinct from all the Malay races. Their stature and their features, as well as their disposition and habits, are almost the same as those of the Papuans; their hair is semi-Papuan-neither straight, smooth, and glossy, like all true Malays', nor so frizzly and woolly as the perfect Papuan type, but always crisp, waved, and rough, such as often occurs among the true Papuans, but never among the Malays. Their colour alone is often exactly that of the Malay, or even lighter. Of course there has been intermixture, and there occur occasionally individuals which it is difficult to classify; but in most cases the large, somewhat aquiline nose, with elongated apex, the tall stature, the waved hair, the bearded face, and hairy body, as well as the less reserved manner and louder voice, unmistakeably proclaim the Papuan type. Here then I had discovered the exact boundary lice between the Malay and Papuan races, and at a spot where no other writer had expected it. I was very much pleased at this determination, as it gave me a clue to one of the most difficult problems in Ethnology, and enabled me in many other places to separate the two races, and to unravel their intermixtures. On my return from Waigiou in 1860, I stayed some days on the southern extremity of Gilolo; but, beyond seeing something more of its structure and general character, obtained very little additional information. It is only in the northern peninsula that there are any indígenes, the whole of the rest of the island, with Batchian and the other islands westward, being exclusively inhabited by Malay tribes, allied to those of Ternate and Tidore. This would seem to indicate that the Alfuros were a comparatively recent immigration, and that they lead come from the north or east, perhaps from some of the islands of the Pacific. It is otherwise difficult to understand how so many fertile districts should possess no true indigenes. Gilolo, or Halmaheira as it is called by the Malays and Dutch, seems to have been recently modified by upheaval and subsidence. In 1673, a mountain is said to stave been upheaved at Gamokonora on the northern peninsula. All the parts that I have seen have either been volcanic or coralline, and along the coast there are fringing coral reefs very dangerous to navigation. At the same time, the character of its natural history proves it to be a rather ancient land, since it possesses a number of animals peculiar to itself or common to the small islands around it, but almost always distinct from those of New Guinea on the east, of Ceram on the south, and of Celebes and the Sula islands on the west. The island of Morty, close to the north-eastern extremity of Gilolo, was visited by my assistant Charles Allen, as well as by Dr. Bernstein; and the collections obtained there present some curious differences from those of the main island. About fifty-six species of land-birds are known to inhabit this island, and of these, a kingfisher (Tanysiptera Boris), a honey-sucker (Tropidorhynchus fuscicapillus), and a large crow-like starling (Lycocorax morotensis), are quite distinct from allied species found in Gilolo. The island is coralline and sandy, and we must therefore believe it to have been separated from Gilolo at a somewhat remote epoch; while we learn from its natural history that an arm of the sea twenty-five miles wide serves to limit the range even of birds of considerable powers of flight. CHAPTER XXIII. TERNATE TO THE KAIOA ISLANDS AND BATCHIAN. (OCTOBER 1858.) ON returning to Ternate from Sahoe, I at once began making preparations for a journey to Batchian, an island which I had been constantly recommended to visit since I had arrived in this part of the Moluccas. After all was ready I found that I should have to hire a boat, as no opportunity of obtaining a passage presented itself. I accordingly went into the native town, and could only find two boats for hire, one much larger than I required, and the other far smaller than I wished. I chose the smaller one, chiefly because it would not cost me one-third as much as the larger one, and also because in a coasting voyage a small vessel can be more easily managed, and more readily got into a place of safety during violent gales, than a large one. I took with me my Bornean lad Ali, who was now very useful to me; Lahagi, a native of Ternate, a very good steady man, and a fair shooter, who had been with me to New Guinea; Lahi, a native of Gilolo, who could speak Malay, as woodcutter and general assistant; and Garo, a boy who was to act as cook. As the boat was so small that we had hardly room to stow ourselves away when all my stores were on board, I only took one other man named Latchi, as pilot. He was a Papuan slave, a tall, strong black fellow, but very civil and careful. The boat I had hired from a Chinaman named Lau Keng Tong, for five guilders a month. We started on the morning of October 9th, but had not got a hundred yards from land, when a strong head wind sprung up, against which we could not row, so we crept along shore to below the town, and waited till the turn of the tide should enable us to cross over to the coast of Tidore. About three in the afternoon we got off, and found that our boat sailed well, and would keep pretty close to the wind. We got on a good way before the wind fell and we had to take to our oars again. We landed on a nice sandy beach to cook our suppers, just as the sun set behind the rugged volcanic hills, to the south of the great cone of Tidore, and soon after beheld the planet Venus shining in the twilight with the brilliancy of a new moon, and casting a very distinct shadow. We left again a little before seven, and as we got out from the shadow of the mountain I observed a bright light over one part of the edge, and soon after, what seemed a fire of remarkable whiteness on the very summit of the hill. I called the attention of my men to it, and they too thought it merely a fire; but a few minutes afterwards, as we got farther off shore, the light rose clear up above the ridge of the hill, and some faint clouds clearing away from it, discovered the magnificent comet which was at the same time, astonishing all Europe. The nucleus presented to the naked eye a distinct disc of brilliant white light, from which the tail rose at an angle of about 30° or 35° with the horizon, curving slightly downwards, and terminating in a broad brush of faint light, the curvature of which diminished till it was nearly straight at the end. The portion of the tail next the comet appeared three or four tunes as bright as the most luminous portion of the milky way, and what struck me as a singular feature was that its upper margin, from the nucleus to very near the extremity, was clearly and almost sharply defined, while the lower side gradually shaded off into obscurity. Directly it rose above the ridge of the hill, I said to my men, "See, it's not a fire, it's a bintang ber-ekor" ("tailed-star," the Malay idiom for a comet). "So it is," said they; and all declared that they had often heard tell of such, but had never seen one till now. I had no telescope with me, nor any instrument at hand, but I estimated the length of the tail at about 20°, and the width, towards the extremity, about 4° or 5°. The whole of the next day we were obliged to stop near the village of Tidore, owing to a strong wind right in our teeth. The country was all cultivated, and I in vain searched for any insects worth capturing. One of my men went out to shoot, but returned home without a single bird. At sunset, the wind having dropped, we quitted Tidore, and reached the next island, March, where we stayed till morning. The comet was again visible, but not nearly so brilliant, being partly obscured by clouds; and dimmed by the light of the new moon. We then rowed across to the island of Motir, which is so surrounded with coral-reefs that it is dangerous to approach. These are perfectly flat, and are only covered at high water, ending in craggy vertical walls of coral in very deep water. When there is a little wind, it is dangerous to come near these rocks; but luckily it was quite smooth, so we moored to their edge, while the men crawled over the reef to the land, to make; a fire and cook our dinner-the boat having no accommodation for more than heating water for my morning and evening coffee. We then rowed along the edge of the reef to the end of the island, and were glad to get a nice westerly breeze, which carried us over the strait to the island of Makian, where we arrived about 8 P.M, The sky was quite clear, and though the moon shone brightly, the comet appeared with quite as much splendour as when we first saw it. The coasts of these small islands are very different according to their geological formation. The volcanoes, active or extinct, have steep black beaches of volcanic sand, or are fringed with rugged masses of lava and basalt. Coral is generally absent, occurring only in small patches in quiet bays, and rarely or never forming reefs. Ternate, Tidore, and Makian belong to this class. Islands of volcanic origin, not themselves volcanoes, but which have been probably recently upraised, are generally more or less completely surrounded by fringing reefs of coral, and have beaches of shining white coral sand. Their coasts present volcanic conglomerates, basalt, and in some places a foundation of stratified rocks, with patches of upraised coral. Mareh and Motir are of this character, the outline of the latter giving it the appearance of having been a true volcano, and it is said by Forrest to have thrown out stones in 1778. The next day (Oct. 12th), we coasted along the island of Makian, which consists of a single grand volcano. It was now quiescent, but about two centuries ago (in 1646) there was a terrible eruption, which blew up the whole top of the mountain, leaving the truncated jagged summit and vast gloomy crater valley which at this time distinguished it. It was said to have been as lofty as Tidore before this catastrophe. [Soon after I' left the Archipelago, on the 29th of December, 1862, another eruption of this mountain suddenly took place, which caused great devastation in the island. All the villages and crops were destroyed, and numbers of the inhabitants killed. The sand and ashes fell so thick that the crops were partially destroyed fifty miles off, at Ternate, where it was so dark the following day that lamps had to be lighted at noon. For the position of this and the adjacent islands, see the map in Chapter XXXVII.] I stayed some time at a place where I saw a new clearing on a very steep part of the mountain, and obtained a few interesting insects. In the evening we went on to the extreme southern point, to be ready to pass across the fifteen-mile strait to the island of Kaióa. At five the next morning we started, but the wind, which had hitherto been westerly, now got to the south and southwest, and we had to row almost all the way with a burning sun overhead. As we approached land a fine breeze sprang up, and we went along at a great pace; yet after an hour we were no nearer, and found we were in a violent current carrying us out to sea. At length we overcame it, and got on shore just as the sun set, having been exactly thirteen hours coming fifteen miles. We landed on a beach of hard coralline rock, with rugged cliffs of the same, resembling those of the Ke Islands (Chap. XXIX.) It was accompanied by a brilliancy and luxuriance of the vegetation, very like what I had observed at those islands, which so much pleased me that I resolved to stay a few days at the chief village, and see if their animal productions were correspondingly interesting. While searching for a secure anchorage for the night we again saw the comet, still apparently as brilliant as at first, but the tail had now risen to a higher angle. October 14th.--All this day we coasted along the Kaióa Islands, which have much the appearance and outline of Ke on a small scale, with the addition of flat swampy tracts along shore, and outlying coral reefs. Contrary winds and currents had prevented our taking the proper course to the west of them, and we had to go by a circuitous route round the southern extremity of one island, often having to go far out to sea on account of coral reefs. On trying to pass a channel through one of these reefs we were grounded, and all had to get out into the water, which in this shallow strait had been so heated by the sun as to be disagreeably warm, and drag our vessel a considerable distance among weeds and sponges, corals and prickly corallines. It was late at night when we reached the little village harbour, and we were all pretty well knocked up by hard work, and having had nothing but very brackish water to drink all day-the best we could find at our last stopping-place. There was a house close to the shore, built for the use of the Resident of Ternate when he made his official visits, but now occupied by several native travelling merchants, among whom I found a place to sleep. The next morning early I went to the village to find the "Kapala," or head man. I informed him that I wanted to stay a few days in the house at the landing, and begged him to have it made ready for me. He was very civil, and came down at once to get it cleared, when we found that the traders had already left, on hearing that I required it. There were no doors to it, so I obtained the loan of a couple of hurdles to keep out dogs and other animals. The land here was evidently sinking rapidly, as shown by the number of trees standing in salt water dead and dying. After breakfast I started for a walk to the forest-covered hill above the village, with a couple of boys as guides. It was exceedingly hot and dry, no rain having fallen for two months. When we reached an elevation of about two hundred feet, the coralline rock which fringes the shore was succeeded by a hard crystalline rock, a kind of metamorphic sandstone. This would indicate flat there had been a recent elevation of more than two hundred feet, which had still more recently clanged into a movement of subsidence. The hill was very rugged, but among dry sticks and fallen trees I found some good insects, mostly of forms and species I was already acquainted with from Ternate and Gilolo. Finding no good paths I returned, and explored the lower ground eastward of the village, passing through a long range of plantain and tobacco grounds, encumbered with felled and burnt logs, on which I found quantities of beetles of the family Buprestidae of six different species, one of which was new to me. I then reached a path in the swampy forest where I hoped to find some butterflies, but was disappointed. Being now pretty well exhausted by the intense heat, I thought it wise to return and reserve further exploration for the next day. When I sat down in the afternoon to arrange my insects, the louse was surrounded by men, women, and children, lost in amazement at my unaccountable proceedings; and when, after pinning out the specimens, I proceeded to write the name of the place on small circular tickets, and attach one to each, even the old Kapala, the Mahometan priest, and some Malay traders could not repress signs of astonishment. If they had known a little more about the ways and opinions of white men, they would probably have looked upon me as a fool or a madman, but in their ignorance they accepted my operations as worthy of all respect, although utterly beyond their comprehension. The next day (October 16th) I went beyond the swamp, and found a place where a new clearing was being made in the virgin forest. It was a long and hot walk, and the search among the fallen trunks and branches was very fatiguing, but I was rewarded by obtaining about seventy distinct species of beetles, of which at least a dozen were new to me, and many others rare and interesting. I have never in my life seen beetles so abundant as they were on this spot. Some dozen species of good-sized golden Buprestidae, green rose-chafers (Lomaptera), and long-horned weevils (Anthribidae), were so abundant that they rose up in swarms as I walked along, filling the air with a loud buzzing hum. Along with these, several fine Longicorns were almost equally common, forming such au assemblage as for once to realize that idea of tropical luxuriance which one obtains by looking over the drawers of a well-filled cabinet. On the under sides of the trunks clung numbers of smaller or more sluggish Longicorns, while on the branches at the edge of the clearing others could be detected sitting with outstretched antenna ready to take flight at the least alarm. It was a glorious spot, and one which will always live in my memory as exhibiting the insect-life of the tropics in unexampled luxuriance. For the three following days I continued to visit this locality, adding each time many new species to my collection-the following notes of which may be interesting to entomologists. October 15th, 33 species of beetles; 16th, 70 species; 17th, 47 species; 18th, 40 species; 19th, 56 species--in all about a hundred species, of which forty were new to me. There were forty-four species of Longicorns among them, and on the last day I took twenty-eight species of Longicorns, of which five were new to me. My boys were less fortunate in shooting. The only birds at all common were the great red parrot (Eclectus grandis), found in most of the Moluccas, a crow, and a Megapodius, or mound-maker. A few of the pretty racquet-tailed kingfishers were also obtained, but in very poor plumage. They proved, however, to be of a different species from those found in the other islands, and come nearest to the bird originally described by Linnaeus under the name of Alcedo dea, and which came from Ternate. This would indicate that the small chain of islands parallel to Gilolo have a few peculiar species in common, a fact which certainly occurs in insects. The people of Kaioa interested me much. They are evidently a mixed race, having Malay and Papuan affinities, and are allied to the peoples of Ternate and of Gilolo. They possess a peculiar language, somewhat resembling those of the surrounding islands, but quite distinct. They are now Mahometans, and are subject to Ternate, The only fruits seen here were papaws and pine-apples, the rocky soil and dry climate being unfavourable. Rice, maize, and plantains flourish well, except that they suffer from occasional dry seasons like the present one. There is a little cotton grown, from which the women weave sarongs (Malay petticoats). There is only one well of good water on the islands, situated close to the landing-place, to which all the inhabitants come for drinking water. The men are good boat-builders, and they make a regular trade of it and seem to be very well off. After five days at Kaióa we continued our journey, and soon got among the narrow straits and islands which lead down to the town of Batchian. In the evening we stayed at a settlement of Galela men. These are natives of a district in the extreme north of Gilolo, and are great wanderers over this part of the Archipelago. They build large and roomy praus with outriggers, and settle on any coast or island they take a fancy for. They hunt deer and wild pig, drying the meat; they catch turtle and tripang; they cut down the forest and plant rice or maize, and are altogether remarkably energetic and industrious. They are very line people, of light complexion, tall, and with Papuan features, coming nearer to the drawings and descriptions of the true Polynesians of Tahiti and Owyhee than any I have seen. During this voyage I had several times had an opportunity of seeing my men get fire by friction. A sharp-edged piece of bamboo is rubbed across the convex surface of another piece, on which a small notch is first cut. The rubbing is slow at first and gradually quicker, till it becomes very rapid, and the fine powder rubbed off ignites and falls through the hole which the rubbing has cut in the bamboo. This is done with great quickness and certainty. The Ternate, people use bamboo in another way. They strike its flinty surface with a bit of broken china, and produce a spark, which they catch in some kind of tinder. On the evening of October 21st we reached our destination, having been twelve days on the voyage. It had been tine weather all the time, and, although very hot, I had enjoyed myself exceedingly, and had besides obtained some experience in boat work among islands and coral reefs, which enabled me afterwards to undertake much longer voyages of the same kind. The village or town of Batchian is situated at the head of a wide and deep bay, where a low isthmus connects the northern and southern mountainous parts of the island. To the south is a fine range of mountains, and I had noticed at several of our landing-places that the geological formation of the island was very different from those around it. Whenever rock was visible it was either sandstone in thin layers, dipping south, or a pebbly conglomerate. Sometimes there was a little coralline limestone, but no volcanic rocks. The forest had a dense luxuriance and loftiness seldom found on the dry and porous lavas and raised coral reefs of Ternate and Gilolo; and hoping for a corresponding richness in the birds and insects, it was with much satisfaction and with considerable expectation that I began my explorations in the hitherto unknown island of Batchian. CHAPTER XXIV. BATCHIAN. (OCTOBER 1858 To APRIL 1859.) I LANDED opposite the house kept for the use of the Resident of Ternate, and was met by a respectable middle-aged Malay, who told me he was Secretary to the Sultan, and would receive the official letter with which I had been provided. On giving it him, he at once informed me I might have the use of the official residence which was empty. I soon got my things on shore, but on looking about me found that the house would never do to stay long in. There was no water except at a considerable distance, and one of my men would be almost entirely occupied getting water and firewood, and I should myself have to walk all through the village every day to the forest, and live almost in public, a thing I much dislike. The rooms were all boarded, and had ceilings, which are a great nuisance, as there are no means of hanging anything up except by driving nails, and not half the conveniences of a native bamboo and thatch cottage. I accordingly inquired for a house outside of the village on the road to the coal mines, and was informed by the Secretary that there was a small one belonging to the Sultan, and that he would go with me early next morning to see it. We had to pass one large river, by a rude but substantial bridge, and to wade through another fine pebbly stream of clear water, just beyond which the little but was situated. It was very small, not raised on posts, but with the earth for a floor, and was built almost entirely of the leaf-stems of the sago-palm, called here "gaba-gaba." Across the river behind rose a forest-clad bank, and a good road close in front of the horse led through cultivated grounds to the forest about half a mile on, and thence to the coal mines tour miles further. These advantages at once decided me, and I told the Secretary I would be very glad to occupy the house. I therefore sent my two men immediately to buy "ataps" (palm-leaf thatch) to repair the roof, and the next day, with the assistance of eight of the Sultan's men, got all my stores and furniture carried up and pretty comfortably arranged. A rough bamboo bedstead was soon constructed, and a table made of boards which I had brought with me, fixed under the window. Two bamboo chairs, an easy cane chair, and hanging shelves suspended with insulating oil cups, so as to be safe from ants, completed my furnishing arrangements. In the afternoon succeeding my arrival, the Secretary accompanied me to visit the Sultan. We were kept waiting a few minutes in an outer gate-house, and then ushered to the door of a rude, half-fortified whitewashed house. A small table and three chairs were placed in a large outer corridor, and an old dirty-faced man with grey hair and a grimy beard, dressed in a speckled blue cotton jacket and loose red trousers, came forward, shook hands, and asked me to be coated. After a quarter of an hour's conversation on my pursuits, in which his Majesty seemed to take great interest, tea and cakes-of rather better quality than usual on such occasions-were brought in. I thanked him for the house, and offered to show him my collections, which he promised to come and look at. He then asked me to teach him to take views-to make maps-to get him a small gun from England, and a milch-goat from Bengal; all of which requests I evaded as skilfully as I was able, and we parted very good friends. He seemed a sensible old man, and lamented the small population of the island, which he assured me was rich in many valuable minerals, including gold; but there were not people enough to look after them and work them. I described to him the great rush of population on the discovery of the Australian gold mines, and the huge nuggets found there, with which he was much interested, and exclaimed, "Oh? if we had but people like that, my country would be quite as rich." The morning after I had got into my new house, I sent my boys out to shoot, and went myself to explore the road to the coal mines. In less than half a mile it entered the virgin forest, at a place where some magnificent trees formed a kind of natural avenue. The first part was flat and swampy, but it soon rose a little, and ran alongside the fine stream which passed behind my house, and which here rushed and gurgled over a rocky or pebbly bed, sometimes leaving wide sandbanks on its margins, and at other places flowing between high banks crowned with a varied and magnificent forest vegetation. After about two miles, the valley narrowed, and the road was carried along the steep hill-side which rose abruptly from the water's edge. In some places the rock had been cut away, but its surface was already covered with elegant ferns and creepers. Gigantic tree-ferns were abundant, and the whole forest had an air of luxuriance and rich variety which it never attains in the dry volcanic soil to which I had been lately accustomed. A little further the road passed to the other side of the valley by a bridge across the stream at a place where a great mass of rock in the middle offered an excellent support for it, and two miles more of most picturesque and interesting road brought me to the mining establishment. This is situated in a large open space, at a spot where two tributaries fall into the main stream. Several forest-paths and new clearings offered fine collecting grounds, and I captured some new and interesting insects; but as it was getting late I had to reserve a more thorough exploration for future occasions. Coal had been discovered here some years before, and the road was made in order to bring down a sufficient quantity for a fair trial on the Dutch steamers. The quality, however, was not thought sufficiently good, and the mines were abandoned. Quite recently, works had been commenced in another spot, in Hopes of finding a better vein. There ware about eighty men employed, chiefly convicts; but this was far too small a number for mining operations in such a country, where the mere keeping a few miles of road in repair requires the constant work of several men. If coal of sufficiently good quality should be found, a tramroad would be made, and would be very easily worked, owing to the regular descent of the valley. Just as I got home I overtook Ali returning from shooting with some birch hanging from his belt. He seemed much pleased, and said, "Look here, sir, what a curious bird," holding out what at first completely puzzled me. I saw a bird with a mass of splendid green feathers on its breast, elongated into two glittering tufts; but, what I could not understand was a pair of long white feathers, which stuck straight out from each shoulder. Ali assured me that the bird stuck them out this way itself, when fluttering its wings, and that they had remained so without his touching them. I now saw that I had got a great prize, no less than a completely new form of the Bird of Paradise, differing most remarkably from every other known bird. The general plumage is very sober, being a pure ashy olive, with a purplish tinge on the back; the crown of the head is beautifully glossed with pale metallic violet, and the feathers of the front extend as much over the beak as inmost of the family. The neck and breast are scaled with fine metallic green, and the feathers on the lower part are elongated on each side, so as to form a two-pointed gorget, which can be folded beneath the wings, or partially erected and spread out in the same way as the side plumes of most of the birds of paradise. The four long white plumes which give the bird its altogether unique character, spring from little tubercles close to the upper edge of the shoulder or bend of the wing; they are narrow, gentle curved, and equally webbed on both sides, of a pure creamy white colour. They are about six inches long, equalling the wing, and can be raised at right angles to it, or laid along the body at the pleasure of the bird. The bill is horn colour, the legs yellow, and the iris pale olive. This striking novelty has been named by Mr. G. R. Gray of the British Museum, Semioptera Wallacei, or "Wallace's Standard wing." A few days later I obtained an exceedingly beautiful new butterfly, allied to the fine blue Papilio Ulysses, but differing from it in the colour being of a more intense tint, and in having a row of blue stripes around the margin of the lower wings. This good beginning was, however, rather deceptive, and I soon found that insects, and especially butterflies, were somewhat scarce, and birds in tar less variety than I had anticipated. Several of the fine Moluccan species were however obtained. The handsome red lory with green wings and a yellow spot in the back (Lorius garrulus), was not uncommon. When the Jambu, or rose apple (Eugenic sp.), was in flower in the village, flocks of the little lorikeet (Charmosyna placentis), already met with in Gilolo, came to feed upon the nectar, and I obtained as many specimens as I desired. Another beautiful bird of the parrot tribe was the Geoffroyus cyanicollis, a green parrot with a red bill and head, which colour shaded on the crown into azure blue, and thence into verditer blue and the green of the back. Two large and handsome fruit pigeons, with metallic green, ashy, and rufous plumage, were not uncommon; and I was rewarded by finding a splendid deep blue roller (Eurystomus azureus); a lovely golden-capped sunbird (Nectarinea auriceps), and a fine racquet-tailed kingfisher (Tanysiptera isis), all of which were entirely new to ornithologists. Of insects I obtained a considerable number of interesting beetles, including many fine longicorns, among which was the largest and handsomest species of the genus Glenea yet discovered. Among butterflies the beautiful little Danis sebae was abundant, making the forests gay with its delicate wings of white and the richest metallic blue; while showy Papilios, and pretty Pieridae, and dark, rich Euphaeas, many of them new, furnished a constant source of interest and pleasing occupation. The island of Batchian possesses no really indigenous inhabitants, the interior being altogether uninhabited; and there are only a few small villages on various parts of the coast; yet I found here four distinct races, which would wofully mislead an ethnological traveller unable to obtain information as to their origin, first there are the Batchian Malays, probably the earliest colonists, differing very little from those of Ternate. Their language, however, seems to have more of the Papuan element, with a mixture of pure Malay, showing that the settlement is one of stragglers of various races, although now sufficiently homogeneous. Then there are the "Orang Sirani," as at Ternate and Amboyna. Many of these have the Portuguese physiognomy strikingly preserved, but combined with a skin generally darker than the Malays. Some national customs are retained, and the Malay, which is their only language, contains a large number of Portuguese words and idioms. The third race consists of the Galela men from the north of Gilolo, a singular people, whom I have already described; and the fourth is a colony from Tomóre, in the eastern peninsula of Celebes. These people were brought here at their own request a few years ago, to avoid extermination by another tribe. They have a very light complexion, open Tartar physiognomy, low stature, and a language of the Bugis type. They are an industrious agricultural people, and supply the town with vegetables. They make a good deal of bark cloth, similar to the tapa of the Polynesians, by cutting down the proper trees and taping off large cylinders of bark, which is beaten with mallets till it separates from the wood. It is then soaked, and so continuously and regularly beaten out that it becomes as thin and as tough as parchment. In this foam it is much used for wrappers for clothes; and they also make jackets of it, sewn neatly together and stained with the juice of another kind of bark, which gives it a dark red colour and renders it nearly waterproof. Here are four very distinct kinds of people who may all be seen any day in and about the town of Batchian. Now if we suppose a traveller ignorant of Malay, picking up a word or two here and there of the "Batchian language," and noting down the "physical and moral peculiarities, manners, and customs of the Batchian people"--(for there are travellers who do all this in four-and-twenty hours)--what an accurate and instructive chapter we should have' what transitions would be pointed out, what theories of the origin of races would be developed while the next traveller might flatly contradict every statement and arrive at exactly opposite conclusions. Soon after I arrived here the Dutch Government introduced a new copper coinage of cents instead of doits (the 100th instead of the 120th part of a guilder), and all the old coins were ordered to be sent to Ternate to be changed. I sent a bag containing 6,000 doits, and duly received the new money by return of the boat. Then Ali went to bring it, however, the captain required a written order; so I waited to send again the next day, and it was lucky I did so, for that night my house was entered, all my boxes carried out and ransacked, and the various articles left on the road about twenty yards off, where we found them at five in the morning, when, on getting up and finding the house empty, we rushed out to discover tracks of the thieves. Not being able to find the copper money which they thought I had just received, they decamped, taking nothing but a few yards of cotton cloth and a black coat and trousers, which latter were picked up a few days afterwards hidden in the grass. There was no doubt whatever who were the thieves. Convicts are employed to guard the Government stores when the boat arrives from Ternate. Two of them watch all night, and often take the opportunity to roam about and commit robberies. The next day I received my money, and secured it well in a strong box fastened under my bed. I took out five or six hundred cents for daily expenses, and put them in a small japanned box, which always stood upon my table. In the afternoon I went for a short walk, and on my return this box and my keys, which I had carelessly left on the table, were gone. Two of my boys were in the house, but had heard nothing. I immediately gave information of the two robberies to the Director at the mines and to the Commandant at the fort, and got for answer, that if I caught the thief in the act I might shoot him. By inquiry in the village, we afterwards found that one of the convicts who was on duty at the Government rice-store in the village had quitted his guard, was seen to pass over the bridge towards my house, was seen again within two hundred yards of my house, and on returning over the bridge into the village carried something under his arm, carefully covered with his sarong. My box was stolen between the hours he was seen going and returning, and it was so small as to be easily carried in the way described. This seemed pretty clear circumstantial evidence. I accused the man and brought the witnesses to the Commandant. The man was examined, and confessed having gone to the river close to my house to bathe; but said he had gone no farther, having climbed up a cocoa-nut tree and brought home two nuts, which he had covered over, _because he was ashamed to be seen carrying them!_ This explanation was thought satisfactory, and he was acquitted. I lost my cash and my box, a seal I much valued, with other small articles, and all my keys-the severest loss by far. Luckily my large cash-box was left locked, but so were others which I required to open immediately. There was, however, a very clever blacksmith employed to do ironwork for the mines, and he picked my locks for me when I required them, and in a few days made me new keys, which I used all the time I was abroad. Towards the end of November the wet season set in, and we had daily and almost incessant rains, with only about one or two hours' sunshine in the morning. The flat parts of the forest became flooded, the roads filled with mud, and insects and birds were scarcer than ever. On December Lath, in the afternoon, we had a sharp earthquake shock, which made the house and furniture shale and rattle for five minutes, and the trees and shrubs wave as if a gust of wind had passed over them. About the middle of December I removed to the village, in order more easily to explore the district to the west of it, and to be near the sea when I wished to return to Ternate. I obtained the use of a good-sized house in the Campong Sirani (or Christian village), and at Christmas and the New Year had to endure the incessant gun-firing, drum-beating, and fiddling of the inhabitants. These people are very fond of music and dancing, and it would astonish a European to visit one of their assemblies. We enter a gloomy palm-leaf hut, in which two or three very dim lamps barely render darkness visible. The floor is of black sandy earth, the roof hid in a smoky impenetrable blackness; two or three benches stand against the walls, and the orchestra consists of a fiddle, a fife, a drum, and a triangle. There is plenty of company, consisting of young men and women, all very neatly dressed in white and black--a true Portuguese habit. Quadrilles, waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas are danced with great vigour and much skill. The refreshments are muddy coffee and a few sweetmeats. Dancing is kept up for hours, and all is conducted with much decorum and propriety. A party of this kind meets about once a week, the principal inhabitants taking it by turns, and all who please come in without much ceremony. It is astonishing how little these people have altered in three hundred years, although in that time they have changed their language and lost all knowledge of their own nationality. They are still in manners and appearance almost pure Portuguese, very similar to those with whom I had become acquainted on the banks of the Amazon. They live very poorly as regards their house and furniture, but preserve a semi-European dress, and have almost all full suits of black for Sundays. They are nominally Protestants, but Sunday evening is their grand day for music and dancing. The men are often good hunters; and two or three times a week, deer or wild pigs are brought to the village, which, with fish and fowls, enables them to live well. They are almost the only people in the Archipelago who eat the great fruit-eating bats called by us "flying foxes." These ugly creatures are considered a great delicacy, and are much sought after. At about the beginning of the year they come in large flocks to eat fruit, and congregate during the day on some small islands in the bay, hanging by thousands on the trees, especially on dead ones. They can then be easily caught or knocked down with sticks, and are brought home by basketsfull. They require to be carefully prepared, as the skin and fur has a rank end powerful foxy odour; but they are generally cooked with abundance of spices and condiments, and are really very good eating, something like hare. The Orang Sirani are good cooks, having a much greater variety of savoury dishes than the Malays. Here, they live chiefly on sago as bread, with a little rice occasionally, and abundance of vegetables and fruit. It is a curious fact that everywhere in the Past where the Portuguese have mixed with the native races they leave become darker in colour than either of the parent stocks. This is the case almost always with these "Orang Sirani" in the Moluccas, and with the Portuguese of Malacca. The reverse is the case in South America, where the mixture of the Portuguese or Brazilian with the Indian produces the "Mameluco," who is not unfrequently lighter than either parent, and always lighter than the Indian. The women at Batchian, although generally fairer than the men, are coarse in features, and very far inferior in beauty to the mixed Dutch-Malay girls, or even to many pure Malays. The part of the village in which I resided was a grove of cocoa-nut trees, and at night, when the dead leaves were sometimes collected together and burnt, the effect was most magnificent--the tall stems, the fine crowns of foliage, and the immense fruit-clusters, being brilliantly illuminated against a dark sky, and appearing like a fairy palace supported on a hundred columns, and groined over with leafy arches. The cocoa-nut tree, when well grown, is certainly the prince of palms both for beauty and utility. During my very first walk into the forest at Batchian, I had seen sitting on a leaf out of reach, an immense butterfly of a dark colour marked with white and yellow spots. I could not capture it as it flew away high up into the forest, but I at once saw that it was a female of a new species of Ornithoptera or "bird-winged butterfly," the pride of the Eastern tropics. I was very anxious to get it and to find the male, which in this genus is always of extreme beauty. During the two succeeding months I only saw it once again, and shortly afterwards I saw the male flying high in the air at the mining village. I had begun to despair of ever getting a specimen, as it seemed so rare and wild; till one day, about the beginning of January, I found a beautiful shrub with large white leafy bracts and yellow flowers, a species of Mussaenda, and saw one of these noble insects hovering over it, but it was too quick for me, and flew away. The next clay I went again to the same shrub and succeeded in catching a female, and the day after a fine male. I found it to be as I had expected, a perfectly new and most magnificent species, and one of the most gorgeously coloured butterflies in the world. Fine specimens of the male are more than seven inches across the wings, which are velvety black and fiery orange, the latter colour replacing the green of the allied species. The beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can understand the intense excitement I experienced when I at length captured it. On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death. I had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement produced by what will appear to most people a very inadequate cause. I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, but this grand capture determined me to stay on till I obtained a good series of the new butterfly, which I have since named Ornithoptera croesus. The Mussaenda bush was an admirable place, which I could visit every day on my way to the forest; and as it was situated in a dense thicket of shrubs and creepers, I set my man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so that I could easily get at any insect that might visit it. Afterwards, finding that it was often necessary to wait some time there, I had a little seat put up under a tree by the side of it, where I came every day to eat my lunch, and thus had half an hour's watching about noon, besides a chance as I passed it in the morning. In this way I obtained on an average one specimen a day for a long time, but more than half of these were females, and more than half the remainder worn or broken specimens, so that I should not have obtained many perfect males had I not found another station for them. As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man Lahi with a net on purpose to search for them, as they had also been seen at some flowering trees on the beach, and I promised him half a day's wages extra for every good specimen he could catch. After a day or two he brought me two very fair specimens, and told me he had caught them in the bed of a large rocky stream that descends from the mountains to the sea abort a mile below the village. They flew down this river, settling occasionally on stones and rocks in the water, and he was obliged to wade up it or jump from rock to rock to get at them. I went with him one day, but found that the stream was far too rapid and the stones too slippery for me to do anything, so I left it entirely to him, and all the rest of the time we stayed in Batchian he used to be out all day, generally bringing me one, and on good days two or three specimens. I was thus able to bring away with me more than a hundred of both sexes, including perhaps twenty very fine males, though not more than five or six that were absolutely perfect. My daily walk now led me, first about half a mile along the sandy beach, then through a sago swamp over a causeway of very shaky poles to the village of the Tomore people. Beyond this was the forest with patches of new clearing, shady paths, and a considerable quantity of felled timber. I found this a very fair collecting ground, especially for beetles. The fallen trunks in the clearings abounded with golden Buprestidae and curious Brenthidae, and longicorns, while in the forest I found abundance of the smaller Curculionidae, many longicorns, and some fine green Carabidae. Butterflies were not abundant, but I obtained a few more of the fine blue Papilio, and a number of beautiful little Lycaenidae, as well as a single specimen of the very rare Papilio Wallacei, of which I had taken the hitherto unique specimen in the Aru Islands. The most interesting birds I obtained here, were the beautiful blue kingfisher, Todiramphus diops; the fine green and purple doves, Ptilonopus superbus and P. iogaster, and several new birds of small size. My shooters still brought me in specimens of the Semioptera Wallacei, and I was greatly excited by the positive statements of several of the native hunters that another species of this bird existed, much handsomer and more remarkable. They declared that the plumage was glossy black, with metallic green breast as in my species, but that the white shoulder plumes were twice as long, and hung down far below the body of the bird. They declared that when hunting pigs or deer far in the forest they occasionally saw this bird, but that it was rare. I immediately offered twelve guilders (a pound) for a specimen; but all in vain, and I am to this day uncertain whether such a bird exists. Since I left, the German naturalist, Dr. Bernstein, stayed many months in the island with a large staff of hunters collecting for the Leyden Museum; and as he was not more successful than myself, we must consider either that the bird is very rare, or is altogether a myth. Batchian is remarkable as being the most eastern point on the globe inhabited by any of the Quadrumana. A large black baboon-monkey (Cynopithecus nigrescens) is abundant in some parts of the forest. This animal has bare red callosities, and a rudimentary tail about an inch long--a mere fleshy tubercle, which may be very easily overlooked. It is the same species that is found all over the forests of Celebes, and as none of the other Mammalia of that island extend into Batchian I am inclined to suppose that this species has been accidentally introduced by the roaming Malays, who often carry about with them tame monkeys and other animals. This is rendered more probable by the fact that the animal is not found in Gilolo, which is only separated from Batchian by a very narrow strait. The introduction may have been very recent, as in a fertile and unoccupied island such an animal would multiply rapidly. The only other mammals obtained were an Eastern opossum, which Dr. Gray has described as Cuscus ornatus; the little flying opossum, Belideus ariel; a Civet cat, Viverra zebetha; and nice species of bats, most of the smaller ones being caught in the dusk with my butterfly net as they flew about before the house. After much delay, owing to bad weather and the illness of one of my men, I determined to visit Kasserota (formerly the chief village), situated up a small stream, on an island close to the north coast of Batchian; where I was told that many rare birds were found. After my boat was loaded and everything ready, three days of heavy squalls prevented our starting, and it was not till the 21st of March that we got away. Early next morning we entered the little river, and in about an hour we reached the Sultan's house, which I had obtained permission to use. It was situated on the bank of the river, and surrounded by a forest of fruit trees, among which were some of the very loftiest and most graceful cocoa-nut palms I have ever seen. It rained nearly all that day, and I could do little but unload and unpack. Towards the afternoon it cleared up, and I attempted to explore in various directions, but found to my disgust that the only path was a perfect mud swamp, along which it was almost impossible to walk, and the surrounding forest so damp and dark as to promise little in the way of insects. I found too on inquiry that the people here made no clearings, living entirely on sago, fruit, fish, and game; and the path only led to a steep rocky mountain equally impracticable and unproductive. The next day I sent my men to this hill, hoping it might produce some good birds; but they returned with only two common species, and I myself had been able to get nothing; every little track I had attempted to follow leading to a dense sago swamp. I saw that I should waste time by staying here, and determined to leave the following day. This is one of those spots so hard for the European naturalist to conceive, where with all the riches of a tropical vegetation, and partly perhaps from the very luxuriance of that vegetation, insects are as scarce as in the most barren parts of Europe, and hardly more conspicuous. In temperate climates there is a tolerable uniformity in the distribution of insects over those parts of a country in which there is a similarity in the vegetation, any deficiency being easily accounted for by the absence of wood or uniformity of surface. The traveller hastily passing through such a country can at once pick out a collecting ground which will afford him a fair notion of its entomology. Here the case is different. There are certain requisites of a good collecting ground which can only be ascertained to exist by some days' search in the vicinity of each village. In some places there is no virgin forest, as at Djilolo and Sahoe; in others there are no open pathways or clearings, as here. At Batchian there are only two tolerable collecting places,--the road to the coal mines, and the new clearings made by the Tomóre people, the latter being by far the most productive. I believe the fact to be that insects are pretty uniformly distributed over these countries (where the forests have not been cleared away), and are so scarce in any one spot that searching for them is almost useless. If the forest is all cleared away, almost all the insects disappear with it; but when small clearings and paths are made, the fallen trees in various stages of drying and decay, the rotting leaves, the loosening bark and the fungoid growths upon it, together with the flowers that appear in much greater abundance where the light is admitted, are so many attractions to the insects for miles around, and cause a wonderful accumulation of species and individuals. When the entomologist can discover such a spot, he does more in a mouth than he could possibly do by a year's search in the depths of the undisturbed forest. The next morning we left early, and reached the mouth of the little river in about au hour. It flows through a perfectly flat alluvial plain, but there are hills which approach it near the mouth. Towards the lower part, in a swamp where the salt-water must enter at high tides, were a number of elegant tree-ferns from eight to fifteen feet high. These are generally considered to be mountain plants, and rarely to occur on the equator at an elevation of less than one or two thousand feet. In Borneo, in the Aru Islands, and on the banks of the Amazon, I have observed them at the level of the sea, and think it probable that the altitude supposed to be requisite for them may have been deduced from facts observed in countries where the plains and lowlands are largely cultivated, and most of the indigenous vegetation destroyed. Such is the case in most parts of Java, India, Jamaica, and Brazil, where the vegetation of the tropics has been most fully explored. Coming out to sea we turned northwards, and in about two hours' sail reached a few huts, called Langundi, where some Galela men had established themselves as collectors of gum-dammar, with which they made torches for the supply of the Ternate market. About a hundred yards back rises a rather steep hill, and a short walk having shown me that there was a tolerable path up it, I determined to stay here for a few days. Opposite us, and all along this coast of Batchian, stretches a row of fine islands completely uninhabited. Whenever I asked the reason why no one goes to live in them, the answer always was, "For fear of the Magindano pirates." Every year these scourges of the Archipelago wander in one direction or another, making their rendezvous on some uninhabited island, and carrying devastation to all the small settlements around; robbing, destroying, killing, or taking captive all they nee with. Their long well-manned praus escape from the pursuit of any sailing vessel by pulling away right in the wind's eye, and the warning smoke of a steamer generally enables them to hide in some shallow bay, or narrow river, or forest-covered inlet, till the danger is passed. The only effectual way to put a stop to their depredations would be to attack them in their strongholds and villages, and compel them to give up piracy, and submit to strict surveillance. Sir James Brooke did this with the pirates of the north-west coast of Borneo, and deserves the thanks of the whole population of the Archipelago for having rid them of half their enemies. All along the beach here, and in the adjacent strip of sandy lowland, is a remarkable display of Pandanaceae or Screw-pines. Some are like huge branching candelabra, forty or fifty feet high, and bearing at the end of each branch a tuft of immense sword-shaped leaves, six or eight inches wide, and as many feet long. Others have a single unbranched stem, six or seven feet high, the upper part clothed with the spirally arranged leaves, and bearing a single terminal fruit ac large as a swan's egg. Others of intermediate size have irregular clusters of rough red fruits, and all have more or less spiny-edged leaves and ringed stems. The young plants of the larger species have smooth glossy thick leaves, sometimes ten feet long and eight inches wide, which are used all over the Moluccas and New Guinea, to make "cocoyas" or sleeping mats, which are often very prettily ornamented with coloured patterns. Higher up on the bill is a forest of immense trees, among which those producing the resin called dammar (Dammara sp.) are abundant. The inhabitants of several small villages in Batchian are entirely engaged in searching for this product, and making it into torches by pounding it and filling it into tubes of palm leaves about a yard long, which are the only lights used by many of the natives. Sometimes the dammar accumulates in large masses of ten or twenty pounds weight, either attached to the trunk, or found buried in the ground at the foot of the trees. The most extraordinary trees of the forest are, however, a kind of fig, the aerial roots of which form a pyramid near a hundred feet high, terminating just where the tree branches out above, so that there is no real trunk. This pyramid or cone is formed of roots of every size, mostly descending in straight lines, but more or less obliquely-and so crossing each other, and connected by cross branches, which grow from one to another; as to form a dense and complicated network, to which nothing but a photograph could do justice (see illustration at Vol. I. page 130). The Kanary is also abundant in this forest, the nut of which has a very agreeable flavour, and produces an excellent oil. The fleshy outer covering of the nut is the favourite food of the great green pigeons of these islands (Carpophaga, perspicillata), and their hoarse copings and heavy flutterings among the branches can be almost continually heard. After ten days at Langundi, finding it impossible to get the bird I was particularly in search of (the Nicobar pigeon, or a new species allied to it), and finding no new birds, and very few insects, I left early on the morning of April 1st, and in the evening entered a river on the main island of Batchian (Langundi, like Kasserota, being on a distinct island), where some Malays and Galela men have a small village, and have made extensive rice-fields and plantain grounds. Here we found a good house near the river bank, where the water was fresh and clear, and the owner, a respectable Batchian Malay, offered me sleeping room and the use of the verandah if I liked to stay. Seeing forest all round within a short distance, I accepted his offer, and the next morning before breakfast walked out to explore, and on the skirts of the forest captured a few interesting insects. Afterwards, I found a path which led for a mile or more through a very fine forest, richer in palms than any I had seen in the Moluccas. One of these especially attracted my attention from its elegance. The stein was not thicker than my wrist, yet it was very lofty, and bore clusters of bright red fruit. It was apparently a species of Areca. Another of immense height closely resembled in appearance the Euterpes of South America. Here also grew the fan-leafed palm, whose small, nearly entire leaves are used to make the dammar torches, and to form the water-buckets in universal use. During this walk I saw near a dozen species of palms, as well as two or three Pandani different from those of Langundi. There were also some very fine climbing ferns and true wild Plantains (Musa), bearing an edible fruit not so large as one's thumb, and consisting of a mass of seeds just covered with pulp and skin. The people assured me they had tried the experiment of sowing and cultivating this species, but could not improve it. They probably did not grow it in sufficient quantity, and did not persevere sufficiently long. Batchian is an island that would perhaps repay the researches of a botanist better than any other in the whole Archipelago. It contains a great variety of surface and of soil, abundance of large and small streams, many of which are navigable for some distance, and there being no savage inhabitants, every part of it can be visited with perfect safety. It possesses gold, copper, and coal, hot springs and geysers, sedimentary and volcanic rocks and coralline limestone, alluvial plains, abrupt hills and lofty mountains, a moist climate, and a grand and luxuriant forest vegetation. The few days I stayed here produced me several new insects, but scarcely any birds. Butterflies and birds are in fact remarkably scarce in these forests. One may walk a whole day and not see more than two or three species of either. In everything but beetles, these eastern islands are very deficient compared with the western (Java, Borneo, &c.), and much more so if compared with the forests of South America, where twenty or thirty species of butterflies may be caught every day, and on very good days a hundred, a number we can hardly reach here in months of unremitting search. In birds there is the same difference. In most parts of tropical America we may always find some species of woodpecker tanager, bush shrike, chatterer, trogon, toucan, cuckoo, and tyrant-flycatcher; and a few days' active search will produce more variety than can be here met with in as many months. Yet, along with this poverty of individuals and of species, there are in almost every class and order, some one, or two species of such extreme beauty or singularity, as to vie with, or even surpass, anything that even South America can produce. One afternoon when I was arranging my insects, and surrounded by a crowd of wondering spectators, I showed one of them how to look at a small insect with a hand-lens, which caused such evident wonder that all the rest wanted to see it too. I therefore fixed the glass firmly to a piece of soft wood at the proper focus, and put under it a little spiny beetle of the genus Hispa, and then passed it round for examination. The excitement was immense. Some declared it was a yard long; others were frightened, and instantly dropped it, and all were as much astonished, and made as much shouting and gesticulation, as children at a pantomime, or at a Christmas exhibition of the oxyhydrogen microscope. And all this excitement was produced by a little pocket lens, an inch and a half focus, and therefore magnifying only four or five times, but which to their unaccustomed eyes appeared to enlarge a hundred fold. On the last day of my stay here, one of my hunters succeeded in finding and shooting the beautiful Nicobar pigeon, of which I had been so long in search. None of the residents had ever seen it, which shows that it is rare and slay. My specimen was a female in beautiful condition, and the glassy coppery and green of its plumage, the snow-white tail and beautiful pendent feathers of the neck, were greatly admired. I subsequently obtained a specimen in New Guinea; and once saw it in the Kaióa islands. It is found also in some small islands near Macassar, in others near Borneo; and in the Nicobar islands, whence it receives its name. It is a ground feeder, only going upon trees to roost, and is a very heavy fleshy bird. This may account far the fact of its being found chiefly on very small islands, while in the western half of the Archipelago, it seems entirely absent from the larger ones. Being a ground feeder it is subject to the attacks of carnivorous quadrupeds, which are not found in the very small islands. Its wide distribution over the whole length of the Archipelago; from extreme west to east, is however very extraordinary, since, with the exception of a few of the birds of prey, not a single land bird has so wide a range. Ground-feeding birds are generally deficient in power of extended flight, and this species is so bulky and heavy that it appears at first sight quite unable to fly a mile. A closer examination shows, however, that its wings are remarkably large, perhaps in proportion to its size larger than those of any other pigeon, and its pectoral muscles are immense. A fact communicated to me by the son of my friend Mr. Duivenboden of Ternate, would show that, in accordance with these peculiarities of structure, it possesses the power of flying long distances. Mr. D. established an oil factory on a small coral island, a hundred miles north of New Guinea, with no intervening land. After the island had been settled a year, and traversed in every direction, his son paid it a visit; and just as the schooner was coming to an anchor, a bird was seen flying from seaward which fell into the water exhausted before it could reach the shore. A boat was sent to pick it up, and it was found to be a Nicobar pigeon, which must have come from New Guinea, and flown a hundred miles, since no such bird previously inhabited the island. This is certainly a very curious case of adaptation to an unusual and exceptional necessity. The bird does not ordinarily require great powers of flight, since it lives in the forest, feeds on fallen fruits, and roosts in low trees like other ground pigeons. The majority of the individuals, therefore, can never make full use of their enormously powerful wings, till the exceptional case occurs of an individual being blown out to sea, or driven to emigrate by the incursion of some carnivorous animal, or the pressure of scarcity of food. A modification exactly opposite to that which produced the wingless birds (the Apteryx, Cassowary, and Dodo), appears to have here taken place; and it is curious that in both cases an insular habitat should have been the moving cause. The explanation is probably the same as that applied by Mr. Darwin to the case of the Madeira beetles, many of which are wingless, while some of the winged ones have the wings better developed than the same species on the continent. It was advantageous to these insects either never to fly at all, and thus not run the risk of being blown out to sea, or to fly so well as to be able either to return to land, or to migrate safely to the continent. Pad flying was worse than not flying at all. So, while in such islands as New Zealand and Mauritius far from all land, it was safer for a ground-feeding bird not to fly at all, and the short-winged individuals continually surviving, prepared the way for a wingless group of birds; in a vast Archipelago thickly strewn with islands and islets it was advantageous to be able occasionally to migrate, and thus the long and strong-winged varieties maintained their existence longest, and ultimately supplanted all others, and spread the race over the whole Archipelago. Besides this pigeon, the only new bird I obtained during the trip was a rare goat-sucker (Batrachostomus crinifrons), the only species of the genus yet found in the Moluccas. Among my insects the best were the rare Pieris arum, of a rich chrome yellow colour, with a black border and remarkable white antenna--perhaps the very finest butterfly of the genus; and a large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a stag-beetle, which has been named Megachile Pluto by Mr. B. Smith. I collected about a hundred species of beetles quite new to me, but mostly very minute, and also many rare and handsome ones which I had already found in Batchian. On the whole I was tolerably satisfied with my seventeen days' excursion, which was a very agreeable one, and enabled me to sea a good deal of the island. I had hired a roomy boat, and brought with me a small table and my rattan chair. These were great comforts, as, wherever there was a roof, I could immediately instal myself, and work and eat at ease. When I could not find accommodation on shore I slept in the boat, which was always drawn up on the beach if we stayed for a few days at one spot. On my return to Batchian I packed up my collections, and prepared for my return to Ternate. When I first came I had sent back my boat by the pilot, with two or three other men who had been glad of the opportunity. I now took advantage of a Government boat which had just arrived with rice for the troops, and obtained permission to return in her, and accordingly started on the 13th of April, having resided only a week short of six months on the island of Batchian. The boat was one of the kind called "Kora-kora," quite open, very low, and about four tons burthen. It had outriggers of bamboo about five feet off each side, which supported a bamboo platform extending the whole length of the vessel. On the extreme outside of this sit the twenty rowers, while within was a convenient passage fore and aft. The middle portion of the boat was covered with a thatch-house, in which baggage and passengers are stowed; the gunwale was not more than a foot above water, and from the great top and side weight, and general clumsiness, these boats are dangerous in heavy weather, and are not unfrequently lost. A triangle mast and mat sail carried us on when the wind was favourable,--which (as usual) it never was, although, according to the monsoon, it ought to have been. Our water, carried in bamboos, would only last two days, and as the voyage occupied seven, we had to touch at a great many places. The captain was not very energetic, and the men rowed as little as they pleased, or we might have reached Ternate in three days, having had fine weather and little wind all the way. There were several passengers besides myself: three or four Javanese soldiers, two convicts whose time had expired (one, curiously enough, being the man who had stolen my cash-box and keys), the schoolmaster's wife and a servant going on a visit to Ternate, and a Chinese trader going to buy goods. We had to sleep all together in the cabin, packed pretty close; but they very civilly allowed me plenty of room for my mattrass, and we got on very well together. There was a little cookhouse in the bows, where we could boil our rice and make our coffee, every one of course bringing his own provisions, and arranging his meal-times as he found most convenient. The passage would have been agreeable enough but for the dreadful "tom-toms," or wooden drums, which are beaten incessantly while the men are rowing. Two men were engaged constantly at them, making a fearful din the whole voyage. The rowers are men sent by the Sultan of Ternate. They get about threepence a day, and find their own provisions. Each man had a strong wooden "betel" box, on which he generally sat, a sleeping-mat, and a change of clothes--rowing naked, with only a sarong or a waistcloth. They sleep in their places, covered with their mat, which keeps out the rain pretty well. They chew betel or smoke cigarettes incessantly; eat dry sago and a little salt fish; seldom sing while rowing, except when excited and wanting to reach a stopping-place, and do not talk a great deal. They are mostly Malays, with a sprinkling of Alfuros from Gilolo, and Papuans from Guebe or Waigiou. One afternoon we stayed at Makian; many of the men went on shore, and a great deal of plantains, bananas, and other fruits were brought on board. We then went on a little way, and in the evening anchored again. When going to bed for the night, I put out my candle, there being still a glimmering lamp burning, and, missing my handkerchief, thought I saw it on a box which formed one side of my bed, and put out my hand to take it. I quickly drew back on feeling something cool and very smooth, which moved as I touched it. "Bring the light, quick," I cried; "here's a snake." And there he was, sure enough, nicely coiled up, with his head just raised to inquire who had disturbed him. It was mow necessary to catch or kill him neatly, or he would escape among the piles of miscellaneous luggage, and we should hardly sleep comfortably. One of the ex-convicts volunteered to catch him with his hand wrapped up in a cloth, but from the way he went about it I saw he was nervous and would let the thing go, so I would mot allow him to make the attempt. I them got a chopping-knife, and carefully moving my insect nets, which hung just over the snake and prevented me getting a free blow, I cut him quietly across the back, holding him down while my boy with another knife crushed his head. On examination, I found he had large poison fangs, and it is a wonder he did not bite me when I first touched him. Thinking it very unlikely that two snakes had got on board at the same time, I turned in and went to sleep; but having all the time a vague dreamy idea that I might put my hand on another one, I lay wonderfully still, not turning over once all night, quite the reverse of my usual habits. The next day we reached Ternate, and I ensconced myself in my comfortable house, to examine all my treasures, and pack them securely for the voyage home. CHAPTER XXV. CERAM, GORAM, AND THE MATABELLO ISLANDS. (OCTOBER 1859 To JUNE 1860.) I LEFT Amboyna for my first visit to Ceram at three o'clock in the morning of October 29th, after having been delayed several days by the boat's crew, who could not be got together. Captain Van der Beck, who gave me a passage in his boat, had been running after them all day, and at midnight we had to search for two of my men who had disappeared at the last moment. One we found at supper in his own house, and rather tipsy with his parting libations of arrack, but the other was gone across the bay, and we were obliged to leave without him. We stayed some hours at two villages near the east end of Amboyna, at one of which we had to discharge some wood for the missionaries' house, and on the third afternoon reached Captain Van der Beck's plantation, situated at Hatosua, in that part of Ceram opposite to the island of Amboyna. This was a clearing in flat and rather swampy forest, about twenty acres in extent, and mostly planted with cacao and tobacco. Besides a small cottage occupied by the workmen, there was a large shed for tobacco drying, a corner of which was offered me; and thinking from the look of the place that I should find good collecting ground here, I fitted up temporary tables, benches, and beds, and made all preparations for some weeks' stay. A few days, however, served to show that I should be disappointed. Beetles were tolerably abundant, and I obtained plenty of fine long-horned Anthribidae and pretty Longicorns, but they were mostly the same species as I had found during my first short visit to Amboyna. There were very few paths in the forest; which seemed poor in birds and butterflies, and day after day my men brought me nothing worth notice. I was therefore soon obliged to think about changing my locality, as I could evidently obtain no proper notion of the productions of the almost entirely unexplored island of Ceram by staying in this place. I rather regretted leaving, because my host was one of the most remarkable men and most entertaining companions I had ever met with. He was a Fleeting by birth, and, like so many of his countrymen, had a wonderful talent for languages. When quite a youth he had accompanied a Government official who was sent to report on the trade and commerce of the Mediterranean, and had acquired the colloquial language of every place they stayed a few weeks at. He had afterwards made voyages to St. Petersburg, and to other parts of Europe, including a few weeks in London, and had then come out to the past, where he had been for some years trading and speculating in the various islands. He now spoke Dutch, French, Malay, and Javanese, all equally well; English with a very slight accent, but with perfect fluency, axed a most complete knowledge of idiom, in which I often tried to puzzle him in vain. German and Italian were also quite familiar to him, and his acquaintance with European languages included Modern Greek, Turkish, Russian, and colloquial Hebrew and Latin. As a test of his power, I may mention that he had made a voyage to the out-of-the-way island of Salibaboo, and had stayed there trading a few weeks. As I was collecting vocabularies, he told me he thought he could remember some words, and dictated considerable number. Some time after I met with a short list of words taken down in those islands, and in every case they agreed with those he had given me. He used to sing a Hebrew drinking-song, which he had learned from some Jews with whom he had once travelled, and astonished by joining in their conversation, and had a never-ending fund of tale and anecdote about the people he had met and the places he had visited. In most of the villages of this part of Ceram are schools and native schoolmasters, and the inhabitants have been long converted to Christianity. In the larger villages there are European missionaries; but there is little or no external difference between the Christian and Alfuro villages, nor, as far as I have seen, in their inhabitants. The people seem more decidedly Papuan than those of Gilolo. They are darker in colour, and a number of them have the frizzly Papuan hair; their features also are harsh and prominent, and the women in particular are far less engaging than those of the Malay race. Captain Van der Beck was never tired of abusing the inhabitants of these Christian villages as thieves, liars, and drunkards, besides being incorrigibly lazy. In the city of Amboyna my friends Doctors Mohnike and Doleschall, as well as most of the European residents and traders, made exactly the same complaint, and would rather have Mahometans for servants, even if convicts, than any of the native Christians. One great cause of this is the fact, that with the Mahometans temperance is a part of their religion, and has become so much a habit that practically the rule is never transgressed. One fertile source of want, and one great incentive to idleness and crime, is thus present with the one class, but absent in the other; but besides this the Christians look upon themselves as nearly the equals of the Europeans, who profess the same religion, and as far superior to the followers of Islam, and are therefore prone to despise work, and to endeavour to live by trade, or by cultivating their own land. It need hardly be said that with people in this low state of civilization religion is almost wholly ceremonial, and that neither are the doctrines of Christianity comprehended, nor its moral precepts obeyed. At the same time, as far as my own experience goes, I have found the better class of "Orang Sirani" as civil, obliging, and industrious as the Malays, and only inferior to them from their tendency to get intoxicated. Having written to the Assistant Resident of Saparua (who has jurisdiction over the opposite part of the coast of Ceram) for a boat to pursue my journey, I received one rather larger than necessary with a crew of twenty men. I therefore bade adieu to my kind friend Captain Van der Beck, and left on the evening after its arrival for the village of Elpiputi, which we reached in two days. I had intended to stay here, but not liking the appearance of the place, which seemed to have no virgin forest near it, I determined to proceed about twelve miles further up the bay of Amahay, to a village recently formed, and inhabited by indigenes from the interior, and where some extensive cacao plantations were being made by some gentlemen of Amboyna. I reached the place (called Awaiya) the same afternoon, and with the assistance of Mr. Peters (the manager of the plantations) and the native chief, obtained a small house, got all my things on shore, and paid and discharged my twenty boatmen, two of whom had almost driven me to distraction by beating tom-toms the whole voyage. I found the people here very nearly in a state of nature, and going almost naked. The men wear their frizzly hair gathered into a flat circular knot over the left temple, which has a very knowing look, and in their ears cylinders of wood as thick as one's finger, and coloured red at the ends. Armlets and anklets of woven grass or of silver, with necklaces of beads or of small fruits, complete their attire. The women wear similar ornaments, but have their hair loose. All are tall, with a dark brown skin, and well marked Papuan physiognomy. There is an Amboyna schoolmaster in the village, and a good number of children attend school every morning. Such of the inhabitants as have become Christians may be known by their wearing their hair loose, and adopting to some extent the native Christian dress-trousers and a loose shirt. Very few speak Malay, all these coast villages having been recently formed by inducing natives to leave the inaccessible interior. In all the central part of Ceram there new remains only one populous village in the mountains. Towards the east and the extreme west are a few others, with which exceptions all the inhabitants of Ceram are collected on the coast. In the northern and eastern districts they are mostly Mahometans, while on the southwest coast, nearest Amboyna, they are nominal Christians. In all this part of the Archipelago the Dutch make very praiseworthy efforts to improve the condition of the aborigines by establishing schoolmasters in every village (who are mostly natives of Amboyna or Saparua, who have; been instructed by the resident missionaries), and by employing native vaccinators to prevent the ravages of smallpox. They also encourage the settlement of Europeans, and the formation of new plantations of cacao and coffee, one of the best means of raising the condition of the natives, who thus obtain work at fair wages, and have the opportunity of acquiring something of European tastes and habits. My collections here did not progress much better than at my former station, except that butterflies were a little more plentiful, and some very fine species were to be found in the morning on the sea-beach, sitting so quietly on the wet sand that they could be caught with the fingers. In this way I had many fine specimens of Papilios brought me by the children. Beetles, however, were scarce, and birds still more so, and I began to think that the handsome species which I had so often heard were found in Ceram must be entirely confined to the eastern extremity of the island. A few miles further worth, at the head of the Bay of Amahay, is situated the village of Makariki, from whence there is a native path quite across the island to the north coast. My friend Mr. Rosenberg, whose acquaintance I had made at New Guinea, and who was now the Government superintendent of all this part of Ceram, returned from Wahai, on the north coast, after I had been three weeks at Awaiya, and showed me some fine butterflies he had obtained on the mountain streams in the interior. He indicated a spot about the centre of the island where he thought I might advantageously stay a few days. I accordingly visited Makariki with him the next day, and he instructed the chief of the village to furnish me with men to carry my baggage, and accompany me on my excursion. As the people of the village wanted to be at home on Christmas-day, it was necessary to start as soon as possible; so we agreed that the men should be ready in two days, and I returned to make my arrangements. I put up the smallest quantity of baggage possible for a six days' trip, and on the morning of December 18th we left Makariki, with six men carrying my baggage and their own provisions, and a lad from Awaiya, who was accustomed to catch butterflies for me. My two Amboyna hunters I left behind to shoot and skin what birds they could while I was away. Quitting the village, we first walked briskly for an hour through a dense tangled undergrowth, dripping wet from a storm of the previous night, and full of mud holes. After crossing several small streams we reached one of the largest rivers in Ceram, called Ruatan, which it was necessary to cross. It was both deep and rapid. The baggage was first taken over, parcel by parcel, on the men's heads, the water reaching nearly up to their armpits, and then two men returned to assist me. The water was above my waist, and so strong that I should certainly have been carried off my feet had I attempted to cross alone; and it was a matter of astonishment to me how the men could give me any assistance, since I found the greatest difficulty in getting my foot down again when I had once moved it off the bottom. The greater strength and grasping power of their feet, from going always barefoot, no doubt gave them a surer footing in the rapid water. After well wringing out our wet clothes and putting them on, we again proceeded along a similar narrow forest track as before, choked with rotten leaves and dead trees, and in the more open parts overgrown with tangled vegetation. Another hour brought us to a smaller stream flowing in a wide gravelly bed, up which our road lay. Here w e stayed half an hour to breakfast, and then went on, continually crossing the stream, or walking on its stony and gravelly banks, till about noon, when it became rocky and enclosed by low hills. A little further we entered a regular mountain-gorge, and had to clamber over rocks, and every moment cross and recross the water, or take short cuts through the forest. This was fatiguing work; and about three in the afternoon, the sky being overcast, and thunder in the mountains indicating an approaching storm, we had to loon out for a camping place, and soon after reached one of Mr. Rosenberg's old ones. The skeleton of his little sleeping-hut remained, and my men cut leaves and made a hasty roof just as the rain commenced. The baggage was covered over with leaves, and the men sheltered themselves as they could till the storm was over, by which time a flood came down the river, which effectually stopped our further march, even had we wished to proceed. We then lighted fires; I made some coffee, and my men roasted their fish and plantains, and as soon as it was dark, we made ourselves comfortable for the night. Starting at six the next morning, we had three hours of the same kind of walking, during which we crossed the river at least thirty or forty times, the water being generally knee-deep. This brought us to a place where the road left the stream, and here we stopped to breakfast. We then had a long walk over the mountain, by a tolerable path, which reached an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea. Here I noticed one of the smallest and most elegant tree ferns I had ever seen, the stem being scarcely thicker than my thumb, yet reaching a height of fifteen or twenty feet. I also caught a new butterfly of the genus Pieris, and a magnificent female specimen of Papilio gambrisius, of which I had hitherto only found the males, which are smaller and very different in colour. Descending the other side of the ridge, by a very steep path, we reached another river at a spot which is about the centre of the island, and which was to be our resting place for two or three days. In a couple of hour my men had built a little sleeping-shed for me, about eight feet by four, with a bench of split poles, they themselves occupying two or three smaller ones, which had been put up by former passengers. The river here was about twenty yards wide, running over a pebbly and sometimes a rocky bed, and bordered by steep hills with occasionally flat swampy spots between their base and the stream. The whole country was one dense, Unbroken, and very damp and gloomy virgin forest. Just at our resting-place there was a little bush-covered island in the middle of the channel, so that the opening in the forest made by the river was wider than usual, and allowed a few gleams of sunshine to penetrate. Here there were several handsome butterflies flying about, the finest of which, however, escaped me, and I never saw it again during my stay. In the two days and a half which we remained here, I wandered almost all day up and down the stream, searching after butterflies, of which I got, in all, fifty or sixty specimens, with several species quite new to me. There were many others which I saw only once, and did not capture, causing me to regret that there was no village in these interior valleys where I could stay a month. In the early part of each morning I went out with my gun in search of birds, and two of my men were out almost all day after deer; but we were all equally unsuccessful, getting absolutely nothing the whole time we were in the forest. The only good bird seen was the fine Amboyna lory, but these were always too high to shoot; besides this, the great Moluccan hornbill, which I did not want, was almost the only bird met with. I saw not a single ground-thrush, or kingfisher, or pigeon; and, in fact, have never been in a forest so utterly desert of animal life as this appeared to be. Even in all other groups of insects, except butterflies, there was the same poverty. I bad hoped to find some rare tiger beetles, as I had done in similar situations in Celebes; but, though I searched closely in forest, river-bed, and mountain-brook, I could find nothing but the two common Amboyna species. Other beetles there were absolutely none. The constant walking in water, and over rocks and pebbles, quite destroyed the two pair of shoes I brought with me, so that, on my return, they actually fell to pieces, and the last day I had to walk in my stockings very painfully, and reached home quite lame. On our way back from Makariki, as on our way there, we had storm and rain at sea, and we arrived at Awaiya late in the evening, with all our baggage drenched, and ourselves thoroughly uncomfortable. All the time I had been in Ceram I had suffered much from the irritating bites of an invisible acarus, which is worse than mosquitoes, ants, and every other pest, because it is impossible to guard against them. This last journey in the forest left me covered from head to foot with inflamed lumps, which, after my return to Amboyna, produced a serious disease, confining me to the house for nearly two months, a not very pleasant memento of my first visit to Ceram, which terminated with the year 1859. It was not till the 24th of February, 1860, that I started again, intending to pass from village to village along the coast, staying where I found a suitable locality. I had a letter from the Governor of the Moluccas, requesting all the chiefs to supply me with boats and men to carry me on my journey. The first boat took me in two days to Amahay, on the opposite side of the bay to Awaiya. The chief here, wonderful to relate, did not make any excuses for delay, but immediately ordered out the boat which was to carry me on, put my baggage on hoard, set up mast and sails after dark, and had the men ready that nigh; so that we were actually on our way at five the next morning,--a display of energy and activity I scarcely ever saw before in a native chief on such an occasion. We touched at Cepa, and stayed for the night at Tamilan, the first two Mahometan villages on the south coast of Ceram. The next day, about noon, we reached Hoya, which was as Far as my present boat and crew were going to take me. The anchorage is about a mile east of the village, which is faced by coral reefs, and we had to wait for the evening tide to move up and unload the boat into the strange rotten wooden pavilion kept for visitors. There was no boat here large enough to take my baggage; and although two would have done very well, the Rajah insisted upon sending four. The reason of this I found was, that there were four small villages under his rule, and by sending a boat from each he would avoid the difficult task of choosing two and letting off the others. I was told that at the next village of Teluti there were plenty of Alfuros, and that I could get abundance of Tories and other birds. The Rajah declared that black and yellow Tories and black cockatoos were found there; but I am inclined to think he knew very well he was telling me lies, and that it was only a scheme to satisfy me with his plan of taking me to that village, instead of a day's journey further on, as I desired. Here, as at most of the villages, I was asked for spirits, the people being mere nominal Mahometans, who confine their religion almost entirely to a disgust at pork, and a few other forbidden articles of food. The next morning, after much trouble, we got our cargoes loaded, and had a delightful row across the deep bay of Teluti, with a view of the grand central mountain-range of Ceram. Our four boats were rowed by sixty men, with flags flying and tom-toms beating, as well as very vigorous shouting and singing to keep up their spirits. The sea way smooth, the morning bright, and the whole scene very exhilarating. On landing, the Orang-kaya and several of the chief men, in gorgeous silk jackets, were waiting to receive us, and conducted me to a house prepared for my reception, where I determined to stay a few days, and see if the country round produced anything new. My first inquiries were about the lories, but I could get very little satisfactory information. The only kinds known were the ring-necked lory and the common red and green lorikeet, both common at Amboyna. Black Tories and cockatoos were quite unknown. The Alfuros resided in the mountains five or six days' journey away, and there were only one or two live birds to be found in the village, and these were worthless. My hunters could get nothing but a few common birds; and notwithstanding fine mountains, luxuriant forests, and a locality a hundred miles eastward, I could find no new insects, and extremely few even of the common species of Amboyna and West Ceram. It was evidently no use stopping at such a place, and I was determined to move on as soon as possible. The village of Teluti is populous, but straggling and very dirty. Sago trees here cover the mountain side, instead of growing as usual in low swamps; but a closer examination shows that they grow in swampy patches, which have formed among the loose rocks that cover the ground, and which are kept constantly full of moisture by the rains, and by the abundance of rills which trickle down among them. This sago forms almost the whole subsistence of the inhabitants, who appear to cultivate nothing but a few small patches of maize and sweet potatoes. Hence, as before explained, the scarcity of insects. The Orang-kaya has fine clothes, handsome lamps, and other expensive European goods, yet lives every day on sago and fish as miserably as the rest. After three days in this barren place I left on the morning of March 6th, in two boats of the same size as those which had brought me to Teluti. With some difficulty I had obtained permission to take these boats on to Tobo, where I intended to stay a while, and therefore got on pretty quickly, changing men at the village of Laiemu, and arriving in a heavy rain at Ahtiago. As there was a good deal of surf here, and likely to be more if the wind blew hard during the night, our boats were pulled up on the beach; and after supping at the Orang-kaya's house, and writing down a vocabulary of the language of the Alfuros, who live in the mountains inland, I returned to sleep in the boat. Next morning we proceeded, changing men at Warenama, and again at Hatometen, at both of which places there was much surf and no harbour, so that the men had to go on shore and come on board by swimming. Arriving in the evening of March 7th at Batuassa, the first village belonging to the Rajah of Tobo, and under the government of Banda, the surf was very heavy, owing to a strong westward swell. We therefore rounded the rocky point on which the village was situated, but found it very little better on the other side. We were obliged, however, to go on shore here; and waiting till the people on the beach had made preparations, by placing a row of logs from the water's edge on which to pull up our boats, we rowed as quickly as we could straight on to them, after watching till the heaviest surfs had passed. The moment we touched ground our men all jumped out, and, assisted by those on shore, attempted to haul up the boat high and dry, but not having sufficient hands, the surf repeatedly broke into the stern. The steepness of the beach, however, prevented any damage being done, and the other boat having both crews to haul at it, was got up without difficulty. The next morning, the water being low, the breakers were at some distance from shore, and we had to watch for a smooth moment after bringing the boats to the water's edge, and so got safely out to sea. At the two next villages, Tobo and Ossong, we also took in fresh men, who came swimming through the surf; and at the latter place the Rajah came on board and accompanied me to Kissalaut, where he has a house which he lent me during my stay. Here again was a heavy surf, and it was with great difficulty we got the boats safely hauled up. At Amboyna I had been promised at this season a calm sea and the wind off shore, but in this case, as in every other, I had been unable to obtain any reliable information as to the winds and seasons of places distant two or three days' journey. It appears, however, that owing to the general direction of the island of Ceram (E.S.E. and W.N.W.), there is a heavy surf and scarcely any shelter on the south coast during the west monsoon, when alone a journey to the eastward can be safely made; while during the east monsoon, when I proposed to return along the north coast to Wahai, I should probably find that equally exposed and dangerous. But although the general direction of the west monsoon in the Banda sea causes a heavy swell, with bad surf on the coast, yet we had little advantage of the wind; for, owing I suppose to the numerous bays and headlands, we had contrary south-east or even due east winds all the way, and had to make almost the whole distance from Amboyna by force of rowing. We had therefore all the disadvantages, and none of the advantages, of this west monsoon, which I was told would insure me a quick and pleasant journey. I was delayed at Kissa-laut just four weeks, although after the first three days I saw that it would be quite useless for me to stay, and begged the Rajah to give me a prau and men to carry me on to Goram. But instead of getting one close at hand, he insisted on sending several miles off; and when after many delays it at length arrived, it was altogether unsuitable and too small to carry my baggage. Another was then ordered to be brought immediately, and was promised in three days, but doable that time elapsed and none appeared, and we were obliged at length to get one at the adjoining village, where it might have been so much more easily obtained at first. Then came caulking and covering over, and quarrels between the owner and the Rajah's men, which occupied more than another ten days, during all which time I was getting absolutely nothing, finding this part of Ceram a perfect desert in zoology, although a most beautiful country, and with a very luxuriant vegetation. It was a complete puzzle, which to this day I have not been able to understand; the only thing I obtained worth notice during my month's stay here being a few good land shells. At length, on April 4th, we succeeded in getting away in our little boat of about four tons burthen, in which my numerous boxes were with difficulty packed so as to leave sleeping and cooling room. The craft could not boast an ounce of iron or a foot of rope in any part of its construction, nor a morsel of pitch or paint in its decoration. The planks were fastened together in the usual ingenious way with pegs and rattans. The mast was a bamboo triangle, requiring no shrouds, and carrying a long mat sail; two rudders were hung on the quarters by rattans, the anchor was of wood, and a long and thick rattan; served as a cable. Our crew consisted of four men, whose pole accommodation was about three feet by four in the bows and stern, with the sloping thatch roof to stretch themselves upon for a change. We had nearly a hundred miles to go, fully exposed to the swell of the Banda sea, which is sometimes very considerable; but we luckily had it calm and smooth, so that we made the voyage in comparative comfort. On the second day we passed the eastern extremity of Ceram, formed of a group of hummocky limestone hills; and, sailing by the islands of Kwammer and Keffing, both thickly inhabited, came in sight of the little town of Kilwaru, which appears to rise out of the sea like a rustic Venice. This place has really a most extraordinary appearance, as not a particle of land or vegetation can be seen, but a long way out at sea a large village seems to float upon the water. There is of course a small island of several acres in extent; but the houses are built so closely all round it upon piles in the water, that it is completely hidden. It is a place of great traffic, being the emporium for much of the produce of these Eastern seas, and is the residence of many Bugis and Ceramese traders, and appears to have been chosen on account of its being close to the only deep channel between the extensive shoals of Ceram-laut and those bordering the east end of Ceram. We now had contrary east winds, and were obliged to pole over the shallow coral reefs of Ceram-laut for nearly thirty miles. The only danger of our voyage was just at its termination, for as we were rowing towards Manowolko, the largest of the Goram group, we were carried out so rapidly by a strong westerly current, that I was almost certain at one time we should pass clear of the island; in which case our situation would have been both disagreeable and dangerous, as, with the east wind which had just set in, we might have been unable to return for many days, and we had not a day's water on board. At the critical moment I served out some strong spirits to my men, which put fresh vigour into their arms, and carried us out of the influence of the current before it was too late. MANOWOLKO, GORAM GROUP. On arriving at Manowolko, we found the Rajah was at the opposite island of Goram; but he was immediately sent for, and in the meantime a large shed was given for our accommodation. At night the Rajah came, and the next day I had a visit from him, and found, as I expected, that I had already made his acquaintance three years before at Aru. He was very friendly, and we had a long talk; but when I begged for a boat and men to take me on to Ke, he made a host of difficulties. There were no praus, as all had gone to Ke or Aim; and even if one were found, there were no men, as it was the season when all were away trading. But he promised to see about it, and I was obliged to wait. For the next two or three days there was more talking and more difficulties were raised, and I had time to make an examination of the island and the people. Manowolko is about fifteen miles long, and is a mere; upraised coral-reef. Two or three hundred yards inland rise cliffs of coral rock, in many parts perpendicular, and one or two hundred feet high; and this, I was informed, is characteristic of the whole island, in which there is no other kind of rock, and no stream of water. A few cracks and chasms furnish paths to the top of these cliffs, where there is an open undulating country, in which the chief vegetable grounds of the inhabitants are situated. The people here--at least the chief men--were of a much purer Malay race than the Mahometans of the mainland of Ceram, which is perhaps due to there having been no indigenes on these small islands when the first settlers arrived. In Ceram, the Alfuros of Papuan race are the predominant type, the Malay physiognomy being seldom well marked; whereas here the reverse is the case, and a slight infusion of Papuan on a mixture of Malay and Bugis has produced a very good-looking set of people. The lower class of the population consist almost entirely of the indigenes of the adjacent island. They are a fine race, with strongly-marked Papuan features, frizzly hair, and brown complexions. The Goram language is spoken also at the east end of Ceram, and in the adjacent islands. It has a general resemblance to the languages of Ceram, but possesses a peculiar element which I have not met with in other languages of the Archipelago. After great delay, considering the importance of every day at this time of year, a miserable boat and five men were found, and with some difficulty I stowed away in it such baggage as it was absolutely necessary for me to take, leaving scarcely sitting or sleeping room. The sailing qualities of the boat were highly vaunted, and I was assured that at this season a small one was much more likely to succeed in making the journey. We first coasted along the island, reaching its eastern extremity the following morning (April 11th), and found a strong W. S.W. wind blowing, which just allowed us to lay across to the Matabello Islands, a distance little short of twenty miles. I did not much like the look of the heavy sky and rather rough sea, and my men were very unwilling to make the attempt; but as we could scarcely hope for a better chance, I insisted upon trying. The pitching and jerking of our little boat, soon reduced me to a state of miserable helplessness, and I lay down, resigned to whatever might happen. After three or four hours, I was told we were nearly over; but when I got up, two hours later, just as the sun was setting, I found we were still a good distance from the point, owing to a strong current which had been for some time against us. Night closed in, and the wind drew more ahead, so we had to take in sail. Then came a calm, and we rowed and sailed as occasion offered; and it was four in the morning when we reached the village of Kisslwoi, not having made more than three miles in the last twelve hours. MATABELLO ISLANDS. At daylight I found we were; in a beautiful little harbour, formed by a coral reef about two hundred yards from shore, and perfectly secure in every wind. Having eaten nothing since the previous morning, we cooked our breakfast comfortably on shore, and left about noon, coasting along the two islands of this group, which lie in the same line, and are separated by a narrow channel. Both seem entirely formed of raised coral rock; but them has been a subsequent subsidence, as shaven by the barrier reef which extends all along them at varying distances from the shore, This reef is sometimes only marked by a. line of breakers when there is a little swell on the sea; in other places there is a ridge of dead coral above the water, which is here and there high enough to support a few low bushes. This was the first example I had met with of a true barrier reef due to subsidence, as has been so clearly shown by Mr. Darwin. In a sheltered archipelago they will seldom be distinguishable, from the absence of those huge rolling waves and breakers which in the wide ocean throw up a barrier of broken coral far above the usual high-water mark, while here they rarely rise to the surface. On reaching the end of the southern island, called Uta, we were kept waiting two days for a wind that would enable us to pass over to the next island, Teor, and I began to despair of ever reaching Ke, and determined on returning. We left with a south wind, which suddenly changed to north-east, and induced me to turn again southward in the hopes that this was the commencement of a few days' favourable weather. We sailed on very well in the direction of Teor for about an hour, after which the wind shifted to WSW., and we were driven much out of our course, and at nightfall found ourselves in the open sea, and full ten miles to leeward of our destination. My men were now all very much frightened, for if we went on we might be a. week at sea in our little open boat, laden almost to the water's edge; or we might drift on to the coast of New Guinea, in which case we should most likely all be murdered. I could not deny these probabilities, and although I showed them that we could not get back to our starting-point with the wind as it was, they insisted upon returning. We accordingly put about, and found that we could lay no nearer to Uta than to Teor; however, by great good luck, about ten o'clock we hit upon a little coral island, and lay under its lee till morning, when a favourable change of wind brought us back to Uta, and by evening (April 18th) we reached our first anchorage in Matabello, where I resolved to stay a few days, and then return to Goram. It way with much regret that I gave up my trip to Ke and the intervening islands, which I had looked forward to as likely to make up for my disappointment in Ceram, since my short visit on my voyage to Aru had produced me so many rare and beautiful insects. The natives of Matabello are almost entirely occupied in making cocoanut oil, which they sell to the Bugis and Goram traders, who carry it to Banda and Amboyna. The rugged coral rock seems very favourable to the growth of the cocoa-nut palm, which abounds over the whole island to the very highest points, and produces fruit all the year round. Along with it are great numbers of the areca or betel-nut palm, the nuts of which are sliced, dried, and ground into a paste, which is much used by the betel-chewing Malays and Papuans. All the little children here even such as can just run alone, carried between their lips a mass of the nasty-looking red paste, which is even more disgusting than to see them at the same age smoking cigars, which is very common even before they are weaned. Cocoa-nuts, sweet potatoes, an occasional sago cake, and the refuse nut after the oil has been extracted by boiling, form the chief sustenance of these people; and the effect of this poor and unwholesome diet is seen in the frequency of eruptions and scurfy skin diseases, and the numerous sores that disfigure the faces of the children. The villages are situated on high and rugged coral peaks, only accessible by steep narrow paths, with ladders and bridges over yawning chasms. They are filthy with rotten husks and oil refuse, and the huts are dark, greasy, and dirty in the extreme. The people are wretched ugly dirty savages, clothed in unchanged rags, and living in the most miserable manner, and as every drop of fresh water has to be brought up from the beach, washing is never thought of; yet they are actually wealthy, and have the means of purchasing all the necessaries and luxuries of life. Fowls are abundant, and eggs were given me whenever I visited the villages, but these are never eaten, being looked upon as pets or as merchandise. Almost all of the women wear massive gold earrings, and in every village there are dozens of small bronze cannon lying about on the ground, although they have cost on the average perhaps £10 a piece. The chief men of each village came to visit me, clothed in robes of silk and flowered satin, though their houses and their daily fare are no better than those of the ether inhabitants. What a contrast between these people and such savages as the best tribes of bill. Dyaks in Borneo, or the Indians of the Uaupes in South America, living on the banks of clear streams, clean in their persons and their houses, with abundance of wholesome food, and exhibiting its effect in healthy shins and beauty of form and feature! There is in fact almost as much difference: between the various races of savage as of civilized peoples, and we may safely affirm that the better specimens of the former are much superior to the lower examples of the latter class. One of the few luxuries of Matabello is the palm wine; which is the fermented sap from the flower stains of the cocoa-net. It is really a very mice drink, more like cyder than beer, though quite as intoxicating as the latter. Young cocoa-nuts are also very abundant, so that anywhere in the island it is only necessary to go a few yards to find a delicious beverage by climbing up a tree for it. It is the water of the young fruit that is drunk, before the pulp has hardened; it is then more abundant, clear, and refreshing, and the thin coating of gelatinous pulp is thought a treat luxury. The water of full-brown cocoa-nuts is always thrown away as undrinkable, although it is delicious in comparison with that of the old dry nuts which alone we obtain in this country. The cocoa-nut pulp I did not like at first; but fruits are so scarce, except at particular seasons, that one soon learns to appreciate anything of a fruity nature. Many persons in Europe are under the impression that fruits of delicious flavour abound in the tropical forests, and they will no doubt be surprised to learn that the truly wild fruits of this brand and luxuriant archipelago, the vegetation of which will vie with that of any part of the world, are in almost every island inferior in abundance and duality to those of Britain. Wild strawberries and raspberries are found in some places, but they are such poor tasteless things as to be hardly worth eating, and there is nothing to compare with our blackberries and whortleberries. The kanary-nut may be considered equal to a hazel-nut, but I have met with nothing else superior to our crabs, oar haws, beech-nuts, wild plums, and acorns; fruits which would be highly esteemed by the natives of these islands, and would form an important part of their sustenance. All the fine tropical fruits are as much cultivated productions as our apples, peaches, and plums, and their wild prototypes, when found, are generally either tasteless or uneatable. The people of Matabello, like those of most of the Mahometan villages of East Ceram and Goram, amused me much by their strange ideas concerning the Russian war. They believe that the Russians were not only most thoroughly beaten by the Turks, but were absolutely conquered, and all converted to Islamism! And they can hardly be convinced that such is not the case, and that had it not been for the assistance of France and England, the poor Sultan world have fared ill. Another of their motions is, that the Turks are the largest and strongest people in the world--in fact a race of giants; that they eat enormous quantities of meat, and are a most ferocious and irresistible nation. Whence such strangely incorrect opinions could have arisen it is difficult to understand, unless they are derived from Arab priests, or hadjis returned from Mecca, who may have heard of the ancient prowess of the Turkish armies when they made all Europe tremble, and suppose that their character and warlike capacity must be the same at the present time. GORAM A steady south-east wind having set in, we returned to Manowolko on the 25th of April, and the day after crossed over to Ondor, the chief village of Goram. Around this island extends, with few interruptions, an encircling coral reef about a quarter of a mile from the shore, visible as a stripe of pale green water, but only at very lowest ebb-tides showing any rock above the surface. There are several deep entrances through this reef, and inside it there is hood anchorage in all weathers. The land rises gradually to a moderate height, and numerous small streams descend on all sides. The mere existence of these streams would prove that the island was not entirely coralline, as in that case all the water would sink through the porous rock as it does at Manowolko and Matabello; but we have more positive proof in the pebbles and stones of their beds, which exhibit a variety of stratified crystalline rocks. About a hundred yards from the beach rises a wall of coral rock, ten or twenty feet high, above which is an undulating surface of rugged coral, which slopes downward towards the interior, and then after a slight ascent is bounded by a second wall of coral. Similar walls occur higher up, and coral is found on the highest part of the island. This peculiar structure teaches us that before the coral was formed land existed in this spot; that this land sunk gradually beneath the waters, but with intervals of rest, during which encircling reef's were formed around it at different elevations; that it then rose to above its present elevation, and is now again sinking. We infer this, because encircling reefs are a proof of subsidence; and if the island were again elevated about a hundred feet, what is now the reef and the shallow sea within it would form a wall of coral rock, and an undulating coralline plain, exactly similar to those that still exist at various altitudes up to the summit of the island. We learn also that these changes have taken place at a comparatively recent epoch, for the surface of the coral has scarcely suffered from the action of the weather, and hundreds of sea-shells, exactly resembling those still found upon the beach, and many of them retaining their gloss and even their colour, are scattered over the surface of the island to near its summit. Whether the Goram group formed originally part of New Guinea or of Ceram it is scarcely possible to determine, and its productions will throw little light upon the question, if, as I suppose, the islands have been entirely submerged within the epoch of existing species of animals, as in that case it must owe its present fauna and flora to recent immigration from surrounding lands; and with this view its poverty in species very well agrees. It possesses much in common with East Ceram, but at the same time has a good deal of resemblance to the Ke Islands and Banda. The fine pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, inhabits Ke, Banda, Il-Iatabello, and Goram, and is replaced by a distinct species, C. neglecta, in Ceram. The insects of these four islands have also a common facies--facts which seem to indicate that some more extensive land has recently disappeared from the area they now occupy, and has supplied them with a few of its peculiar productions. The Goram people (among whom I stayed a month) are a race of traders. Every year they visit the Tenimber, Ke, and Aru Islands, the whole north-west coast of New Guinea from Oetanata to Salwatty, and the island of Waigiou and Mysol. They also extend their voyages to Tidore and Ternate, as well as to Banda and Amboyna, Their praus are all made by that wonderful race of boatbuilders, the Ke islanders, who annually turn out some hundreds of boats, large and small, which can hardly be surpassed for beauty of form and goodness of workmanship, They trade chiefly in tripang, the medicinal mussoi bark, wild nutmegs, and tortoiseshell, which they sell to the Bugis traders at Ceram-laut or Aru, few of them caring to take their products to any other market. In other respects they are a lazy race, living very poorly, and much given to opium smoking. The only native manufactures are sail-matting, coarse cotton cloth, and pandanus-leaf boxes, prettily stained and ornamented with shell-work. In the island of Goram, only eight or ten miles long, there are about a dozen Rajahs, scarcely better off than the rest of the inhabitants, and exercising a mere nominal sway, except when any order is received from the Dutch Government, when, being backed by a higher power, they show a little more strict authority. My friend the Rajah of Ammer (commonly called Rajah of Goram) told me that a few years ago, before the Dutch had interfered in the affairs of the island, the trade was not carried on so peaceably as at present, rival praus often fighting when on the way to the same locality, or trafficking in the same village. Now such a thing is never thought of-one of the good effects of the superintendence of a civilized government. Disputes between villages are still, however, sometimes settled by fighting, and I one day saw about fifty men, carrying long guns and heavy cartridge-belts, march through the village. They had come from the other side of the island on some question of trespass or boundary, and were prepared for war if peaceable negotiations should fail. While at Manowolko I had purchased for 100 florins (£9.) a small prau, which was brought over the next day, as I was informed it was more easy to have the necessary alterations made in Goram, where several Ke workmen were settled. As soon as we began getting my prau ready I was obliged to give up collecting, as I found that unless I was constantly on the spot myself very little work would be clone. As I proposed making some long voyages in this boat, I determined to fit it up conveniently, and was obliged to do all the inside work myself, assisted by my two Amboynese boys. I had plenty of visitors, surprised to see a white man at work, and much astonished at the novel arrangements I was making in one of their native vessels. Luckily I had a few tools of my own, including a small saw and some chisels, and these were now severely tried, cutting and fitting heavy iron-wood planks for the flooring and the posts that support the triangular mast. Being of the best London make, they stood the work well, and without them it would have been impossible for me to have finished my boat with half the neatness, or in double the time. I had a Ke workman to put in new ribs, for which I bought nails of a Bugis trader, at 8d. a pound. My gimlets were, however, too small; and having no augers we were obliged to bore all the holes with hot irons, a most tedious and unsatisfactory operation. Five men had engaged to work at the prau till finished, and then go with me to Mysol, Waigiou, and Ternate. Their ideas of work were, however, very different from mine, and I had immense difficulty with them; seldom more than two or three coming together, and a hundred excuses being given for working only half a day when they did come. Yet they were constantly begging advances of money, saying they had nothing to eat. When I gave it them they were sure to stay away the next day, and when I refused any further advances some of them declined working any more. As the boat approached completion my difficulties with the men increased. The uncle of one had commenced a war, or sort of faction fight, and wanted his assistance; another's wife was ill, and would not let him come; a third had fever and ague, and pains in his head and back; and a fourth had an inexorable creditor who would not let him go out of his sight. They had all received a month's wages in advance; and though the amount was not large, it was necessary to make them pay it back, or I should get any men at all. I therefore sent the village constable after two, and kept them in custody a day, when they returned about three-fourths of what they owed me. The sick man also paid, and the steersman found a substitute who was willing to take his debt, and receive only the balance of his wages. About this time we had a striking proof of the dangers of New Guinea trading. Six men arrived at the village in a small boat almost starved, having escaped out of two praus, the remainder of whose crews (fourteen in number) had been murdered by the natives of New Guinea. The praus had left this village a few months before, and among the murdered men were the Rajah's son, and the relation or slaves of many of the inhabitants. The cry of lamentation that arose when the news arrived was most distressing. A score of women, who had lost husbands, brothers, sons, or more distant relatives, set up at once the most dismal shrieks and groans and wailings, which continued at intervals till late at night; and as the chief houses in the village were crowded together round that which I occupied, our situation was anything but agreeable. It seems that the village where the attack took place (nearly opposite the small island of Lakahia) is known to be dangerous, and the vessels had only gone there a few days before to buy some tripang. The crew were living on shore, the praus being in a small river close by, and they were attacked and murdered in the day-time while bargaining with the Papuans. The six men who survived were on board the praus, and escaped by at once setting into the small boat and rowing out to sea. This south-west part of New Guinea, known to the native traders as "Papua Kowiyee" and "Papua Onen," is inhabited by the most treacherous and bloodthirsty tribes. It is in these districts that the commanders and portions of the crews of many of the early discovery ships were murdered, and scarcely a year now passes but some lives are lost. The Goram and Ceram traders are themselves generally inoffensive; they are well acquainted with the character of these natives, and are not likely to provoke an attack by any insults or open attempt at robbery or imposition. They are accustomed to visit the same places every year, and the natives can have no fear of them, as may be alleged in excuse for their attacks on Europeans. In other extensive districts inhabited by the same Papuan races, such as Mysol, Salwatty, Waigiou, and some parts of the adjacent coast, the people have taken the first step in civilization, owing probably to the settlement of traders of mixed breed among them, and for many years no such attacks have taken place. On the south-west coast, and in the large island of Jobie, however, the natives are in a very barbarous condition, and tale every opportunity of robbery and murder,--a habit which is confirmed by the impunity they experience, owing to the vast extent of wild mountain and forest country forbidding all pursuit or attempt at punishment. In the very same village, four years before, more than fifty Goram men were murdered; and as these savages obtain an immense booty in the praus and all their appurtenances, it is to be feared that such attacks will continue to be made at intervals as long as traders visit the same spots and attempt no retaliation. Punishment could only be inflicted on these people by very arbitrary measures, such as by obtaining possession of some of the chiefs by stratagem, and rendering them responsible for the capture of the murderers at the peril of their own heads. But anything of this kind would be done contrary to the system adopted by the Dutch Government in its dealings with natives. GORAM TO WAHAI IN CERAM. When my boat was at length launched and loaded, I got my men together, and actually set sail the next day (May 27th), much to the astonishment of the Goram people, to whom such punctuality was a novelty. I had a crew of three men and a boy, besides my two Amboyna lads; which was sufficient for sailing, though rather too few if obliged to row much. The next day was very wet, with squalls, calms, and contrary winds, and with some difficulty we reached Kilwaru, the metropolis of the Bugis traders in the far East. As I wanted to make some purchases, I stayed here two days, and sent two of my boxes of specimens by a Macassar prau to be forwarded to Ternate, thus relieving myself of a considerable incumbrance. I bought knives, basins, and handkerchiefs for barter, which with the choppers, cloth, and beads I had brought with me, made a pretty good assortment. I also bought two tower muskets to satisfy my crew, who insisted on the necessity of being armed against attacks of pirates; and with spices and a few articles of food for the voyage nearly my last doit was expended. The little island of Kilwaru is a mere sandbank, just large enough to contain a small village, and situated between the islands of Ceram-laut, and Kissa--straits about a third of a mile wide separating it from each of them. It is surrounded by coral reefs, and offers good anchorage in both monsoons. Though not more than fifty yards across, and not elevated more than three or four feet above the highest tides, it has wells of excellent drinking water--a singular phenomenon, which would seem to imply deep-seated subterranean channels connecting it with other islands. These advantages, with its situation in the centre of the Papuan trading district, lead to its being so much frequented by the Bugis traders. Here the Goram men bring the produce of their little voyages, which they exchange for cloth, sago cakes, and opium; and the inhabitants of all the surrounding islands visit it with the game object. It is the rendezvous of the praus trading to various parts of New Guinea, which here assort and dry their cargoes, and refit for the voyage home. Tripang and mussoi bark are the most bulky articles of produce brought here, with wild nutmegs, tortoiseshell, pearls, and birds of Paradise; in smaller quantities. The villagers of the mainland of Ceram bring their sago, which is thus distributed to the islands farther east, while rice from Bali and Macassar can also be purchased at a moderate price. The Goram men come here for their supplies of opium, both for their own consumption and for barter in Mysol and Waigiou, where they have introduced it, and where the chiefs and wealthy men are passionately fond of it. Schooners from Bali come to buy Papuan slaves, while the sea-wandering Bugis arrive from distant Singapore in their lumbering praus, bringing thence the produce of the Chinamen's workshops and Kling's bazaar, as well as of the looms of Lancashire and Massachusetts. One of the Bugis traders who had arrived a few days before from Mysol, brought me news of my assistant Charles Allen, with whom he was well acquainted, and who, he assured me; was making large collections of birds and insects, although he had not obtained any birds of Paradise; Silinta, where he was staying, not being a good place for them. This was on the whole satisfactory, and I was anxious to reach him as soon as possible. Leaving Kilwaru early in the morning of June 1st, with a strong east wind we doubled the point of Ceram about noon, the heavy sea causing my prau to roll abort a good deal, to the damage of our crockery. As bad weather seemed coming on, we got inside the reefs and anchored opposite the village of Warns-warns to wait for a change. The night was very squally, and though in a good harbour we rolled and jerked uneasily; but in the morning I had greater cause for uneasiness in the discovery that our entire Goram crew had decamped, taking with them all they possessed and a little more, and leaving us without any small boat in which to land. I immediately told my Amboyna men to load and fire the muskets as a signal of distress, which was soon answered by the village chief sending off a boat, which took me on shore. I requested that messengers should be immediately sent to the neighbouring villages in quest of the fugitives, which was promptly done. My prau was brought into a small creek, where it could securely rest in the mud at low water, and part of a house was given me in which T could stay for a while. I now found my progress again suddenly checked, just when I thought I had overcome my chief difficulties. As I had treated my men with the greatest kindness, and had given them almost everything they had asked for, I can impute their running away only to their being totally unaccustomed to the restraint of a European master, and to some undefined dread of my ultimate intentions regarding them. The oldest man was an opium smoker, and a reputed thief, but I had been obliged to take him at the last moment as a substitute for another. I feel sure it was he who induced the others to run away, and as they knew the country well, and had several hours' start of us, there was little chance of catching them. We were here in the great sago district of East Ceram which supplies most of the surrounding islands with their daily bread, and during our week's delay I had an opportunity of seeing the whole process of making it, and obtaining some interesting statistics. The sago tree is a palm, thicker and larger than the cocoa-nut tree, although rarely so tall, and having immense pinnate spiny leaves, which completely cover the trunk till it is many years old. It has a creeping root-stem like the Nipa palm, and when about ten or fifteen years of age sends up an immense terminal spike of flowers, after which the tree dies. It grows in swamps, or in swampy hollows on the rocky slopes of hills, where it seems to thrive equally well as when exposed to the influx of salt or brackish water. The midribs of the immense leaves form one of the most useful articles in these lands, supplying the place of bamboo, to which for many purposes they are superior. They are twelve or fifteen feet long, and, when very fine, as thick in the lower part as a man's leg. They are very light, consisting entirely of a firm pith covered with a hard thin rind or bark. Entire houses are built of these; they form admirable roofing-poles for thatch; split and well-supported, they do for flooring; and when chosen of equal size, and pegged together side by side to fill up the panels of framed wooden horses, they have a very neat appearance, and make better walls and partitions than boards, as they do not shrink, require no paint or varnish, and are not a quarter the expense. When carefully split and shaved smooth they are formed into light boards with pegs of the bark itself, and are the foundation of the leaf-covered boxes of Goram. All the insect-boxes I used in the Moluccas were thus made at Amboyna, and when covered with stout paper inside and out, are strong, light, and secure the insect-pins remarkably well. The leaflet of the sago folded and tied side by side on the smaller midribs form the "atap" or thatch in universal use, while the product of the trunk is the staple food of some= hundred thousands of men. When sago is to be made, a full-grown tree is selected just before it is going to flower. It is cut down close to the ground, the leaves and leafstalks cleared away, and a broad strip of the bark taken off the upper side of the trunk. This exposes the pithy matter, which is of a rusty colour near the bottom of the tree, but higher up pure white, about as hard as a dry apple, but with woody fibre running through it about a quarter of an inch apart. This pith is cut or broken down into a coarse powder by means of a tool constructed for the purpose--a club of hard and heavy wood, having a piece of sharp quartz rock firmly imbedded into its blunt end, and projecting about half an inch. By successive blows of this, narrow strips of the pith are cut away, and fall down into the cylinder formed by the bark. Proceeding steadily on, the whole trunk is cleared out, leaving a skin not more than half an inch in thickness. This material is carried away (in baskets made of the sheathing bases of the leaves) to the nearest water, where a washing-machine is put up, which is composed almost entirely of the saga tree itself. The large sheathing bases of the leaves form the troughs, and the fibrous covering from the leaf-stalks of the young cocoa-nut the strainer. Water is poured on the mass of pith, which is kneaded and pressed against the strainer till the starch is all dissolved and has passed through, when the fibrous refuse is thrown away, and a fresh basketful put in its place. The water charged with sago starch passes on to a trough, with a depression in the centre, where the sediment is deposited, the surplus water trickling off by a shallow outlet. When the trough is nearly full, the mass of starch, which has a slight reddish tinge, is made into cylinders of about thirty pounds' weight, and neatly covered with sago leaves, and in this state is sold as raw sago. Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a rather astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and chilies. Sago-bread is made in large quantities, by baking it into cakes in a small clay oven containing six or eight slits side by side, each about three-quarters of an inch wide, and six or eight inches square. The raw sago is broken up, dried in the sun, powdered, and finely sifted. The oven is heated over a clear fire of embers, and is lightly filled with the sago-powder. The openings are then covered with a flat piece of sago bark, and in about five minutes the cakes are turned out sufficiently baked. The hot cakes are very nice with butter, and when made with the addition of a little sugar and grated cocoa-nut are quite a delicacy. They are soft, and something like corn-flour cakes, but leave a slight characteristic flavour which is lost in the refined sago we use in this country. When not wanted for immediate use, they are dried for several days in the sun, and tied up in bundles of twenty. They will then keep for years; they are very hard, and very rough and dry, but the people are used to them from infancy, and little children may be seen gnawing at them as contentedly as ours with their bread-and-butter. If dipped in water and then toasted, they become almost as good as when fresh baked; and thus treated they were my daily substitute for bread with my coffee. Soaked and boiled they make a very good pudding or vegetable, and served well to economize our rice, which is sometimes difficult to get so far east. It is truly an extraordinary sight to witness a whole tree-trunk, perhaps twenty feet long and four or five in circumference, converted into food with so little labour and preparation. A good-sized tree will produce thirty tomans or bundles of thirty pounds each, and each toman will make sixty cakes of three to the pound. Two of these cakes are as much as a man can eat at one meal, and five are considered a full day's allowance; so that, reckoning a tree to produce 1,800 cakes, weighing 600 pounds, it will supply a man with food for a whole year. The labour to produce this is very moderate. Two men will finish a tree in five days, and two women will bake the whole into cakes in five days more; but the raw sago will keep very well, and can be baked as wanted, so that we may estimate that in ten days a man may produce food for the whole year. This is on the supposition that he possesses sago trees of his own, for they are now all private property. If he does not, he has to pay about seven and sixpence for one; and as labour here is five pence a day, the total cost of a year's food for one man is about twelve shillings. The effect of this cheapness of food is decidedly prejudicial, for the inhabitants of the sago countries are never so well off as those where rice is cultivated. Many of the people here have neither vegetables nor fruit, but live almost entirely on sago and a little fish. Having few occupations at home, they wander about on petty trading or fishing expeditions to the neighbouring islands; and as far as the comforts of life are concerned, are much inferior to the wild hill-Dyaks of Borneo, or to many of the more barbarous tribes of the Archipelago. The country round Warus-warus is low and swampy, and owing to the absence of cultivation there were scarcely any paths leading into the forest. I was therefore unable to collect much during my enforced stay, and found no rare birds or insects to improve my opinion of Ceram as a collecting ground. Finding it quite impossible to get men here to accompany me on the whole voyage, I was obliged to be content with a crew to take me as far as Wahai, on the middle of the north coast of Ceram, and the chief Dutch station in the island. The journey took us five days, owing to calms and light winds, and no incident of any interest occurred on it, nor did I obtain at our stopping places a single addition to my collections worth naming. At Wahai, which I reached on the 15th of June, I was hospitably received by the Commandant and my old friend Herr Rosenberg, who was now on an official visit here. He lent me some money to pay my men, and I was lucky enough to obtain three others willing to make the voyage with me to Ternate, and one more who was to return from Mysol. One of my Amboyna lads, however, left me, so that I was still rather short of hands. I found here a letter from Charles Allen, who was at Silinta in Mysol, anxiously expecting me, as he was out of rice and other necessaries, and was short of insect-pins. He was also ill, and if I did not soon come would return to Wahai. As my voyage from this place to Waigiou was among islands inhabited by the Papuan race, and was an eventful and disastrous one, I will narrate its chief incidents in a separate chapter in that division of my work devoted to the Papuan Islands. I now have to pass over a year spent in Waigiou and Timor, in order to describe my visit to the island of Bouru, which concluded my explorations of the Moluccas. CHAPTER XXVI. BOURU. MAY AND JUNE 1861. I HAD long wished to visit the large island of Bouru, which lies due west of Ceram, and of which scarcely anything appeared to be known to naturalists, except that it contained a babirusa very like that of Celebes. I therefore made arrangements for staying there two months after leaving Timor Delli in 1861. This I could conveniently do by means of the Dutch mail-steamers, which make a monthly round of the Moluccas. We arrived at the harbour of Cajeli on the 4th of May; a gun was fired, the Commandant of the fort came alongside in a native boat to receive the post-packet, and took me and my baggage on shore, the steamer going off again without coming to an anchor. We went to the horse of the Opzeiner, or overseer, a native of Amboyna--Bouru being too poor a place to deserve even an Assistant Resident; yet the appearance of the village was very far superior to that of Delli, which possesses "His Excellency the Governor," and the little fort, in perfect order, surrounded by neat brass-plots and straight walks, although manned by only a dozen Javanese soldiers with an Adjutant for commander, was a very Sebastopol in comparison with the miserable mud enclosure at Delli, with its numerous staff of Lieutenants, Captain, and Major. Yet this, as well as most of the forts in the Moluccas, was originally built by the Portuguese themselves. Oh! Lusitania, how art thou fallen! While the Opzeiner was reading his letters, I took a walk round the village with a guide in search of a horse. The whole place was dreadfully damp and muddy, being built in a swamp with not a spot of ground raised a foot above it, and surrounded by swamps on every side. The houses were mostly well built, of wooden framework filled in with gaba-gaba (leaf-stems of the sago-palm), but as they had no whitewash, and the floors were of bare black earth like the roads, and generally on the same level, they were extremely damp and gloomy. At length I found one with the floor raised about a foot, and succeeded in making a bargain with the owner to turn out immediately, so that by night I had installed myself comfortably. The chairs and tables were left for me; and as the whole of the remaining furniture in the house consisted of a little crockery and a few clothes-boxes, it was not much trouble for the owners to move into the house of some relatives, and thus obtain a few silver rupees very easily. Every foot of ground between the homes throughout the village is crammed with fruit trees, so that the sun and air have no chance of penetrating. This must be very cool and pleasant in the dry season, but makes it damp and unhealthy at other times of the year. Unfortunately I had come two months too soon, for the rains were not yet over, and mud and water were the prominent features of the country. About a mile behind and to the east of the village the hills commence, but they are very barren, being covered with scanty coarse grass and scattered trees of the Melaleuca cajuputi, from the leaves of which the celebrated cajeput oil is made. Such districts are absolutely destitute of interest for the zoologist. A few miles further on rose higher mountains, apparently well covered with forest, but they were entirely uninhabited and trackless, and practically inaccessible to a traveller with limited time and means. It became evident, therefore, that I must leave Cajeli for some better collecting ground, and finding a man who was going a few miles eastward to a village on the coast where he said there were hills and forest, I sent my boy Ali with him to explore and report on the capabilities of the district. At the same time I arranged to go myself on a little excursion up a river which flows into the bay about five miles north of the town, to a village of the Alfuros, or indigenes, where I thought I might perhaps find a good collecting ground. The Rajah of Cajeli, a good-tempered old man, offered to accompany me, as the village was under his government; and we started one morning early, in a long narrow boat with eight rowers. In about two hours we entered the river, and commenced our inland journey against a very powerful current. The stream was about a hundred yards wide, and was generally bordered with high grass, and occasionally bushes and palm-trees. The country round was flat and more or less swampy, with scattered trees and shrubs. At every bend we crossed the river to avoid the strength of the current, and arrived at our landing-place about four o'clock in a torrent of rain. Here we waited for an hour, crouching under a leaky mat till the Alfuros arrived who had been sent for from the village to carry my baggage, when we set off along a path of whose extreme muddiness I had been warned before starting. I turned up my trousers as high as possible, grasped a stoat stick to prevent awkward falls, and then boldly plunged into the first mud-hole, which was immediately succeeded by another and another. The marl or mud and water was knee-deep with little intervals of firmer ground between, making progression exceedingly difficult. The path was bordered with high rigid grass, brewing in dense clumps separated by water, so that nothing was to be gained by leaving the beaten track, and we were obliged to go floundering on, never knowing where our feet would rest, as the mud was now a few inches, now two feet deep, and the bottom very uneven, so that the foot slid down to the lowest part, and made it difficult to keep one's balance. One step would be upon a concealed stick or log, almost dislocating the ankle, while the next would plunge into soft mud above the knee. It rained all the way, and the long grass, six feet high, met over the path; so that we could not see a step of the way ahead, and received a double drenching. Before we got to the village it was dark, and we had to cross over a small but deep and swollen stream by a narrow log of wood, which was more than a foot under water. There was a slender shaking stick for a handrail, and it was nervous work feeling in the dark in the rushing water for a safe place on which to place the advanced foot. After au hour of this most disagreeable and fatiguing walk we reached the village, followed by the men with our guns, ammunition, boxes, and bedding all more or less soaked. We consoled ourselves with some hot tea and cold fowl, and went early to bed. The next morning was clear and fine, and I set out soon after sunrise to explore the neighbourhood. The village had evidently been newly formed, and consisted of a single straight street of very miserable huts totally deficient in every comfort, and as bare and cheerless inside as out. It was situated on a little elevated patch of coarse gravelly soil, covered with the usual high rigid grass, which came up close to the backs of the houses. At a short distance in several directions were patches of forest, but all on low and swampy ground. I made one attempt along the only path I could find, but soon came upon a deep mud-hole, and found that I must walk barefoot if at all; so I returned and deferred further exploration till after breakfast. I then went on into the jungle and found patches of sago-palms and a low forest vegetation, but the paths were everywhere full of mud-holes, and intersected by muddy streams and tracts of swamp, so that walking was not pleasurable, and too much attention to one's steps was not favourable to insect catching, which requires above everything freedom of motion. I shot a few birds, and caught a few butterflies, but all were the same as I had already obtained about Cajeli. On my return to the village I was told that the same kind of ground extended for many miles in every direction, and I at once decided that Wayapo was not a suitable place to stay at. The next morning early we waded back again through the mud and long wet grass to our boat, and by mid-day reached Cajeli, where I waited Ali's return to decide on my future movements. He came the following day, and gave a very bad account of Pelah, where he had been. There was a little brush and trees along the beach, and hills inland covered with high grass and cajuputi trees--my dread and abhorrence. On inquiring who could give me trustworthy information, I was referred to the Lieutenant of the Burghers, who had travelled all round the island, and was a very intelligent fellow. I asked him to tell me if he knew of any part of Bouru where there was no "kusu-kusu," as the coarse grass of the country is called. He assured me that a good deal of the south coast was forest land, while along the north was almost entirely swamp and grassy hills. After minute inquiries, I found that the forest country commenced at a place called Waypoti, only a few miles beyond Pelah, but that, as the coast beyond that place was exposed to the east monsoon and dangerous for praus, it was necessary to walk. I immediately went to the Opzeiner, and he called the Rajah. We had a consultation, and arranged for a boat to take me the next evening but one, to Pelah, whence I was to proceed on foot, the Orang-kaya going the day before to call the Alfuros to carry my baggage. The journey was made as arranged, and on May 19th we arrived at Waypoti, having walked about ten miles along the beach, and through stony forest bordering the sea, with occasional plunges of a mile or two into the interior. We found no village, but scattered houses and plantations, with hilly country pretty well covered with forest, and looking rather promising. A low hut with a very rotten roof, showing the sky through in several places, was the only one I could obtain. Luckily it did not rain that night, and the next day we pulled down some of the walls to repair the roof, which was of immediate importance, especially over our beds and table. About half a mile from the house was a fine mountain stream, running swiftly over a bed of rocks and pebbles, and beyond this was a hill covered with fine forest. By carefully picking my way I could wade across this river without getting much above my knees, although I would sometimes slip off a rock and go into a hole up to my waist, and about twice a week I went across it in order to explore the forest. Unfortunately there were no paths here of any extent, and it did not prove very productive either in insects or birds. To add to my difficulties I had stupidly left my only pair of strong hoots on board the steamer, and my others were by this time all dropping to pieces, so that I was obliged to walk about barefooted, and in constant fear of hurting my feet, and causing a wound which might lay me up for weeks, as had happened in Borneo, Are, and Dorey. Although there were numerous plantations of maize and plantains, there were no new clearings; and as without these it is almost impossible to find many of the best kinds of insects, I determined to make one myself, and with much difficulty engaged two men to clear a patch of forest, from which I hoped to obtain many fine beetles before I left. During the whole of my stay, however, insects never became plentiful. My clearing produced me a few fine, longicorns and Buprestidae, different from any I had before seen, together with several of the Amboyna species, but by no means so numerous or, so beautiful as I had found in that small island. For example, I collected only 210 different kinds of beetles during my two months' stay at Bourn, while in three weeks at Amboyna, in 1857, I found more than 300 species: One of the finest insects found at Bouru was a large Cerambyx, of a deep shining chestnut colour, and with very long antennae. It varied greatly in size, the largest specimens being three inches long, while the smallest were only an inch, the antenna varying from one and a half to five inches. One day my boy Ali came home with a story of a big snake. He was walking through some high grass, and stepped on something which he took for a small fallen tree, but it felt cold and yielding to his feet, and far to the right and left there was a waving and rustling of the herbage. He jumped back in affright and prepared to shoot, but could not get a good vies of the creature, and it passed away, he said, like a tree being dragged along through the grass. As he lead several times already shot large snakes, which he declared were all as nothing compared with this, I am inclined to believe it must really have been a monster. Such creatures are rather plentiful here, for a man living close by showed me on his thigh the marks where he had been seized by one close to his house. It was big enough to take the man's thigh in its mouth, and he would probably have been killed and devoured by it had not his cries brought out his neighbours, who destroyed it with their choppers. As far as I could make out it was about twenty feet long, but Ali's was probably much larger. It sometimes amuses me to observe how, a few days after I have taken possession of it, a native hut seems quite a comfortable home. My house at Waypoti was a bare shed, with a large bamboo platform at one side. At one end of this platform, which was elevated about three feet, I fixed up my mosquito curtain, and partly enclosed it with a large Scotch plaid, making a comfortable little sleeping apartment. I put up a rude table on legs buried in the earthen floor, and had my comfortable rattan-chair for a seat. A line across one corner carried my daily-washed cotton clothing, and on a bamboo shelf was arranged my small stock of crockery and hardware: Boxes were ranged against the thatch walls, and hanging shelves, to preserve my collections from ants while drying, were suspended both without and within the house. On my table lay books, penknives, scissors, pliers, and pins, with insect and bird labels, all of which were unsolved mysteries to the native mind. Most of the people here had never seen a pin, and the better informed took a pride in teaching their more ignorant companions the peculiarities and uses of that strange European production--a needle with a head, but no eye! Even paper, which we throw away hourly as rubbish, was to them a curiosity; and I often saw them picking up little scraps which had been swept out of the house, and carefully putting them away in their betel-pouch. Then when I took my morning coffee and evening tea, how many were the strange things displayed to them! Teapot, teacups, teaspoons, were all more or less curious in their eyes; tea, sugar, biscuit, and butter, were articles of human consumption seen by many of them for the first time. One asks if that whitish powder is "gula passir" (sand-sugar), so called to distinguish it from the coarse lump palm-sugar or molasses of native manufacture; and the biscuit is considered a sort of European sago-cake, which the inhabitants of those remote regions are obliged to use in the absence of the genuine article. My pursuit, were of course utterly beyond their comprehension. They continually asked me what white people did with the birds and insects I tools so much care to preserve. If I only kept what was beautiful, they might perhaps comprehend it; but to see ants and files and small ugly insects put away so carefully was a great puzzle to them, and they were convinced that there must be some medical or magical use for them which I kept a profound secret. These people were in fact as completely unacquainted with civilized life as the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, or the savages of Central Africa--yet a steamship, that highest triumph of human ingenuity, with its little floating epitome of European civilization, touches monthly at Cajeli, twenty miles off; while at Amboyna, only sixty miles distant, a European population and government have been established for more than three hundred years. Having seen a good many of the natives of Bouru from different villages, and from distant parts of the island, I feel convinced that they consist of two distinct races now partially amalgamated. The larger portion are Malays of the Celebes type, often exactly similar to the Tomóre people of East Celebes, whom I found settled in Batchian; while others altogether resemble the Alfuros of Ceram. The influx of two races can easily be accounted for. The Sula Islands, which are closely connected with East Celebes, approach to within forty miles of the north coast of Bouru, while the island of Manipa offers an easy point of departure for the people of Ceram. I was confirmed in this view by finding that the languages of Bouru possessed distinct resemblances to that of Sula, as well as to those of Ceram. Soon after we had arrived at Waypoti, Ali had seen a beautiful little bird of the genus Pitta, which I was very anxious to obtain, as in almost every island the species are different, and none were yet known from Bourn. He and my other hunter continued to see it two or three times a week, and to hear its peculiar note much oftener, but could never get a specimen, owing to its always frequenting the most dense thorny thickets, where only hasty glimpses of it could be obtained, and at so short a distance that it would be difficult to avoid blowing the bird to pieces. Ali was very much annoyed that he could not get a specimen of this bird, in going after which he had already severely, wounded his feet with thorns; and when we had only two days more to stay, he went of his own accord one evening to sleep at a little but in the forest some miles off, in order to have a last try for it at daybreak, when many birds come out to feed, and are very intent on their morning meal. The next evening he brought me home two specimens, one with the head blown completely off, and otherwise too much injured to preserve, the other in very good order, and which I at once saw to be a new species, very like the Pitta celebensis, but ornamented with a square patch of bright red on the nape of the neck. The next day after securing this prize we returned to Cajeli, and packing up my collections left Bouru by the steamer. During our two days' stay at Ternate, I took on board what baggage I had left there, and bade adieu to all my friends. We then crossed over to Menado, on our way to Macassar and Java, and I finally quitted the Moluccas, among whose luxuriant and beautiful islands I had wandered for more than three years. My collections in Bouru, though not extensive, were of considerable interest; for out of sixty-six species of birds which I collected there, no less than seventeen were new, or had not been previously found in any island of the Moluccas. Among these were two kingfishers, Tanysiptera acis and Ceyx Cajeli; a beautiful sunbird, Nectarines proserpina; a handsome little black and white flycatcher, Monarcha loricata, whose swelling throat was beautifully scaled with metallic blue; and several of less interest. I also obtained a skull of the babirusa, one specimen of which was killed by native hunters during my residence at Cajeli. CHAPTER XXVII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MOLUCCAS. THE Moluccas consist of three large islands, Gilolo, Ceram, and Bouru, the two former being each about two hundred miles long; and a great number of smaller isles and islets, the most important of which are Batchian, Morty, Obi, Ke, Timor-Laut, and Amboyna; and among the smaller ones, Ternate, Tidore, Kaióa, and Banda. They occupy a space of ten degrees of latitude by eight of longitude, and they are connected by groups of small islets to New Guinea on the east, the Philippines on the north, Celebes on the west, and Timor on the south. It will be as well to bear in mind these main features of extent and geographical position, while we survey their animal productions and discuss their relations to the countries which surround them on every side in almost equal proximity. We will first consider the Mammalia or warm-blooded quadrupeds, which present us with some singular anomalies. The land mammals are exceedingly few in number, only ten being yet known from the entire group. The bats or aerial mammals, on the other hand, are numerous--not less than twenty-five species being already known. But even this exceeding poverty of terrestrial mammals does not at all represent the real poverty of the Moluccas in this class of animals; for, as we shall soon see, there is good reason to believe that several of the species have been introduced by man, either purposely or by accident. The only quadrumanous animal in the group is the curious baboon-monkey, Cynopithecus nigrescens, already described as being one of the characteristic animals of Celebes. This is found only in the island of Batchian; and it seems so much out of place there as it is difficult to imagine how it could have reached the island by any natural means of dispersal, and yet not have passed by the same means over the narrow strait to Gilolo--that it seems more likely to have originated from some individuals which had escaped from confinement, these and similar animals being often kept as pets by the Malays, and carried about in their praus. Of all the carnivorous animals of the Archipelago the only one found in the Moluccas is the Viverra tangalunga, which inhabits both Batchian and Bouru, and probably come of the other islands. I am inclined to think that this also may have been introduced accidentally, for it is often made captive by the Malays, who procure civet from it, and it is an animal very restless and untameable, and therefore likely to escape. This view is rendered still more probable by what Antonio de Morga tells us was the custom in the Philippines in 1602. He says that "the natives of Mindanao carry about civet-cats in cages, and sell them in the islands; and they take the civet from them, and let them go again." The same species is common in the Philippines and in all the large islands of the Indo-Malay region. The only Moluccan ruminant is a deer, which was once supposed to be a distinct species, but is now generally considered to be a slight variety of the Rusa hippelaphus of Java. Deer are often tamed and petted, and their flesh is so much esteemed by all Malays, that it is very natural they should endeavour to introduce them into the remote islands in which they settled, and whose luxuriant forests seem so well adapted for their subsistence. The strange babirusa of Celebes is also found in Bouru; but in no other Moluccan island, and it is somewhat difficult to imagine how it got there. It is true that there is some approximation between the birds of the Sula Islands (where the babirusa is also found) and those of Bouru, which seems to indicate that these islands have recently been closer together, or that some intervening land has disappeared. At this time the babirusa may have entered Bouru, since it probably swims as well as its allies the pigs. These are spread all over the Archipelago, even to several of the smaller islands, and in many cases the species are peculiar. It is evident, therefore, that they have some natural means of dispersal. There is a popular idea that pigs cannot swim, but Sir Charles Lyell has shown that this is a mistake. In his "Principles of Geology" (10th Edit. vol. ii p. 355) he adduces evidence to show that pigs have swum many miles at sea, and are able to swim with great ease and swiftness. I have myself seen a wild pig swimming across the arm of the sea that separates Singapore from the Peninsula of Malacca, and we thus have explained the curious fact, that of all the large mammals of the Indian region, pigs alone extend beyond the Moluccas and as far as New Guinea, although it is somewhat curious that they have not found their way to Australia. The little shrew, Sorex myosurus, which is common in Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, is also found in the larger islands of the Moluccas, to which it may have been accidentally conveyed in native praus. This completes the list of the placental mammals which are so characteristic of the Indian region; and we see that, with the single exception of the pig, all may very probably have been introduced by man, since all except the pig are of species identical with those now abounding in the great Malay islands, or in Celebes. The four remaining mammals are Marsupials, an order of the class Mammalia, which is very characteristic of the Australian fauna; and these are probably true natives of the Moluccas, since they are either of peculiar species, or if found elsewhere are natives only of New Guinea or North Australia. The first is the small flying opossum, Belideus ariel, a beautiful little animal, exactly line a small flying squirrel in appearance, but belonging to the marsupial order. The other three are species of the curious genus Cuscus, which is peculiar to the Austro-Malayan region. These are opossum-like animals, with a long prehensile tail, of which the terminal half is generally bare. They have small heads, large eyes, and a dense covering of woolly fur, which is often pure white with irregular black spots or blotches, or sometimes ashy brown with or without white spots. They live in trees, feeding upon the leaves, of which they devour large quantities, they move about slowly, and are difficult to kill, owing to the thickness of their fur, and their tenacity of life. A heavy charge of shot will often lodge in the slain and do them no harm, and even breaking the spine or piercing the brain will not kill them for some hours. The natives everywhere eat their flesh, and as their motions are so slow, easily catch them by climbing; so that it is wonderful they have not been exterminated. It may be, however, that their dense woolly fur protects them from birds of prey, and the islands they live in are too thinly inhabited for man to be able to exterminate them. The figure represents Cuscus ornatus, a new species discovered by me in Batchian, and which also inhabits Ternate. It is peculiar to the Moluccas, while the two other species which inhabit Ceram are found also in New Guinea and Waigiou. In place of the excessive poverty of mammals which characterises the Moluccas, we have a very rich display of the feathered tribes. The number of species of birds at present known from the various islands of the Molluccan group is 265, but of these only 70 belong to the usually abundant tribes of the waders and swimmers, indicating that these are very imperfectly known. As they are also pre-eminently wanderers, and are thus little fitted for illustrating the geographical distribution of life in a limited area, we will here leave them out of consideration and confine our attention only to the 195 land birds. When we consider that all Europe, with its varied climate and vegetation, with every mile of its surface explored, and with the immense extent of temperate Asia and Africa, which serve as storehouses, from which it is continually recruited, only supports 251 species of land birds as residents or regular immigrants, we must look upon the numbers already procured in the small and comparatively unknown islands of the Moluccas as indicating a fauna of fully average richness in this department. But when we come to examine the family groups which go to make up this number, we find the most curious deficiencies in some, balanced by equally striking redundancy in other. Thus if we compare the birds of the Moluccas with those of India, as given in Mr. Jerdon's work, we find that the three groups of the parrots, kingfishers, and pigeons, form nearly _one-third_ of the whole land-birds in the former, while they amount to only _one-twentieth_ in the latter country. On the other hand, such wide-spread groups as the thrushes, warblers, and finches, which in India form nearly _one-third_ of all the land-birds, dwindle down in the Moluccas to _one-fourteenth._ The reason of these peculiarities appears to be, that the Moluccan fauna has been almost entirely derived from that of New Guinea, in which country the same deficiency and the same luxuriance is to be observed. Out of the seventy-eight genera in which the Moluccan land-birds may be classed, no less than seventy are characteristic of Yew Guinea, while only six belong specially to the Indo-Malay islands. But this close resemblance to New Guinea genera does not extend to the species, for no less than 140 out of the 195 land-birds are peculiar to the Moluccan islands, while 32 are found also in New Guinea, and 15 in the Indo-Malay islands. These facts teach us, that though the birds of this group have evidently been derived mainly from New Guinea, yet the immigration has not been a recent one, since there has been time for the greater portion of the species to have become changed. We find, also, that many very characteristic New Guinea forms lave not entered the Moluccas at all, while others found in Ceram and Gilolo do not extend so far west as Bouru. Considering, further, the absence of most of the New Guinea mammals from the Moluccas, we are led to the conclusion that these islands are not fragments which have been separated from New Guinea, but form a distinct insular region, which has been upheaved independently at a rather remote epoch, and during all the mutations it has undergone has been constantly receiving immigrants from that great and productive island. The considerable length of time the Moluccas have remained isolated is further indicated by the occurrence of two peculiar genera of birds, Semioptera and Lycocorax, which are found nowhere else. We are able to divide this small archipelago into two well marked groups--that of Ceram, including also Bouru. Amboyna, Banda, and Ke; and that of Gilolo, including Morty, Batchian, Obi, Ternate, and other small islands. These divisions have each a considerable number of peculiar species, no less than fifty-five being found in the Ceram group only; and besides this, most of the separate islands have some species peculiar to themselves. Thus Morty island has a peculiar kingfisher, honeysucker, and starling; Ternate has a ground-thrush (Pitta) and a flycatcher; Banda has a pigeon, a shrike, and a Pitta; Ke has two flycatchers, a Zosterops, a shrike, a king-crow and a cuckoo; and the remote Timor-Laut, which should probably come into the Moluccan group, has a cockatoo and lory as its only known birds, and both are of peculiar species. The Moluccas are especially rich in the parrot tribe, no less than twenty-two species, belonging to ten genera, inhabiting them. Among these is the large red-crested cockatoo, so commonly seen alive in Europe, two handsome red parrots of the genus Eclectus, and five of the beautiful crimson lories, which are almost exclusively confined to these islands and the New Guinea group. The pigeons are hardly less abundant or beautiful, twenty-one species being known, including twelve of the beautiful green fruit pigeons, the smaller kinds of which are ornamented with the most brilliant patches of colour on the head and the under-surface. Next to these come the kingfishers, including sixteen species, almost all of which are beautiful, end many are among the most brilliantly-coloured birds that exist. One of the most curious groups of birds, the Megapodii, or mound-makers, is very abundant in the Moluccas. They are gallinaceous birds, about the size of a small fowl, and generally of a dark ashy or sooty colour, and they have remarkably large and strong feet and long claws. They are allied to the "Maleo" of Celebes, of which an account has already been given, but they differ in habits, most of these birds frequenting the scrubby jungles along the sea-shore, where the soil is sandy, and there is a considerable quantity of debris, consisting of sticks, shells, seaweed, leaves, &c. Of this rubbish the Megapodius forms immense mounds, often six or eight feet high and twenty or thirty feet in diameter, which they are enabled to do with comparative ease, by means of their large feet, with which they can grasp and throw backwards a quantity of material. In the centre of this mound, at a depth of two or three feet, the eggs are deposited, and are hatched by the gentle heat produced by the fermentation of the vegetable matter of the mound. When I first saw these mounds in the island of Lombock, I could hardly believe that they were made by such small birds, but I afterwards met with them frequently, and have once or twice come upon the birds engaged in making them. They run a few steps backwards, grasping a quantity of loose material in one foot, and throw it a long way behind them. When once properly buried the eggs seem to be no more cared for, the young birds working their way up through the heap of rubbish, and running off at once into the forest. They come out of the egg covered with thick downy feathers, and have no tail, although the wings are full developed. I was so fortunate as to discover a new species (Megapodius wallacei), which inhibits Gilolo, Ternate, and Bouru. It is the handsomest bird of the genus, being richly banded with reddish brown on the back and wings; and it differs from the other species in its habits. It frequents the forests of the interior, and comes down to the sea-beach to deposit its eggs, but instead of making a mound, or scratching a hole to receive them, it burrows into the sand to the depth of about three feet obliquely downwards, and deposits its eggs at the bottom. It then loosely covers up the mouth of the hole, and is said by the natives to obliterate and disguise its own footmarks leading to and from the hole, by making many other tracks and scratches in the neighbourhood. It lays its eggs only at night, and at Bouru a bird was caught early one morning as it was coming out of its hole, in which several eggs were found. All these birds seem to be semi-nocturnal, for their loud wailing cries may be constantly heard late into the night and long before daybreak in the morning. The eggs are all of a rusty red colour, and very large for the size of the bird, being generally three or three and a quarter inches long, by two or two and a quarter wide. They are very good eating, and are much sought after by the natives. Another large and extraordinary bird is the Cassowary, which inhabits the island of Ceram only. It is a stout and strong bird, standing five or six feet high, and covered with long coarse black hair-like feathers. The head is ornamented with a large horny calque or helmet, and the bare skin of the neck is conspicuous with bright blue and red colours. The wings are quite absent, and are replaced by a group of horny black spines like blunt porcupine quills. These birds wander about the vast mountainous forests that cover the island of Ceram, feeding chiefly on fallen fruits, and on insects or crustacea. The female lays from three to five large and beautifully shagreened green eggs upon a bed of leaves, the male and female sitting upon them alternately for about a month. This bird is the helmeted cassowary (Casuarius galeatus) of naturalists, and was for a long time the only species known. Others have since been discovered in New Guinea, New Britain, and North Australia. It was in the Moluccas that I first discovered undoubted cases of "mimicry" among birds, and these are so curious that I must briefly describe them. It will be as well, however, first to explain what is meant by mimicry in natural history. At page 205 of the first volume of this work, I have described a butterfly which, when at rest, so closely resembles a dead leaf, that it thereby escape the attacks of its enemies. This is termed a "protective resemblance." If however the butterfly, being itself savoury morsel to birds, had closely resembled another butterfly which was disagreeable to birds, and therefore never eaten by them, it would be as well protected as if it resembled a leaf; and this is what has been happily termed "mimicry" by Mr. Bates, who first discovered the object of these curious external imitations of one insect by another belonging to a distinct genus or family, and sometimes even to a distinct order. The clear-winged moth which resemble wasps and hornets are the best examples of "mimicry" in our own country. For a long time all the known cases of exact resemblance of one creature to quite a different one were confined to insects, and it was therefore with great pleasure that I discovered in the island of Bouru two birds which I constantly mistook for each other, and which yet belonged to two distinct and somewhat distant families. One of these is a honeysucker named Tropidorhynchus bouruensis, and the other a kind of oriole, which has been called Mimeta bouruensis. The oriole resembles the honeysucker in the following particulars: the upper and under surfaces of the two birds are exactly of the same tints of dark and light brown; the Tropidorhynchus has a large bare black patch round the eyes; this is copied in the Mimeta by a patch of black feathers. The top of the head of the Tropidorhynchus has a scaly appearance from the narrow scale-formed feathers, which are imitated by the broader feathers of the Mimeta having a dusky line down each. The Tropidorhynchus has a pale ruff formed of curious recurved feathers on the nape (which has given the whole genus the name of Friar birds); this is represented in the Mimeta by a pale band in the same position. Lastly, the bill of the Tropidorhynchus is raised into a protuberant keel at the base, and the Mimeta has the same character, although it is not a common one in the genus. The result is, that on a superficial examination the birds are identical, although they leave important structural differences, and cannot be placed near each other in any natural arrangement. In the adjacent island of Ceram we find very distinct species of both these genera, and, strange to say, these resemble each other quite as closely as do those of Bouru The Tropidorhynchus subcornutus is of an earthy brown colour, washed with ochreish yellow, with bare orbits, dusky: cheeks, and the usual recurved nape-ruff: The Mimeta forsteni which accompanies it, is absolutely identical in the tints of every part of the body, and the details are copied just as minutely as in the former species. We have two kinds of evidence to tell us which bird in this case is the model, and which the copy. The honeysuckers are coloured in a manner which is very general in the whole family to which they belong, while the orioles seem to have departed from the gay yellow tints so common among their allies. We should therefore conclude that it is the latter who mimic the former. If so, however, they must derive some advantage from the imitation, and as they are certainly weak birds, with small feet and claws, they may require it. Now the Tropidorhynchi are very strong and active birds, having powerful grasping claws, and long, curved, sharp beaks. They assemble together in groups and small flocks, and they haw a very loud bawling note which can be heard at a great distance, and serves to collect a number together in time of danger. They are very plentiful and very pugnacious, frequently driving away crows and even hawks, which perch on a tree where a few of them are assembled. It is very probable, therefore, that the smaller birds of prey have learnt to respect these birds and leave them alone, and it may thus be a great advantage for the weaker and less courageous Mimetas to be mistaken for them. This being case, the laws of Variation and Survival of the Fittest, will suffice to explain how the resemblance has been brought about, without supposing any voluntary action on the part of the birds themselves; and those who have read Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species" will have no difficulty in comprehending the whole process. The insects of the Moluccas are pre-eminently beautiful, even when compared with the varied and beautiful productions of other parts of the Archipelago. The grand bird-winged butterflies (Ornithoptera) here reach their maximum of size and beauty, and many of the Papilios, Pieridae Danaidae, and Nymphalidae are equally preeminent. There is, perhaps, no island in the world so small as Amboyna where so many grand insects are to be found. Here are three of the very finest Ornithopterae--priamus, helena, and remiss; three of the handsomest and largest Papilios--ulysses, deiphobus, and gambrisius; one of the handsomest Pieridae, Iphias leucippe; the largest of the Danaidae, Hestia idea; and two unusually large and handsome Nymphalidae--Diadema pandarus, and Charaxes euryalus. Among its beetles are the extraordinary Euchirus longimanus, whose enormous legs spread over a space of eight inches, and an unusual number of large and handsome Longicorns, Anthribidae, and Buprestidae. The beetles figured on the plate as characteristic of the Moluccas are: 1. A small specimen of the Euchirus longimanus, or Long-armed Chafer, which has been already mentioned in the account of my residence at Amboyna (Chapter XX.). The female has the fore legs of moderate length. 2. A fine weevil, (an undescribed species of Eupholus,) of rich blue and emerald green colours, banded with black. It is a native of Ceram and Goram, and is found on foliage. 3. A female of Xenocerus semiluctuosus, one of the Anthribidae of delicate silky white and black colours. It is abundant on fallen trunks and stumps in Ceram and Amboyna. 4. An undescribed species of Xenocerus; a male, with very long and curious antenna, and elegant black and white markings. It is found on fallen trunks in Batchian. 5. An undescribed species of Arachnobas, a curious genus of weevils peculiar to the Moluccas and New Guinea, and remarkable for their long legs, and their habit of often sitting on leaves, and turning rapidly round the edge to the under-surface when disturbed. It was found in Gilolo. All these insects are represented of the natural size. Like the birds, the insects of the Moluccas show a decided affinity with those of New Guinea rather than with the productions of the great western islands of the Archipelago, but the difference in form and structure between the productions of the east and west is not nearly so marked here as in birds. This is probably due to the more immediate dependence of insects on climate and vegetation, and the greater facilities for their distribution in the varied stages of egg, pupa, and perfect insect. This has led to a general uniformity in the insect-life of the whole Archipelago, in accordance with the general uniformity of its climate and vegetation; while on the other hand the great susceptibility of the insect organization to the action of external conditions has led to infinite detailed modifications of form and colour, which have in many cases given a considerable diversity to the productions of adjacent islands. Owing to the great preponderance among the birds, of parrots, pigeons, kingfishers, and sunbirds, almost all of gay or delicate colours, and many adorned with the most gorgeous plumage, and to the numbers of very large and showy butterflies which are almost everywhere to be met with, the forests of the Moluccas offer to the naturalist a very striking example of the luxuriance and beauty of animal life in the tropics. Yet the almost entire absence of Mammalia, and of such wide-spread groups of birds as woodpeckers, thrushes, jays, tits, and pheasants, must convince him that he is in a part of the world which has, in reality but little in common with the great Asiatic continent, although an unbroken chain of islands seems to link them to it. CHAPTER XXVIII. MACASSAR TO THE ARU ISLANDS IN A NATIVE PRAU. (DECEMBER, 1856.) IT was the beginning of December, and the rainy season at Macassar had just set in. For nearly three months had beheld the sun rise daily above the palm-groves, mount to the zenith, and descend like a globe of fire into the ocean, unobscured for a single moment of his course. Now dark leaden clouds had gathered over the whole heavens, and seemed to have rendered him permanently invisible. The strong east winds, warm and dry and dust-laden, which had hitherto blown as certainly as the sun had risen, were now replaced by variable gusty breezes and heavy rains, often continuous for three days and nights together; and the parched and fissured rice stubbles which during the dry weather had extended in every direction for miles around the town, were already so flooded as to be only passable by boats, or by means of a labyrinth of paths on the top of the narrow banks which divided the separate properties. Five months of this kind of weather might be expected in Southern Celebes, and I therefore determined to seek some more favourable climate for collecting in during that period, and to return in the next dry season to complete my exploration of the district. Fortunately for me I was in one of the treat emporiums of the native trade of the archipelago. Rattans from Borneo, sandal-wood and bees'-was from Flores and Timor, tripang from the Gulf of Carpentaria, cajputi-oil from Bouru, wild nutmegs and mussoi-bark from New Guinea, are all to be found in the stores of the Chinese and Bugis merchants of Macassar, along with the rice and coffee which are the chief products of the surrounding country. More important than all these however is the trade to Aru, a group of islands situated on the south-west coast of New Guinea, and of which almost the whole produce comes to Macassar in native vessels. These islands are quite out of the track of all European trade, and are inhabited only by black mop-headed savages, who yet contribute to the luxurious tastes of the most civilized races. Pearls, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell find their way to Europe, while edible birds' nests and "tripang" or sea-slug are obtained by shiploads for the gastronomic enjoyment of the Chinese. The trade to these islands has existed from very early times, and it is from them that Birds of Paradise, of the two kinds known to Linnaeus were first brought The native vessels can only make the voyage once a year, owing to the monsoons. They leave Macassar in December or January at the beginning of the west monsoon, and return in July or August with the full strength of the east monsoon. Even by the Macassar people themselves, the voyage to the Aru Islands is looked upon as a rather wild and romantic expedition, fall of novel sights and strange adventures. He who has made it is looked up to as an authority, and it remains with many the unachieved ambition of their lives. I myself had hoped rather than expected ever to reach this "Ultima Thule" of the East: and when I found that I really could do so now, had I but courage to trust myself for a thousand miles' voyage in a Bugis prau, and for six or seven months among lawless traders and ferocious savages, I felt somewhat as I did when, a schoolboy, I was for the first time allowed to travel outside the stage-coach, to visit that scene of all that is strange and new and wonderful to young imaginations-London! By the help of some kind friends I was introduced to the owner of one of the large praus which was to sail in a few days. He was a Javanese half-caste, intelligent, mild, and gentlemanly in his manners, and had a young and pretty Dutch wife, whom he was going to leave behind during his absence. When we talked about passage money he would fix no sum, but insisted on leaving it entirely to me to pay on my return exactly what I liked. "And then," said he, "whether you give me one dollar or a hundred, I shall be satisfied, and shall ask no more." The remainder of my stay was fully occupied in laying in stores, engaging servants, and making every other preparation for an absence of seven months from even the outskirts of civilization. On the morning of December 13th, when we went on board at daybreak, it was raining hard. We set sail and it came on to blow. Our boat was lost astern, our sails damaged, and the evening found us hack again in Macassar harbour. We remained there four days longer, owing to its raining all the time, thus rendering it impossible to dry and repair the huge mat sails. All these dreary days I remained on board, and during the rare intervals when it didn't rain, made myself acquainted with our outlandish craft, some of the peculiarities of which I will now endeavour to describe. It was a vessel of about seventy tons burthen, and shaped something like a Chinese junk. The deck sloped considerably downward to the bows, which are thus the lowest part of the ship. There were two large rudders, but instead of being planed astern they were hung on the quarters from strong cross beams, which projected out two or three feet on each side, and to which extent the deck overhung the sides of the vessel amidships. The rudders were not hinged but hung with slings of rattan, the friction of which keeps them in any position in which they are placed, and thus perhaps facilitates steering. The tillers were not on deck, but entered the vessel through two square openings into a lower or half deck about three feet high, in which sit the two steersmen. In the after part of the vessel was a low poop, about three and a half feet high, which forms the captain's cabin, its furniture consisting of boxes, mats, and pillows. In front of the poop and mainmast was a little thatched house on deck, about four feet high to the ridge; and one compartment of this, forming a cabin six and a half feet long by five and a half wide, I had all to myself, and it was the snuggest and most comfortable little place I ever enjoyed at sea. It was entered by a low sliding door of thatch on one side, and had a very small window on the other. The floor was of split bamboo, pleasantly elastic, raised six inches above the deck, so as to be quite dry. It was covered with fine cane mats, for the manufacture of which Macassar is celebrated; against the further wall were arranged my guncase, insect-boxes, clothes, and books; my mattress occupied the middle, and next the door were my canteen, lamp, and little store of luxuries for the voyage; while guns, revolver, and hunting knife hung conveniently from the roof. During these four miserable days I was quite jolly in this little snuggery more so than I should have been if confined the same time to the gilded and uncomfortable saloon of a first-class steamer. Then, how comparatively sweet was everything on board--no paint, no tar, no new rope, (vilest of smells to the qualmish!) no grease, or oil, or varnish; but instead of these, bamboo and rattan, and coir rope and palm thatch; pure vegetable fibres, which smell pleasantly if they smell at all, and recall quiet scenes in the green and shady forest. Our ship had two masts, if masts they can be called c which were great moveable triangles. If in an ordinary ship you replace the shrouds and backstay by strong timbers, and take away the mast altogether, you have the arrangement adopted on board a prau. Above my cabin, and resting on cross-beams attached to the masts, was a wilderness of yards and spars, mostly formed of bamboo. The mainyard, an immense affair nearly a hundred feet long, was formed of many pieces of wood and bamboo bound together with rattans in an ingenious manner. The sail carried by this was of an oblong shape, and was hung out of the centre, so that when the short end was hauled down on deck the long end mounted high in the air, making up for the lowness of the mast itself. The foresail was of the same shape, but smaller. Both these were of matting, and, with two jibs and a fore and aft sail astern of cotton canvas, completed our rig. The crew consisted of about thirty men, natives of Macassar and the adjacent coasts and islands. They were mostly young, and were short, broad-faced, good-humoured looking fellows. Their dress consisted generally of a pair of trousers only, when at work, and a handkerchief twisted round the head, to which in the evening they would add a thin cotton jacket. Four of the elder men were "jurumudis," or steersmen, who had to squat (two at a time) in the little steerage before described, changing every six hours. Then there was an old man, the "juragan," or captain, but who was really what we should call the first mate; he occupied the other half of the little house on deck. There were about ten respectable men, Chinese or Bugis, whom our owner used to call "his own people." He treated them very well, shared his meals with them, and spoke to them always with perfect politeness; yet they were most of them a kind of slave debtors, bound over by the police magistrate to work for him at mere nominal wages for a term of years till their debts were liquidated. This is a Dutch institution in this part of the world, and seems to work well. It is a great boon to traders, who can do nothing in these thinly-populated regions without trusting goods to agents and petty dealers, who frequently squander them away in gambling and debauchery. The lower classes are almost all in a chronic state of debt. The merchant trusts them again and again, till the amount is something serious, when he brings them to court and has their services allotted to him for its liquidation. The debtors seem to think this no disgrace, but rather enjoy their freedom from responsibility, and the dignity of their position under a wealthy and well-known merchant. They trade a little on their own account, and both parties seem to get on very well together. The plan seems a more sensible one than that which we adopt, of effectually preventing a man from earning anything towards paying his debts by shutting him up in a jail. My own servants were three in number. Ali, the Malay boy whom I had picked up in Borneo, was my head man. He had already been with me a year, could turn his hand to anything, and was quite attentive and trustworthy. He was a good shot, and fond of shooting, and I had taught him to skin birds very well. The second, named Baderoon, was a Macassar lad; also a pretty good boy, but a desperate gambler. Under pretence of buying a house for his mother, and clothes, for himself, he had received four months' wages about a week before we sailed, and in a day or two gambled away every dollar of it. He had come on board with no clothes, no betel, or tobacco, or salt fish, all which necessary articles I was obliged to send Ali to buy for him. These two lads were about sixteen, I should suppose; the third was younger, a sharp little rascal named Baso, who had been with me a month or two, and had learnt to cook tolerably. He was to fulfil the important office of cook and housekeeper, for I could not get any regular servants to go to such a terribly remote country; one might as well ask a chef de cuisine to go to Patagonia. On the fifth day that I had spent on board (Dec. 15th) the rain ceased, and final preparations were made for starting. Sails were dried and furled, boats were constantly coming and going, and stores for the voyage, fruit, vegetables, fish, and palm sugar, were taken on board. In the afternoon two women arrived with a large party of friends and relations, and at parting there was a general noserubbing (the Malay kiss), and some tears shed. These were promising symptoms for our getting off the next day; and accordingly, at three in the morning, the owner came on board, the anchor was immediately weighed, and by four we set sail. Just as we were fairly off and clear of the other praus, the old juragan repeated some prayers, all around responding with "Allah il Allah," and a few strokes on a gong as an accompaniment, concluding with all wishing each other "Salaamat jalan," a safe and happy journey. We had a light breeze, a calm sea, and a fine morning, a prosperous commencement of our voyage of about a thousand miles to the far-famed Aru Islands. The wind continued light and variable all day, with a calm in the evening before the land breeze sprang up, were then passing the island of "Tanakaki" (foot of the land), at the extreme south of this part of Celebes. There are some dangerous rocks here, and as I was standing by the bulwarks, I happened to spit over the side; one of the men begged I would not do so just now, but spit on deck, as they were much afraid of this place. Not quite comprehending, I made him repeat his request, when, seeing he was in earnest, I said, "Very well, I suppose there are 'hantus' (spirits) here." "Yes," said he, "and they don't like anything to be thrown overboard; many a prau has been lost by doing it." Upon which I promised to be very careful. At sunset the good Mahometans on board all repeated a few words of prayer with a general chorus, reminding me of the pleasing and impressive "Ave. Maria" of Catholic countries. Dec. 20th.-At sunrise we were opposite the Bontyne mountain, said to be one of the highest in Celebes. In the afternoon we passed the Salayer Straits and had a little squall, which obliged us to lower our huge mast, sails, and heavy yards. The rest of the evening we had a fine west wind, which carried us on at near five knots an hour, as much as our lumbering old tub can possibly go. Dec. 21st.-A heavy swell from the south-west rolling us about most uncomfortably. A steady wind was blowing however, and we got on very well. Dec. 22d.-The swell had gone down. We passed Boutong, a large island, high, woody, and populous, the native place of some of our crew. A small prau returning from Bali to the island of Goram overtook us. The nakoda (captain) was known to our owner. They had been two years away, but were full of people, with several black Papuans on board. At 6 P.M. we passed Wangiwangi, low but not flat, inhabited and subject to Boutong. We had now fairly entered the Molucca Sea. After dark it was a beautiful sight to look down on our rudders, from which rushed eddying streams of phosphoric light gemmed with whirling sparks of fire. It resembled (more nearly than anything else to which I can compare it) one of the large irregular nebulous star-clusters seen through a good telescope, with the additional attraction of ever-changing form and dancing motion. Dec. 23d.-Fine red sunrise; the island we left last evening barely visible behind us. The Goram prau about a mile south of us. They have no compass, yet they have kept a very true course during the night. Our owner tells me they do it by the swell of the sea, the direction of which they notice at sunset, and sail by it during the night. In these seas they are never (in fine weather) more than two days without seeing land. Of course adverse winds or currents sometimes carry them away, but they soon fall in with some island, and there are always some old sailors on board who know it, and thence take a new course. Last night a shark about five feet long was caught, and this morning it was cut up and cooked. In the afternoon they got another, and I had a little fried, and found it firm and dry, but very palatable. In the evening the sun set in a heavy bank of clouds, which, as darkness came on, assumed a fearfully black appearance. According to custom, when strong wind or rain is expected, our large sails-were furled, and with their yards let down on deck, and a small square foresail alone kept up. The great mat sails are most awkward things to manage in rough weather. The yards which support them are seventy feet long, and of course very heavy, and the only way to furl them being to roll up the sail on the boom, it is a very dangerous thing to have them standing when overtaken by a squall. Our crew; though numerous enough for a vessel of 700 instead of one of 70 tons, have it very much their own way, and there seems to be seldom more than a dozen at work at a time. When anything important is to be done, however, all start up willingly enough, but then all think themselves at liberty to give their opinion, and half a dozen voices are heard giving orders, and there is such a shrieking and confusion that it seems wonderful anything gets done at all. Considering we have fifty men of several tribes and tongues onboard, wild, half-savage looking fellows, and few of them feeling any of the restraints of morality or education, we get on wonderfully well. There is no fighting or quarrelling, as there would certainly be among the same number of Europeans with as little restraint upon their actions, and there is scarcely any of that noise and excitement which might be expected. In fine weather the greater part of them are quietly enjoying themselves--some are sleeping under the shadow of the sails; others, in little groups of three or four, are talking or chewing betel; one is making a new handle to his chopping-knife, another is stitching away at a new pair of trousers or a shirt, and all are as quiet and well-conducted as on board the best-ordered English merchantman. Two or three take it by turns to watch in the bows and see after the braces and halyards of the great sails; the two steersmen are below in the steerage; our captain, or the juragan, gives the course, guided partly by the compass and partly by the direction of the wind, and a watch of two or three on the poop look after the trimming of the sails and call out the hours by the water-clock. This is a very ingenious contrivance, which measures time well in both rough weather and fine. It is simply a bucket half filled with water, in which floats the half of a well-scraped cocoa-nut shell. In the bottom of this shell is a very small hole, so that when placed to float in the bucket a fine thread of water squirts up into it. This gradually fills the shell, and the size of the hole is so adjusted to the capacity of the vessel that, exactly at the end of an hour, plump it goes to the bottom. The watch then cries out the number of hours from sunrise and sets the shell afloat again empty. This is a very good measurer of time. I tested it with my watch and found that it hardly varied a minute from one hour to another, nor did the motion of the vessel have any effect upon it, as the water in the bucket of course kept level. It has a great advantage for a rude people in being easily understood, in being rather bulky and easy to see, and in the final submergence being accompanied with a little bubbling and commotion of the water, which calls the attention to it. It is also quickly replaced if lost while in harbour. Our captain and owner I find to be a quiet, good-tempered man, who seems to get on very well with all about him. When at sea he drinks no wine or spirits, but indulges only in coffee and cakes, morning and afternoon, in company with his supercargo and assistants. He is a man of some little education, can read and write well both Dutch and Malay, uses a compass, and has a chart. He has been a trader to Aru for many years, and is well known to both Europeans and natives in this part of the world. Dec. 24th.-Fine, and little wind. No land in sight for the first time since we left Macassar. At noon calm, with heavy showers, in which our crew wash their clothes, anti in the afternoon the prau is covered with shirts, trousers, and sarongs of various gay colours. I made a discovery to-day which at first rather alarmed me. The two ports, or openings, through which the tillers enter from the lateral rudders are not more than three or four feet above the surface of the water, which thus has a free entrance into the vessel. I of course had imagined that this open space from one side to the other was separated from the hold by a water-tight bulkhead, so that a sea entering might wash out at the further side, and do no more harm than give the steersmen a drenching. To my surprise end dismay, however, I find that it is completely open to the hold, so that half-a-dozen seas rolling in on a stormy night would nearly, or quite, swamp us. Think of a vessel going to sea for a month with two holes, each a yard square, into the hold, at three feet above the water-line,-holes, too, which cannot possibly be closed! But our captain says all praus are so; and though he acknowledges the danger, "he does not know how to alter it--the people are used to it; he does not understand praus so well as they do, and if such a great alteration were made, he should be sure to have difficulty in getting a crew!" This proves at all events that praus must be good sea-boats, for the captain has been continually making voyages in them for the last ten years, and says he has never known water enough enter to do any harm. Dec.25th.-Christmas-day dawned upon us with gusts of wind, driving rain, thunder and lightning, added to which a short confused sea made our queer vessel pitch and roll very uncomfortably. About nine o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we then saw ahead of us the fine island of Bouru, perhaps forty or fifty miles distant, its mountains wreathed with clouds, while its lower lands were still invisible. The afternoon was fine, and the wind got round again to the west; but although this is really the west monsoon, there is no regularity or steadiness about it, calms and breezes from every point of the compass continually occurring. The captain, though nominally a Protestant, seemed to have no idea of Christmas-day as a festival. Our dinner was of rice and curry as usual, and an extra glass of wine was all I could do to celebrate it. Dec. 26th.--Fine view of the mountains of Bouru, which we have now approached considerably. Our crew seem rather a clumsy lot. They do not walk the deck with the easy swing of English sailors, but hesitate and stagger like landsmen. In the night the lower boom of our mainsail broke, and they were all the morning repairing it. It consisted of two bamboos lashed together, thick end to thin, and was about seventy feet long. The rigging and arrangement of these praus contrasts strangely with that of European vessels, in which the various ropes and spars, though much more numerous, are placed so as not to interfere with each other's action. Here the case is quite different; for though there are no shrouds or stays to complicate the matter, yet scarcely anything can be done without first clearing something else out of the way. The large sails cannot be shifted round to go on the other tack without first hauling down the jibs, and the booms of the fore and aft sails have to be lowered and completely detached to perform the same operation. Then there are always a lot of ropes foul of each other, and all the sails can never be set (though they are so few) without a good part of their surface having the wind kept out of them by others. Yet praus are much liked even by those who have had European vessels, because of their cheapness both in first cost and in keeping up; almost all repairs can be done by the crew, and very few European stores are required. Dec. 28th.--This day we saw the Banda group, the volcano first appearing,--a perfect cone, having very much the outline of the Egyptian pyramids, and looking almost as regular. In the evening the smoke rested over its summit like a small stationary cloud. This was my first view of an active volcano, but pictures and panoramas have so impressed such things on one's mind, that when we at length behold them they seem nothing extraordinary. Dec. 30th.--Passed the island of Teor, and a group near it, which are very incorrectly marked on the charts. Flying-fish were numerous to-day. It is a smaller species than that of the Atlantic, and more active and elegant in its motions. As they skim along the surface they turn on their sides, so as fully to display their beautiful fins, taking a flight of about a hundred yards, rising and falling in a most graceful manner. At a little distance they exactly resemble swallows, and no one who sees them can doubt that they really do fly, not merely descend in an oblique direction from the height they gain by their first spring. In the evening an aquatic bird, a species of booby (Sula fiber.) rested on our hen-coop, and was caught by the neck by one of my boys. Dec. 31st--At daybreak the Ke Islands (pronounced Kay) were in sight, where we are to stay a few days. About noon we rounded the northern point, and endeavoured to coast along to the anchorage; but being now on the leeward side of the island, the wind came in violent irregular gusts, and then leaving us altogether, we were carried back by a strong current. Just then two boats-load of natives appeared, and our owner having agreed with them to tow us into harbour, they tried to do so, assisted by our own boat, but could make no way. We were therefore obliged to anchor in a very dangerous place on a rocky bottom, and we were engaged till nearly dark getting hawsers secured to some rocks under water. The coast of Ke along which we had passed was very picturesque. Light coloured limestone rocks rose abruptly from the water to the height of several hundred feet, everywhere broken into jutting peaks and pinnacles, weather-worn into sharp points and honeycombed surfaces, and clothed throughout with a most varied and luxuriant vegetation. The cliffs above the sea offered to our view screw-pines and arborescent Liliaceae of strange forms, mingled with shrubs and creepers; while the higher slopes supported a dense growth of forest trees. Here and there little bays and inlets presented beaches of dazzling whiteness. The water was transparent as crystal, and tinged the rock-strewn slope which plunged steeply into its unfathomable depths with colours varying from emerald to lapis-lazuli. The sea was calm as a lake, and the glorious sun of the tropics threw a flood of golden light over all. The scene was to me inexpressibly delightful. I was in a new world, and could dream of the wonderful productions hid in those rocky forests, and in those azure abysses. But few European feet had ever trodden the shores I gazed upon its plants, and animals, and men were alike almost unknown, and I could not help speculating on what my wanderings there for a few days might bring to light. CHAPTER XXIX. THE KE ISLANDS. (JANUARY 1857) THE native boats that had come to meet us were three or four in number, containing in all about fifty men. They were long canoes, with the bow and stern rising up into a beak six or night feet high, decorated with shells and waving plumes of cassowaries hair. I now had my first view of Papuans in their own country, and in less than five minutes was convinced that the opinion already arrived at by the examination of a few Timor and New Guinea slaves was substantially correct, and that the people I now had an opportunity of comparing side by side belonged to two of the most distinct and strongly marked races that the earth contains. Had I been blind, I could have been certain that these islanders were not Malays. The loud, rapid, eager tones, the incessant motion, the intense vital activity manifested in speech and action, are the very antipodes of the quiet, unimpulsive, unanimated Malay These Ke men came up singing and shouting, dipping their paddles deep in the water and throwing up clouds of spray; as they approached nearer they stood up in their canoes and increased their noise and gesticulations; and on coming alongside, without asking leave, and without a moment's hesitation, the greater part of them scrambled up on our deck just as if they were come to take possession of a captured vessel. Then commenced a scene of indescribable confusion. These forty black, naked, mop-headed savages seemed intoxicated with joy and excitement. Not one of them could remain still for a moment. Every individual of our crew was in turn surrounded and examined, asked for tobacco or arrack, grinned at and deserted for another. All talked at once, and our captain was regularly mobbed by the chief men, who wanted to be employed to tow us in, and who begged vociferously to be paid in advance. A few presents of tobacco made their eyes glisten; they would express their satisfaction by grins and shouts, by rolling on deck, or by a headlong leap overboard. Schoolboys on an unexpected holiday, Irishmen at a fair, or mid-shipmen on shore, would give but a faint idea of the exuberant animal enjoyment of these people. Under similar circumstances Malays could not behave as these Papuans did. If they came on board a vessel (after asking permission), not a word would be at first spoken, except a few compliments, and only after some time, and very cautiously, world any approach be made to business. One would speak at a time, with a low voice and great deliberation, and the mode of making a bargain would be by quietly refusing all your offers, or even going away without saying another word about the matter, unless advanced your price to what they were willing to accept. Our crew, many of whom had not made the voyage before, seemed quite scandalized at such unprecedented bad manners, and only very gradually made any approach to fraternization with the black fellows. They reminded me of a party of demure and well-behaved children suddenly broken in upon by a lot of wild romping, riotous boys, whose conduct seems most extraordinary and very naughty. These moral features are more striking and more conclusive of absolute diversity than oven the physical contrast presented by the two races, though that is sufficiently remarkable. The sooty blackness of the skin, the mop-like head of frizzly hair, and, most important of all, the marked form of countenance of quite a different type from that of the Malay, are what we cannot believe to result from mere climatal or other modifying influences on one and the same race. The Malay face is of the Mongolian type, broad and somewhat flat. The brows are depressed, the mouth wide, but not projecting, and the nose small and well formed but for the great dilatation of the nostrils. The face is smooth, and rarely develops the trace of a beard; the hair black, coarse, and perfectly straight. The Papuan, on the other hand, has a face which we may say is compressed and projecting. The brows are protuberant and overhanging, the mouth large and prominent, while the nose is very large, the apex elongated downwards, the ridge thick, and the nostrils large. It is an obtrusive and remarkable feature in the countenance, the very reverse of what obtains in the Malay face. The twisted beard and frizzly hair complete this remarkable contrast. Hero then I had reached a new world, inhabited by a strange people. Between the Malayan tribes, among whom I had for some years been living, and the Papuan races, whose country I had now entered, we may fairly say that there is as much difference, both moral and physical, as between the red Indians of South America and the negroes of Guinea on the opposite side of the Atlantic. Jan. 1st, 1857.-This has been a day of thorough enjoyment. I have wandered in the forests of an island rarely seen by Europeans. Before daybreak we left our anchorage, and in an hour reached the village of Har, where we were to stay three or four days. The range of hills here receded so as to form a small bay, and they were broken up into peaks and hummocks with intervening flats and hollows. A broad beach of the whitest sand lined the inner part of the bay, backed by a mass of cocoa-nut palms, among which the huts were concealed, and surmounted by a dense and varied growth of timber. Canoes and boats of various sizes were drawn up on the beach and one or two idlers, with a few children and a dog, gazed at our prau as we came to an anchor. When we went on shore the first thing that attracted us was a large and well-constructed shed, under which a long boat was being built, while others in various stages of completion were placed at intervals along the beach. Our captain, who wanted two of moderate size for the trade among the islands at Aru, immediately began bargaining for them, and in a short tine had arranged the nuns number of brass guns, gongs, sarongs, handkerchiefs, axes, white plates, tobacco, and arrack, which he was to give for a hair which could be got ready in four days. We then went to the village, which consisted only of three or four huts, situated immediately above the beach on an irregular rocky piece of ground overshadowed with cocoa-nuts, palms, bananas, and other fruit trees. The houses were very rude, black, and half rotten, raised a few feet on posts with low sides of bamboo or planks, and high thatched roofs. They had small doors and no windows, an opening under the projecting gables letting the smoke out and a little light in. The floors were of strips of bamboo, thin, slippery, and elastic, and so weak that my feet were in danger of plunging through at every step. Native boxes of pandanus-leaves and slabs of palm pith, very neatly constructed, mats of the same, jars and cooking pots of native pottery, and a few European plates and basins, were the whole furniture, and the interior was throughout dark and smoke-blackened, and dismal in the extreme. Accompanied by Ali and Baderoon, I now attempted to make some explorations, and we were followed by a train of boys eager to see what we were going to do. The most trodden path from the beach led us into a shady hollow, where the trees were of immense height and the undergrowth scanty. From the summits of these trees came at intervals a deep booming sound, which at first puzzled us, but which we soon found to proceed from some large pigeons. My boys shot at them, and after one or two misses, brought one down. It was a magnificent bird twenty inches long, of a bluish white colour, with the back wings and tail intense metallic green, with golden, blue, and violet reflexions, the feet coral red, and the eyes golden yellow. It is a rare species, which I have named Carpophaga concinna, and is found only in a few small islands, where, however, it abounds. It is the same species which in the island of Banda is called the nutmeg-pigeon, from its habit of devouring the fruits, the seed or nutmeg being thrown up entire and uninjured. Though these pigeons have a narrow beak, yet their jaws and throat are so extensible that they can swallow fruits of very large size. I had before shot a species much smaller than this one, which had a number of hard globular palm-fruits in its crop, each more than an inch in diameter. A little further the path divided into two, one leading along the beach, and across mangrove and sago swamps the other rising to cultivated grounds. We therefore returned, and taking a fresh departure from the village, endeavoured to ascend the hills and penetrate into the interior. The path, however, was a most trying one. Where there was earth, it was a deposit of reddish clay overlying the rock, and was worn so smooth by the attrition of naked feet that my shoes could obtain no hold on the sloping surface. A little farther we came to the bare rock, and this was worse, for it was so rugged and broken, and so honeycombed and weatherworn into sharp points and angles, that my boys, who had gone barefooted all their lives, could not stand it. Their feet began to bleed, and I saw that if I did not want them completely lamed it would be wise to turn lack. My own shoes, which were rather thin, were but a poor protection, and would soon have been cut to pieces; yet our little naked guides tripped along with the greatest ease and unconcern, and seemed much astonished at our effeminacy in not being able to take a walk which to them was a perfectly agreeable one. During the rest of our stay in the island we were obliged to confine ourselves to the vicinity of the shore and the cultivated grounds, and those more level portions of the forest where a little soil had accumulated and the rock had been less exposed to atmospheric action. The island of Ke (pronounced exactly as the letter K, but erroneously spelt in our maps Key or Ki) is long and narrow, running in a north and south direction, and consists almost entirely of rock and mountain. It is everywhere covered with luxuriant forests, and in its bays and inlets the sand is of dazzling whiteness, resulting from the decomposition of the coralline limestone of which it is entirely composed. In all the little swampy inlets and valleys sago trees abound, and these supply the main subsistence of the natives, who grow no rice, and have scarcely any other cultivated products but cocoa-nuts, plantains, and yams. From the cocoa-nuts, which surround every hut, and which thrive exceedingly on the porous limestone soil and under the influence of salt breezes, oil is made which is sold at a good price to the Aru traders, who all touch here to lay in their stuck of this article, as well as to purchase boats and native crockery. Wooden bowls, pans, and trays are also largely made here, hewn out of solid blocks of wood with knife and adze; and these are carried to all parts of the Moluccas. But the art in which the natives of Ke pre-eminently excel is that of boat building. Their forests supply abundance of fine timber, though, probably not more so than many other islands, and from some unknown causes these remote savages have come to excel in what seems a very difficult art. Their small canoes are beautifully formed, broad and low in the centre, but rising at each end, where they terminate in high-pointed beaks more or less carved, and ornamented with a plume of feathers. They are not hollowed out of a tree, but are regularly built of planks running from ego to end, and so accurately fitted that it is often difficult to find a place where a knife-blade can be inserted between the joints. The larger ones are from 20 to 30 tons burthen, and are finished ready for sea without a nail or particle of iron being used, and with no other tools than axe, adze, and auger. These vessels are handsome to look at, good sailers, and admirable sea-boats, and will make long voyages with perfect safety, traversing the whole Archipelago from New Guinea to Singapore in seas which, as every one who has sailed much in them can testify, are not so smooth and tempest-free as word-painting travellers love to represent them. The forests of Ke produce magnificent timber, tall, straight, and durable, of various qualities, some of which are said to be superior to the best Indian teak. To make each pair of planks used in the construction of the larger boats an entire tree is consumed. It is felled, often miles away from the shore, cut across to the proper length, and then hewn longitudinally into two equal portions. Each of these forms a plank by cutting down with the axe to a uniform thickness of three or four inches, leaving at first a solid block at each end to prevent splitting. Along the centre of each plank a series of projecting pieces are left, standing up three or four inches, about the same width, and a foot long; these are of great importance in the construction of the vessel. When a sufficient number of planks have been made, they are laboriously dragged through the forest by three or four men each to the beach, where the boat is to be built. A foundation piece, broad in the middle and rising considerably at each end, is first laid on blocks and properly shored up. The edges of this are worked true and smooth with the adze, and a plank, properly curved and tapering at each end, is held firmly up against it, while a line is struck along it which allows it to be cut so as to fit exactly. A series of auger holes, about as large as one's finger, are then bored along the opposite edges, and pins of very hard wood are fitted to these, so that the two planks are held firmly, and can be driven into the closest contact; and difficult as this seems to do without any other aid than rude practical skill in forming each edge to the true corresponding curves, and in poring the holes so as exactly to match both in position and direction, yet so well is it done that the best European shipwright cannot produce sounder or closer-fitting joints. The boat is built up in this way by fitting plank to plank till the proper height and width are obtained. We have now a skin held together entirely by the hardwood pins connecting the edges of the planks, very strong and elastic, but having nothing but the adhesion of these pins to prevent the planks gaping. In the smaller boats seats, in the larger ones cross-beams, are now fixed. They are sprung into slight notches cut to receive them, and are further secured to the projecting pieces of the plank below by a strong lashing of rattan. Ribs are now formed of single pieces of tough wood chosen and trimmed so as exactly to fit on to the projections from each plank, being slightly notched to receive them, and securely bound to them by rattans passed through a hole in each projecting piece close to the surface of the plank. The ends are closed against the vertical prow and stern posts, and further secured with pegs and rattans, and then the boat is complete; and when fitted with rudders, masts, and thatched covering, is ready to do battle with, the waves. A careful consideration of the principle of this mode of construction, and allowing for the strength and binding qualities of rattan (which resembles in these respects wire rather than cordage), makes me believe that a vessel carefully built in this manner is actually stronger and safer than one fastened in the ordinary way with nails. During our stay here we were all very busy. Our captain was daily superintending the completion of his two small praus. All day long native boats were coming with fish, cocoa-nuts, parrots and lories, earthen pans, sirip leaf, wooden bowls, and trays, &c. &e., which every one of the fifty inhabitants of our prau seemed to be buying on his own account, till all available and most unavailable space of our vessel was occupied with these miscellaneous articles: for every man on board a prau considers himself at liberty to trade, and to carry with him whatever he can afford to buy. Money is unknown and valueless here--knives, cloth, and arrack forming the only medium of exchange, with tobacco for small coin. Every transaction is the subject of a special bargain, and the cause of much talking. It is absolutely necessary to offer very little, as the natives are never satisfied till you add a little more. They are then far better pleased than if you had given them twice the amount at first and refused to increase it. I, too, was doing a little business, having persuaded some of the natives to collect insects for me; and when they really found that I gave them most fragrant tobacco for worthless black and green beetles, I soon had scores of visitors, men, women, and children, bringing bamboos full of creeping things, which, alas! too frequently had eaten each other into fragments during the tedium of a day's confinement. Of one grand new beetle, glittering with ruby and emerald tints, I got a large quantity, having first detected one of its wing-cases ornamenting the outside of a native's tobacco pouch. It was quite a new species, and had not been found elsewhere than on this little island. It is one of the Buprestidae, and has been named Cyphogastra calepyga. Each morning after an early breakfast I wandered by myself into the forest, where I found delightful occupation in capturing the large and handsome butterflies, which were tolerably abundant, and most of them new to me; for I was now upon the confines of the Moluccas and New Guinea,--a region the productions of which were then among the most precious and rare in the cabinets of Europe. Here my eyes were feasted for the first time with splendid scarlet lories on the wing, as well as by the sight of that most imperial butterfly, the "Priamus" of collectors, or a closely allied species, but flying so high that I did not succeed in capturing a specimen. One of them was brought me in a bamboo, bored up with a lot of beetles, and of course torn to pieces. The principal drawback of the place for a collector is the want of good paths, and the dreadfully rugged character of the surface, requiring the attention to be so continually directed to securing a footing, as to make it very difficult to capture active winged things, who pass out of reach while one is glancing to see that the next step may not plunge one into a chasm or over a precipice. Another inconvenience is that there are no running streams, the rock being of so porous a nature that the surface-water everywhere penetrates its fissures; at least such is the character of the neighbourhood we visited, the only water being small springs trickling out close to the sea-beach. In the forests of Ke, arboreal Liliaceae and Pandanaceae abound, and give a character to the vegetation in the more exposed rocky places. Flowers were scarce, and there were not many orchids, but I noticed the fine white butterfly-orchis, Phalaenopsis grandiflora, or a species closely allied to it. The freshness and vigour of the vegetation was very pleasing, and on such an arid rocky surface was a sure indication of a perpetually humid climate. Tall clean trunks, many of them buttressed, and immense trees of the fig family, with aerial roots stretching out and interlacing and matted together for fifty or a hundred feet above the ground, were the characteristic features; and there was an absence of thorny shrubs and prickly rattans, which would have made these wilds very pleasant to roam in, had it not been for the sharp honeycombed rocks already alluded to. In damp places a fine undergrowth of broadleaved herbaceous plants was found, about which swarmed little green lizards, with tails of the most "heavenly blue," twisting in and out among the stalks and foliage so actively that I often caught glimpses of their tails only, when they startled me by their resemblance to small snakes. Almost the only sounds in these primeval woods proceeded from two birds, the red lories, who utter shrill screams like most of the parrot tribe, and the large green nutmeg-pigeon, whose voice is either a loud and deep boom, like two notes struck upon a very large gong, or sometimes a harsh toad-like croak, altogether peculiar and remarkable. Only two quadrupeds are said by the natives to inhabit the island--a wild pig and a Cuscus, or Eastern opossum, of neither of which could I obtain specimens. The insects were more abundant, and very interesting. Of butterflies I caught thirty-five species, most of them new to me, and many quite unknown in European collections. Among them was the fine yellow and black Papilio euchenor, of which but few specimens had been previously captured, and several other handsome butterflies of large size, as well as some beautiful little "blues," and some brilliant dayflying moths. The beetle tribe were less abundant, yet I obtained some very fine and rare species. On the leaves of a slender shrub in an old clearing I found several fine blue and black beetles of the genus Eupholus, which almost rival in beauty the diamond beetles of South America. Some cocoa-nut palms in blossom on the beach were frequented by a fine green floral beetle (Lomaptera) which, when the flowers were shaken, flew off like a small swarm of bees. I got one of our crew to climb up the tree, and he brought me a good number in his hand; and seeing they were valuable, I sent him up again with my net to shake the flowers into, and thus secured a large quantity. My best capture, however, was the superb insect of the Buprestis family, already mentioned as having been obtained from the natives, who told me they found it in rotten trees in the mountains. In the forest itself the only common and conspicuous coleoptera were two tiger beetles. One, Therates labiata, was much larger than our green tiger beetle, of a purple black colour, with green metallic glosses, and the broad upper lip of a bright yellow. It was always found upon foliage, generally of broad-leaned herbaceous plants, and in damp and gloomy situations, taking frequent short flights from leaf to leaf, and preserving an alert attitude, as if always looking out for its prey. Its vicinity could be immediately ascertained, often before it was seen, by a very pleasant odour, like otto of roses, which it seems to emit continually, and which may probably be attractive to the small insects on which it feeds. The other, Tricondyla aptera, is one of the most curious forms in the family of the Cicindelidae, and is almost exclusively confined to the Malay islands. In shape it resembles a very large ant, more than an inch long, and of a purple black colour. Like an ant also it is wingless, and is generally found ascending trees, passing around the trunks in a spiral direction when approached, to avoid capture, so that it requires a sudden run and active fingers to secure a specimen. This species emits the usual fetid odour of the ground beetles. My collections during our four days' stay at Ke were as follow:--Birds, 13 species; insects, 194 species; and 3 kinds of land-shells. There are two kinds of people inhabiting these islands--the indigenes, who have the Papuan characters strongly marked, and who are pagans; and a mixed race, who are nominally Mahometans, and wear cotton clothing, while the former use only a waist cloth of cotton or bark. These Mahometans are said to have been driven out of Banda by the early European settlers. They were probably a brown race, more allied to the Malays, and their mixed descendants here exhibit great variations of colour, hair, and features, graduating between the Malay and Papuan types. It is interesting to observe the influence of the early Portuguese trade with these countries in the words of their language, which still remain in use even among these remote and savage islanders. "Lenco" for handkerchief, and "faca" for knife, are here used to the exclusion of the proper Malay terms. The Portuguese and Spaniards were truly wonderful conquerors and colonizers. They effected more rapid changes in the countries they conquered than any other nations of modern times, resembling the Romans in their power of impressing their own language, religion, and manners on rode and barbarous tribes. The striking contrast of character between these people and the Malays is exemplified in many little traits. One day when I was rambling in the forest, an old man stopped to look at me catching an insect. He stood very quiet till I had pinned and put it away in my collecting box, when he could contain himself no longer, but bent almost double, and enjoyed a hearty roar of laughter. Every one will recognise this as a true negro trait. A Malay would have stared, and asked with a tone of bewilderment what I was doing, for it is but little in his nature to laugh, never heartily, and still less at or in the presence of a stranger, to whom, however, his disdainful glances or whispered remarks are less agreeable than the most boisterous open expression of merriment. The women here were not so much frightened at strangers, or made to keep themselves so much secluded as among the Malay races; the children were more merry and had the "nigger grin," while the noisy confusion of tongues among the men, and their excitement on very ordinary occasions, are altogether removed from the general taciturnity and reserve of the Malay. The language of the Ke people consists of words of one, two, or three syllables in about equal proportions, and has many aspirated and a few guttural sounds. The different villages have slight differences of dialect, but they are mutually intelligible, and, except in words that have evidently been introduced during a long-continued commercial intercourse, seem to have no affinity whatever with the Malay languages. Jan. 6th.-The small boats being finished, we sailed for Aru at 4 P.M., and as we left the shores of Ke had a line view of its rugged and mountainous character; ranges of hills, three or four thousand feet high, stretching southwards as far as the eye could reach, everywhere covered with a lofty, dense, and unbroken forest. We had very light winds, and it therefore took us thirty hours to make the passage of sixty miles to the low, or flat, but equally forest-covered Aru Islands, where we anchored in the harbour of Dobbo at nine in the evening of the next day. My first voyage in a prau being thus satisfactorily terminated, I must, before taking leave of it for some months, bear testimony to the merits of the queer old-world vessel. Setting aside all ideas of danger, which is probably, after all, not more than in any other craft, I must declare that I have never, either before or since, made a twenty days' voyage so pleasantly, or perhaps, more correctly speaking, with so little discomfort. This I attribute chiefly to having my small cabin on deck, and entirely to myself, to having my own servants to wait upon me, and to the absence of all those marine-store smells of paint, pitch, tallow, and new cordage, which are to me insupportable. Something is also to be put down to freedom from all restraint of dress, hours of meals, &c., and to the civility and obliging disposition of the captain. I had agreed to have my meals with him, but whenever I wished it I had them in my own berth, and at what hours I felt inclined. The crew were all civil and good-tempered, and with very little discipline everything went on smoothly, and the vessel was kept very clean and in pretty good order, so that on the whole I was much delighted with the trip, and was inclined to rate the luxuries of the semi-barbarous prau as surpassing those of the most magnificent screw-steamer, that highest result of our civilisation. CHAPTER XXX. THE ARU ISLANDS--RESIDENCE IN DOBBO (JANUARY TO MARCH 1857.) On the 8th of January, 1857, I landed at Dobbo, the trading settlement of the Bugis and Chinese, who annually visit the Aru Islands. It is situated on the small island of Wamma, upon a spit of sand which projects out to the north, and is just wide enough to contain three rows of houses. Though at first sight a most strange and desolate-looking place to build a village on, it has many advantages. There is a clear entrance from the west among the coral reefs that border the land, and there is good anchorage for vessels, on one side of the village or the other, in both the east and west monsoons. Being fully exposed to the sea-breezes in three directions it is healthy, and the soft sandy heath offers great facilities for hauling up the praus, in order to secure them from sea-worms and prepare them for the homeward voyage. At its southern extremity the sand-bank merges in the beach of the island, and is backed by a luxuriant growth of lofty forest. The houses are of various sizes, but are all built after one pattern, being merely large thatched sheds, a small portion of which, next the entrance, is used as a dwelling, while the rest is parted oft; and often divided by one or two floors, in order better to stow away merchandise and native produce. As we had arrived early in the season, most of the houses were empty, and the place looked desolate in the extreme--the whole of the inhabitants who received us on our landing amounting to about half-a-dozen Bugis and Chinese. Our captain, Herr Warzbergen, had promised to obtain a house for me, but unforeseen difficulties presented themselves. One which was to let had no roof; and the owner, who was building it on speculation, could not promise to finish it in less than a month. Another, of which the owner was dead, and which I might therefore take undisputed possession of as the first comer, wanted considerable repairs, and no one could be found to do the work, although about four times its value was offered. The captain, therefore, recommended me to take possession of a pretty good house near his own, whose owner was not expected for some weeks; and as I was anxious to be on shore, I immediately had it cleared out, and by evening had all my things housed, and was regularly installed as an inhabitant of Dobbo. I had brought with me a cane chair, and a few light boards, which were soon rigged up into a table and shelves. A broad bamboo bench served as sofa and bedstead, my boxes were conveniently arranged, my mats spread on the floor, a window cut in the palm-leaf wall to light my table, and though the place was as miserable and gloomy a shed as could be imagined, I felt as contented as if I had obtained a well-furnished mansion, and looked forward to a month's residence in it with unmixed satisfaction. The next morning, after an early breakfast, I set off to explore the virgin forests of Aru, anxious to set my mind at rest as to the treasures they were likely to yield, and the probable success of my long-meditated expedition. A little native imp was our guide, seduced by the gift of a German knife, value three-halfpence, and my Macassar boy Baderoon brought his chopper to clear the path if necessary. We had to walk about half a mile along the beach, the ground behind the village being mostly swampy, and then turned into the forest along a path which leads to the native village of Wamma, about three miles off on the other side of the island. The path was a narrow one, and very little used, often swampy and obstructed by fallen trees, so that after about a mile we lost it altogether, our guide having turned back, and we were obliged to follow his example. In the meantime, however, I had not been idle, and my day's captures determined the success of my journey in an entomological point of view. I had taken about thirty species of butterflies, more than I had ever captured in a day since leaving the prolific banks of the Amazon, and among them were many most rare and beautiful insects, hitherto only known by a few specimens from New Guinea. The large and handsome spectre butterfly, Hestia durvillei; the pale-winged peacock butterfly, Drusilla catops; and the most brilliant and wonderful of the clear-winged moths, Cocytia durvillei, were especially interesting, as well, as several little "blues," equalling in brilliancy and beauty anything the butterfly world can produce. In the other groups of insects I was not so successful, but this was not to be wondered at in a mere exploring ramble, when only what is most conspicuous and novel attracts the attention. Several pretty beetles, a superb "bug," and a few nice land-shells were obtained, and I returned in the afternoon well satisfied with my first trial of the promised land. The next two days were so wet and windy that there was no going out; but on the succeeding one the sun shone brightly, and I had the good fortune to capture one of the most magnificent insects the world contains, the great bird-winged butterfly, Ornithoptera Poseidon. I trembled with excitement as I saw it coming majestically towards me, and could hardly believe I had really succeeded in my stroke till I had taken it out of the net and was gazing, lost in admiration, at the velvet black and brilliant green of its wings, seven inches across, its bolder body, and crimson breast. It is true I had seen similar insects in cabinets at home, but it is quite another thing to capture such oneself-to feel it struggling between one's fingers, and to gaze upon its fresh and living beauty, a bright gem shirring out amid the silent gloom of a dark and tangled forest. The village of Dobbo held that evening at least one contented man. Jan. 26th.--Having now been here a fortnight, I began to understand a little of the place and its peculiarities. Praus continually arrived, and the merchant population increased almost daily. Every two or three days a fresh house was opened, and the necessary repairs made. In every direction men were bringing in poles, bamboos, rattans, and the leaves of the nipa palm to construct or repair the walls, thatch, doors, and shutters of their houses, which they do with great celerity. Some of the arrivals were Macassar men or Bugis, but more from the small island of Goram, at the east end of Ceram, whose inhabitants are the petty traders of the far East. Then the natives of Aru come in from the other side of the islands (called here "blakang tana," or "back of the country") with the produce they have collected during the preceding six months, and which they now sell to the traders, to some of whom they are most likely in debt. Almost all, or I may safely say all, the new arrivals pay me a visit, to see with their own eyes the unheard-of phenomenon of a person come to stay at Dobbo who does not trade! They have their own ideas of the uses that may possibly be made of stuffed birds, beetles, and shells which are not the right shells--that is, "mother-of-pearl." They every day bring me dead and broken shells, such as I can pick up by hundreds on the beach, and seem quite puzzled and distressed when I decline them. If, however, there are any snail shells among a lot, I take them, and ask for more--a principle of selection so utterly unintelligible to them, that they give it up in despair, or solve the problem by imputing hidden medical virtue to those which they see me preserve so carefully. These traders are all of the Malay race, or a mixture of which Malay is the chef ingredient, with the exception of a few Chinese. The natives of Aru, on the other hand, are, Papuans, with black or sooty brown skims, woolly or frizzly hair, thick-ridged prominent noses, and rather slender limbs. Most of them wear nothing but a waist-cloth, and a few of them may be seen all day long wandering about the half-deserted streets of Dobbo offering their little bit of merchandise for sale. Living in a trader's house everything is brought to me as well as to the rest,--bundles of smoked tripang, or "beche de mer," looking like sausages which have been rolled in mud and then thrown up the chimney; dried sharks' fins, mother-of-pearl shells, as well as birds of Paradise, which, however, are so dirty and so badly preserved that I have as yet found no specimens worth purchasing. When I hardly look at the articles, and make no offer for them, they seem incredulous, and, as if fearing they have misunderstood me, again offer them, and declare what they want in return--knives, or tobacco, or sago, or handkerchiefs. I then have to endeavour to explain, through any interpreter who may be at hand, that neither tripang nor pearl oyster shells have any charms for me, and that I even decline to speculate in tortoiseshell, but that anything eatable I will buy--fish, or turtle, or vegetables of any sort. Almost the only food, however, that we can obtain with any regularity, are fish and cockles of very good quality, and to supply our daily wants it is absolutely necessary to be always provided with four articles--tobacco, knives, sago-cakes, and Dutch copper doits--because when the particular thing asked for is not forthcoming, the fish pass on to the next house, and we may go that day without a dinner. It is curious to see the baskets and buckets used here. The cockles are brought in large volute shells, probably the Cymbium ducale, while gigantic helmet-shells, a species of Cassis, suspended by a rattan handle, form the vessels in which fresh water is daily carried past my door. It is painful to a naturalist to see these splendid shells with their inner whorls ruthlessly broken away to fit them for their ignoble use. My collections, however, got on but slowly, owing to the unexpectedly bad weather, violent winds with heavy showers having been so continuous as only to give me four good collecting days out of the first sixteen I spent here. Yet enough had been collected to show me that with time and fine weather I might expect to do something good. From the natives I obtained some very fine insects and a few pretty land-shells; and of the small number of birds yet shot more than half were known New Guinea species, and therefore certainly rare in European collections, while the remainder were probably new. In one respect my hopes seemed doomed to be disappointed. I had anticipated the pleasure of myself preparing fine specimens of the Birds of Paradise, but I now learnt that they are all at this season out of plumage, and that it is in September and October that they have the long plumes of yellow silky feathers in full perfection. As all the praus return in July, I should not be able to spend that season in Aru without remaining another whole year, which was out of the question. I was informed, however, that the small red species, the "King Bird of Paradise," retains its plumage at all seasons, and this I might therefore hope to get. As I became familiar with the forest scenery of the island, I perceived it to possess some characteristic features that distinguished it from that of Borneo and Malacca, while, what is very singular and interesting, it recalled to my mind the half-forgotten impressions of the forests of Equatorial America. For example, the palms were much more abundant than I had generally found them in the East, more generally mingled with the other vegetation, more varied in form and aspect, and presenting some of those lofty and majestic smooth-stemmed, pinnate-leaved species which recall the Uauassu (Attalea speciosa) of the Amazon, but which I had hitherto rarely met with in the Malayan islands. In animal life the immense number and variety of spiders and of lizards were circumstances that recalled the prolific regions of south America, more especially the abundance and varied colours of the little jumping spiders which abound on flowers and foliage, and are often perfect gems of beauty. The web-spinning species were also more numerous than I had ever seen them, and were a great annoyance, stretching their nets across the footpaths just about the height of my face; and the threads composing these are so strong and glutinous as to require much trouble to free oneself from them. Then their inhabitants, great yellow-spotted monsters with bodies two inches long, and legs in proportion, are not pleasant to o run one's nose against while pursuing some gorgeous butterfly, or gazing aloft in search of some strange-voiced bird. I soon found it necessary not only to brush away the web, but also to destroy the spinner; for at first, having cleared the path one day, I found the next morning that the industrious insects had spread their nets again in the very same places. The lizards were equally striking by their numbers, variety, and the situations in which they were found. The beautiful blue-tailed species so abundant in Ke was not seen here. The Aru lizards are more varied but more sombre in their colours--shades of green, grey, brown, and even black, being very frequently seen. Every shrub and herbaceous plant was alive with them, every rotten trunk or dead branch served as a station for some of these active little insect-hunters, who, I fear, to satisfy their gross appetites, destroy many gems of the insect world, which would feast the eyes and delight the heart of our more discriminating entomologists. Another curious feature of the jungle here was the multitude of sea-shells everywhere met with on the ground and high up on the branches and foliage, all inhabited by hermit-crabs, who forsake the beach to wander in the forest. I lave actually seen a spider carrying away a good-sized shell and devouring its (probably juvenile) tenant. On the beach, which I had to walls along every morning to reach the forest, these creatures swarmed by thousands. Every dead shell, from the largest to the most minute, was appropriated by them. They formed small social parties of ten or twenty around bits of stick or seaweed, but dispersed hurriedly at the sound of approaching footsteps. After a windy night, that nasty-looking Chinese delicacy the sea-slug was sometimes thrown up on the beach, which was at such times thickly strewn with some of the most beautiful shells that adorn our cabinets, along with fragments and masses of coral and strange sponges, of which I picked up more than twenty different sorts. In many cases sponge and coral are so much alike that it is only on touching them that they can be distinguished. Quantities of seaweed, too, are thrown up; but strange as it may seem, these are far less beautiful and less varied than may be found on any favourable part of our own coasts. The natives here, even those who seem to be of pare Papuan race, were much more reserved and taciturn than those of Ke. This is probably because I only saw them as yet among strangers and in small parties, One must see the savage at home to know what he really is. Even here, however, the Papuan character sometimes breaks out. Little boys sing cheerfully as they walk along, or talk aloud to themselves (quite a negro characteristic); and try all they can, the men cannot conceal their emotions in the true Malay fashion. A number of them were one day in my house, and having a fancy to try what sort of eating tripang would be, I bought a couple, paying for them with such an extravagant quantity of tobacco that the seller saw I was a green customer. He could not, however, conceal his delight, but as he smelt the fragrant weed, and exhibited the large handful to his companions, he grinned and twisted and gave silent chuckles in a most expressive pantomime. I had often before made the same mistake in paying a Malay for some trifle. In no case, however, was his pleasure visible on his countenance--a dull and stupid hesitation only showing his surprise, which would be exhibited exactly in the same way whether he was over or under paid. These little moral traits are of the greatest interest when taken in connexion with physical features. They do not admit of the same ready explanation by external causes which is so frequently applied to the latter. Writers on the races of mankind have too often to trust to the information of travellers who pass rapidly from country to country, and thus have few opportunities of becoming acquainted with peculiarities of national character, or even of ascertaining what is really the average physical conformation of the people. Such are exceedingly apt to be deceived in places where two races have long, intermingled, by looking on intermediate forms and mixed habits as evidences of a natural transition from one race to the other, instead of an artificial mixture of two distinct peoples; and they will be the more readily led into this error if, as in the present case, writers on the subject should have been in the habit of classing these races as mere varieties of one stock, as closely related in physical conformation as from their geographical proximity one might suppose they ought to be. So far as I have yet seen, the Malay and Papuan appear to be as widely separated as any two human races that exist, being distinguished by physical, mental, and moral characteristics, all of the most marked and striking kind. Feb 5th.--I took advantage of a very fine calm day to pay a visit to the island of Wokan, which is about a mile from us, and forms part of the "canna busar," or mainland of Aru. This is a large island, extending from north to south about a hundred miles, but so low in many parts as to be intersected by several creeks, which run completely through it, offering a passage for good-sized vessels. On the west side, where we are, there are only a few outlying islands, of which ours (Wamma) is the principal; but on the east coast are a great number of islands, extending some miles beyond the mainland, and forming the "blakang tang," or "back country," of the traders, being the principal seat of the pearl, tripang, and tortoiseshell fisheries. To the mainland many of the birds and animals of the country are altogether confined; the Birds of paradise, the black cockatoo, the great brush-turkey, and the cassowary, are none of them found on Wamma or any of the detached islands. I did not, however, expect in this excursion to see any decided difference in the forest or its productions, and was therefore agreeably surprised. The beach was overhung with the drooping branches of lame trees, loaded with Orchideae, ferns, and other epiphytal plants. In the forest there was more variety, some parts being dry, and with trees of a lower growth, while in others there were some of the most beautiful palms I have ever seen, with a perfectly straight, smooth, slender stem, a hundred feet high, and a crown of handsome drooping leaves. But the greatest novelty and most striking feature to my eyes were the tree-ferns, which, after seven years spent in the tropics, I now saw in perfection for the first time. All I had hitherto met with were slender species, not more than twelve feet high, and they gave not the least idea of the supreme beauty of trees bearing their elegant heads of fronds more than thirty feet in the air, like those which were plentifully scattered about this forest. There is nothing in tropical vegetation so perfectly beautiful. My boys shot five sorts of birds, none of which we had obtained during a month's shooting in Wamma. Two were very pretty flycatchers, already known from New Guinea; one of them (Monarcha chrysomela), of brilliant black and bright orange colours, is by some authors considered to be the most beautiful of all flycatchers; the other is pure white and velvety black, with a broad fleshy ring round the eye of are azure blue colour; it is named the "spectacled flycatcher" (Monarcha telescopthalma), and was first found in New Guinea, along with the other, by the French naturalists during the voyage of the discovery-ship Coquille. Feb. 18th.--Before leaving Macassar, I had written to the Governor of Amboyna requesting him to assist me with the native chiefs of Aru. I now received by a vessel which had arrived from Amboyna a very polite answer informing me that orders had been sent to give me every assistance that I might require; and I was just congratulating myself on being at length able to get a boat and men to go to the mainland and explore the interior, when a sudden check came in the form of a piratical incursion. A small prau arrived which had been attacked by pirates and had a man wounded. They were said to have five boats, but more were expected to be behind and the traders were all in consternation, fearing that their small vessels sent trading to the "blakang tana" would be plundered. The Aru natives were of course dreadfully alarmed, as these marauders attack their villages, burn and murder, and carry away women and children for slaves. Not a man will stir from his village for some time, and I must remain still a prisoner in Dobbo. The Governor of Amboyna, out of pure kindness, has told the chiefs that they are to be responsible for my safety, so that they have au excellent excuse for refusing to stir. Several praus went out in search of the pirates, sentinels were appointed, and watch-fires lighted on the beach to guard against the possibility of a night attack, though it was hardly thought they would be bold enough to attempt to plunder Dobbo. The next day the praus returned, and we had positive information that these scourges of the Eastern seas were really among us. One of Herr Warzbergen's small praus also arrived in a sad plight. It had been attacked six days before, just as it was returning, from the "blakang tana." The crew escaped in their small boat and hid in the jungle, while the pirates came up and plundered the vessel. They took away everything but the cargo of mother-of-pearl shell, which was too bulky for them. All the clothes and boxes of the men, and the sails and cordage of the prau, were cleared off. They had four large war boats, and fired a volley of musketry as they came up, and sent off their small boats to the attack. After they had left, our men observed from their concealment that three had stayed behind with a small boat; and being driven to desperation by the sight of the plundering, one brave fellow swam off armed only with his parang, or chopping-knife, and coming on them unawares made a desperate attack, killing one and wounding the other two, receiving himself numbers of slight wounds, and then swimming off again when almost exhausted. Two other prams were also plundered, and the crew of one of them murdered to a man. They are said to be Sooloo pirates, but have Bugis among them. On their way here they have devastated one of the small islands east of Ceram. It is now eleven years since they have visited Aru, and by thus making their attacks at long and uncertain intervals the alarm dies away, and they find a population for the most part unarmed and unsuspicious of danger. None of the small trading vessels now carry arms, though they did so for a year or two after the last attack, which was just the time when there was the least occasion for it. A week later one of the smaller pirate boats was captured in the "blakang tana." Seven men were killed and three taken prisoners. The larger vessels have been often seen but cannot be caught, as they have very strong crews, and can always escape by rowing out to sea in the eye of the wind, returning at night. They will thus remain among the innumerable islands and channels, till the change of the monsoon enables them to sail westward. March 9th.-For four or five days we have had a continual gale of wind, with occasional gusts of great fury, which seem as if they would send Dobbo into the sea. Rain accompanies it almost every alternate hour, so that it is not a pleasant time. During such weather I can do little, but am busy getting ready a boat I have purchased, for an excursion into the interior. There is immense difficulty about men, but I believe the "Orang-kaya," or head man of Wamma, will accompany me to see that I don't run into danger. Having become quite an old inhabitant of Dobbo, I will endeavour to sketch the sights and sounds that pervade it, and the manners and customs of its inhabitants. The place is now pretty full, and the streets present a far more cheerful aspect than when we first arrived. Every house is a store, where the natives barter their produce for what they are most in need of. Knives, choppers, swords, guns, tobacco, gambier, plates, basins, handkerchiefs, sarongs, calicoes, and arrack, are the principal articles wanted by the natives; but some of the stores contain also tea, coffee, sugar, wine, biscuits, &c., for the supply of the traders; and others are full of fancy goods, china ornaments, looking-glasses, razors, umbrellas, pipes, and purses, which take the fancy of the wealthier natives. Every fine day mats are spread before the doors and the tripang is put out to dry, as well as sugar, salt, biscuit, tea, cloths, and other things that get injured by an excessively moist atmosphere. In the morning and evening, spruce Chinamen stroll about or chat at each other's doors, in blue trousers, white jacket, and a queue into which red silk is plaited till it reaches almost to their heels. An old Bugis hadji regularly takes an evening stroll in all the dignity of flowing green silk robe and gay turban, followed by two small boys carrying his sirih and betel boxes. In every vacant space new houses are being built, and all sorts of odd little cooking-sheds are erected against the old ones, while in some out-of-the-way corners, massive log pigsties are tenanted by growing porkers; for how can the Chinamen exist six months without one feast of pig? Here and there are stalls where bananas are sold, and every morning two little boys go about with trays of sweet rice and crated cocoa-nut, fried fish, or fried plantains; and whichever it may be, they have but one cry, and that is "Chocolat-t--t!" This must be a Spanish or Portuguese cry, handed down for centuries, while its meaning has been lost. The Bugis sailors, while hoisting the main sail, cry out, "Vela a vela,--vela, vela, vela!" repeated in an everlasting chorus. As "vela" is Portuguese a sail, I supposed I had discovered the origin of this, but I found afterwards they used the same cry when heaving anchor, and often chanted it to "hela," which is so much an universal expression of exertion and hard breathing that it is most probably a mere interjectional cry. I daresay there are now near five hundred people in Dobbo of various races, all met in this remote corner of the East, as they express it, "to look for their fortune;" to get money any way they can. They are most of them people who have the very worst reputation for honesty as well as every other form of morality,--Chinese, Bugis, Ceramese, and half-caste Javanese, with a sprinkling of half-wild Papuans from Timor, Babber, and other islands, yet all goes on as yet very quietly. This motley, ignorant, bloodthirsty, thievish population live here without the shadow of a government, with no police, no courts, and no lawyers; yet they do not cut each other's throats, do not plunder each other day and night, do not fall into the anarchy such a state of things might be supposed to lead to. It is very extraordinary! It puts strange thoughts into one's head about the mountain-load of government under which people exist in Europe, and suggests the idea that we may be over-governed. Think of the hundred Acts of Parliament annually enacted to prevent us, the people of England, from cutting each other's throats, or from doing to our neighbour as we would not be done by. Think of the thousands of lawyers and barristers whose whole lives are spent in telling us what the hundred Acts of Parliament mean, and one would be led to infer that if Dobbo has too little law England has too much. Here we may behold in its simplest form the genius of Commerce at the work of Civilization. Trade is the magic that keeps all at peace, and unites these discordant elements into a well-behaved community. All are traders, and know that peace and order are essential to successful trade, and thus a public opinion is created which puts down all lawlessness. Often in former year, when strolling along the Campong Glam in Singapore, I have thought how wild and ferocious the Bugis sailors looked, and how little should like to trust myself among them. But now I find them to be very decent, well-behaved fellows; I walk daily unarmed in the jungle, where I meet them continually; I sleep in a palm-leaf hut, which any one may enter, with as little fear and as little danger of thieves or murder as if I were under the protection of the Metropolitan police. It is true the Dutch influence is felt here. The islands are nominally under the government of the Moluccas, which the native chiefs acknowledge; and in most years a commissioner arrives from Amboyna, who makes the tour of the islands, hears complaints, settle disputes, and carries away prisoner any heinous offender. This year he is not expected to come, as no orders have yet been received to prepare for him; so the people of Dobbo will probably be left to their own devices. One day a man was caught in the act of stealing a piece of iron from Herr Warzbergen's house, which he had entered by making a hole through the thatch wall. In the evening the chief traders of the place, Bugis and Chinese, assembled, the offender was tried and found guilty, and sentenced to receive twenty lashes on the spot. They were given with a small rattan in the middle of the street, not very severely, the executioner appeared to sympathise a little with the culprit. The disgrace seemed to be thought as much of as the pain; for though any amount of clever cheating is thought rather meritorious than otherwise, open robbery and housebreaking meet with universal reprobation. CHAPTER XXXI. THE ARU ISLANDS.--JOURNEY AND RESIDENCE IN THE INTERIOR. (MARCH TO MAY 1857.) MY boat was at length ready, and having obtained two men besides my own servants, after an enormous amount of talk and trouble, we left Dobbo on the morning of March 13th, for the mainland of Aru. By noon we reached the mouth of a small river or creek, which we ascended, winding among mangrove, swamps, with here and there a glimpse of dry land. In two hours we reached a house, or rather small shed, of the most miserable description, which our steersman, the "Orang-kaya" of Wamma, said was the place we were to stay at, and where he had assured me we could get every kind of bird and beast to be found in Aru. The shed was occupied by about a dozen men, women, and children; two cooking fires were burning in it, and there seemed little prospect of my obtaining any accommodation. I however deferred inquiry till I had seen the neighbouring forest, and immediately started off with two men, net, and guns, along a path at the back of the house. In an hour's walk I saw enough to make me determine to give the place a trial, and on my return, finding the "Orang-kaya" was in a strong fever-fit and unable to do anything, I entered into negotiations with the owner of the house for the use of a slip at one end of it about five feet wide, for a week, and agreed to pay as rent one "parang," or chopping-knife. I then immediately got my boxes and bedding out of the boat, hung up a shelf for my bird-skins and insects, and got all ready for work next morning. My own boys slept in the boat to guard the remainder of my property; a cooking place sheltered by a few mats was arranged under a tree close by, and I felt that degree of satisfaction and enjoyment which I always experience when, after much trouble and delay, I am on the point of beginning work in a new locality. One of my first objects was to inquire for the people who are accustomed to shoot the Paradise birds. They lived at some distance in the jungle, and a man was sent to call them. When they arrived, we had a talk by means of the "Orang-kaya" as interpreter, and they said they thought they could get some. They explained that they shoot the birds with a bow and arrow, the arrow having a conical wooden cap fitted to the end as large as a teacup, so as to kill the bird by the violence of the blow without making any wound or shedding any blood. The trees frequented by the birds are very lofty; it is therefore necessary to erect a small leafy covering or hut among the branches, to which the hunter mounts before daylight in the morning and remains the whole day, and whenever a bird alights they are almost sure of securing it. (See Frontispiece.) They returned to their homes the same evening, and I never saw anything more of them, owing, as I afterwards found, to its being too early to obtain birds in good plumage. The first two or three days of our stay here were very wet, and I obtained but few insects or birds, but at length, when I was beginning to despair, my boy Baderoon returned one day with a specimen which repaid me for months of delay and expectation. It was a small bird a little less than a thrush. The greater part of its plumage was of an intense cinnabar red, with a gloss as of spun glass. On the head the feathers became short and velvety, and shaded into rich orange. Beneath, from the breast downwards, was pure white, with the softness and gloss of silk, and across the breast a band of deep metallic green separated this colour from the red of the throat. Above each eye was a round spot of the same metallic green; the bill was yellow, and the feet and legs were of a fine cobalt óille, strikingly contrasting with all the other parts of the body. Merely in arrangement of colours and texture of plumage this little bird was a gem of the first water, yet there comprised only half its strange beauty. Springing from each side of the breast, and ordinarily lying concealed under the wings, were little tufts of greyish feathers about two inches long, and each terminated by a broad band of intense emerald green. These plumes can be raised at the will of the bird, and spread out into a pair of elegant fans when the wings are elevated. But this is not the only ornament. The two middle feathers of the tail are in the form of slender wires about five inches long, and which diverge in a beautiful double curve. About half an inch of the end of this wire is webbed on the outer side only, awe coloured of a fine metallic green, and being curled spirally inwards form a pair of elegant glittering buttons, hanging five inches below the body, and the same distance apart. These two ornaments, the breast fans and the spiral tipped tail wires, are altogether unique, not occurring on any other species of the eight thousand different birds that are known to exist upon the earth; and, combined with the most exquisite beauty of plumage, render this one of the most perfectly lovely of the many lovely productions of nature. My transports of admiration and delight quite amused my Aru hosts, who saw nothing more in the "Burong raja" than we do in the robin of the goldfinch. Thus one of my objects in coming to the far fast was accomplished. I had obtained a specimen of the King Bird of Paradise (Paradisea regia), which had been described by Linnaeus from skins preserved in a mutilated state by the natives. I knew how few Europeans had ever beheld the perfect little organism I now gazed upon, and how very imperfectly it was still known in Europe. The emotions excited in the minds of a naturalist, who has long desired to see the actual thing which he has hitherto known only by description, drawing, or badly-preserved external covering--especially when that thing is of surpassing rarity and beauty, require the poetic faculty fully to express them. The remote island in which I found myself situated, in an almost unvisited sea, far from the tracks of merchant fleets and navies; the wild luxuriant tropical forest, which stretched far away on every side; the rude uncultured savages who gathered round me,--all had their influence in determining the emotions with which I gazed upon this "thing of beauty." I thought of the long ages of the past, during which the successive generations of this little creature had run their course--year by year being born, and living and dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness; to all appearance such a wanton waste of beauty. Such ideas excite a feeling of melancholy. It seems sad, that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for ages yet to come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral, intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these virgin forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This consideration must surely tell us that all living things were _not_ made for man. Many of them have no relation to him. The cycle of their existence has gone on independently of his, and is disturbed or broken by every advance in man's intellectual development; and their happiness and enjoyment, their loves and hates, their struggles for existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation alone, limited only by the equal well-being and perpetuation of the numberless other organisms with which each is more or less intimately connected. After the first king-bird was obtained, I went with my men into the forest, and we were not only rewarded with another in equally perfect plumage, but I was enabled to see a little of the habits of both it and the larger species. It frequents the lower trees of the less dense forests: and is very active, flying strongly with a whirring sound, and continually hopping or flying from branch to branch. It eats hard stone-bearing fruits as large as a gooseberry, and often flutters its wings after the manner of the South American manakins, at which time it elevates and expands the beautiful fans with which its breast is adorned. The natives of Aru call it "Goby-goby." One day I get under a tree where a number of the Great Paradise birds were assembled, but they were high up in the thickest of the foliage, and flying and jumping about so continually that I could get no good view of them. At length I shot one, but it was a young specimen, and was entirely of a rich chocolate-brown colour, without either the metallic green throat or yellow plumes of the full-grown bird. All that I had yet seen resembled this, and the natives told me that it would be about two months before any would be found in full plumage. I still hoped, therefore, to get some. Their voice is most extraordinary. At early morn, before the sun has risen, we hear a loud cry of "Wawk-wawk-wawk, wók-wók-wók," which resounds through the forest, changing its direction continually. This is the Great Bird of Paradise going to seek his breakfast. Others soon follow his example; lories and parroquets cry shrilly, cockatoos scream, king-hunters croak and bark, and the various smaller birds chirp and whistle their morning song. As I lie listening to these interesting sounds, I realize my position as the first European who has ever lived for months together in the Aru islands, a place which I had hoped rather than expected ever to visit. I think how many besides my self have longed to reach these almost fairy realms, and to see with their own eyes the many wonderful and beautiful things which I am daily encountering. But now Ali and Baderoon are up and getting ready their guns and ammunition, and little Brio has his fire lighted and is boiling my coffee, and I remember that I had a black cockatoo brought in late last night, which I must skin immediately, and so I jump up and begin my day's work very happily. This cockatoo is the first I have seen, and is a great prize. It has a rather small and weak body, long weak legs, large wings, and an enormously developed head, ornamented with a magnificent crest, and armed with a sharp-pointed hoofed bill of immense size and strength. The plumage is entirely black, but has all over it the curious powdery white secretion characteristic of cockatoo. The cheeks are bare, and of an intense blood-red colour. Instead of the harsh scream of the white cockatoos, its voice is a somewhat plaintive whistle. The tongue is a curious organ, being a slender fleshy cylinder of a deep red colour, terminated by a horny black plate, furrowed across and somewhat prehensile. The whole tongue has a considerable extensile power. I will here relate something of the habits of this bird, with which I have since become acquainted. It frequents the lower parts of the forest, and is seen singly, or at most two or three together. It flies slowly and noiselessly, and may be killed by a comparatively slight wound. It eats various fruits and seeds, but seems more particularly attached to the kernel of the kanary-nut, which grows on a lofty forest tree (Canarium commune), abundant in the islands where this bird is found; and the manner in which it gets at these seeds shows a correlation of structure and habits, which would point out the "kanary" as its special food. The shell of this nut is so excessively hard that only a heavy hammer will crack it; it is somewhat triangular, and the outside is quite smooth. The manner in which the bird opens these nuts is very curious. Taking one endways in its bill and keeping it firm by a pressure of the tongue, it cuts a transverse notch by a lateral sawing motion of the sharp-edged lower mandible. This done, it takes hold of the nut with its foot, and biting off a piece of leaf retains it in the deep notch of the upper mandible, and again seizing the nut, which is prevented from slipping by the elastic tissue of the leaf, fixes the edge of the lower mandible in the notch, and by a powerful nip breaks of a piece of the shell, again taking the nut in its claws, it inserts the very long and sharp point of the bill and picks out the kernel, which is seized hold of, morsel by morsel, by the extensible tongue. Thus every detail of form and structure in the extraordinary bill of this bird seems to have its use, and we may easily conceive that the black cockatoos have maintained themselves in competition with their more active and more numerous white allies, by their power of existing on a kind of food which no other bird is able to extract from its stony shell. The species is the Microglossum aterrimum of naturalists. During the two weeks which I spent in this little settlement, I had good opportunities of observing the natives at their own home, and living in their usual manner. There is a great monotony and uniformity in everyday savage life, and it seemed to me a more miserable existence than when it had the charm of novelty. To begin with the most important fact in the existence of uncivilized peoples--their food--the Aru men have no regular supply, no staff of life, such as bread, rice, mandiocca, maize, or sago, which are the daily food of a large proportion of mankind. They have, however, many sorts of vegetables, plantains, yams, sweet potatoes, and raw sago; and they chew up vast quantities of sugar-cane, as well as betel-nuts, gambir, and tobacco. Those who live on the coast have plenty of fish; but when inland, as we are here, they only go to the sea occasionally, and then bring home cockles and other shell-fish by the boatload. Now and then they get wild pig or kangaroo, but too rarely to form anything like a regular part of their diet, which is essentially vegetable; and what is of more importance, as affecting their health, green, watery vegetables, imperfectly cooked, and even these in varying and often in sufficient quantities. To this diet may be attributed the prevalence of skin diseases, and ulcers on the legs and joints. The scurfy skin disease so common among savages has a close connexion with the poorness and irregularity of their living. The Malays, who are never without their daily rice, are generally free from it; the hill-Dyaks of Borneo, who grow rice and live well, are clean skinned while the less industrious and less cleanly tribes, who live for a portion of the year on fruits and vegetables only, are very subject to this malady. It seems clear that in this, as in other respects, man is not able to make a beast of himself with impunity, feeding like the cattle on the herbs and fruits of the earth, and taking no thought of the morrow. To maintain his health and beauty he must labour to prepare some farinaceous product capable of being stored and accumulated, so as to give him a regular supply of wholesome food. When this is obtained, he may add vegetables, fruits, and meat with advantage. The chief luxury of the Aru people, besides betel and tobacco, is arrack (Java rum), which the traders bring in great quantities and sell very cheap. A day's fishing or rattan cutting will purchase at least a half-gallon bottle; and when the tripang or birds' nests collected during a season are sold, they get whole boxes, each containing fifteen such bottles, which the inmates of a house will sit round day and night till they have finished. They themselves tell me that at such bouts they often tear to pieces the house they are in, break and destroy everything they can lay their hands on, and make such an infernal riot as is alarming to behold. The houses and furniture are on a par with the food. A rude shed, supported on rough and slender sticks rather than posts, no walls, but the floor raised to within a foot of the eaves, is the style of architecture they usually adopt. Inside there are partition walls of thatch, forming little boxes or sleeping places, to accommodate the two or three separate families that usually live together. A few mats, baskets, and cooking vessels, with plates and basins purchased from the Macassar traders, constitute their whole furniture; spears and bows are their weapons; a sarong or mat forms the clothing of the women, a waistcloth of the men. For hours or even for days they sit idle in their houses, the women bringing in the vegetables or sago which form their food. Sometimes they hunt or fish a little, or work at their houses or canoes, but they seem to enjoy pure idleness, and work as little as they can. They have little to vary the monotony of life, little that can be called pleasure, except idleness and conversation. And they certainly do talk! Every evening there is a little Babel around me: but as I understand not a word of it, I go on with my book or work undisturbed. Now and then they scream and shout, or laugh frantically for variety; and this goes on alternately with vociferous talking of men, women, and children, till long after I am in my mosquito curtain and sound asleep. At this place I obtained some light on the complicated mixture of races in Aru, which would utterly confound an ethnologist. Many of the natives, though equally dark with the others, have little of the Papuan physiognomy, but have more delicate features of the European type, with more glossy, curling hair: These at first quite puzzled me, for they have no more resemblance to Malay than to Papuan, and the darkness of skin and hair would forbid the idea of Dutch intermixture. Listening to their conversation, however, I detected some words that were familiar to me. "Accabó" was one; and to be sure that it was not an accidental resemblance, I asked the speaker in Malay what "accabó" meant, and was told it meant "done or finished," a true Portuguese word, with its meaning retained. Again, I heard the word "jafui" often repeated, and could see, without inquiry, that its meaning was "he's gone," as in Portuguese. "Porco," too, seems a common name, though the people have no idea of its European meaning. This cleared up the difficulty. I at once understood that some early Portuguese traders had penetrated to these islands, and mixed with the natives, influencing their language, and leaving in their descendants for many generations the visible characteristics of their race. If to this we add the occasional mixture of Malay, Dutch, and Chinese with the indigenous Papuans, we have no reason to wonder at the curious varieties of form and feature occasionally to be met with in Aru. In this very house there was a Macassar man, with an Aru wife and a family of mixed children. In Dobbo I saw a Javanese and an Amboyna man, each with an Aru wife and family; and as this kind of mixture has been going on for at least three hundred years, and probably much longer, it has produced a decided effect on the physical characteristics of a considerable portion of the population of the islands, more especially in Dobbo and the parts nearest to it. March 28th.--The "Orang-kaya" being very ill with fever had begged to go home, and had arranged with one of the men of the house to go on with me as his substitute. Now that I wanted to move, the bugbear of the pirates was brought up, and it was pronounced unsafe to go further than the next small river. This world not suit me, as I had determined to traverse the channel called Watelai to the "blakang-tana;" but my guide was firm in his dread of pirates, of which I knew there was now no danger, as several vessels had gone in search of them, as well as a Dutch gunboat which had arrived since I left Dobbo. I had, fortunately, by this time heard that the Dutch "Commissie" had really arrived, and therefore threatened that if my guide did not go with me immediately, I would appeal to the authorities, and he would certainly be obliged to gig a back the cloth which the "Orang-kaya" had transferred to him in prepayment. This had the desired effect; matters were soon arranged, and we started the next morning. The wind, however, was dead against us, and after rowing hard till midday we put in to a small river where there were few huts, to cook our dinners. The place did not look very promising, but as we could not reach our destination, the Watelai river, owing to the contrary wind, I thought we might as well wait here a day or two. I therefore paid a chopper for the use of a small shed, and got my bed and some boxes on shore. In the evening, after dark, we were suddenly alarmed by the cry of "Bajak! bajak!" (Pirates!) The men all seized their bows and spears, and rushed down to the beach; we got hold of our guns and prepared for action, but in a few minutes all came back laughing and chattering, for it had proved to be only a small boat and some of their own comrades returned from fishing. When all was quiet again, one of the men, who could speak a little Malay, came to me and begged me not to sleep too hard. "Why?" said I. "Perhaps the pirates may really come," said he very seriously, which made me laugh and assure him I should sleep as hard as I could. Two days were spent here, but the place was unproductive of insects or birds of interest, so we made another attempt to get on. As soon as we got a little away from the land we had a fair wind, and in six hours' sailing reached the entrance of the Watelai channel, which divides the most northerly from the middle portion of Aru. At its mouth this was about half a mile wide, but soon narrowed, and a mile or two on it assumed entirely the aspect of a river about the width of the Thames at London, winding among low but undulating and often hilly country. The scene was exactly such as might be expected in the interior of a continent. The channel continued of a uniform average width, with reaches and sinuous bends, one bank being often precipitous, or even forming vertical cliffs, while the other was flat and apparently alluvial; and it was only the pure salt-water, and the absence of any stream but the slight flux and reflux of the tide, that would enable a person to tell that he was navigating a strait and not a river. The wind was fair, and carried us along, with occasional assistance from our oars, till about three in the afternoon, when we landed where a little brook formed two or three basins in the coral rock, and then fell in a miniature cascade into the salt water river. Here we bathed and cooked our dinner, and enjoyed ourselves lazily till sunset, when we pursued our way for two hours snore, and then moored our little vessel to an overhanging tree for the night. At five the next morning we started again, and in an hour overtook four large praus containing the "Commissie," who had come from Dobbo to make their official tour round the islands, and had passed us in the eight. I paid a visit to the Dutchmen, one of whom spoke a little English, but we found that we could get on much better with Malay. They told me that they had been delayed going after the pirates to one of the northern islands, and had seen three of their vessels but could not catch them, because on being pursued they rowed out in the wind's eye, which they are enabled to do by having about fifty oars to each boat. Having had some tea with thorn, I bade them adieu, and turned up a narrow channel which our pilot said would take us to the village of Watelai, on the west side of Are. After going some miles we found the channel nearly blocked up with coral, so that our boat grated along the bottom, crunching what may truly be called the living rock. Sometimes all hands had to get out and wade, to lighten the vessel and lift it over the shallowest places; but at length we overcame all obstacles and reached a wide bay or estuary studded with little rocks and islets, and opening to the western sea and the numerous islands of the "blakang-tuna." I now found that the village we were going to was miles away; that we should have to go out to sea, and round a rocky point. A squall seemed coming on, and as I have a horror of small boats at sea, and from all I could learn Watelai village was not a place to stop at (no birds of Paradise being found there), I determined to return and go to a village I had heard of up a tributary of the Watelai river, and situated nearly in the centre of the mainland of Aru. The people there were said to be good, and to be accustomed to hunting and bird-catching, being too far inland to get any part of their food from the sea. While I was deciding this point the squall burst upon us, and soon raised a rolling sea in the shallow water, which upset an oil bottle and a lamp, broke some of my crockery, and threw us all into confusion. Rowing hard we managed to get back into the main river by dusk, and looked out for a place to cook our suppers. It happened to be high water, and a very high tide, so that every piece of sand or beach was covered, and it was with the greatest difficulty, and after much groping in the dark, that we discovered a little sloping piece of rock about two feet square on which to make a fire and cook some rice. The next day we continued our way back, and on the following day entered a stream on the south side of the Watelai river, and ascending to where navigation ceased found the little village of Wanumbai, consisting of two large houses surrounded by plantations, amid the virgin forests of Aru. As I liked the look of the place, and was desirous of staying some time, I sent my pilot to try and make a bargain for house accommodation. The owner and chief man of the place made many excuses. First, he was afraid I would not like his house, and then was doubtful whether his son, who was away, would like his admitting me. I had a long talk with him myself, and tried to explain what I was doing, and how many things I would buy of them, and showed him my stock of heads, and knives, and cloth, and tobacco, all of which I would spend with his family and friends if he would give me house-room. He seemed a little staggered at this, and said he, would talk to his wife, and in the meantime I went for a little walk to see the neighbourhood. When I came back, I again sent my pilot, saying that I would go away if he would not dive me part of his house. In about half an hour he returned with a demand for about half the cost of building a house, for the rent of a small portion of it for a few weeks. As the only difficulty now was a pecuniary one, I got out about ten yards of cloth, an axe, with a few beads and some tobacco, and sent them as my final offer for the part of the house which I had before pointed out. This was accepted after a little more talk, and I immediately proceeded to take possession. The house was a good large one, raised as usual about seven feet on posts, the walls about three or four feet more, with a high-pitched roof. The floor was of bamboo laths, and in the sloping roof way an immense shutter, which could be lifted and propped up to admit light and air. At the end where this was situated the floor was raised about a foot, and this piece, about ten feet wide by twenty long, quite open to the rest of the house, was the portion I was to occupy. At one end of this piece, separated by a thatch partition, was a cooking place, with a clay floor and shelves for crockery. At the opposite end I had my mosquito curtain hung, and round the walls we arranged my boxes and other stores, fated up a table and seat, and with a little cleaning and dusting made the place look quite comfortable. My boat was then hauled up on shore, and covered with palm-leaves, the sails and oars brought indoors, a hanging-stage for drying my specimens erected outside the house and another inside, and my boys were set to clean their gnus and get all ready for beginning work. The next day I occupied myself in exploring the paths in the immediate neighbourhood. The small river up which we had ascended ceases to be navigable at this point, above which it is a little rocky brook, which quite dries up in the hot season. There was now, however, a fair stream of water in it; and a path which was partly in and partly by the side of the water, promised well for insects, as I here saw the magnificent blue butterfly, Papilio ulysses, as well as several other fine species, flopping lazily along, sometimes resting high up on the foliage which drooped over the water, at others settling down on the damp rock or on the edges of muddy pools. A little way on several paths branched off through patches of second-growth forest to cane-fields, gardens, and scattered houses, beyond which again the dark wall of verdure striped with tree-trunks, marked out the limits of the primeval forests. The voices of many birds promised good shooting, and on my return I found that my boys had already obtained two or three kinds I had not seen before; and in the evening a native brought me a rare and beautiful species of ground-thrush (Pitta novaeguinaeae) hitherto only known from New Guinea. As I improved my acquaintance with them I became much interested in these people, who are a fair sample of the true savage inhabitants of the Aru Islands, tolerably free from foreign admixture. The house I lived in contained four or five families, and there were generally from six to a dozen visitors besides. They kept up a continual row from morning till night--talking, laughing, shouting, without intermission--not very pleasant, but interesting as a study of national character. My boy Ali said to me, "Banyak quot bitchara Orang Aru" (The Aru people are very strong talkers), never having been accustomed to such eloquence either in his own or any other country he had hitherto visited. Of an evening the men, having got over their first shyness, began to talk to me a little, asking about my country, &c., and in return I questioned them about any traditions they had of their own origin. I had, however, very little success, for I could not possibly make them understand the simple question of where the Aru people first came from. I put it in every possible way to them, but it was a subject quite beyond their speculations; they had evidently never thought of anything of the kind, and were unable to conceive a thing so remote and so unnecessary to be thought about, as their own origin. Finding this hopeless, I asked if they knew when the trade with Aru first began, when the Bugis and Chinese and Macassar men first came in their praus to buy tripang and tortoise-shell, and birds' nests, and Paradise birds? This they comprehended, but replied that there had always been the same trade as long as they or their fathers recollected, but that this was the first time a real white man had come among them, and, said they, "You see how the people come every day from all the villages round to look at you." This was very flattering, and accounted for the great concourse of visitors which I had at first imagined was accidental. A few years before I had been one of the gazers at the Zoolus, and the Aztecs in London. Now the tables were turned upon me, for I was to these people a new and strange variety of man, and had the honour of affording to them, in my own person, an attractive exhibition, gratis. All the men and boys of Aru are expert archers, never stirring without their bows and arrows. They shoot all sorts of birds, as well as pigs and kangaroos occasionally, and thus have a tolerably good supply of meat to eat with their vegetables. The result of this better living is superior healthiness, well-made bodies, and generally clear skins. They brought me numbers of small birds in exchange for beads or tobacco, but mauled them terribly, notwithstanding my repeated instructions. When they got a bird alive they would often tie a string to its leg, and keep it a day or two, till its plumage was so draggled and dirtied as to be almost worthless. One of the first things I got from there was a living specimen of the curious and beautiful racquet-tailed kingfisher. Seeing how much I admired it, they afterwards brought me several more, which wore all caught before daybreak, sleeping in cavities of the rocky banks of the stream. My hunters also shot a few specimens, and almost all of them had the red bill more or less clogged with mud and earth. This indicates the habits of the bird, which, though popularly a king-fisher, never catches fish, but lives on insects and minute shells, which it picks up in the forest, darting down upon them from its perch on some low branch. The genus Tanysiptera, to which this bird belongs, is remarkable for the enormously lengthened tail, which in all other kingfishers is small and short. Linnaeus named the species known to him "the goddess kingfisher" (Alcedo dea), from its extreme grace and beauty, the plumage being brilliant blue and white, with the bill red, like coral. Several species of these interesting birds are now known, all confined within the very limited area which comprises the Moluccas, New Guinea, and the extreme North of Australia. They resemble each other so closely that several of them can only be distinguished by careful comparison. One of the rarest, however, which inhabits New Guinea, is very distinct from the rest, being bright red beneath instead of white. That which I now obtained was a new one, and has been named Tanysiptera hydrocharis, but in general form and coloration it is exactly similar to the larger species found in Amboyna, and figured at page 468 of my first volume. New and interesting birds were continually brought in, either by my own boys or by the natives, and at the end of a week Ali arrived triumphant one afternoon with a fine specimen of the Great Bird of Paradise. The ornamental plumes had not yet attained their full growth, but the richness of their glossy orange colouring, and the exquisite delicacy of the loosely waving feathers, were unsurpassable. At the same time a great black cockatoo was brought in, as well as a fine fruit-pigeon and several small birds, so that we were all kept hard at work skinning till sunset. Just as we had cleared away and packed up for the night, a strange beast was brought, which had been shot by the natives. It resembled in size, and in its white woolly covering, a small fat lamb, but had short legs, hand-like feet with large claws, and a long prehensile tail. It was a Cuscus (C. maculatus), one of the curious marsupial animals of the Papuan region, and I was very desirous to obtain the skin. The owners, however, said they wanted to eat it; and though I offered them a good price, and promised to give them all the meat, there was grout hesitation. Suspecting the reason, I offered, though it was night, to set to work immediately and get out the body for them, to which they agreed. The creature was much hacked about, and the two hind feet almost cut off; but it was the largest and finest specimen of the kind I had seen; and after an hour's hard work I handed over the body to the owners, who immediately cut it up and roasted it for supper. As this was a very good place for birds, I determined to remain a month longer, and took the opportunity of a native boat going to Dobbo, to send Ali for a fresh supply of ammunition and provisions. They started on the 10th of April, and the house was crowded with about a hundred men, boys, women, and girls, bringing their loads of sugar-cane, plantains, sirih-leaf, yams, &c.; one lad going from each house to sell the produce and make purchases. The noise was indescribable. At least fifty of the hundred were always talking at once, and that not in the low measured tones of the apathetically polite Malay, but with loud voices, shouts, and screaming laughter, in which the women and children were even more conspicuous than the men. It was only while gazing at me that their tongues were moderately quiet, because their eyes were fully occupied. The black vegetable soil here overlying the coral rock is very rich, and the sugar-cane was finer than any I had ever seen. The canes brought to the boat were often ten and even twelve feet long, and thick in proportion, with short joints throughout, swelling between the knots with the abundance of the rich juice. At Dobbo they get a high price for it, 1d. to 3d. a stick, and there is an insatiable demand among the crews of the praus and the Baba fishermen. Here they eat it continually. They half live on it, and sometimes feed their pigs with it. Near every house are great heaps of the refuse cane; and large wicker-baskets to contain this refuse as it is produced form a regular part of the furniture of a house. Whatever time of the day you enter, you are sure to find three or four people with a yard of cane in one hand, a knife in the other, and a basket between their legs, hacking, paring, chewing, and basket-filling, with a persevering assiduity which reminds one of a hungry cow grazing, or of a caterpillar eating up a leaf. After five days' absence the boats returned from Dobbo, bringing Ali and all the things I had sent for quite safe. A large party had assembled to be ready to carry home the goods brought, among which were a good many cocoa-nut, which are a great luxury here. It seems strange that they should never plant them; but the reason simply is, that they cannot bring their hearts to bury a good nut for the prospective advantage of a crop twelve years hence. There is also the chance of the fruits being dug up and eaten unless watched night and day. Among the things I had sent for was a box of arrack, and I was now of course besieged with requests for a little drop. I gave them a flask (about two bottles), which was very soon finished, and I was assured that there were many present who had not had a taste. As I feared my box would very soon be emptied if I supplied all their demands, I told them I had given them one, but the second they must pay for, and that afterwards I must have a Paradise bird for each flask. They immediately sent round to all the neighbouring houses, and mustered up a rupee in Dutch copper money, got their second flask, and drunk it as quickly as the first, and were then very talkative, but less noisy and importunate than I had expected. Two or three of them got round me and begged me for the twentieth time to tell them the name of my country. Then, as they could not pronounce it satisfactorily, they insisted that I was deceiving them, and that it was a name of my own invention. One funny old man, who bore a ludicrous resemblance, to a friend of mine at home, was almost indignant. "Ung-lung! "said he, "who ever heard of such a name?--ang lang--anger-lung--that can't be the name of your country; you are playing with us." Then he tried to give a convincing illustration. "My country is Wanumbai--anybody can say Wanumbai. I'm an orang-Wanumbai; but, N-glung! who ever heard of such a name? Do tell us the real name of your country, and then when you are gone we shall know how to talk about you." To this luminous argument and remonstrance I could oppose nothing but assertion, and the whole party remained firmly convinced that I was for some reason or other deceiving them. They then attacked me on another point--what all the animals and birds and insects and shells were preserved so carefully for. They had often asked me this before, and I had tried to explain to them that they would be stuffed, and made to look as if alive, and people in my country would go to look at them. But this was not satisfying; in my country there must be many better things to look at, and they could not believe I would take so much trouble with their birds and beasts just for people to look at. They did not want to look at them; and we, who made calico and glass and knives, and all sorts of wonderful things, could not want things from Aru to look at. They had evidently been thinking about it, and had at length got what seemed a very satisfactory theory; for the same old man said to me, in a low, mysterious voice, "What becomes of them when you go on to the sea?" "Why, they are all packed up in boxes," said I "What did you think became of them?" "They all come to life again, don't they?" said he; and though I tried to joke it off, and said if they did we should have plenty to eat at sea, he stuck to his opinion, and kept repeating, with an air of deep conviction, "Yes, they all come to life again, that's what they do--they all come to life again." After a little while, and a good deal of talking among themselves, he began again--"I know all about it--oh yes! Before you came we had rain every day--very wet indeed; now, ever since you have been here, it is fine hot weather. Oh, yes! I know all about it; you can't deceive me." And so I was set down as a conjurer, and was unable to repel the charge. But the conjurer was completely puzzled by the next question: "What," said the old man, "is the great ship, where the Bugis and Chinamen go to sell their things? It is always in the great sea--its name is Jong; tell us all about it." In vain I inquired what they knew about it; they knew nothing but that it was called "Jong," and was always in the sea, and was a very great ship, and concluded with, "Perhaps that is your country?" Finding that I could not or would not tell them anything about "Jong," there came more regrets that I would not tell them the real name of my country; and then a long string of compliments, to the effect that I was a much better sort of a person than the Bugis and Chinese, who sometimes came to trade with them, for I gave them things for nothing, and did not try to cheat them. How long would I stop? was the next earnest inquiry. Would I stay two or three months? They would get me plenty of birds and animals, and I might soon finish all the goods I had brought, and then, said the old spokesman, "Don't go away, but send for more things from Dobbo, and stay here a year or two." And then again the old story, "Do tell us the name of your country. We know the Bugis men, and the Macassar men, and the Java men, and the China men; only you, we don't know from what country you come. Ung-lung! it can't be; I know that is not the name of your country." Seeing no end to this long talk, I said I was tired, and wanted to go to sleep; so after begging--one a little bit of dry fish for his supper, and another a little salt to eat with his sago--they went off very quietly, and I went outside and took a stroll round the house by moonlight, thinking of the simple people and the strange productions of Aru, and then turned in under my mosquito curtain; to sleep with a sense of perfect security in the midst of these good-natured savages. We now had seven or eight days of hot and dry weather, which reduced the little river to a succession of shallow pools connected by the smallest possible thread of trickling water. If there were a dry season like that of Macassar, the Aru Islands would be uninhabitable, as there is no part of them much above a hundred feet high; and the whole being a mass of porous coralline rock, allows the surface water rapidly to escape. The only dry season they have is for a month or two about September or October, and there is then an excessive scarcity of water, so that sometimes hundreds of birds and other animals die of drought. The natives then remove to houses near the sources of the small streams, where, in the shady depths of the forest, a small quantity of water still remains. Even then many of them have to go miles for their water, which they keep in large bamboos and use very sparingly. They assure me that they catch and kill game of all kinds, by watching at the water holes or setting snares around them. That would be the time for me to make my collections; but the want of water would be a terrible annoyance, and the impossibility of getting away before another whole year had passed made it out of the question. Ever since leaving Dobbo I had suffered terribly from insects, who seemed here bent upon revenging my long-continued persecution of their race. At our first stopping-place sand-flies were very abundant at night, penetrating to every part of the body, and producing a more lasting irritation than mosquitoes. My feet and ankles especially suffered, and were completely covered with little red swollen specks, which tormented me horribly. On arriving here we were delighted to find the house free from sand-flies or mosquitoes, but in the plantations where my daily walks led me, the day-biting mosquitoes swarmed, and seemed especially to delight in attaching my poor feet. After a month's incessant punishment, those useful members rebelled against such treatment and broke into open insurrection, throwing out numerous inflamed ulcers, which were very painful, and stopped me from walking. So I found myself confined to the house, and with no immediate prospect of leaving it. Wounds or sores in the feet are especially difficult to heal in hot climates, and I therefore dreaded them more than any other illness. The confinement was very annoying, as the fine hot weather was excellent for insects, of which I had every promise of obtaining a fine collection; and it is only by daily and unremitting search that the smaller kinds, and the rarer and more interesting specimens, can be obtained. When I crawled down to the river-side to bathe, I often saw the blue-winged Papilio ulysses, or some other equally rare and beautiful insect; but there was nothing for it but patience, and to return quietly to my bird-skinning, or whatever other work I had indoors. The stings and bites and ceaseless irritation caused by these pests of the tropical forests, would be borne uncomplainingly; but to be kept prisoner by them in so rich and unexplored a country where rare and beautiful creatures are to be met with in every forest ramble--a country reached by such a long and tedious voyage, and which might not in the present century be again visited for the same purpose--is a punishment too severe for a naturalist to pass over in silence. I had, however, some consolation in the birds my boys brought home daily, more especially the Paradiseas, which they at length obtained in full plumage. It was quite a relief to my mind to get these, for I could hardly have torn myself away from Aru had I not obtained specimens. But what I valued almost as much as the birds themselves was the knowledge of their habits, which I was daily obtaining both from the accounts of my hunters, and from the conversation of the natives. The birds had now commenced what the people here call their "sacaleli," or dancing-parties, in certain trees in the forest, which are not fruit trees as I at first imagined, but which have an immense tread of spreading branches and large but scattered leaves, giving a clear space for the birds to play and exhibit their plumes. On one of these trees a dozen or twenty full-plumaged male birds assemble together, raise up their wings, stretch out their necks, and elevate their exquisite plumes, keeping them in a continual vibration. Between whiles they fly across from branch to branch in great excitement, so that the whole tree is filled with waving plumes in every variety of attitude and motion. (See Frontispiece.) The bird itself is nearly as large as a crow, and is of a rich coffee brown colour. The head and neck is of a pure straw yellow above and rich metallic green beneath. The long plumy tufts of golden orange feathers spring from the sides beneath each wing, and when the bird is in repose are partly concealed by them. At the time of its excitement, however, the wings are raised vertically over the back, the head is bent down and stretched out, and the long plumes are raised up and expanded till they form two magnificent golden fans, striped with deep red at the base, and fading off into the pale brown tint of the finely divided and softly waving points. The whole bird is then overshadowed by them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald green throat forming but the foundation and setting to the golden glory which waves above. When seen in this attitude, the Bird of Paradise really deserves its name, and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and most wonderful of living things. I continued also to get specimens of the lovely little king-bird occasionally, as well as numbers of brilliant pigeons, sweet little parroquets, and many curious small birds, most nearly resembling those of Australia and New Guinea. Here, as among most savage people I have dwelt among, I was delighted with the beauty of the human form-a beauty of which stay-at-home civilized people can scarcely have any conception. What are the finest Grecian statues to the living, moving, breathing men I saw daily around me? The unrestrained grace of the naked savage as he goes about his daily occupations, or lounges at his ease, must be seen to be understood; and a youth bending his bow is the perfection of manly beauty. The women, however, except in extreme youth, are by no means so pleasant to look at as the men. Their strongly-marked features are very unfeminine, and hard work, privations, and very early marriages soon destroy whatever of beauty or grace they may for a short time possess. Their toilet is very simple, but also, I am sorry to say, very coarse, and disgusting. It consists solely of a mat of plaited strips of palm leaves, worn tight round the body, and reaching from the hips to the knees. It seems not to be changed till worn out, is seldom washed, and is generally very dirty. This is the universal dress, except in a few cases where Malay "sarongs" have come into use. Their frizzly hair is tied in a bench at the back of the head. They delight in combing, or rather forking it, using for that purpose a large wooden fork with four diverging prongs, which answers the purpose of separating and arranging the long tangled, frizzly mass of cranial vegetation much better than any comb could do. The only ornaments of the women are earrings and necklaces, which they arrange in various tasteful ways. The ends of a necklace are often attached to the earrings, and then looped on to the hair-knot behind. This has really an elegant appearance, the beads hanging gracefully on each side of the head, and by establishing a connexion with the earrings give an appearance of utility to those barbarous ornaments. We recommend this style to the consideration of those of the fair sex who still bore holes in their ears and hang rings thereto. Another style of necklace among these Papuan belles is to wear two, each hanging on one side of the neck and under the opposite arm, so as to cross each other. This has a very pretty appearance, in part due to the contrast of the white beads or kangaroo teeth of which they are composed with the dark glossy skin. The earrings themselves are formed of a bar of copper or silver, twisted so that the ends cross. The men, as usual among savages, adorn themselves more than the women. They wear necklaces, earrings, and finger rings, and delight in a band of plaited grass tight round the arm just below the shoulder, to which they attach a bunch of hair or bright coloured feathers by way of ornament. The teeth of small animals, either alone, or alternately with black or white beads, form their necklaces, and sometimes bracelets also. For these latter, however, they prefer brass wire, or the black, horny, wing-spines of the cassowary, which they consider a charm. Anklets of brass or shell, and tight plaited garters below the knee, complete their ordinary decorations. Some natives of Kobror from further south, and who are reckoned the worst and least civilized of the Aru tribes, came one day to visit us. They have a rather more than usually savage appearance, owing to the greater amount of ornaments they use--the most conspicuous being a large horseshoe-shaped comb which they wear over the forehead, the ends resting on the temples. The back of the comb is fastened into a piece of wood, which is plated with tin in front, and above is attached a plume of feathers from a cock's tail. In other respects they scarcely differed from the people I was living with. They brought me a couple of birds, some shells and insects; showing that the report of the white man and his doing had reached their country. There was probably hardly a man in Aru who had not by this time heard of me. Besides the domestic utensils already mentioned, the moveable property of a native is very scanty. He has a good supply of spears and bows and arrows for hunting, a parang, or chopping-knife, and an axe-for the stone age has passed away here, owing to the commercial enterprise of the Bugis and other Malay races. Attached to a belt, or hung across his shoulder, he carries a little skin pouch and an ornamented bamboo, containing betel-nut, tobacco, and lime, and a small German wooden-handled knife is generally stuck between his waist-cloth of bark and his bare shin. Each man also possesses a "cadjan," or sleeping-mat, made of the broad leaves of a pandanus neatly sewn together in three layers. This mat is abort four feet square, and when folded has one end sewn up, so that it forms a kind of sack open at one side. In the closed corner the head or feet can be placed, or by carrying it on the head in a shower it forms both coat and umbrella. It doubles up ix a small compass for convenient carriage, and then forms a light and elastic cushion, so that on a journey it becomes clothing, house, bedding, and furniture, all in one. The only ornaments in an Aru horse are trophies of the chase--jaws of wild pigs, the heads and backbones of cassowaries, and plumes made from the feathers of the Bird of Paradise, cassowary, and domestic fowl. The spears, shields, knife-handles, and other utensils are more or less carved in fanciful designs, and the mats and leaf boxes are painted or plaited in neat patterns of red, black, and yellow colours. I must not forget these boxes, which are most ingeniously made of the pith of a balm leaf pegged together, lined inside with pandanus leaves, and outside with the same, or with plaited grass. All the joints and angles are coffered with strips of split rattan sewn neatly on. The lid is covered with the brown leathery spathe of the Areca palm, which is impervious to water, and the whole box is neat, strong, and well finished. They are made from a few inches to two or three feet long, and being much esteemed by the Malay as clothes-boxes, are a regular article of export from Aru. The natives use the smaller ones for tobacco or betel-nut, but seldom have clothes enough to require the larger ones, which are only made for sale. Among the domestic animals which may generally be seen in native houses, are gaudy parrots, green, red, and blue, a few domestic fowls, which have baskets hung for them to lay in under the eaves, and who sleep on the ridge, and several half-starved wolfish-baking dogs. Instead of rats and mice there are curious little marsupial animals about the same size, which run about at night and nibble anything eatable that may be left uncovered. Four or five different kinds of ants attack everything not isolated by water, and one kind even swims across that; great spiders lurk in baskets and boxes, or hide in the folds of my mosquito curtain; centipedes and millepedes are found everywhere. I have caught them under my pillow and on my bead; while in every box, and under every hoard which has lain for some days undisturbed, little scorpions are sure to be found snugly ensconced, with their formidable tails quickly turned up ready for attack or defence. Such companions seem very alarming and dangerous, but all combined are not so bad as the irritation of mosquitoes, or of the insect pests often found at home. These latter are a constant and unceasing source of torment and disgust, whereas you may live a long time among scorpions, spiders, and centipedes, ugly and venomous though they are, and get no harm from them. After living twelve years in the tropics, I have never yet been bitten or stung by either. The lean and hungry dogs before mentioned were my greatest enemies, and kept me constantly on the watch. If my boys left the bird they were skinning for an instant, it was sure to be carried off. Everything eatable had to be hung up to the roof, to be out of their reach. Ali had just finished skinning a fine King Bird of Paradise one day, when he dropped the skin. Before he could stoop to pick it up, one of this famished race had seized upon it, and he only succeeded in rescuing it from its fangs after it was torn to tatters. Two skins of the large Paradisea, which were quite dry and ready to pack away, were incautiously left on my table for the night, wrapped up in paper. The next morning they were gone, and only a few scattered feathers indicated their fate. My hanging shelf was out of their reach; but having stupidly left a box which served as a step, a full-plumaged Paradise bird was next morning missing; and a dog below the house was to be seen still mumbling over the fragments, with the fine golden plumes all trampled in the mud. Every night, as soon as I was in bed, I could hear them searching about for what they could devour, under my table, and all about my boxes and baskets, keeping me in a state of suspense till morning, lest something of value might incautiously have been left within their read. They would drink the oil of my floating lamp and eat the wick, and upset or break my crockery if my lazy boys had neglected to wash away even the smell of anything eatable. Bad, however, as they are here, they were worse in a Dyak's house in Borneo where I was once staying, for there they gnawed off the tops of my waterproof boots, ate a large piece out of an old leather game-bag, besides devouring a portion of my mosquito curtain! April 28th.--Last evening we had a grand consultation, which had evidently been arranged and discussed beforehand. A number of the natives gathered round me, and said they wanted to talk. Two of the best Malay scholars helped each other, the rest putting in hints and ideas in their own language. They told me a long rambling story; but, partly owing to their imperfect knowledge of Malay, partly through my ignorance of local terms, and partly through the incoherence of their narrative, I could not make it out very clearly. It was, however, a tradition, and I was glad to find they had anything of the kind. A long time ago, they said, some strangers came to Aru, and came here to Wanumbai, and the chief of the Wanumbai people did not like them, and wanted them to go away, but they would not go, and so it came to fighting, and many Aru men were killed, and some, along with the chief, were taken prisoners, and carried away by the strangers. Some of the speakers, however, said that he was not carried away, but went away in his own boat to escape from the foreigners, and went to the sea and never came back again. But they all believe that the chief and the people that went with him still live in some foreign country; and if they could but find out where, they would send for them to come back again. Now having some vague idea that white men must know every country beyond the sea, they wanted to know if I had met their people in my country or in the sea. They thought they must be there, for they could not imagine where else they could be. They had sought for them everywhere, they said--on the land and in the sea, in the forest and on the mountains, in the air and in the sky, and could not find them; therefore, they must be in my country, and they begged me to tell them, for I must surely know, as I came from across the great sea. I tried to explain to them that their friends could not have reached my country in small boats; and that there were plenty of islands like Aru all about the sea, which they would be sure to find. Besides, as it was so long ago, the chief and all the people must be dead. But they quite laughed at this idea, and said they were sure they were alive, for they had proof of it. And then they told me that a good many years ago, when the speakers were boys, some Wokan men who were out fishing met these lost people in the sea, and spoke to them; and the chief gave the Wokan men a hundred fathoms of cloth to bring to the men of Wanumbai, to show that they were alive and would soon come back to them, but the Wokan men were thieves, and kept the cloth, and they only heard of it afterwards; and when they spoke about it, the Wokan men denied it, and pretended they had not received the cloth;--so they were quite sure their friends were at that time alive and somewhere in the sea. And again, not many years ago, a report came to them that some Bugis traders had brought some children of their lost people; so they went to Dobbo to see about it, and the owner of the house, who was now speaking to me, was one who went; but the Bugis man would not let them see the children, and threatened to kill them if they came into his house. He kept the children shut up in a large box, and when he went away he took them with him. And at the end of each of these stories, they begged me in an imploring tone to tell them if I knew where their chief and their people now were. By dint of questioning, I got some account of the strangers who had taken away their people. They said they were wonderfully strong, and each one could kill a great many Aru men; and when they were wounded, however badly, they spit upon the place, and it immediately became well. And they made a great net of rattans, and entangled their prisoners in it, and sunk them in the water; and the next day, when they pulled the net up on shore, they made the drowned men come to life again, and carried them away. Much more of the same kind was told me, but in so confused and rambling a manner that I could make nothing out of it, till I inquired how long ago it was that all this happened, when they told me that after their people were taken away the Bugis came in their praus to trade in Aru, and to buy tripang and birds' nests. It is not impossible that something similar to what they related to me really happened when the early Portuguese discoverers first came to Aru, and has formed the foundation for a continually increasing accumulation of legend and fable. I have no doubt that to the next generation, or even before, I myself shall be transformed into a magician or a demigod, a worker of miracles, and a being of supernatural knowledge. They already believe that all the animals I preserve will come to life again; and to their children it will be related that they actually did so. An unusual spell of fine weather setting in just at my arrival has made them believe I can control the seasons; and the simple circumstance of my always walking alone in the forest is a wonder and a mystery to them, as well as my asking them about birds and animals I have not yet seen, and showing an acquaintance with their form, colours, and habits. These facts are brought against me when I disclaim knowledge of what they wish me to tell them. "You must know," say they; "you know everything: you make the fine weather for your men to shoot, and you know all about our birds and our animals as well as we do; and you go alone into the forest and are not afraid." Therefore every confession of ignorance on my part is thought to be a blind, a mere excuse to avoid telling them too much. My very writing materials and books are to them weird things; and were I to choose to mystify them by a few simple experiments with lens and magnet, miracles without end would in a few years cluster about me; and future travellers, penetrating to Wanumbai, world h hardly believe that a poor English naturalist, who had resided a few months among them, could have been the original of the supernatural being to whom so many marvels were attributed. Far some days I had noticed a good deal of excitement, and many strangers came and went armed with spears and cutlasses, bows and shields. I now found there was war near us--two neighbouring villages having a quarrel about some matter of local politics that I could not understand. They told me it was quite a common thing, and that they are rarely without fighting somewhere near. Individual quarrels are taken up by villages and tribes, and the nonpayment of the stipulated price for a wife is one of the most frequent causes of bitterness and bloodshed. One of the war shields was brought me to look at. It was made of rattans and covered with cotton twist, so as to be both light, strong, and very tough. I should think it would resist any ordinary bullet. Abort the middle there was au arm-hole with a shutter or flap over it. This enables the arm to be put through and the bow drawn, while the body and face, up to the eyes, remain protected, which cannot be done if the shield is carried on the arm by loops attached at the back in the ordinary way. A few of the young men from our house went to help their friends, but I could not bear that any of them were hurt, or that there was much hard fighting. May 8th.-I had now been six weeks at Wanumbai, but for more than half the time was laid up in the house with ulcerated feet. My stores being nearly exhausted, and my bird and insect boxes full, and having no immediate prospect of getting the use of my legs again, I determined on returning to Dobbo. Birds had lately become rather scarce, and the Paradise birds had not yet become as plentiful as the natives assured me they would be in another month. The Wanumbai people seemed very sorry at my departure; and well they might be, for the shells and insects they picked up on the way to and from their plantations, and the birds the little boys shot with their bows and arrows, kept them all well supplied with tobacco and gambir, besides enabling them to accumulate a stock of beads and coppers for future expenses. The owner of the house was supplied gratis with a little rice, fish, or salt, whenever he asked for it, which I must say was not very often. On parting, I distributed among them my remnant stock of salt and tobacco, and gave my host a flask of arrack, and believe that on the whole my stay with these simple and good-natured people was productive of pleasure and profit to both parties. I fully intended to come back; and had I known that circumstances would have prevented my doing so, shoed have felt some sorrow in leaving a place where I had first seen so many rare and beautiful living things, and bad so fully enjoyed the pleasure which fills the heart of the naturalist when he is so fortunate as to discover a district hitherto unexplored, and where every day brings forth new and unexpected treasures. We loaded our boat in the afternoon, and, starting before daybreak, by the help of a fair wind reached Dobbo late the same evening. CHAPTER XXXII. THE ARU ISLANDS.--SECOND RESIDENCE AT DOBBO. (MAY AND JUNE 1857.) DOBBO was full to overflowing, and I was obliged to occupy the court-house where the Commissioners hold their sittings. They had now left the island, and I found the situation agreeable, as it was at the end of the village, with a view down the principal street. It was a mere shed, but half of it had a roughly boarded floor, and by putting up a partition and opening a window I made it a very pleasant abode. In one of the boxes I had left in charge of Herr Warzbergen, a colony of small ants had settled and deposited millions of eggs. It was luckily a fine hot day, and by carrying the box some distance from the house, and placing every article in the sunshine for an hour or two, I got rid of them without damage, as they were fortunately a harmless species. Dobbo now presented an animated appearance. Five or six new houses had been added to the street; the praus were all brought round to the western side of the point, where they were hauled up on the beach, and were being caulked and covered with a thick white lime-plaster for the homeward voyage, making them the brightest and cleanest looking things in the place. Most of the small boats had returned from the "blakang-tana" (back country), as the side of the islands towards New Guinea is called. Piles of firewood were being heaped up behind the houses; sail-makers and carpenters were busy at work; mother-of-pearl shell was being tied up in bundles, and the black and ugly smoked tripang was having a last exposure to the sun before loading. The spare portion of the crews were employed cutting and squaring timber, and boats from Ceram and Goram were constantly unloading their cargoes of sago-cake for the traders' homeward voyage. The fowls, ducks, and goats all looked fat and thriving on the refuse food of a dense population, and the Chinamen's pigs were in a state of obesity that foreboded early death. Parrots and Tories and cockatoos, of a dozen different binds, were suspended on bamboo perches at the doors of the houses, with metallic green or white fruit-pigeons which cooed musically at noon and eventide. Young cassowaries, strangely striped with black and brown, wandered about the houses or gambolled with the playfulness of kittens in the hot sunshine, with sometimes a pretty little kangaroo, caught in the Aru forests, but already tame and graceful as a petted fawn. Of an evening there were more signs of life than at the time of my former residence. Tom-toms, jews'-harps, and even fiddles were to be heard, and the melancholy Malay songs sounded not unpleasantly far into the night. Almost every day there was a cock-fight in the street. The spectators make a ring, and after the long steel spurs are tied on, and the poor animals are set down to gash and kill each other, the excitement is immense. Those who lave made bets scream and yell and jump frantically, if they think they are going to win or lose, but in a very few minutes it is all over; there is a hurrah from the winners, the owners seize their cocks, the winning bird is caressed and admired, the loser is generally dead or very badly wounded, and his master may often be seen plucking out his feathers as he walks away, preparing him for the cooking pot while the poor bird is still alive. A game at foot-ball, which generally took place at sunset, was, however, much more interesting to me. The ball used is a rather small one, and is made of rattan, hollow, light, and elastic. The player keeps it dancing a little while on his foot, then occasionally on his arm or thigh, till suddenly he gives it a good blow with the hollow of the foot, and sends it flying high in the air. Another player runs to meet it, and at its first bound catches it on his foot and plays in his turn. The ball must never be touched with the hand; but the arm, shoulder, knee, or thigh are used at pleasure to rest the foot. Two or three played very skilfully, keeping the ball continually flying about, but the place was too confined to show off the game to advantage. One evening a quarrel arose from some dispute in the game, and there was a great row, and it was feared there would be a fight about it--not two men only, but a party of a dozen or twenty on each side, a regular battle with knives and krisses; but after a large amount of talk it passed off quietly, and we heard nothing about it afterwards. Most Europeans being gifted by nature with a luxuriant growth of hair upon their faces, think it disfigures them, and keep up a continual struggle against her by mowing down every morning the crop which has sprouted up flaring the preceding twenty-four hours. Now the men of Mongolian race are, naturally, just as many of us want to he. They mostly pass their lives with faces as smooth and beardless as an infant's. But shaving seems an instinct of the human race; for many of these people, having no hair to take off their faces, shave their heads. Others, however, set resolutely to work to force nature to give them a beard. One of the chief cock-fighters at Dobbo was a Javanese, a sort of master of the ceremonies of the ring, who tied on the spars and acted as backer-up to one of the combatants. This man had succeeded, by assiduous cultivation, in raising a pair of moustaches which were a triumph of art, for they each contained about a dozen hairs more than three inches long, and which, being well greased and twisted, were distinctly visible (when not too far off) as a black thread hanging down on each side of his mouth. But the beard to match was the difficulty, for nature had cruelly refused to give him a rudiment of hair on his chin, and the most talented gardener could not do much if he had nothing to cultivate. But true genius triumphs over difficulties. Although there was no hair proper on the chin; there happened to be, rather on one side of it, a small mole or freckle which contained (as such things frequently do) a few stray hairs. These had been made the most of. They had reached four or five inches in length, and formed another black thread dangling from the left angle of the chin. The owner carried this as if it were something remarkable (as it certainly was); he often felt it affectionately, passed it between his fingers, and was evidently extremely proud of his moustaches and beard! One of the most surprising things connected with Aru was the excessive cheapness of all articles of European or native manufacture. We were here two thousand miles beyond Singapore and Batavia, which are themselves emporiums of the "far east," in a place unvisited by, and almost unknown to, European traders; everything reached us through at least two or three hands, often many more; yet English calicoes and American cotton cloths could be bought for 8s. the piece, muskets for 15s., common scissors and German knives at three-halfpence each, and other cutlery, cotton goods, and earthenware in the same proportion. The natives of this out-of-the-way country can, in fact, buy all these things at about the same money price as our workmen at home, but in reality very much cheaper, for the produce of a few hours' labour enables the savage to purchase in abundance what are to him luxuries, while to the European they are necessaries of life. The barbarian is no happier and no better off for this cheapness. On the contrary, it has a most injurious effect on him. He wants the stimulus of necessity to force him to labour; and if iron were as dear as silver, and calico as costly as satin, the effect would be beneficial to him. As it is, he has more idle hours, gets a more constant supply of tobacco, and can intoxicate himself with arrack more frequently and more thoroughly; for your Aru man scorns to get half drunk-a tumbler full of arrack is but a slight stimulus, and nothing less than half a gallon of spirit will make him tipsy to his own satisfaction. It is not agreeable to reflect on this state of things. At least half of the vast multitudes of uncivilized peoples, on whom our gigantic manufacturing system, enormous capital, and intense competition force the produce of our looms and workshops, would be not a whit worse off physically, and would certainly be improved morally, if all the articles with which w e supply them were double or treble their present prices. If at the same time the difference of cost, or a large portion of it, could find its way into the pockets of the manufacturing workmen, thousands would be raised from want to comfort, from starvation to health, and would be removed from one of the chief incentives to crime. It is difficult for an Englishman to avoid contemplating with pride our gigantic and ever-increasing manufactures and commerce, and thinking everything good that renders their progress still more rapid, either by lowering the price at which the articles can be produced, or by discovering new markets to which they may be sent. If, however, the question that is so frequently asked of the votaries of the less popular sciences were put here--"Cui bono?"--it would be found more difficult to answer than had been imagined. The advantages, even to the few who reap them, would be seen to be mostly physical, while the wide-spread moral and intellectual evils resulting from unceasing labour, low wages, crowded dwellings, and monotonous occupations, to perhaps as large a number as those who gain any real advantage, might be held to show a balance of evil so great, as to lead the greatest admirers of our manufactures and commerce to doubt the advisability of their further development. It will be said: "We cannot stop it; capital must be employed; our population must be kept at work; if we hesitate a moment, other nations now hard pressing us will get ahead, and national ruin will follow." Some of this is true, some fallacious. It is undoubtedly a difficult problem which we have to solve; and I am inclined to think it is this difficulty that makes men conclude that what seems a necessary and unalterable state of things must be good-that its benefits must be greater than its evils. This was the feeling of the American advocates of slavery; they could not see an easy, comfortable way out of it. In our own case, however, it is to be hoped, that if a fair consideration of the matter in all its hearings shows that a preponderance of evil arises from the immensity of our manufactures and commerce-evil which must go on increasing with their increase-there is enough both of political wisdom and true philanthropy in Englishmen, to induce them to turn their superabundant wealth into other channels. The fact that has led to these remarks is surely a striking one: that in one of the most remote corners of the earth savages can buy clothing cheaper than the people of the country where it is made; that the weaver's child should shiver in the wintry wind, unable to purchase articles attainable by the wild natives of a tropical climate, where clothing is mere ornament or luxury, should make us pause ere we regard with unmixed admiration the system which has led to such a result, and cause us to look with some suspicion on the further extension of that system. It must be remembered too that our commerce is not a purely natural growth. It has been ever fostered by the legislature, and forced to an unnatural luxuriance by the protection of our fleets and armies. The wisdom and the justice of this policy have been already doubted. So soon, therefore, as it is seen that the further extension of our manufactures and commerce would be an evil, the remedy is not far to seek. After six weeks' confinement to the house I was at length well, and could resume my daily walks in the forest. I did not, however, find it so productive as when I had first arrived at Dobbo. There was a damp stagnation about the paths, and insects were very scarce. In some of my best collecting places I now found a mass of rotting wood, mingled with young shoots, and overgrown with climbers, yet I always managed to add something daily to my extensive collections. I one day met with a curious example of failure of instinct, which, by showing it to be fallible, renders it very doubtful whether it is anything more than hereditary habit, dependent on delicate modifications of sensation. Some sailors cut down a good-sized tree, and, as is always my practice, I visited it daily for some time in search of insects. Among other beetles came swarms of the little cylindrical woodborers (Platypus, Tesserocerus, &c.), and commenced making holes in the bark. After a day or two I was surprised to find hundreds of them sticking in the holes they had bored, and on examination discovered that the milky sap of the tree was of the nature of gutta-percha, hardening rapidly on exposure to the air, and glueing the little animals in self-dug graves. The habit of boring holes in trees in which to deposit their eggs, was not accompanied by a sufficient instinctive knowledge of which trees were suitable, and which destructive to them. If, as is very probable, these trees have an attractive odour to certain species of borers, it might very likely lead to their becoming extinct; while other species, to whom the same odour was disagreeable, and who therefore avoided the dangerous trees, would survive, and would be credited by us with an instinct, whereas they would really be guided by a simple sensation. Those curious little beetles, the Brenthidae, were very abundant in Aru. The females have a pointed rostrum, with which they bore deep holes in the bark of dead trees, often burying the rostrum up to the eyes, and in these holes deposit their eggs. The males are larger, and have the rostrum dilated at the end, and sometimes terminating in a good-sized pair of jaws. I once saw two males fighting together; each had a fore-leg laid across the neck of the other, and the rostrum bent quite in an attitude of defiance, and looking most ridiculous. Another time, two were fighting for a female, who stood close by busy at her boring. They pushed at each other with their rostra, and clawed and thumped, apparently in the greatest rage, although their coats of mail must have saved both from injury. The small one, however, soon ran away, acknowledging himself vanquished. In most Coleoptera the female is larger than the male, and it is therefore interesting, as bearing on the question of sexual selection, that in this case, as in the stag-beetles where the males fight together, they should be not only better armed, but also much larger than the females. Just as we were going away, a handsome tree, allied to Erythrina, was in blossom, showing its masses of large crimson flowers scattered here and there about the forest. Could it have been seen from an elevation, it would have had a fine effect; from below I could only catch sight of masses of gorgeous colour in clusters and festoons overhead, about which flocks of blue and orange lories were fluttering and screaming. A good many people died at Dobbo this season; I believe about twenty. They were buried in a little grove of Casuarinas behind my house. Among the traders was a. Mahometan priest, who superintended the funerals, which were very simple. The body was wrapped up in new white cotton cloth, and was carried on a bier to the grave. All the spectators sat down on the ground, and the priest chanted some verses from the Koran. The graves were fenced round with a slight bamboo railing, and a little carved wooden head-post was put to mark the spot. There was also in the village a small mosque, where every Friday the faithful went to pray. This is probably more remote from Mecca than any other mosque in the world, and marks the farthest eastern extension of the Mahometan religion. The Chinese here, as elsewhere, showed their superior wealth and civilization by tombstones of solid granite brought from Singapore, with deeply-cut inscriptions, the characters of which are painted in red, blue, and gold. No people have more respect for the graves of their relations and friends than this strange, ubiquitous, money-getting people. Soon after we had returned to Dobbo, my Macassar boy, Baderoon, took his wages and left me, because I scolded him for laziness. He then occupied himself in gambling, and at first had some luck, and bought ornaments, and had plenty of money. Then his luck turned; he lost everything, borrowed money and lost that, and was obliged to become the slave of his creditor till he had worked out the debt. He was a quick and active lad when he pleased, but was apt to be idle, and had such an incorrigible propensity for gambling, that it will very likely lead to his becoming a slave for life. The end of June was now approaching, the east monsoon had set in steadily, and in another week or two Dobbo would be deserted. Preparations for departure were everywhere visible, and every sunny day (rather rare now) the streets were as crowded and as busy as beehives. Heaps of tripang were finally dried and packed up in sacks; mother-of-pearl shell, tied up with rattans into convenient bundles, was all day long being carried to the beach to be loaded; water-casks were filled, and cloths and mat-sails mended and strengthened for the run home before the strong east wind. Almost every day groups of natives arrived from the most distant parts of the islands, with cargoes of bananas and sugar-cane to exchange for tobacco, sago, bread, and other luxuries, before the general departure. The Chinamen killed their fat pig and made their parting feast, and kindly sent me some pork, and a basin of birds' nest stew, which had very little more taste than a dish of vermicelli. My boy Ali returned from Wanumbai, where I had sent him alone for a fortnight to buy Paradise birds and prepare the skins; he brought me sixteen glorious specimens, and had he not been very ill with fever and ague might have obtained twice the number. He had lived with the people whose house I had occupied, and it is a proof of their goodness, if fairly treated, that although he took with him a quantity of silver dollars to pay for the birds they caught, no attempt was made to rob him, which might have been done with the most perfect impunity. He was kindly treated when ill, and was brought back to me with the balance of the dollars he had not spent. The Wanumbai people, like almost all the inhabitants of the Aru Islands, are perfect savages, and I saw no signs of any religion. There are, however, three or four villages on the coast where schoolmasters from Amboyna reside, and the people are nominally Christians, and are to some extent educated and civilized. I could not get much real knowledge of the customs of the Aru people during the short time I was among them, but they have evidently been considerably influenced by their long association with Mahometan traders. They often bury their dead, although the national custom is to expose the body an a raised stage till it decomposes. Though there is no limit to the number of wives a man may have, they seldom exceed one or two. A wife is regularly purchased from the parents, the price being a large assortment of articles, always including gongs, crockery, and cloth. They told me that some of the tribes kill the old men and women when they can no longer work, but I saw many very old and decrepid people, who seemed pretty well attended to. No doubt all who have much intercourse with the Bugis and Ceramese traders gradually lose many of their native customs, especially as these people often settle in their villages and marry native women. The trade carried on at Dobbo is very considerable. This year there were fifteen large praus from Macassar, and perhaps a hundred small boats from Ceram, Goram, and Ke. The Macassar cargoes are worth about £1,000. each, and the other boats take away perhaps about £3,000, worth, so that the whole exports may be estimated at £18,000. per annum. The largest and most bulky items are pearl-shell and tripang, or "beche-de-mer," with smaller quantities of tortoise-shell, edible birds' nests, pearls, ornamental woods, timber, and Birds of Paradise. These are purchased with a variety of goods. Of arrack, about equal in strength to ordinary West India rum, 3,000 boxes, each containing fifteen half-gallon bottles, are consumed annually. Native cloth from Celebes is much esteemed for its durability, and large quantities are sold, as well as white English calico and American unbleached cottons, common crockery, coarse cutlery, muskets, gunpowder, gongs, small brass cannon, and elephants' tusks. These three last articles constitute the wealth of the Aru people, with which they pay for their wives, or which they hoard up as "real property." Tobacco is in immense demand for chewing, and it must be very strong, or an Aru man will not look at it. Knowing how little these people generally work, the mass of produce obtained annually shows that the islands must be pretty thickly inhabited, especially along the coasts, as nine-tenths of the whole are marine productions. It was on the 2d of July that we left Aru, followed by all the Macassar praus, fifteen in number, who had agreed to sail in company. We passed south of Banda, and then steered due west, not seeing land for three days, till we sighted some low islands west of Bouton. We had a strong and steady south-east wind day and night, which carried us on at about five knots an hour, where a clipper ship would have made twelve. The sky was continually cloudy, dark, and threatening, with occasional drizzling showers, till we were west of Bouru, when it cleared up and we enjoyed the bright sunny skies of the dry season for the rest of our voyage. It is about here, therefore that the seasons of the eastern and western regions of the Archipelago are divided. West of this line from June to December is generally fine, and often very dry, the rest of the year being the wet season. East of it the weather is exceedingly uncertain, each island, and each side of an island, having its own peculiarities. The difference seems to consist not so much in the distribution of the rainfall as in that of the clouds and the moistness of the atmosphere. In Aru, for example, when we left, the little streams were all dried up, although the weather was gloomy; while in January, February, and March, when we had the hottest sunshine and the finest days, they were always flowing. The driest time of all the year in Aru occurs in September and October, just as it does in Java and Celebes. The rainy seasons agree, therefore, with those of the western islands, although the weather is very different. The Molucca sea is of a very deep blue colour, quite distinct from the clear light blue of the Atlantic. In cloudy and dull weather it looks absolutely black, and when crested with foam has a stern and angry aspect. The wind continued fair and strong during our whole voyage, and we reached Macassar in perfect safety on the evening of the 11th of July, having made the passage from Aru (more than a thousand miles) in nine and a half days. My expedition to the Aru Islands had been eminently successful. Although I had been for months confined to the house by illness, and had lost much time by the want of the means of locomotion, and by missing the right season at the right place, I brought away with me more than nine thousand specimens of natural objects, of about sixteen hundred distinct species. I had made the acquaintance of a strange and little-known race of men; I had become familiar with the traders of the far East; I had revelled in the delights of exploring a new fauna and flora, one of the most remarkable and most beautiful and least-known in the world; and I had succeeded in the main object for which I had undertaken the journey-namely, to obtain fine specimens of the magnificent Birds of Paradise, and to be enabled to observe them in their native forests. By this success I was stimulated to continue my researches in the Moluccas and New Guinea for nearly five years longer, and it is still the portion of my travels to which I look back with the most complete satisfaction. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE ARU ISLANDS--PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AND ASPECTS OF NATURE. IN this chapter I propose to give a general sketch of the physical geography of the Aru Islands, and of their relation to the surrounding countries; and shall thus be able to incorporate the information obtained from traders, and from the works of other naturalists with my own observations in these exceedingly interesting and little-known regions. The Aru group may be said to consist of one very large central island with a number of small ones scattered round it. The great island is called by the natives and traders "Tang-busar" (great or mainland), to distinguish it as a whole from Dobbo, or any of the detached islands. It is of an irregular oblong form, about eighty miles from north to south, and forty or fifty from east to west, in which direction it is traversed by three narrow channels, dividing it into four portions. These channels are always called rivers by the traders, which puzzled me much till I passed through one of them, and saw how exceedingly applicable the name was. The northern channel, called the river of Watelai, is about a quarter of a mile wide at its entrance, but soon narrows to abort the eighth of a mile, which width it retains, with little variation, during its whole, length of nearly fifty miles, till it again widens at its eastern mouth. Its course is moderately winding, and the hanks are generally dry and somewhat elevated. In many places there are low cliffs of hard coralline limestone, more or less worn by the action of water; while sometimes level spaces extend from the banks to low ranges of hills a little inland. A few small streams enter it from right and left, at the mouths of which are some little rocky islands. The depth is very regular, being from ten to fifteen fathoms, and it has thus every feature of a true river, but for the salt water and the absence of a current. The other two rivers, whose names are Vorkai and Maykor, are said to be very similar in general character; but they are rather near together, and have a number of cross channels intersecting the flat tract between them. On the south side of Maykor the banks are very rocky, and from thence to the southern extremity of Aru is an uninterrupted extent of rather elevated and very rocky country, penetrated by numerous small streams, in the high limestone cliffs bordering which the edible birds' nests of Aru are chiefly obtained. All my informants stated that the two southern rivers are larger than Watelai. The whole of Aru is low, but by no means so flat as it has been represented, or as it appears from the sea. Most of it is dry rocky ground, with a somewhat undulating surface, rising here and there into abrupt hillocks, or cut into steep and narrow ravines. Except the patches of swamp which are found at the mouths of most of the small rivers, there is no absolutely level ground, although the greatest elevation is probably not more than two hundred feet. The rock which everywhere appears in the ravines and brooks is a coralline limestone, in some places soft and pliable, in others so hard and crystalline as to resemble our mountain limestone. The small islands which surround the central mass are very numerous; but most of them are on the east side, where they form a fringe, often extending ten or fifteen miles from the main islands. On the west there are very few, Wamma and Palo Pabi being the chief, with Ougia, and Wassia at the north-west extremity. On the east side the sea is everywhere shallow, and full of coral; and it is here that the pearl-shells are found which form one of the chief staples of Aru trade. All the islands are covered with a dense and very lofty forest. The physical features here described are of peculiar interest, and, as far as I am aware, are to some extent unique; for I have been unable to find any other record of an island of the size of Aru crossed by channels which exactly resemble true rivers. How these channels originated were a complete puzzle to me, till, after a long consideration of the whole of the natural phenomena presented by these islands, I arrived at a conclusion which I will now endeavour to explain. There are three ways in which we may conceive islands which are not volcanic to have been formed, or to have been reduced to their present condition, by elevation, by subsidence, or by separation from a continent or larger island. The existence of coral rock, or of raised beaches far inland, indicates recent elevation; lagoon coral-islands, and such as have barrier or encircling reefs, have suffered subsidence; while our own islands, whose productions are entirely those of the adjacent continent, have been separated from it. Now the Aru Islands are all coral rock, and the adjacent sea is shallow and full of coral, it is therefore evident that they have been elevated from beneath the ocean at a not very distant epoch. But if we suppose that elevation to be the first and only cause of their present condition, we shall find ourselves quite unable to explain the curious river-channels which divide them. Fissures during upheaval would not produce the regular width, the regular depth, or the winding curves which characterise them; and the action of tides and currents during their elevation might form straits of irregular width and depth, but not the river-like channels which actually exist. If, again, we suppose the last movement to have been one of subsidence, reducing the size of the islands, these channels are quite as inexplicable; for subsidence would necessarily lead to the flooding of all low tracts on the banks of the old rivers, and thus obliterate their courses; whereas these remain perfect, and of nearly uniform width from end to end. Now if these channels have ever been rivers they must have flowed from some higher regions, and this must have been to the east, because on the north and west the sea-bottom sinks down at a short distance from the shore to an unfathomable depth; whereas on the east, a shallow sea, nowhere exceeding fifty fathoms, extends quite across to New Guinea, a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles. An elevation of only three hundred feet would convert the whole of this sea into moderately high land, and make the Aru Islands a portion of New Guinea; and the rivers which have their mouths at Utanata and Wamuka, might then have flowed on across Aru, in the channels which are now occupied by salt water. Then the intervening land sunk down, we must suppose the land that now constitutes Aru to have remained nearly stationary, a not very improbable supposition, when we consider the great extent of the shallow sea, and the very small amount of depression the land need have undergone to produce it. But the fact of the Aru Islands having once been connected with New Guinea does not rest on this evidence alone. There is such a striking resemblance between the productions of the two countries as only exists between portions of a common territory. I collected one hundred species of land-birds in the Aru Islands, and about eighty of them, have been found on the mainland of New Guinea. Among these are the great wingless cassowary, two species of heavy brush turkeys, and two of short winged thrushes; which could certainly not have passed over the 150 miles of open sea to the coast of New Guinea. This barrier is equally effectual in the case of many other birds which live only in the depths of the forest, as the kinghunters (Dacelo gaudichaudi), the fly-catching wrens (Todopsis), the great crown pigeon (Goura coronata), and the small wood doves (Ptilonopus perlatus, P. aurantiifrons, and P. coronulatus). Now, to show the real effect of such barrier, let us take the island of Ceram, which is exactly the same distance from New Guinea, but separated from it by a deep sea. Cut of about seventy land-birds inhabiting Ceram, only fifteen are found in New Guinea, and none of these are terrestrial or forest-haunting species. The cassowary is distinct; the kingfishers, parrots, pigeons, flycatchers, honeysuckers, thrushes, and cuckoos, are almost always quite distinct species. More than this, at least twenty genera, which are common to New Guinea and Aru, do not extend into Ceram, indicating with a force which every naturalist will appreciate, that the two latter countries have received their faunas in a radically different manner. Again, a true kangaroo is found in Aru, and the same species occurs in Mysol, which is equally Papuan in its productions, while either the same, or one closely allied to it, inhabits New Guinea; but no such animal is found in Ceram, which is only sixty miles from Mysol. Another small marsupial animal (Perameles doreyanus) is common to Aru and New Guinea. The insects show exactly the same results. The butterflies of Aru are all either New Guinea species, or very slightly modified forms; whereas those of Ceram are more distinct than are the birds of the two countries. It is now generally admitted that we may safely reason on such facts as those, which supply a link in the defective geological record. The upward and downward movements which any country has undergone, and the succession of such movements, can be determined with much accuracy; but geology alone can tell us nothing of lands which have entirely disappeared beneath the ocean. Here physical geography and the distribution of animals and plants are of the greatest service. By ascertaining the depth of the seas separating one country from another, we can form some judgment of the changes which are taking place. If there are other evidences of subsidence, a shallow sea implies a former connexion of the adjacent lands; but if this evidence is wanting, or if there is reason to suspect a rising of the land, then the shallow sea may be the result of that rising, and may indicate that the two countries will be joined at some future time, but not that they have previously been so. The nature of the animals and plants inhabiting these countries will, however, almost always enable us to determine this question. Mr. Darwin has shown us how we may determine in almost every case, whether an island has ever been connected with a continent or larger land, by the presence or absence of terrestrial Mammalia and reptiles. What he terms "oceanic islands" possess neither of these groups of animals, though they may have a luxuriant vegetation, and a fair number of birds, insects, and landshells; and we therefore conclude that they have originated in mid-ocean, and have never been connected with the nearest masses of land. St. Helena, Madeira, and New Zealand are examples of oceanic islands. They possess all other classes of life, because these have means of dispersion over wide spaces of sea, which terrestrial mammals and birds have not, as is fully explained in Sir Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology," and Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species." On the other hand, an island may never have been actually connected with the adjacent continents or islands, and yet may possess representatives of all classes of animals, because many terrestrial mammals and some reptiles have the means of passing over short distances of sea. But in these cases the number of species that have thus migrated will be very small, and there will be great deficiencies even in birds and flying insects, which we should imagine could easily cross over. The island of Timor (as I have already shown in Chapter XIII) bears this relation to Australia; for while it contains several birds and insects of Australian forms, no Australian mammal or reptile is found in it, and a great number of the most abundant and characteristic forms of Australian birds and insects are entirely absent. Contrast this with the British Islands, in, which a large proportion of the plants, insects, reptiles, and Mammalia of the adjacent parts of the continent are fully represented, while there are no remarkable deficiencies of extensive groups, such as always occur when there is reason to believe there has been no such connexion. The case of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, and the Asiatic continent is equally clear; many large Mammalia, terrestrial birds, and reptiles being common to all, while a large number more are of closely allied forms. Now, geology has taught us that this representation by allied forms in the same locality implies lapse of time, and we therefore infer that in Great Britain, where almost every species is absolutely identical with those on the Continent, the separation has been very recent; while in Sumatra and Java, where a considerable number of the continental species are represented by allied forms, the separation was more remote. From these examples we may see how important a supplement to geological evidence is the study of the geographical distribution of animals and plants, in determining the former condition of the earth's surface; and how impossible it is to understand the former without taking the latter into account. The productions of the Aru Islands offer the strangest evidence, that at no very distant epoch they formed a part of New Guinea; and the peculiar physical features which I have described, indicate that they must have stood at very nearly the same level then as they do now, having been separated by the subsidence of the great plain which formerly connected them with it. Persons who have formed the usual ideas of the vegetation of the tropics who picture to themselves the abundance and brilliancy of the flowers, and the magnificent appearance of hundreds of forest trees covered with masses of coloured blossoms, will be surprised to hear, that though vegetation in Aru is highly luxuriant and varied, and would afford abundance of fine and curious plants to adorn our hothouses, yet bright and showy flowers are, as a general rule, altogether absent, or so very scarce as to produce no effect whatever on the general scenery. To give particulars: I have visited five distinct localities in the islands, I have wandered daily in the forests, and have passed along upwards of a hundred miles of coast and river during a period of six months, much of it very fine weather, and till just as I was about to leave, I never saw a single plant of striking brilliancy or beauty, hardly a shrub equal to a hawthorn, or a climber equal to a honeysuckle! It cannot be said that the flowering season had not arrived, for I saw many herbs, shrubs, and forest trees in flower, but all had blossoms of a green or greenish-white tint, not superior to our lime-trees. Here and there on the river banks and coasts are a few Convolvulaceae, not equal to our garden Ipomaeas, and in the deepest shades of the forest some fine scarlet and purple Zingiberaceae, but so few and scattered as to be nothing amid the mass of green and flowerless vegetation. Yet the noble Cycadaceae and screw-pines, thirty or forty feet high, the elegant tree ferns, the lofty palms, and the variety of beautiful and curious plants which everywhere meet the eye, attest the warmth and moisture of the tropics, and the fertility of the soil. It is true that Aru seemed to me exceptionally poor in flowers, but this is only an exaggeration of a general tropical feature; for my whole experience in the equatorial regions of the west and the east has convinced me, that in the most luxuriant parts of the tropics, flowers are less abundant, on the average less showy, and are far less effective in adding colour to the landscape than in temperate climates. I have never seen in the tropics such brilliant masses of colour as even England can show in her furze-clad commons, her heathery mountain-sides, her glades of wild hyacinths, her fields of poppies, her meadows of buttercups and orchises--carpets of yellow, purple, azure-blue, and fiery crimson, which the tropics can rarely exhibit. We, have smaller masses of colour in our hawthorn and crab trees, our holly and mountain-ash, our boom; foxgloves, primroses, and purple vetches, which clothe with gay colours the whole length and breadth of our land, These beauties are all common. They are characteristic of the country and the climate; they have not to be sought for, but they gladden the eye at every step. In the regions of the equator, on the other hand, whether it be forest or savannah, a sombre green clothes universal nature. You may journey for hours, and even for days, and meet with nothing to break the monotony. Flowers are everywhere rare, and anything at all striking is only to be met with at very distant intervals. The idea that nature exhibits gay colours in the tropics, and that the general aspect of nature is there more bright and varied in hue than with us, has even been made the foundation of theories of art, and we have been forbidden to use bright colours in our garments, and in the decorations of our dwellings, because it was supposed that we should be thereby acting in opposition to the teachings of nature. The argument itself is a very poor one, since it might with equal justice be maintained, that as we possess faculties for the appreciation of colours, we should make up for the deficiencies of nature and use the gayest tints in those regions where the landscape is most monotonous. But the assumption on which the argument is founded is totally false, so that even if the reasoning were valid, we need not be afraid of outraging nature, by decorating our houses and our persons with all those gay hues which are so lavishly spread over our fields and mountains, our hedges, woods, and meadows. It is very easy to see what has led to this erroneous view of the nature of tropical vegetation. In our hothouses and at our flower-shows we gather together the finest flowering plants from the most distant regions of the earth, and exhibit them in a proximity to each other which never occurs in nature. A hundred distinct plants, all with bright, or strange, or gorgeous flowers, make a wonderful show when brought together; but perhaps no two of these plants could ever be seen together in a state of nature, each inhabiting a distant region or a different station. Again, all moderately warm extra-European countries are mixed up with the tropics in general estimation, and a vague idea is formed that whatever is preeminently beautiful must come from the hottest parts of the earth. But the fact is quite the contrary. Rhododendrons and azaleas are plants of temperate regions, the grandest lilies are from temperate Japan, and a large proportion of our most showy flowering plants are natives of the Himalayas, of the Cape, of the United States, of Chili, or of China and Japan, all temperate regions. True, there are a great number of grand and gorgeous flowers in the tropics, but the proportion they bear to the mass of the vegetation is exceedingly small; so that what appears an anomaly is nevertheless a fact, and the effect of flowers on the general aspect of nature is far less in the equatorial than in the temperate regions of the earth. CHAPTER XXXIV. NEW GUINEA.--DOREY. (MARCH TO JULY 1858.) AFTER my return from Gilolo to Ternate, in March 1858, I made arrangements for my long-wished-for voyage to the mainland of New Guinea, where I anticipated that my collections would surpass those which I had formed at the Aru Islands. The poverty of Ternate in articles used by Europeans was shown, by my searching in vain through all the stores for such common things as flour, metal spoons, wide-mouthed phials, beeswax, a penknife, and a stone or metal pestle and mortar. I took with me four servants: my head man Ali, and a Ternate lad named Jumaat (Friday), to shoot; Lahagi, a steady middle-aged man, to cut timber and assist me in insect-collecting; and Loisa, a Javanese cook. As I knew I should have to build a house at Dorey, where I was going, I took with me eighty cadjans, or waterproof mats, made of pandanus leaves, to cover over my baggage on first landing, and to help to roof my house afterwards. We started on the 25th of March in the schooner Hester Helena, belonging to my friend Mr. Duivenboden, and bound on a trading voyage along the north coast of New Guinea. Having calms and light airs, we were three days reaching Gane, near the south end of Gilolo, where we stayed to fill up our water-casks and buy a few provisions. We obtained fowls, eggs, sago, plantains, sweet potatoes, yellow pumpkins, chilies, fish, and dried deer's meat; and on the afternoon of the 29th proceeded on our voyage to Dorey harbour. We found it, however, by no means easy to get along; for so near to the equator the monsoons entirely fail of their regularity, and after passing the southern point of Gilolo we had calms, light puffs of wind, and contrary currents, which kept us for five days in sight of the same islands between it and Poppa. A squall them brought us on to the entrance of Dampier's Straits, where we were again becalmed, and were three more days creeping through them. Several native canoes now came off to us from Waigiou on one side, and Batanta on the other, bringing a few common shells, palm-leaf mats, cocoa-nuts, and pumpkins. They were very extravagant in their demands, being accustomed to sell their trifles to whalers and China ships, whose crews will purchase anything at ten times its value. My only purchases were a float belonging to a turtle-spear, carved to resemble a bird, and a very well made palm-leaf box, for which articles I gave a copper ring and a yard of calico. The canoes were very narrow and furnished with an outrigger, and in some of them there was only one man, who seemed to think nothing of coming out alone eight or ten miles from shore. The people were Papuans, much resembling the natives of Aru. When we had got out of the Straits, and were fairly in the great Pacific Ocean, we had a steady wind for the first time since leaving Ternate, but unfortunately it was dead ahead, and we had to beat against it, tacking on and off the coast of New Guinea. I looked with intense interest on those rugged mountains, retreating ridge behind ridge into the interior, where the foot of civilized man had never trod. There was the country of the cassowary and the tree-kangaroo, and those dark forests produced the most extraordinary and the most beautiful of the feathered inhabitants of the earth--the varied species of Birds of Paradise. A few days more and I hoped to be in pursuit of these, and of the scarcely less beautiful insects which accompany them. We had still, however, for several days only calms and light head-winds, and it was not till the 10th of April that a fine westerly breeze set in, followed by a squally night, which kept us off the entrance of Dorey harbour. The next morning we entered, and came to anchor off the small island of Mansinam, on which dwelt two German missionaries, Messrs. Otto and Geisler. The former immediately came on board to give us welcome, and invited us to go on shore and breakfast with him. We were then introduced to his companion who was suffering dreadfully from an abscess on the heel, which had confined him to the house for six months--and to his wife, a young German woman, who had been out only three months. Unfortunately she could speak no Malay or English, and had to guess at our compliments on her excellent breakfast by the justice we did to it. These missionaries were working men, and had been sent out, as being more useful among savages than persons of a higher class. They had been here about two years, and Mr. Otto had already learnt to speak the Papuan language with fluency, and had begun translating some portions of the Bible. The language, however, is so poor that a considerable number of Malay words have to be used; and it is very questionable whether it is possible to convey any idea of such a book, to a people in so low a state of civilization. The only nominal converts yet made are a few of the women; and some few of the children attend school, and are being taught to read, but they make little progress. There is one feature of this mission which I believe will materially interfere with its moral effect. The missionaries are allowed to trade to eke out the very small salaries granted them from Europe, and of course are obliged to carry out the trade principle of buying cheap and selling dear, in order to make a profit. Like all savages the natives are quite careless of the future, and when their small rice crops are gathered they bring a large portion of it to the missionaries, and sell it for knives, beads, axes, tobacco, or any other articles they may require. A few months later, in the wet season, when food is scarce, they come to buy it back again, and give in exchange tortoiseshell, tripang, wild nutmegs, or other produce. Of course the rice is sold at a much higher rate than it was bought, as is perfectly fair and just--and the operation is on the whole thoroughly beneficial to the natives, who would otherwise consume and waste their food when it was abundant, and then starve--yet I cannot imagine that the natives see it in this light. They must look upon the trading missionaries with some suspicion, and cannot feel so sure of their teachings being disinterested, as would be the case if they acted like the Jesuits in Singapore. The first thing to be done by the missionary in attempting to improve savages, is to convince them by his actions that lie comes among them for their benefit only, and not for any private ends of his own. To do this he must act in a different way from other men, not trading and taking advantage of the necessities of those who want to sell, but rather giving to those who are in distress. It would be well if he conformed himself in some degree to native customs, and then endeavoured to show how these customs might be gradually modified, so as to be more healthful and more agreeable. A few energetic and devoted men acting in this way might probably effect a decided moral improvement on the lowest savage tribes, whereas trading missionaries, teaching what Jesus said, but not doing as He did, can scarcely be expected to do more than give them a very little of the superficial varnish of religion. Dorey harbour is in a fine bay, at one extremity of which an elevated point juts out, and, with two or three small islands, forms a sheltered anchorage. The only vessel it contained when we arrived was a Dutch brig, laden with coals for the use of a war-steamer, which was expected daily, on an exploring expedition along the coasts of New Guinea, for the purpose of fixing on a locality for a colony. In the evening we paid it a visit, and landed at the village of Dorey, to look out for a place where I could build my house. Mr. Otto also made arrangements for me with some of the native chiefs, to send men to cut wood, rattans, and bamboo the next day. The villages of Mansinam and Dorey presented some features quite new to me. The houses all stand completely in the water, and are reached by long rude bridges. They are very low, with the roof shaped like a large boat, bottom upwards. The posts which support the houses, bridges, and platforms are small crooked sticks, placed without any regularity, and looking as if they were tumbling down. The floors are also formed of sticks, equally irregular, and so loose and far apart that I found it almost impossible to walls on them. The walls consist of bits of boards, old boats, rotten mats, attaps, and palm-leaves, stuck in anyhow here and there, and having altogether the most wretched and dilapidated appearance it is possible to conceive. Under the eaves of many of the houses hang human skulls, the trophies of their battles with the savage Arfaks of the interior, who often come to attack them. A large boat-shaped council-house is supported on larger posts, each of which is grossly carved to represent a naked male or female human figure, and other carvings still more revolting are placed upon the platform before the entrance. The view of an ancient lake-dweller's village, given as the frontispiece of Sir Charles Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," is chiefly founded on a sketch of this very village of Dorey; but the extreme regularity of the structures there depicted has no place in the original, any more than it probably had in the actual lake-villages. The people who inhabit these miserable huts are very similar to the Ke and Aru islanders, and many of them are very handsome, being tall and well-made, with well-cut features and large aquiline noses. Their colour is a deep brown, often approaching closely to black, and the fine mop-like heads of frizzly hair appear to be more common than elsewhere, and are considered a great ornament, a long six-pronged bamboo fork being kept stuck in them to serve the purpose of a comb; and this is assiduously used at idle moments to keep the densely growing mass from becoming matted and tangled. The majority have short woolly hair, which does not seem capable of an equally luxuriant development. A growth of hair somewhat similar to this, and almost as abundant, is found among the half-breeds between the Indian and Negro in South America. Can this be an indication that the Papuans are a mixed race? For the first three days after our arrival I was fully occupied from morning to night building a house, with the assistance of a dozen Papuans and my own men. It was immense trouble to get our labourers to work, as scarcely one of them could speak a word of Malay; and it was only by the most energetic gesticulations, and going through a regular pantomime of what was wanted, that we could get them to do anything. If we made them understand that a few more poles were required, which two could have easily cut, six or eight would insist upon going together, although we needed their assistance in other things. One morning ten of them came to work, bringing only one chopper between them, although they knew I had none ready for use. I chose a place about two hundred yards from the beach, on an elevated ground, by the side of the chief path from the village of Dorey to the provision-grounds and the forest. Within twenty yards was a little stream; which furnished us with excellent water and a nice place to bathe. There was only low underwood to clear away, while some fine forest trees stood at a short distance, and we cut down the wood for about twenty yards round to give us light and air. The house, about twenty feet by fifteen; was built entirely of wood, with a bamboo floor, a single door of thatch, and a large window, looking over the sea, at which I fixed my table, and close beside it my bed, within a little partition. I bought a number of very large palm-leaf mats of the natives, which made excellent walls; while the mats I had brought myself were used on the roof, and were covered over with attaps as soon as we could get them made. Outside, and rather behind, was a little hut, used for cooking, and a bench, roofed over, where my men could sit to skin birds and animals. When all was finished, I had my goods and stores brought up, arranged them conveniently inside, and then paid my Papuans with knives and choppers, and sent them away. The next day our schooner left for the more eastern islands, and I found myself fairly established as the only European inhabitant of the vast island of New Guinea. As we had some doubt about the natives, we slept at first with loaded guns beside us and a watch set; but after a few days, finding the people friendly, and feeling sure that they would not venture to attack five well-armed men, we took no further precautions. We had still a day or two's work in finishing up the house, stopping leaks, putting up our hanging shelves for drying specimens inside and out, and making the path down to the water, and a clear dry space in front of the horse. On the 17th, the steamer not having arrived, the coal-ship left, having lain here a month, according to her contract; and on the same day my hunters went out to shoot for the first time, and brought home a magnificent crown pigeon and a few common birds. The next day they were more successful, and I was delighted to see them return with a Bird of Paradise in full plumage, a pair of the fine Papuan lories (Lorius domicella), four other lories and parroquets, a grackle (Gracula dumonti), a king-hunter (Dacelo gaudichaudi), a racquet-tailed kingfisher (Tanysiptera galatea), and two or three other birds of less beauty. I went myself to visit the native village on the hill behind Dorey, and took with me a small present of cloth, knives, and beads, to secure the good-will of the chief, and get him to send some men to catch or shoot birds for me. The houses were scattered about among rudely cultivated clearings. Two which I visited consisted of a central passage, on each side of which opened short passages, admitting to two rooms, each of which was a house accommodating a separate family. They were elevated at least fifteen feet above the ground, on a complete forest of poles, and were so rude and dilapidated that some of the small passages had openings in the floor of loose sticks, through which a child might fall. The inhabitants seemed rather uglier than those at Dorey village. They are, no doubt, the true indigenes of this part of New Guinea, living in the interior, and subsisting by cultivation and hunting. The Dorey men, on the other hand, are shore-dwellers, fishers and traders in a small way, and have thus the character of a colony who have migrated from another district. These hillmen or "Arfaks" differed much in physical features. They were generally black, but some were brown like Malays. Their hair, though always more or less frizzly, was sometimes short and matted, instead of being long, loose, and woolly; and this seemed to be a constitutional difference, not the effect of care and cultivation. Nearly half of them were afflicted with the scurfy skin-disease. The old chief seemed much pleased with his present, and promised (through an interpreter I brought with me) to protect my men when they came there shooting, and also to procure me some birds and animals. While conversing, they smoked tobacco of their own growing, in pipes cut from a single piece of wood with a long upright handle. We had arrived at Dorey about the end of the wet season, when the whole country was soaked with moisture The native paths were so neglected as to be often mere tunnels closed over with vegetation, and in such places there was always a fearful accumulation of mud. To the naked Papuan this is no obstruction. He wades through it, and the next watercourse makes him clean again; but to myself, wearing boots and trousers, it was a most disagreeable thing to have to go up to my knees in a mud-hole every morning. The man I brought with me to cut wood fell ill soon after we arrived, or I would have set him to clear fresh paths in the worst places. For the first ten days it generally rained every afternoon and all night r but by going out every hour of fine weather, I managed to get on tolerably with my collections of birds and insects, finding most of those collected by Lesson during his visit in the Coquille, as well as many new ones. It appears, however, that Dorey is not the place for Birds of Paradise, none of the natives being accustomed to preserve them. Those sold here are all brought from Amberbaki, about a hundred miles west, where the Doreyans go to trade. The islands in the bay, with the low lands near the coast, seem to have been formed by recently raised coral reef's, and are much strewn with masses of coral but little altered. The ridge behind my house, which runs out to the point, is also entirely coral rock, although there are signs of a stratified foundation in the ravines, and the rock itself is more compact and crystalline. It is therefore, probably older, a more recent elevation having exposed the low grounds and islands. On the other side of the bay rise the great mass of the Arfak mountains, said by the French navigators to be about ten thousand feet high, and inhabited by savage tribes. These are held in great dread by the Dorey people, who have often been attacked and plundered by them, and have some of their skulls hanging outside their houses. If I was seem going into the forest anywhere in the direction of the mountains, the little boys of the village would shout after me, "Arfaki! Arfaki?" just as they did after Lesson nearly forty years before. On the 15th of May the Dutch war-steamer Etna arrived; but, as the coals had gone, it was obliged to stay till they came back. The captain knew when the coalship was to arrive, and how long it was chartered to stay at Dorey, and could have been back in time, but supposed it would wait for him, and so did not hurry himself. The steamer lay at anchor just opposite my house, and I had the advantage of hearing the half-hourly bells struck, which was very pleasant after the monotonous silence of the forest. The captain, doctor, engineer, and some other of the officers paid me visits; the servants came to the brook to wash clothes, and the son of the Prince of Tidore, with one or two companions, to bathe; otherwise I saw little of them, and was not disturbed by visitors so much as I had expected to be. About this time the weather set in pretty fine, but neither birds nor insects became much more abundant, and new birds-were very scarce. None of the Birds of Paradise except the common one were ever met with, and we were still searching in vain for several of the fine birds which Lesson had obtained here. Insects were tolerably abundant, but were not on the average so fine as those of Amboyna, and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that Dorey was not a good collecting locality. Butterflies were very scarce, and were mostly the same as those which I had obtained at Aru. Among the insects of other orders, the most curious and novel were a group of horned flies, of which I obtained four distinct species, settling on fallen trees and decaying trunks. These remarkable insects, which have been described by Mr. W. W. Saunders as a new genus, under the name of Elaphomia or deer-flies, are about half an inch long, slender-bodied, and with very long legs, which they draw together so as to elevate their bodies high above the surface they are standing upon. The front pair of legs are much shorter, and these are often stretched directly forwards, so as to resemble antenna. The horns spring from beneath the eye, and seem to be a prolongation of the lower part of the orbit. In the largest and most singular species, named Elaphomia cervicornis or the stag-horned deer-fly, these horns are nearly as long as the body, having two branches, with two small snags near their bifurcation, so as to resemble the horns of a stag. They are black, with the tips pale, while the body and legs are yellowish brown, and the eyes (when alive) violet and green. The next species (Elaphomia wallacei) is of a dark brown colour, banded and spotted with yellow. The horns are about one-third the length of the insect, broad, flat, and of an elongated triangular foam. They are of a beautiful pink colour, edged with black, and with a pale central stripe. The front part of the head is also pink, and the eyes violet pink, with a green stripe across them, giving the insect a very elegant and singular appearance. The third species (Elaphomia alcicornis, the elk-horned deer-fly) is a little smaller than the two already described, but resembling in colour Elaphomia wallacei. The horns are very remarkable, being suddenly dilated into a flat plate, strongly toothed round the outer margin, and strikingly resembling the horns of the elk, after which it has been named. They are of a yellowish colour, margined with brown, and tipped with black on the three upper teeth. The fourth species (Elaphomia brevicornis, the short-horned deer-fly) differs considerably from the rest. It is stouter in form, of a nearly black colour, with a yellow ring at the base of the abdomen; the wings have dusky stripes, and the head is compressed and dilated laterally, with very small flat horns; which are black with a pale centre, and look exactly like the rudiment of the horns of the two preceding species. None of the females have any trace of the horns, and Mr. Saunders places in the same genus a species which has no horns in either sex (Elaphomia polita). It is of a shining black colour, and resembles Elaphomia cervicornis in form, size, and general appearance. The figures above given represent these insects of their natural size and in characteristic attitudes. The natives seldom brought me anything. They are poor creatures, and, rarely shoot a bird, pig, or kangaroo, or even the sluggish opossum-like Cuscus. The tree-kangaroos are found here, but must be very scarce, as my hunters, although out daily in the forest, never once saw them. Cockatoos, lories, and parroquets were really the only common birds. Even pigeons were scarce, and in little variety, although we occasionally got the fine crown pigeon, which was always welcome as an addition to our scantily furnished larder. Just before the steamer arrived I had wounded my ankle by clambering among the trunks and branches of fallen trees (which formed my best hunting grounds for insects), and, as usual with foot wounds in this climate, it turned into an obstinate ulcer, keeping me in the house for several days. When it healed up it was followed by an internal inflammation of the foot, which by the doctor's advice I poulticed incessantly for four or five days, bringing out a severe inflamed swelling on the tendon above the heel. This had to be leeched, and lanced, and doctored with ointments and poultices for several weeks, till I was almost driven to despair,--for the weather was at length fine, and I was tantalized by seeing grand butterflies flying past my door, and thinking of the twenty or thirty new species of insects that I ought to be getting every day. And this, too, in New Guinea--a country which I might never visit again,--a country which no naturalist had ever resided in before,--a country which contained more strange and new and beautiful natural objects than any other part of the globe. The naturalist will be able to appreciate my feelings, sitting from morning to night in my little hut, unable to move without a crutch, and my only solace the birds my hunters brought in every afternoon, and the few insects caught by my Ternate man, Lahagi, who now went out daily in my place, but who of course did not get a fourth part of what I should have obtained. To add to my troubles all my men were more or less ill, some with fever, others with dysentery or ague; at one time there were three of them besides myself all helpless, the coon alone being well, and having enough to do to wait upon us. The Prince of Tidore and the Resident of Panda were both on board the steamer, and were seeking Birds of Paradise, sending men round in every direction, so that there was no chance of my getting even native skins of the rarer kinds; and any birds, insects, or animals the Dorey people had to sell were taken on board the steamer, where purchasers were found for everything, and where a larger variety of articles were offered in exchange than I had to show. After a month's close confinement in the house I was at length able to go out a little, and about the same time I succeeded in getting a boat and six natives to take Ali and Lahagi to Amberbaki, and to bring them back at the end of a month. Ali was charged to buy all the Birds of Paradise he could get, and to shoot and skin all other rare or new birds; and Lahagi was to collect insects, which I hoped might be more abundant than at Dorey. When I recommenced my daily walks in search of insects, I found a great change in the neighbourhood, and one very agreeable to me. All the time I had been laid up the ship's crew and the Javanese soldiers who had been brought in a tender (a sailing ship which had arrived soon after the Etna), had been employed cutting down, sawing, and splitting large trees for firewood, to enable the steamer to get back to Amboyna if the coal-ship did not return; and they had also cleared a number of wide, straight paths through the forest in various directions, greatly to the astonishment of the natives, who could not make out what it all meant. I had now a variety of walks, and a good deal of dead wood on which to search for insects; but notwithstanding these advantages, they were not nearly so plentiful as I had found them at Sarawak, or Amboyna, or Batchian, confirming my opinion that Dorey was not a good locality. It is quite probable, however, that at a station a few miles in the interior, away from the recently elevated coralline rocks and the influence of the sea air, a much more abundant harvest might be obtained. One afternoon I went on board the steamer to return the captain's visit, and was shown some very nice sketches (by one of the lieutenants), made on the south coast, and also at the Arfak mountain, to which they had made an excursion. From these and the captain's description, it appeared that the people of Arfak were similar to those of Dorey, and I could hear nothing of the straight-haired race which Lesson says inhabits the interior, but which no one has ever seen, and the account of which I suspect has originated in some mistake. The captain told me he had made a detailed survey of part of the south coast, and if the coal arrived should go away at once to Humboldt Pay, in longitude 141° east, which is the line up to which the Dutch claim New Guinea. On board the tender I found a brother naturalist, a German named Rosenberg, who was draughtsman to the surveying staff. He had brought two men with him to shoot and skin birds, and had been able to purchase a few rare skins from the natives. Among these was a pair of the superb Paradise Pie (Astrapia nigra) in tolerable preservation. They were brought from the island of Jobie, which may be its native country, as it certainly is of the rarer species of crown pigeon (Goura steursii), one of which was brought alive and sold on board. Jobie, however, is a very dangerous place, and sailors are often murdered there when on shore; sometimes the vessels themselves being attacked. Wandammen, on the mainland opposite Jobie, inhere there are said to be plenty of birds, is even worse, and at either of these places my life would not have been worth a week's purchase had I ventured to live alone and unprotected as at Dorey. On board the steamer they had a pair of tree kangaroos alive. They differ chiefly from the ground-kangaroo in having a more hairy tail, not thickened at the base, and not used as a prop; and by the powerful claws on the fore-feet, by which they grasp the bark and branches, and seize the leaves on which they feed. They move along by short jumps on their hind-feet, which do not seem particularly well adapted for climbing trees. It has been supposed that these tree-kangaroos are a special adaptation to the swampy, half-drowned forests of, New Guinea, in place of the usual form of the group, which is adapted only to dry ground. Mr. Windsor Earl makes much of this theory, but, unfortunately for it, the tree-kangaroos are chiefly found in the northern peninsula of New Guinea, which is entirely composed of hills and mountains with very little flat land, while the kangaroo of the low flat Aru Islands (Dorcopsis asiaticus) is a ground species. A more probable supposition seems to lie, that the tree-kangaroo has been modified to enable it to feed on foliage in the vast forests of New Guinea, as these form the great natural feature which distinguishes that country from Australia. On June 5th, the coal-ship arrived, having been sent back from Amboyna, with the addition of some fresh stores for the steamer. The wood, which had been almost all taken on board, was now unladen again, the coal taken in, and on the 17th both steamer and tender left for Humboldt Bay. We were then a little quiet again, and got something to eat; for while the vessels were here every bit of fish or vegetable was taken on board, and I had often to make a small parroquet serve for two meals. My men now returned from Amberbaki, but, alas brought me almost nothing. They had visited several villages, and even went two days' journey into the interior, but could find no skins of Birds of Paradise to purchase, except the common kind, and very few even of those. The birds found were the same as at Dorey, but were still scarcer. None of the natives anywhere near the coast shoot or prepare Birds of Paradise, which come from far in the interior over two or three ranges of mountains, passing by barter from village to village till they reach the sea. There the natives of Dorey buy them, and on their return home sell them to the Bugis or Ternate traders. It is therefore hopeless for a traveller to go to any particular place on the coast of New Guinea where rare Paradise birds may have been bought, in hopes of obtaining freshly killed specimens from the natives; and it also shows the scarcity of these birds in any one locality, since from the Amberbaki district, a celebrated place, where at least five or six species have been procured, not one of the rarer ones has been obtained this year. The Prince of Tidore, who would certainly have got them if any were to be had, was obliged to put up with a few of the common yellow ones. I think it probable that a longer residence at Dorey, a little farther in the interior, might show that several of the rarer kinds were found there, as I obtained a single female of the fine scale-breasted Ptiloris magnificus. I was told at Ternate of a bird that is certainly not yet known in Europe, a black King Paradise Bird, with the curled tail and beautiful side plumes of the common species, but all the rest of the plumage glossy black. The people of Dorey knew nothing about this, although they recognised by description most of the otter species. When the steamer left, I was suffering from a severe attack of fever. In about a week I got over this, but it was followed by such a soreness of the whole inside of the mouth, tongue, and gums, that for many days I could put nothing solid between my lips, but was obliged to subsist entirely on slops, although in other respects very well. At the same time two of my men again fell ill, one with fever, the other with dysentery, and both got very bad. I did what I could for them with my small stock of medicines, but they lingered on for some weeks, till on June 26th poor Jumaat died. He was about eighteen years of age, a native, I believe, of Bouton, and a quiet lad, not very active, but doing his work pretty steadily, and as well as he was able. As my men were all Mahometans, I let them bury him in their own fashion, giving them some new cotton cloth for a shroud. On July 6th the steamer returned from the eastward. The weather was still terribly wet, when, according to rule, it should have been fine and dry. We had scarcely anything to eat, and were all of us ill. Fevers, colds, and dysentery were continually attacking us, and made me long I-o get away from New Guinea, as much as ever I had longed to come there. The captain of the Etna paid me a visit, and gave me a very interesting account of his trip. They had stayed at Humboldt Bay several days, and found it a much more beautiful and more interesting place than Dorey, as well as a better harbour. The natives were quite unsophisticated, being rarely visited except by stray whalers, and they were superior to the Dorey people, morally and physically. They went quite naked. Their houses were some in the water and some inland, and were all neatly and well built; their fields were well cultivated, and the paths to them kept clear and open, in which respects Dorey is abominable. They were shy at first, and opposed the boats with hostile demonstrations, beading their bows, and intimating that they would shoot if an attempt was made to land. Very judiciously the captain gave way, but threw on shore a few presents, and after two or three trials they were permitted to land, and to go about and see the country, and were supplied with fruits and vegetables. All communication was carried on with them by signs--the Dorey interpreter, who accompanied the steamer, being unable to understand a word of their language. No new birds or animals were obtained, but in their ornaments the feathers of Paradise birds were seen, showing, as might be expected, that these birds range far in this direction, and probably all over New Guinea. It is curious that a rudimental love of art should co-exist with such a very low state of civilization. The people of Dorey are great carvers and painters. The outsides of the houses, wherever there is a plank, are covered with rude yet characteristic figures. The high-peaked prows of their boats are ornamented with masses of open filagree work, cut out of solid blocks of wood, and often of very tasteful design, As a figurehead, or pinnacle, there is often a human figure, with a head of cassowary feathers to imitate the Papuan "mop." The floats of their fishing-lines, the wooden beaters used in tempering the clay for their pottery, their tobacco-boxes, and other household articles, are covered with carving of tasteful and often elegant design. Did we not already know that such taste and skill are compatible with utter barbarism, we could hardly believe that the same people are, in other matters, utterly wanting in all sense of order, comfort, or decency. Yet such is the case. They live in the most miserable, crazy, and filthy hovels, which are utterly destitute of anything that can be called furniture; not a stool, or bench, or board is seen in them, no brush seems to be known, and the clothes they wear are often filthy bark, or rags, or sacking. Along the paths where they daily pass to and from their provision grounds, not an overhanging bough or straggling briar ever seems to be cut, so that you have to brush through a rank vegetation, creep under fallen trees and spiny creepers, and wade through pools of mud and mire, which cannot dry up because the sun is not allowed to penetrate. Their food is almost wholly roots and vegetables, with fish or game only as an occasional luxury, and they are consequently very subject to various skin diseases, the children especially being often miserable-looking objects, blotched all over with eruptions and sores. If these people are not savages, where shall we find any? Yet they have all a decided love for the fine arts, and spend their leisure time in executing works whose good taste and elegance would often be admired in our schools of design! During the latter part of my stay in New Guinea the weather was very wet, my only shooter was ill, and birds became scarce, so that my only resource was insect-hunting. I worked very hard every hour of fine weather, and daily obtained a number of new species. Every dead tree and fallen log was searched and searched again; and among the dry and rotting leaves, which still hung on certain trees which had been cut down, I found an abundant harvest of minute Coleoptera. Although I never afterwards found so many large and handsome beetles as in Borneo, yet I obtained here a great variety of species. For the first two or three weeks, while I was searching out the best localities, I took about 30 different kinds of beetles n day, besides about half that number of butterflies, and a few of the other orders. But afterwards, up to the very last week, I averaged 49 species a day. On the 31st of May, I took 78 distinct sorts, a larger number than I had ever captured before, principally obtained among dead trees and under rotten bark. A good long walk on a fine day up the hill, and to the plantations of the natives, capturing everything not very common that came in my way, would produce about 60 species; but on the last day of June I brought home no less than 95 distinct kinds of beetles, a larger number than I ever obtained in one day before or since. It was a fine hot day, and I devoted it to a search among dead leaves, beating foliage, and hunting under rotten bark, in all the best stations I had discovered during my walks. I was out from ten in the morning till three in the afternoon, and it took me six hours' work at home to pin and set out all the specimens, and to separate the species. Although T had already been working this shot daily for two months and a half, and had obtained over 800 species of Coleoptera, this day's work added 32 new ones. Among these were 4 Longicorns, 2 Caribidae, 7 Staphylinidae, 7 Curculionidae, 2 Copridae, 4 Chrysomelidae, 3 Heteromera, 1 Elates, and 1 Buprestis. Even on the last day I went out, I obtained 10 new species; so that although I collected over a thousand distinct sorts of beetles in a space not much exceeding a square mile during the three months of my residence at Dorey, I cannot believe that this represents one half the species really inhabiting the same spot, or a fourth of what might be obtained in an area extending twenty miles in each direction. On the 22d of July the schooner Hester Helena arrived, and five days afterwards we bade adieu to Dorey, without much regret, for in no place which I have visited have I encountered more privations and annoyances. Continual rain, continual sickness, little wholesome food, with a plague of ants and files, surpassing anything I had before met with, required all a naturalist's ardour to encounter; and when they were uncompensated by great success in collecting, became all the more insupportable. This long thought-of and much-desired voyage to New Guinea had realized none of my expectations. Instead of being far better than the Aru Islands, it was in almost everything much worse. Instead of producing several of the rarer Paradise birds, I had not even seen one of them, and had not obtained any one superlatively fine bird or insect. I cannot deny, however, that Dorey was very rich in ants. One small black kind was excessively abundant. Almost every shrub and tree was more or less infested with it, and its large papery nests were everywhere to be seen. They immediately took possession of my house, building a large nest in the roof, and forming papery tunnels down almost every post. They swarmed on my table as I was at work setting out my insects, carrying them off from under my very nose, and even tearing them from the cards on which they were gummed if I left them for an instant. They crawled continually over my hands and face, got into my hair, and roamed at will over my whole body, not producing much inconvenience till they began to bite, which they would do on meeting with any obstruction to their passage, and with a sharpness which made me jump again and rush to undress and turn out the offender. They visited my bed also, so that night brought no relief from their persecutions; and I verily believe that during my three and a half months' residence at Dorey I was never for a single hour entirely free from them. They were not nearly so voracious as many other kinds, but their numbers and ubiquity rendered it necessary to be constantly on guard against them. The flies that troubled me most were a large kind of blue-bottle or blow-fly. These settled in swarms on my bird skins when first put out to dry, filling their plumage with masses of eggs, which, if neglected, the next day produced maggots. They would get under the wings or under the body where it rested on the drying-board, sometimes actually raising it up half an inch by the mass of eggs deposited in a few hours; and every egg was so firmly glued to the fibres of the feathers, as to make it a work of much time and patience to get them off without injuring the bird. In no other locality have I ever been troubled with such a plague as this. On the 29th we left Dorey, and expected a quick voyage home, as it was the time of year when we ought to have had steady southerly and easterly winds. Instead of these, however, we had calms and westerly breezes, and it was seventeen days before we reached Ternate, a distance of five hundred miles only, which, with average winds, could have been done in five days. It was a great treat to me to find myself back again in my comfortable house, enjoying milk to my tea and coffee, fresh bread and butter, and fowl and fish daily for dinner. This New Guinea voyage had used us all up, and I determined to stay and recruit before I commenced any fresh expeditions. My succeeding journeys to Gilolo and Batchian have already been narrated, and if; now only remains for me to give an account of my residence in Waigiou, the last Papuan territory I visited in search of Birds of Paradise. CHAPTER XXXV. VOYAGE FROM CERAM TO WAIGIOU. (JUNE AND JULY 1860.) IN my twenty-fifth chapter I have described my arrival at Wahai, on my way to Mysol and Waigiou, islands which belong to the Papuan district, and the account of which naturally follows after that of my visit to the mainland of New Guinea. I now take up my narrative at my departure from Wahai, with the intention of carrying various necessary stores to my assistant, Mr. Allen, at Silinta, in Mysol, and then continuing my journey to Waigiou. It will be remembered that I was travelling in a small prau, which I had purchased and fitted up in Goram, and that, having been deserted by my crew on the coast of Ceram, I had obtained four men at Wahai, who, with my Amboynese hunter, constituted my crew. Between Ceram and Mysol there are sixty miles of open sea, and along this wide channel the east monsoon blows strongly; so that with native praus, which will not lay up to the wind, it requires some care in crossing. In order to give ourselves sufficient leeway, we sailed back from Wahai eastward, along the coast of Ceram, with the land-breeze; but in the morning (June 18th) had not gone nearly so far as I expected. My pilot, an old and experienced sailor, named Gurulampoko, assured me there was a current setting to the eastward, and that we could easily lay across to Silinta, in Mysol. As we got out from the land the wind increased, and there was a considerable sea, which made my short little vessel plunge and roll about violently. By sunset we had not got halfway across, but could see Mysol distinctly. All night we went along uneasily, and at daybreak, on looking out anxiously, I found that we had fallen much to the westward during the night, owing, no doubt, to the pilot being sleepy and not keeping the boat sufficiently close to the wind. We could see the mountains distinctly, but it was clear we should not reach Silinta, and should have some difficulty in getting to the extreme westward point of the island. The sea was now very boisterous, and our prau was continually beaten to leeward by the waves, and after another weary day we found w e could not get to Mysol at all, but might perhaps reach the island called Pulo Kanary, about ten miles to the north-west. Thence we might await a favourable wind to reach Waigamma, on the north side of the island, and visit Allen by means of a small boat. About nine o'clock at night, greatly to my satisfaction, we got under the lea of this island, into quite smooth water--for I had been very sick and uncomfortable, and had eaten scarcely anything since the preceding morning. We were slowly nearing the shore, which the smooth dark water told us we could safely approach; and were congratulating ourselves on soon being at anchor, with the prospect of hot coffee, a good supper, and a sound sleep, when the wind completely dropped, and we had to get out the oars to row. We were not more than two hundred yards from the shore, when I noticed that we seemed to get no nearer although the men were rowing hard, but drifted to the westward, and the prau would not obey the helm, but continually fell off, and gave us much trouble to bring her up again. Soon a laud ripple of water told us we were seized by one of those treacherous currents which so frequently frustrate all the efforts of the voyager in these seas; the men threw down the oars in despair, and in a few minutes we drifted to leeward of the island fairly out to sea again, and lost our last chance of ever reaching Mysol! Hoisting our jib, we lay to, and in the morning found ourselves only a few miles from the island, but wit, such a steady wind blowing from its direction as to render it impossible for us to get back to it. We now made sail to the northward, hoping soon to get a more southerly wind. Towards noon the sea was much smoother, and with a S.S.E. wind we were laying in the direction of Salwatty, which I hoped to reach, as I could there easily get a boat to take provisions and stores to my companion in Mysol. This wind did not, however, last long, but died away into a calm; and a light west wind springing up, with a dark bank of clouds, again gave us hopes of reaching Mysol. We were soon, however, again disappointed. The E.S.E. wind began to blow again with violence, and continued all night in irregular gusts, and with a short cross sea tossed us about unmercifully, and so continually took our sails aback, that we were at length forced to run before it with our jib only, to escape being swamped by our heavy mainsail. After another miserable and anxious night, we found that we had drifted westward of the island of Poppa, and the wind being again a little southerly, we made all sail in order to reach it. This we did not succeed in doing, passing to the north-west, when the wind again blew hard from the E.S.E., and our last hope of finding a refuge till better weather was frustrated. This was a very serious matter to me, as I could not tell how Charles Allen might act, if, after waiting in vain for me, he should return to Wahai, and find that I had left there long before, and had not since been heard of. Such an event as our missing an island forty miles long would hardly occur to him, and he would conclude either that our boat had foundered, or that my crew had murdered me and run away with her. However, as it was physically impossible now for me to reach him, the only thing to be done was to make the best of my way to Waigiou, and trust to our meeting some traders, who might convey to him the news of my safety. Finding on my map a group of three small islands, twenty-five miles north of Poppa, I resolved, if possible, to rest there a day or two. We could lay our boat's head N.E. by N.; but a heavy sea from the eastward so continually beat us off our course, and we made so much leeway, that I found it would be as much as we could do to reach them. It was a delicate point to keep our head in the best direction, neither so close to the wind as to stop our way, or so free as to carry us too far to leeward. I continually directed the steersman myself, and by incessant vigilance succeeded, just at sunset, in bringing our boat to an anchor under the lee of the southern point of one of the islands. The anchorage was, however, by no means good, there being a fringing coral reef, dry at low water, beyond which, on a bottom strewn with masses of coral, we were obliged to anchor. We had now been incessantly tossing about for four days in our small undecked boat, with constant disappointments and anxiety, and it was a great comfort to have a night of quiet and comparative safety. My old pilot had never left the helm for more than an hour at a time, when one of the others would relieve him for a little sleep; so I determined the next morning to look out for a secure and convenient harbour, and rest on shore for a day. In the morning, finding it would be necessary for us to get round a rocky point, I wanted my men to go on shore and cut jungle-rope, by which to secure us from being again drafted away, as the wind was directly off shore. I unfortunately, however, allowed myself to be overruled by the pilot and crew, who all declared that it was the easiest thing possible, and that they would row the boat round the point in a few minutes. They accordingly got up the anchor, set the jib, and began rowing; but, just as I had feared, we drifted rapidly off shore, and had to drop anchor again in deeper water, and much farther off. The two best men, a Papuan and a Malay now swam on shore, each carrying a hatchet, and went into the jungle to seek creepers for rope. After about an hour our anchor loosed hold, and began to drag. This alarmed me greatly, and we let go our spare anchor, and, by running out all our cable, appeared tolerably secure again. We were now most anxious for the return of the men, and were going to fire our muskets to recall them, when we observed them on the beach, some way off, and almost immediately our anchors again slipped, and we drifted slowly away into deep water. We instantly seized the oars, but found we could not counteract the wind and current, and our frantic cries to the men were not heard till we had got a long way off; as they seemed to be hunting for shell-fish on the beach. Very soon, however, they stared at us, and in a few minutes seemed to comprehend their situation; for they rushed down into the water, as if to swim off, but again returned on shore, as if afraid to make the attempt. We had drawn up our anchors at first not to check our rowing; but now, finding we could do nothing, we let them both hang down by the full length of the cables. This stopped our way very much, and we drifted from shore very slowly, and hoped the men would hastily form a raft, or cut down a soft-wood tree, and paddle out, to us, as we were still not more than a third of a mile from shore. They seemed, however, to have half lost their senses, gesticulating wildly to us, running along the beach, then going unto the forest; and just when we thought they had prepared some mode of making an attempt to reach us, we saw the smoke of a fire they had made to cook their shell-fish! They had evidently given up all idea of coming after us, and we were obliged to look to our own position. We were now about a mile from shore, and midway between two of the islands, but we were slowly drifting out, to sea to the westward, and our only chance of yet saving the men was to reach the opposite shore. We therefore sot our jib and rowed hard; but the wind failed, and we drifted out so rapidly that we had some difficulty in reaching the extreme westerly point of the island. Our only sailor left, then swam ashore with a rope, and helped to tow us round the point into a tolerably safe and secure anchorage, well sheltered from the wind, but exposed to a little swell which jerked our anchor and made us rather uneasy. We were now in a sad plight, having lost our two best men, and being doubtful if we had strength left to hoist our mainsail. We had only two days' water on board, and the small, rocky, volcanic island did not promise us much chance of finding any. The conduct of the men on shore was such as to render it doubtful if they would make any serious attempt to reach us, though they might easily do so, having two good choppers, with which in a day they could male a small outrigger raft on which they could safely cross the two miles of smooth sea with the wind right aft, if they started from the east end of the island, so as to allow for the current. I could only hope they would be sensible enough to make the attempt, and determined to stay as long as I could to give them the chance. We passed an anxious night, fearful of again breaking our anchor or rattan cable. In the morning (23d), finding all secure, I waded on shore with my two men, leaving the old steersman and the cook on board, with a loaded musketto recall us if needed. We first walked along the beach, till stopped by the vertical cliffs at the east end of the island, finding a place where meat had been smoked, a turtle-shell still greasy, and some cut wood, the leaves of which were still green, showing that some boat had been here very recently. We then entered the jungle, cutting our way up to the top of the hill, but when we got there could see nothing, owing to the thickness of the forest. Returning, we cut some bamboos, and sharpened them to dig for water in a low spot where some sago-trees were growing; when, just as we were going to begin, Hoi, the Wahai man, called out to say he had found water. It was a deep hole among the Sago trees, in stiff black clay, full of water, which was fresh, but smelt horribly from the quantity of dead leaves and sago refuse that had fallen in. Hastily concluding that it was a spring, or that the water had filtered in, we baled it all out as well as a dozen or twenty buckets of mud and rubbish, hoping by night to have a good supply of clean water. I then went on board to breakfast, leaving my two men to make a bamboo raft to carry us on shore and back without wading. I had scarcely finished when our cable broke, and we bumped against the rocks. Luckily it was smooth and calm, and no damage was done. We searched for and got up our anchor, and found teat the cable had been cut by grating all night upon the coral. Had it given way in the night, we might have drifted out to sea without our anchor, or been seriously damaged. In the evening we went to fetch water from the well, when, greatly to our dismay, we found nothing but a little liquid mud at the bottom, and it then became evident that the hole was one which had been made to collect rain water, and would never fill again as long as the present drought continued. As we did not know what we might suffer for want of water, we filled our jar with this muddy stuff so that it might settle. In the afternoon I crossed over to the other side of the island, and made a large fire, in order that our men might see we were still there. The next day (24th) I determined to have another search for water; and when the tide was out rounded a rocky point and went to the extremity of the island without finding any sign of the smallest stream. On our way back, noticing a very small dry bed of a watercourse, I went up it to explore, although everything was so dry that my men loudly declared it was useless to expect water there; but a little way up I was rewarded by finding a few pints in a small pool. We searched higher up in every hole and channel where water marks appeared, but could find not a drop more. Sending one of my men for a large jar and teacup, we searched along the beach till we found signs of another dry watercourse, and on ascending this were so fortunate as to discover two deep sheltered rock-holes containing several gallons of water, enough to fill all our jars. When the cup came we enjoyed a good drink of the cool pure water, and before we left had carried away, I believe, every drop on the island. In the evening a good-sized prau appeared in sight, making apparently for the island where our men were left, and we had some hopes they might be seen and picked up, but it passed along mid-channel, and did not notice the signals we tried to make. I was now, however, pretty easy as to the fate of the men. There was plenty of sago on our rocky island, and there world probably be some on the fiat one they were left on. They had choppers, and could cut down a tree and make sago, and would most likely find sufficient water by digging. Shell-fish were abundant, and they would be able to manage very well till some boat should touch there, or till I could send and fetch them. The next day we devoted to cutting wood, filling up our jars with all the water we could find, and making ready to sail in the evening. I shot a small lory closely resembling a common species at Ternate, and a glossy starling which differed from the allied birds of Ceram and Matabello. Large wood-pigeons and crows were the only other birds I saw, but I did not obtain specimens. About eight in the evening of June 25th we started, and found that with all hands at work we could just haul up our mainsail. We had a fair wind during the night and sailed north-east, finding ourselves in the morning about twenty miles west of the extremity of Waigiou with a number of islands intervening. About ten o'clock we ran full on to a coral reef, which alarmed us a good deal, but luckily got safe off again. About two in the afternoon we reached an extensive coral reef, and were sailing close alongside of it, when the wind suddenly dropped, and we drifted on to it before we could get in our heavy mainsail, which we were obliged to let run down and fall partly overboard. We had much difficulty in getting off, but at last got into deep water again, though with reefs and islands all around us. At night we did not know what to do, as no one on board could tell where we were or what dangers might surround us, the only one of our crew who was acquainted with the coast of Waigiou having been left on the island. We therefore took in all sail and allowed ourselves to drift, as we were some miles from the nearest land. A light breeze, however, sprang up, and about midnight we found ourselves again bumping over a coral reef. As it was very dark, and we knew nothing of our position, we could only guess how to get off again, and had there been a little more wind we might have been knocked to pieces. However, in about half an hour we did get off, and then thought it best to anchor on the edge of the reef till morning. Soon after daylight on the 7th, finding our prau had received no damage, we sailed on with uncertain winds and squalls, threading our way among islands and reefs, and guided only by a small map, which was very incorrect and quite useless, and by a general notion of the direction we ought to take. In the afternoon we found a tolerable anchorage under a small island and stayed for the night, and I shot a large fruit-pigeon new to me, which I have since named Carpophaga tumida. I also saw and shot at the rare white-headed kingfisher (Halcyon saurophaga), but did not kill it. The next morning we sailed on, and having a fair wind reached the shores of the large island of Waigiou. On rounding a point we again ran full on to a coral reef with our mainsail up, but luckily the wind had almost died away, and with a good deal of exertion we managed get safely off. We now had to search for the narrow channel among islands, which we knew was somewhere hereabouts, and which leads to the villages on the south side of Waigiou. Entering a deep bay which looked promising, we got to the end of it, but it was then dusk, so we anchored for the night, and having just finished all our water could cook no rice for supper. Next morning early (29th) we went on shore among the mangroves, and a little way inland found some water, which relieved our anxiety considerably, and left us free to go along the coast in search of the opening, or of some one who could direct us to it. During the three days we had now been among the reefs and islands, we had only seen a single small canoe, which had approached pretty near to us, and then, notwithstanding our signals, went off in another direction. The shores seemed all desert; not a house, or boat, or human being, or a puff of smoke was to be seen; and as we could only go on the course that the ever-changing wind would allow us (our hands being too few to row any distance), our prospects of getting to our destination seemed rather remote and precarious. Having gone to the eastward extremity of the deep bay we had entered, without finding any sign of an opening, we turned westward; and towards evening were so fortunate as to find a small village of seven miserable houses built on piles in the water. Luckily the Orang-kaya, or head man, could speak a little. Malay, and informed us that the entrance to the strait was really in the bay we had examined, but that it was not to be seen except when close inshore. He said the strait was often very narrow, and wound among lakes and rocks and islands, and that it would take two days to reach the large village of Muka, and three more to get to Waigiou. I succeeded in hiring two men to go with us to Muka, bringing a small boat in which to return; but we had to wait a day for our guides, so I took my gun and made a little excursion info the forest. The day was wet and drizzly, and I only succeeded in shooting two small birds, but I saw the great black cockatoo, and had a glimpse of one or two Birds of Paradise, whose loud screams we had heard on first approaching the coast. Leaving the village the next morning (July 1st) with a light wind, it took us all day to reach the entrance to the channel, which resembled a small river, and was concealed by a projecting point, so that it was no wonder we did not discover it amid the dense forest vegetation which everywhere covers these islands to the water's edge. A little way inside it becomes bounded by precipitous rocks, after winding among which for about two miles, we emerged into what seemed a lake, but which was in fact a deep gulf having a narrow entrance on the south coast. This gulf was studded along its shores with numbers of rocky islets, mostly mushroom shaped, from the `eater having worn away the lower part of the soluble coralline limestone, leaving them overhanging from ten to twenty feet. Every islet was covered will strange-looping shrubs and trees, and was generally crowned by lofty and elegant palms, which also studded the ridges of the mountainous shores, forming one of the most singular and picturesque landscapes I have ever seen. The current which had brought us through the narrow strait now ceased, and we were obliged to row, which with our short and heavy prau was slow work. I went on shore several times, but the rocks were so precipitous, sharp, and honeycombed, that I found it impossible to get through the tangled thicket with which they were everywhere clothed. It took us three days to get to the entrance of the gulf, and then the wind was such as to prevent our going any further, and we might have had to wait for days or weeps, when, much to my surprise and gratification, a boat arrived from Muka with one of the head men, who had in some mysterious manner heard I was on my way, and had come to my assistance, bringing a present of cocoa-nuts and vegetables. Being thoroughly acquainted with the coast, and having several extra men to assist us, he managed to get the prau along by rowing, poling, or sailing, and by night had brought us safely into harbour, a great relief after our tedious and unhappy voyage. We had been already eight days among the reefs and islands of Waigiou, coming a distance of about fifty miles, and it was just forty days since we had sailed from Goram. Immediately on our arrival at Muka, I engaged a small boat and three natives to go in search of my lost men, and sent one of my own men with them to make sure of their going to the right island. In ten days they returned, but to my great regret and disappointment, without the men. The weather had been very bad, and though they had reached an island within sight of that in which the men were, they could get no further. They had waited there six days for better weather, and then, having no more provisions, and the man I had sent with them being very ill and not expected to live, they returned. As they now knew the island, I was determined they should make another trial, and (by a liberal payment of knives, handkerchiefs, and tobacco, with plenty of provisions) persuaded them to start back immediately, and make another attempt. They did not return again till the 29th of July, having stayed a few days at their own village of Bessir on the way; but this time they had succeeded and brought with them my two lost men, in tolerable health, though thin and weak. They had lived exactly a month on the island had found water, and had subsisted on the roots and tender flower-stalks of a species of Bromelia, on shell-fish and on a few turtles' eggs. Having swum to the island, they had only a pair of trousers and a shirt between them, but had made a hut of palm-leaves, and had altogether got on very well. They saw that I waited for them three days at the opposite island, but had been afraid to cross, lest the current should have carried them out to sea, when they would have been inevitably lost. They had felt sure I would send for them on the first opportunity, and appeared more grateful than natives usually are for my having done so; while I felt much relieved that my voyage, though sufficiently unfortunate, had not involved loss of life. CHAPTER XXXVI. WAIGIOU. (JULY TO SEPTEMBER 1860.) THE village of Muka, on the south coast of Waigiou, consists of a number of poor huts, partly in the water and partly on shore, and scattered irregularly over a space of about half a mile in a shallow bay. Around it are a few cultivated patches, and a good deal of second-growth woody vegetation; while behind, at the distance of about half a mile, rises the virgin forest, through which are a few paths to some houses and plantations a mile or two inland. The country round is rather flat, and in places swampy, and there are one or two small streams which run behind the village into the sea below it. Finding that no house could be had suitable to my purpose, and hawing so often experienced the advantages of living close to or just within the forest, I obtained the assistance of half-a-dozen men; and having selected a spot near the path and the stream, and close to a fine fig-tree, which stood just within the forest, we cleared the ground and set to building a house. As I did not expect to stay here so long as I had done at Dorey, I built a long, low, narrow shed, about seven feet high on one side and four on the other, which required but little wood, and was put up very rapidly. Our sails, with a few old attaps from a deserted but in the village, formed the walls, and a quantity of "cadjans," or palm-leaf mats, covered in the roof. On the third day my house was finished, and all my things put in and comfortably arranged to begin work, and I was quite pleased at having got established so quickly and in such a nice situation. It had been so far fine weather, but in the night it rained hard, and we found our mat roof would not keep out water. It first began to drop, and then to stream over everything. I had to get up in the middle of the night to secure my insect-boxes, rice, and other perishable articles, and to find a dry place to sleep in, for my bed was soaked. Fresh leaks kept forming as the rain continued, and w e all passed a very miserable and sleepless night. In the morning the sun shone brightly, and everything was put out to dry. We tried to find out why the mats leaked, and thought we had discovered that they had been laid on upside down. Having shifted there all, and got everything dry and comfortable by the evening, we again went to bed, and before midnight were again awaked by torrent of rain and leaks streaming in upon us as bad as ever. There was no more sleep for us that night, and the next day our roof was again taken to pieces, and we came to the conclusion that the fault was a want of slope enough in the roof for mats, although it would be sufficient for the usual attap thatch. I therefore purchased a few new and some old attaps, and in the parts these would not cover we put the mats double, and then at last had the satisfaction of finding our roof tolerably water-tight. I was now able to begin working at the natural history of the island. When I first arrived I was surprised at being told that there were no Paradise Birds at Muka, although there were plenty at Bessir, a place where the natives caught them and prepared the skins. I assured the people I had heard the cry of these birds close to the village, but they world not believe that I could know their cry. However, the very first time I went into the forest I not only heard but saw them, and was convinced there were plenty about; but they were very shy, and it was some time before we got any. My hunter first shot a female, and I one day got very close to a fine male. He was, as I expected, the rare red species, Paradisea rubra, which alone inhabits this island, and is found nowhere else. He was quite low down, running along a bough searching for insects, almost like a woodpecker, and the long black riband-like filaments in his tail hung down in the most graceful double curve imaginable. I covered him with my gun, and was going to use the barrel which had a very small charge of powder and number eight shot, so as not to injure his plumage, but the gun missed fire, and he was off in an instant among the thickest jungle. Another day we saw no less than eight fine males at different times, and fired four times at them; but though other birds at the same distance almost always dropped, these all got away, and I began to think we were not to get this magnificent species. At length the fruit ripened on the fig-tree close by my house, and many birds came to feed on it; and one morning, as I was taking my coffee, a male Paradise Bird was seen to settle on its top. I seized my gun, ran under the tree, and, gazing up, could see it flying across from branch to branch, seizing a fruit here and another there, and then, before I could get a sufficient aim to shoot at such a height (for it was one of the loftiest trees of the tropics), it was away into the forest. They now visited the tree every morning; but they stayed so short a time, their motions were so rapid, and it was so difficult to see them, owing to the lower trees, which impeded the view, that it was only after several days' watching, and one or two misses, that I brought down my bird--a male in the most magnificent plumage. This bird differs very much from the two large species which I had already obtained, and, although it wants the grace imparted by their long golden trains, is in many respects more remarkable and more beautiful. The head, back, and shoulders are clothed with a richer yellow, the deep metallic green colour of the throat extends further over the head, and the feathers are elongated on the forehead into two little erectile crests. The side plumes are shorter, but are of a rich red colour, terminating in delicate white points, and the middle tail-feathers are represented by two long rigid glossy ribands, which are black, thin, and semi-cylindrical, and droop gracefully in a spiral curve. Several other interesting birds were obtained, and about half-a-dozen quite new ones; but none of any remarkable beauty, except the lovely little dove, Ptilonopus pulchellus, which with several other pigeons I shot on the same fig-tree close to my house. It is of a beautiful green colour above, with a forehead of the richest crimson, while beneath it is ashy white and rich yellow, banded with violet red. On the evening of our arrival at Muka I observed what appeared like a display of Aurora Borealis, though I could hardly believe that this was possible at a point a little south of the equator. The night was clear and calm, and the northern sky presented a diffused light, with a constant succession of faint vertical flashings or flickerings, exactly similar to an ordinary aurora in England. The next day was fine, but after that the weather was unprecedentedly bad, considering that it ought to have been the dry monsoon. For near a month we had wet weather; the sun either not appearing at all, or only for an hour or two about noon. Morning and evening, as well as nearly all night, it rained or drizzled, and boisterous winds, with dark clouds, formed the daily programme. With the exception that it was never cold, it was just such weather as a very bad English November or February. The people of Waigiou are not truly indigenes of the island, which possesses no "Alfuros," or aboriginal inhabitants. They appear to be a mixed race, partly from Gilolo, partly from New Guinea. Malays and Alfuros from the former island have probably settled here, and many of them have taken Papuan wives from Salwatty or Dorey, while the influx of people from those places, and of slaves, has led to the formation of a tribe exhibiting almost all the transitions from a nearly pure Malayan to an entirely Papuan type. The language spoken by them is entirely Papuan, being that which is used on all the coasts of Mysol, Salwatty, the north-west of New Guinea, and the islands in the great Geelvink Bay,--a fact which indicates the way in which the coast settlements have been formed. The fact that so many of the islands between New Guinea and the Moluccas--such as Waigiou, Guebe, Poppa, Obi, Batchian, as well as the south and east peninsulas of Gilolo--possess no aboriginal tribes, but are inhabited by people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corroborative proof of the distinctness of the Malayan and Papuan races, and the separation of the geographical areas they inhabit. If these two great races were direct modifications, the one of the other, we should expect to find in the intervening region some homogeneous indigenous race presenting intermediate characters. For example, between the whitest inhabitants of Europe and the black Klings of South India, there are in the intervening districts homogeneous races which form a gradual transition from one to the other; while in America, although there is a perfect transition from the Anglo-Saxon to the negro, and from the Spaniard to the Indian, there is no homogeneous race forming a natural transition from one to the other. In the Malay Archipelago we have an excellent example of two absolutely distinct races, which appear to have approached each other, and intermingled in an unoccupied territory at a very recent epoch in the history of man; and I feel satisfied that no unprejudiced person could study them on the spot without being convinced that this is the true solution of the problem, rather than the almost universally accepted view that they are but modifications of one and the same race. The people of Muka live in that abject state of poverty that is almost always found where the sago-tree is abundant. Very few of them take the trouble to plant any vegetables or fruit, but live almost entirely on sago and fish, selling a little tripang or tortoiseshell to buy the scanty clothing they require. Almost all of them, however, possess one or more Papuan slaves, on whose labour they live in almost absolute idleness, just going out on little fishing or trading excursions, as an excitement in their monotonous existence. They are under the rule of the Sultan of Tidore, and every year have to pay a small tribute of Paradise birds, tortoiseshell, or sago. To obtain these, they go in the fine season on a trading voyage to the mainland of New Guinea, and getting a few goods on credit from some Ceram or Bugis trader, make hard bargains with the natives, and gain enough to pay their tribute, and leave a little profit for themselves. Such a country is not a very pleasant one to live in, for as there are no superfluities, there is nothing to sell; and had it not been for a trader from Ceram who was residing there during my stay, who had a small vegetable garden, and whose men occasionally got a few spare fish, I should often have had nothing to eat. Fowls, fruit, and vegetables are luxuries very rarely to be purchased at Muka; and even cocoa-nuts, so indispensable for eastern cookery, are not to be obtained; for though there are some hundreds of trees in the village, all the fruit is eaten green, to supply the place of the vegetables the people are too lazy to cultivate. Without eggs, cocoa-nuts, or plantains, we had very short commons, and the boisterous weather being unpropitious for fishing, we had to live on what few eatable birds we could shoot, with an occasional cuscus, or eastern opossum, the only quadruped, except pigs, inhabiting the island. I had only shot two male Paradiseas on my tree when they ceased visiting it, either owing to the fruit becoming scarce, or that they were wise enough to know there was danger. We continued to hear and see them in the forest, but after a month had not succeeded in shooting any more; and as my chief object in visiting Waigiou was to get these birds, I determined to go to Bessir, where there are a number of Papuans who catch and preserve them. I hired a small outrigger boat for this journey, and left one of my men to guard my house and goods. We had to wait several days for fine weather, and at length started early one morning, and arrived late at night, after a rough and disagreeable passage. The village of Bessir was built in the water at the point of a small island. The chief food of the people was evidently shell-fish, since great heaps of the shells had accumulated in the shallow water between the houses and the land, forming a regular "kitchen-midden" for the exploration of some future archeologist. We spent the night in the chief's house, and the next morning went over to the mainland to look out for a place where I could reside. This part of Waigiou is really another island to the south of the narrow channel we had passed through in coming to Muka. It appears to consist almost entirely of raised coral, whereas the northern island contains hard crystalline rocks. The shores were a range of low limestone cliffs, worn out by the water, so that the upper part generally overhung. At distant intervals were little coves and openings, where small streams came down from the interior; and in one of these we landed, pulling our boat up on a patch of white sandy beach. Immediately above was a large newly-made plantation of yams and plantains, and a small hot, which the chief said we might have the use of, if it would do for me. It was quite a dwarf's house, just eight feet square, raised on posts so that the floor was four and a half feet above the ground, and the highest part of the ridge only five feet above the flour. As I am six feet and an inch in my stockings, I looked at this with some dismay; but finding that the other houses were much further from water, were dreadfully dirty, and were crowded with people, I at once accepted the little one, and determined to make the best of it. At first I thought of taking out the floor, which would leave it high enough to walk in and out without stooping; but then there would not be room enough, so I left it just as it was, had it thoroughly cleaned out, and brought up my baggage. The upper story I used for sleeping in, and for a store-room. In the lower part (which was quite open all round) I fixed up a small table, arranged my boxes, put up hanging-shelves, laid a mat on the ground with my wicker-chair upon it, hung up another mat on the windward side, and then found that, by bending double and carefully creeping in, I could sit on my chair with my head just clear of the ceiling. Here I lived pretty comfortably for six weeks, taking all my meals and doing all my work at my little table, to and from which I had to creep in a semi-horizontal position a dozen times a day; and, after a few severe knocks on the head by suddenly rising from my chair, learnt to accommodate myself to circumstances. We put up a little sloping cooking-but outside, and a bench on which my lads could skin their birds. At night I went up to my little loft, they spread their mats on the floor below, and we none of us grumbled at our lodgings. My first business was to send for the men who were accustomed to catch the Birds of Paradise. Several came, and I showed them my hatchets, beads, knives, and handkerchiefs; and explained to them, as well as I could by signs, the price I would give for fresh-killed specimens. It is the universal custom to pay for everything in advance; but only one man ventured on this occasion to take goods to the value of two birds. The rest were suspicious, and wanted to see the result of the first bargain with the strange white man, the only one who had ever come to their island. After three days, my man brought me the first bird--a very fine specimen, and alive, but tied up in a small bag, and consequently its tail and wing feathers very much crushed and injured. I tried to explain to him, and to the others that came with him, that I wanted them as perfect as possible, and that they should either kill them, or keep them on a perch with a string to their leg. As they were now apparently satisfied that all was fair, and that I had no ulterior designs upon them, six others took away goods; some for one bird, some for more, and one for as many as six. They said they had to go a long way for them, and that they would come back as soon as they caught any. At intervals of a few days or a week, some of them would return, bringing me one or more birds; but though they did not bring any more in bags, there was not much improvement in their condition. As they caught them a long way off in the forest, they would scarcely ever come with one, but would tie it by the leg to a stick, and put it in their house till they caught another. The poor creature would make violent efforts to escape, would get among the ashes, or hang suspended by the leg till the limb was swollen and half-putrefied, and sometimes die of starvation and worry. One had its beautiful head all defiled by pitch from a dammar torch; another had been so long dead that its stomach was turning green. Luckily, however, the skin and plumage of these birds is so firm and strong, that they bear washing and cleaning better than almost any other sort; and I was generally able to clean them so well that they did not perceptibly differ from those I had shot myself. Some few were brought me the same day they were caught, and I had an opportunity of examining them in all their beauty and vivacity. As soon as I found they were generally brought alive, I set one of my men to make a large bamboo cage with troughs for food and water, hoping to be able to keep some of them. I got the natives to bring me branches of a fruit they were very fond of, and I was pleased to find they ate it greedily, and would also take any number of live grasshoppers I gave them, stripping off the legs and wings, and then swallowing them. They drank plenty of water, and were in constant motion, jumping about the cage from perch to perch, clinging on the top and sides, and rarely resting a moment the first day till nightfall. The second day they were always less active, although they would eat as freely as before; and on the morning of the third day they were almost always found dead at the bottom of the cage, without any apparent cause. Some of them ate boiled rice as well as fruit and insects; but after trying many in succession, not one out of ten lived more than three days. The second or third day they would be dull, and in several cases they were seized with convulsions, and fell off the perch, dying a few hours afterwards. I tried immature as well as full-plumaged birds, but with no better success, and at length gave it up as a hopeless task, and confined my attention to preserving specimens in as good a condition as possible. The Red Birds of Paradise are not shot with blunt arrows, as in the Aru Islands and some parts of New Guinea, but are snared in a very ingenious manner. A large climbing Arum bears a red reticulated fruit, of which the birds are very fond. The hunters fasten this fruit on a stout forked stick, and provide themselves with a fine but strong cord. They then seep out some tree in the forest on which these birds are accustomed to perch, and climbing up it fasten the stick to a branch and arrange the cord in a noose so ingeniously, that when the bird comes to eat the fruit its legs are caught, and by pulling the end of the cord, which hangs down to the ground, it comes free from the branch and brings down the bird. Sometimes, when food is abundant elsewhere, the hunter sits from morning till night under his tree with the cord in his hand, and even for two or three whole days in succession, without even getting a bite; while, on the other hand, if very lucky, he may get two or three birds in a day. There are only eight or ten men at Bessir who practise this art, which is unknown anywhere else in the island. I determined, therefore, to stay as long as possible, as my only chance of getting a good series of specimens; and although I was nearly starved, everything eatable by civilized man being scarce or altogether absent, I finally succeeded. The vegetables and fruit in the plantations around us did not suffice for the wants of the inhabitants, and were almost always dug up or gathered before they were ripe. It was very rarely we could purchase a little fish; fowls there were none; and we were reduced to live upon tough pigeons and cockatoos, with our rice and sago, and sometimes we could not get these. Having been already eight months on this voyage, my stock of all condiments, spices and butter, was exhausted, and I found it impossible to eat sufficient of my tasteless and unpalatable food to support health. I got very thin and weak, and had a curious disease known (I have since heard) as brow-ague. Directly after breakfast every morning an intense pain set in on a small spot on the right temple. It was a severe burning ache, as bad as the worst toothache, and lasted about two hours, generally going off at noon. When this finally ceased, I had an attack of fever, which left me so weak and so unable to eat our regular food, that I feel sure my life was saved by a couple of tins of soup which I had long reserved for some such extremity. I used often to go out searching after vegetables, and found a great treasure in a lot of tomato plants run wild, and bearing little fruits about the size of gooseberries. I also boiled up the tops of pumpkin plants and of ferns, by way of greens, and occasionally got a few green papaws. The natives, when hard up for food, live upon a fleshy seaweed, which they boil till it is tender. I tried this also, but found it too salt and bitter to be endured. Towards the end of September it became absolutely necessary for me to return, in order to make our homeward voyage before the end of the east monsoon. Most of the men who had taken payment from me had brought the birds they had agreed for. One poor fellow had been so unfortunate as not to get one, and he very honestly brought back the axe he had received in advance; another, who had agreed for six, brought me the fifth two days before I was to start, and went off immediately to the forest again to get the other. He did not return, however, and we loaded our boat, and were just on the point of starting, when he came running down after us holding up a bird, which he handed to me, saying with great satisfaction, "Now I owe you nothing." These were remarkable and quite unexpected instances of honesty among savages, where it would have been very easy for them to have been dishonest without fear of detection or punishment. The country round about Bessir was very hilly and rugged, bristling with jagged and honey-combed coralline rocks, and with curious little chasms and ravines. The paths often passed through these rocky clefts, which in the depths of the forest were gloomy and dark in the extreme, and often full of fine-leaved herbaceous plants and curious blue-foliaged Lycopodiaceae. It was in such places as these that I obtained many of my most beautiful small butterflies, such as Sospita statira and Taxila pulchra, the gorgeous blue Amblypodia hercules, and many others. On the skirts of the plantations I found the handsome blue Deudorix despoena, and in the shady woods the lovely Lycaena wallacei. Here, too, I obtained the beautiful Thyca aruna, of the richest orange on the upper side; while below it is intense crimson and glossy black; and a superb specimen of a green Ornithoptera, absolutely fresh and perfect, and which still remains one of the glories of my cabinet. My collection of birds, though not very rich in number of species, was yet very interesting. I got another specimen of the rare New Guinea kite (Henicopernis longicauda), a large new goatsucker (Podargus superciliaris), and a most curious ground-pigeon of an entirely new genus, and remarkable for its long and powerful bill. It has been named Henicophaps albifrons. I was also much pleased to obtain a fine series of a large fruit-pigeon with a protuberance on the bill (Carpophaga tumida), and to ascertain that this was not, as had been hitherto supposed, a sexual character, but was found equally in male and female birds. I collected only seventy-three species of birds in Waigiou, but twelve of them were entirely new, and many others very rare; and as I brought away with me twenty-four fine specimens of the Paradisea rubra, I did not regret my visit to the island, although it had by no means answered my expectations. CHAPTER XXXVII. VOYAGE FROM WAIGIOU TO TERNATE. (SEPTEMBER 29 To NOVEMBER 5, 1860.) I HAD left the old pilot at Waigiou to take care of my house and to get the prau into sailing order--to caulk her bottom, and to look after the upper works, thatch, and ringing. When I returned I found it nearly ready, and immediately began packing up and preparing for the voyage. Our mainsail had formed one side of our house, but the spanker and jib had been put away in the roof, and on opening them to see if any repairs were wanted, to our horror we found that some rats had made them their nest, and had gnawed through them in twenty places. We had therefore to buy matting and make new sails, and this delayed us till the 29th of September, when we at length left Waigiou. It took us four days before we could get clear of the land, having to pass along narrow straits beset with reefs and shoals, and full of strong currents, so that an unfavourable wind stopped us altogether. One day, when nearly clear, a contrary tide and head wind drove us ten miles back to our anchorage of the night before. This delay made us afraid of running short of water if we should be becalmed at sea, and we therefore determined, if possible, to touch at the island where our men had been lost, and which lay directly in our proper course. The wind was, however, as usual, contrary, being S.S.W. instead of S.S.E., as it should have been at this time of the year, and all we could do was to reach the island of Gagie, where we came to an anchor by moonlight under bare volcanic hills. In the morning we tried to enter a deep bay, at the head of which some Galela fishermen told us there was water, but a head-wind prevented us. For the reward of a handkerchief, however, they took us to the place in their boat, and we filled up our jars and bamboos. We then went round to their camping-place on the north coast of the island to try and buy something to eat, but could only get smoked turtle meat as black and as hard as lumps of coal. A little further on there was a plantation belonging to Guebe people, but under the care of a Papuan slave, and the next morning we got some plantains and a few vegetables in exchange for a handkerchief and some knives. On leaving this place our anchor had got foul in some rock or sunken log in very deep water, and after many unsuccessful attempts, we were forced to cut our rattan cable and leave it behind us. We had now only one anchor left. Starting early, on the 4th of October, the same S.S.W wind continued, and we began to fear that we should hardly clear the southern point of Gilolo. The night of the 5th was squally, with thunder, but after midnight it got tolerably fair, and we were going along with a light wind and looking out for the coast of Gilolo, which we thought we must be nearing, when we heard a dull roaring sound, like a heavy surf, behind us. In a short time the roar increased, and we saw a white line of foam coming on, which rapidly passed us without doing any harm, as our boat rose easily over the wave. At short intervals, ten or a dozen others overtook us with bleat rapidity, and then the sea became perfectly smooth, as it was before. I concluded at once that these must be earthquake waves; and on reference to the old voyagers we find that these seas have been long subject to similar phenomena. Dampier encountered them near Mysol and New Guinea, and describes them as follows: "We found here very strange tides, that ran in streams, making a great sea, and roaring so loud that we could hear them before they came within a mile of us. The sea round about them seemed all broken, and tossed the ship so that she would not answer her helm. These ripplings commonly lasted ten or twelve minutes, and then the sea became as still and smooth as a millpond. We sounded often when in the midst of them, but found no ground, neither could we perceive that they drove us any way. We had in one night several of these tides, that came mostly from the west, and the wind being from that quarter we commonly heard them a long time before they came, and sometimes lowered our topsails, thinking it was a gust of wind. They were of great length, from north to south, but their breadth not exceeding 200 yards, and they drove a great pace. For though we had little wind to move us, yet these world soon pass away, and leave the water very smooth, and just before we encountered them we met a great swell, but it did not break." Some time afterwards, I learnt that an earthquake had been felt on the coast of Gilolo the very day we had encountered these curious waves. When daylight came, we saw the land of Gilolo a few miles off, but the point was unfortunately a little to windward of us. We tried to brace up all we could to round it, but as we approached the shore we got into a strong current setting northward, which carried us so rapidly with it that we found it necessary to stand off again, in order to get out of its influence. Sometimes we approached the point a little, and our hopes revived; then the wind fell, and we drifted slowly away. Night found us in nearly the same position as we had occupied in the morning, so we hung down our anchor with about fifteen fathoms of cable to prevent drifting. On the morning of the 7th we were however, a good way up the coast, and we now thought our only chance would be to got close in-shore, where there might be a return current, and we could then row. The prau was heavy, and my men very poor creatures for work, so that it took us six hours to get to the edge of the reef that fringed the shore; and as the wind might at any moment blow on to it, our situation was a very dangerous one. Luckily, a short distance off there was a sandy bay, where a small stream stopped the growth of the coral; and by evening we reached this and anchored for the night. Here we found some Galela men shooting deer and pigs; but they could not or would not speak Malay, and we could get little information from them. We found out that along shore the current changed with the tide, while about a mile out it was always one way, and against us; and this gave us some hopes of getting back to the point, from which we were now distant twenty miles. Next morning we found that the Galela men had left before daylight, having perhaps some vague fear of our intentions, anal very likely taking me for a pirate. During the morning a boat passed, and the people informed us that, at a short distance further towards the point, there was a much better harbour, where there were plenty of Galela men, from whom we, might probably get some assistance. At three in the afternoon, when the current turned, we started; but having a head-wind, made slow progress. At dusk we reached the entrance of the harbour, but an eddy and a gust of wind carried us away and out to sea. After sunset there was a land breeze, and we sailed a little to the south-east. It then became calm, and we hung down our anchor forty fathoms, to endeavour to counteract the current; but it was of little avail, and in the morning we found ourselves a good way from shore, and just opposite our anchorage of the day before, which we again reached by hard rowing. I gave the men this day to rest and sleep; and the next day (Oct. 10th) we again started at two in the morning with a land breeze. After I had set them to their oars, and given instructions to keep close in-shore, and on no account to get out to sea, I went below, being rather unwell. At daybreak I found, to my great astonishment, that we were again far off-shore, and was told that the wind had gradually turned more ahead, and had carried us out--none of them having the sense to take down the sail and row in-shore, or to call me. As soon as it was daylight, we saw that we had drifted back, and were again opposite our former anchorage, and, for the third time, had to row hard to get to it. As we approached the shore, I saw that the current was favourable to us, and we continued down the coast till we were close to the entrance to the lower harbour. Just as we were congratulating ourselves on having at last reached it, a strong south-east squall came on, blowing us back, and rendering it impossible for us to enter. Not liking the idea of again returning, I determined on trying to anchor, and succeeded in doing so, in very deep water and close to the reefs; but the prevailing winds were such that, should we not hold, we should have no difficulty in getting out to sea. By the time the squall had passed, the current had turned against us, and we expected to have to wait till four in the afternoon, when we intended to enter the harbour. Now, however, came the climax of our troubles. The swell produced by the squall made us jerk our cable a good deal, and it suddenly snapped low down in the water. We drifted out to sea, and immediately set our mainsail, but we were now without any anchor, and in a vessel so poorly manned that it could not be rowed against the most feeble current or the slightest wind, it word be madness to approach these dangerous shores except in the most perfect calm. We had also only three days' food left. It was therefore out of the question making any further attempts to get round the point without assistance, and I at once determined to run to the village of Gani-diluar, about ten miles further north, where we understood there was a good harbour, and where we might get provisions and a few more rowers. Hitherto winds and currents load invariably opposed our passage southward, and we might have expected them to be favourable to us now we had turned our bowsprit in an opposite direction. But it immediately fell calm, and then after a time a westerly land breeze set in, which would not serve us, and we had to row again for hours, and when night came had not reached the village. We were so fortunate, however, as to find a deep sheltered cove where the water was quite smooth, and we constructed a temporary anchor by filling a sack with stones from our ballast, which being well secured by a network of rattans held us safely during the night. The next morning my men went on shore to cut wood suitable for making fresh anchors, and about noon, the current turning in our favour, we proceeded to the village, where we found an excellent and well-protected anchorage. On inquiry, we found that the head men resided at the other Gani on the western side of the peninsula, and it was necessary to send messengers across (about half a day's journey) to inform them of my arrival, and to beg them to assist me. I then succeeded in buying a little sago, some dried deer-meat and cocoa-nuts, which at once relieved our immediate want of something to eat. At night we found our bag of atones still held us very well, and we slept tranquilly. The next day (October 12th), my men set to work making anchors and oars. The native Malay anchor is ingeniously constructed of a piece of tough forked timber, the fluke being strengthened by twisted rattans binding it to the stem, while the cross-piece is formed of a long flat stone, secured in the same manner. These anchors when well made, hold exceedingly arm, and, owing to the expense of iron, are still almost universally used on board the smaller praus. In the afternoon the head men arrived, and promised me as many rowers as I could put on the prau, and also brought me a few eggs and a little rice, which were very acceptable. On the 14th there was a north wind all day, which would have been invaluable to us a few days earlier, but which was now only tantalizing. On the 16th, all being ready, we started at daybreak with two new anchors and ten rowers, who understood their work. By evening we had come more than half-way to the point, and anchored for the night in a small bay. At three the next morning I ordered the anchor up, but the rattan cable parted close to the bottom, having been chafed by rocks, and we then lost our third anchor on this unfortunate voyage. The day was calm, and by noon we passed the southern point of Gilolo, which had delayed us eleven days, whereas the whole voyage during this monsoon should not have occupied more than half that time. Having got round the point our course was exactly in the opposite direction to what it had been, and now, as usual, the wind changed accordingly, coming from the north and north-west,--so that we still had to row every mile up to the village of Gani, which we did not reach till the evening of the 18th. A Bugis trader who was residing there, and the Senaji, or chief, were very kind; the former assisting me with a spare anchor and a cable, and making me a present of some vegetables, and the latter baking fresh sago cakes for my men; and giving rue a couple of fowls, a bottle of oil, and some pumpkins. As the weather was still very uncertain, I got four extra men to accompany me to Ternate, for which place we started on the afternoon of the 20th. We had to keep rowing all night, the land breezes being too weak to enable us to sail against the current. During the afternoon of the 21st we had an hour's fair wind, which soon changed into a heavy squall with rain, and my clumsy men let the mainsail get taken aback and nearly upset us, tearing the sail; and, what was worse, losing an hour's fair wind. The night was calm, and we made little progress. On the 22d we had light head-winds. A little before noon we passed, with the assistance of our oars, the Paciencia Straits, the narrowest part of the channel between Batchian and Gilolo. These were well named by the early Portuguese navigators, as the currents are very strong, and there are so many eddies, that even with a fair wind vessels are often quite unable to pass through them. In the afternoon a strong north wind (dead ahead) obliged us to anchor twice. At nigh it was calm, and we crept along slowly with our oars. On the 23d we still had the wind ahead, or calms. We then crossed over again to the mainland of Gilolo by the advice of our Gani men, who knew the coast well. Just as we got across we had another northerly squall with rain, and had to anchor on the edge of a coral reef for the night. I called up my men about three on the morning of the 24th, but there was no wind to help us, and we rowed along slowly. At daybreak there was a fair breeze from the south, but it lasted only an hour. All the rest of the day we had nothing but calms, light winds ahead, and squalls, and made very little progress. On the 25th we drifted out to the middle of the channel, but made no progress onward. In the afternoon we sailed and rowed to the south end of Kaióa, and by midnight reached the village. I determined to stay here a few days to rest and recruit, and in hopes of getting better weather. I bought some onions and other vegetables, and plenty of eggs, and my men baked fresh sago cakes. I went daily to my old hunting-ground in search of insects, but with very poor success. It was now wet, squally weather, and there appeared a stagnation of insect life. We Staved five days, during which time twelve persons died in the village, mostly from simple intermittent fever, of the treatment of which the natives are quite ignorant. During the whole of this voyage I had suffered greatly from sunburnt lips, owing to having exposed myself on deck all day to loon after our safety among the shoals and reefs near Waigiou. The salt in the air so affected them that they would not heal, but became excessively painful, and bled at the slightest touch, and for a long time it was with great difficulty I could eat at all, being obliged to open my mouth very wide, and put in each mouthful with the greatest caution. I kept them constantly covered with ointment, which was itself very disagreeable, and they caused me almost constant pain for more than a month, as they did not get well till I had returned to Ternate, and was able to remain a week indoors. A boat which left for Ternate, the day after we arrived, was obliged to return the next day, on account of bad weather. On the 31st we went out to the anchorage at the mouth of the harbour, so as to be ready to start at the first favourable opportunity. On the 1st of November I called up my men at one in the morning, and we started with the tide in our favour. Hitherto it had usually been calm at night, but on this occasion we had a strong westerly squall with rain, which turned our prau broadside, and obliged us to anchor. When it had passed we went on rowing all night, but the wind ahead counteracted the current in our favour, and we advanced but little. Soon after sunrise the wind became stronger and more adverse, and as we had a dangerous lee-shore which we could not clear, we had to put about and get an offing to the W.S.W. This series of contrary winds and bad weather ever since we started, not having had a single day of fair wind, was very remarkable. My men firmly believed there was something unlucky in the boat, and told me I ought to have had a certain ceremony gone through before starting, consisting of boring a hole in the bottom and pouring some kind of holy oil through it. It must be remembered that this was the season of the south-east monsoon, and yet we had not had even half a day's south-east wind since we left Waigiou. Contrary winds, squalls, and currents drifted us about the rest of the day at their pleasure. The night was equally squally and changeable, and kept us hard at work taking in and making sail, and rowing in the intervals. Sunrise on the 2d found us in the middle of the ten-mile channel between Kaióa and Makian. Squalls and showers succeeded each other during the morning. At noon there was a dead calm, after which a light westerly breeze enabled us to reach a village on Makian in the evening. Here I bought some pumelos (Citrus decumana), kanary-nuts, and coffee, and let my men have a night's sleep. The morning of the 3d was fine, and we rowed slowly along the coast of Makian. The captain of a small prau at anchor, seeing me on deck and guessing who I was, made signals for us to stop, and brought me a letter from Charles Allen, who informed me he had been at Ternate twenty days, and was anxiously waiting my arrival. This was good news, as I was equally anxious about him, and it cheered up my spirits. A light southerly wind now sprung up, and we thought we were going to have fine weather. It soon changed, however, to its old quarter, the west; dense clouds gathered over the sky, and in less than half an hour we had the severest squall we had experienced during our whole voyage. Luckily we got our great mainsail down in time, or the consequences might have been serious. It was a regular little hurricane, and my old Bugis steersman began shouting out to "Allah! il Allah!" to preserve us. We could only keep up our jib, which was almost blown to rags, but by careful handling it kept us before the wind, and the prau behaved very well. Our small boat (purchased at Gani) was towing astern, and soon got full of water, so that it broke away and we saw no more of it. In about an hour the fury of the wind abated a little, and in two more we were able to hoist our mainsail, reefed and half-mast high. Towards evening it cleared up and fell calm, and the sea, which had been rather high, soon went down. Not being much of a seaman myself I had been considerably alarmed, and even the old steersman assured me he had never been in a worse squall all his life. He was now more than ever confirmed in his opinion of the unluckiness of the boat, and in the efficiency of the holy oil which all Bugis praus had poured through their bottoms. As it was, he imputed our safety and the quick termination of the squall entirely to his own prayers, saying with a laugh, "Yes, that's the way we always do on board our praus; when things are at the worst we stand up and shout out our prayers as loud as we can, and then Tuwan Allah helps us." After this it took us two days more to reach Ternate, having our usual calms, squalls, and head-winds to the very last; and once having to return back to our anchorage owing to violent gusts of wind just as we were close to the town. Looking at my whole voyage in this vessel from the time when I left Goram in May, it will appear that rely experiences of travel in a native prau have not been encouraging. My first crew ran away; two men were lost for a month on a desert island; we were ten times aground on coral reefs; we lost four anchors; the sails were devoured by rats; the small boat was lost astern; we were thirty-eight days on the voyage home, which should not have taken twelve; we were many times short of food and water; we had no compass-lamp, owing to there not being a drop of oil in Waigiou when we left; and to crown all, during the whole of our voyages from Goram by Ceram to Waigiou, and from Waigiou to Ternate, occupying in all seventy-eight days, or only twelve days short of three months (all in what was supposed to be the favourable season), we had not one single day of fair wind. We were always close braced up, always struggling against wind, tide, and leeway, and in a vessel that would scarcely sail nearer than eight points from the wind. Every seaman will admit that my first voyage in my own boat was a most unlucky one. Charles Allen had obtained a tolerable collection of birds and insects at Mysol, but far less than he would have done if I had not been so unfortunate as to miss visiting him. After waiting another week or two till he was nearly starved, he returned to Wahai in Ceram, and heard, much to his surprise, that I had left a fortnight before. He was delayed there more than a month before he could get back to the north side of Mysol, which he found a much better locality, but it was not yet the season for the Paradise Birds; and before he had obtained more than a few of the common sort, the last prau was ready to leave for Ternate, and he was obliged to take the opportunity, as he expected I would be waiting there for him. This concludes the record of my wanderings. I next went to Timor, and afterwards to Bourn, Java, and Sumatra, which places have already been described. Charles Allen made a voyage to New Guinea, a short account of which will be given in my next chapter on the Birds of Paradise. On his return he went to the Sula Islands, and made a very interesting collection which served to determine the limits of the zoological group of Celebes, as already explained in my chapter on the natural history of that island. His next journey was to Flores and Solor, where he obtained some valuable materials, which I have used in my chapter on the natural history of the Timor group. He afterwards went to Coti on the east coast of Borneo, from which place I was very anxious to obtain collections, as it is a quite new locality as far as possible from Sarawak, and I had heard very good accounts of it. On his return thence to Sourabaya in Java, he was to have gone to the entirely unknown Sumba or Sandal-wood Island. Most unfortunately, however, he was seized with a terrible fever on his arrival at Coti, and, after lying there some weeks, was taken to Singapore in a very bad condition, where he arrived after I had left for England. When he recovered he obtained employment in Singapore, and I lost his services as a collector. The three concluding chapters of my work will treat of the birds of Paradise, the Natural History of the Papuan Islands, and the Races of Man in the Malay Archipelago. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE BIRDS OF PARADISE. AS many of my journeys were made with the express object of obtaining specimens of the Birds of Paradise, and learning something of their habits and distribution; and being (as far as I am aware) the only Englishman who has seen these wonderful birds in their native forests, and obtained specimens of many of them, I propose to give here, in a connected form, the result of my observations and inquiries. When the earliest European voyagers reached the Moluccas in search of cloves and nutmegs, which were then rare and precious spices, they were presented with the dried shins of birds so strange and beautiful as to excite the admiration even of those wealth-seeking rovers. The Malay traders gave them the name of "Manuk dewata," or God's birds; and the Portuguese, finding that they had no feet or wings, and not being able to learn anything authentic about then, called them "Passaros de Col," or Birds of the Sun; while the learned Dutchmen, who wrote in Latin, called them "Avis paradiseus," or Paradise Bird. John van Linschoten gives these names in 1598, and tells us that no one has seen these birds alive, for they live in the air, always turning towards the sun, and never lighting on the earth till they die; for they have neither feet nor wings, as, he adds, may be seen by the birds carried to India, and sometimes to Holland, but being very costly they were then rarely seen in Europe. More than a hundred years later Mr. William Funnel, who accompanied Dampier, and wrote an account of the voyage, saw specimens at Amboyna, and was told that they came to Banda to eat nutmegs, which intoxicated them and made them fall down senseless, when they were killed by ants. Down to 1760, when Linnaeus named the largest species, Paradisea apoda (the footless Paradise Bird), no perfect specimen had been seen in Europe, and absolutely nothing was known about them. And even now, a hundred years later, most books state that they migrate annually to Ternate, Banda, and Amboyna; whereas the fact is, that they are as completely unknown in those islands in a wild state as they are in England. Linnaeus was also acquainted with a small species, which he named Paradisea regia (the King Bird of Paradise), and since then nine or ten others have been named, all of which were first described from skins preserved by the savages of New Guinea, and generally more or less imperfect. These are now all known in the Malay Archipelago as "Burong coati," or dead birds, indicating that the Malay traders never saw them alive. The Paradiseidae are a group of moderate-sized birds, allied in their structure and habits to crows, starlings, and to the Australian honeysuckers; but they are characterised by extraordinary developments of plumage, which are unequalled in any other family of birds. In several species large tufts of delicate bright-coloured feathers spring from each side of the body beneath the wings, forming trains, or fans, or shields; and the middle feathers of the tail are often elongated into wires, twisted into fantastic shapes, or adorned with the most brilliant metallic tints. In another set of species these accessory plumes spring from the head, the back, or the shoulders; while the intensity of colour and of metallic lustre displayed by their plumage, is not to be equalled by any other birds, except, perhaps, the humming-birds, and is not surpassed even by these. They have been usually classified under two distinct families, Paradiseidae and Epimachidae, the latter characterised by long and slender beaks, and supposed to be allied to the Hoopoes; but the two groups are so closely allied in every essential point of structure and habits, that I shall consider them as forming subdivisions of one family. I will now give a short description of each of the known species, and then add some general remarks on their natural history. The Great Bird of Paradise (Paradisea apoda of Linnaeus) is the largest species known, being generally seventeen or eighteen inches from the beak to the tip of the tail. The body, wings, and tail are of a rich coffee-brown, which deepens on the breast to a blackish-violet or purple-brown. The whole top of the head and neck is of an exceedingly delicate straw-yellow, the feathers being short and close set, so as to resemble plush or velvet; the lower part of the throat up to the eye clothed with scaly feathers of an emerald, green colour, and with a rich metallic gloss, and velvety plumes of a still deeper green extend in a band across the forehead and chin as far as the eye, which is bright yellow. The beak is pale lead blue; and the feet, which are rather large and very strong and well formed, are of a pale ashy-pink. The two middle feathers of the tail have no webs, except a very small one at the base and at the extreme tip, forming wire-like cirrhi, which spread out in an elegant double curve, and vary from twenty-four to thirty-four inches long. From each side of the body, beneath the wings, springs a dense tuft of long and delicate plumes, sometimes two feet in length, of the most intense golden-orange colour and very glossy, but changing towards the tips into a pale brown. This tuft of plumage cam be elevated and spread out at pleasure, so as almost to conceal the body of the bird. These splendid ornaments are entirely confined to the male sex, while the female is really a very plain and ordinary-looking bird of a uniform coffee-brown colour which never changes, neither does she possess the long tail wires, nor a single yellow or green feather about the dead. The young males of the first year exactly resemble the females, so that they can only be distinguished by dissection. The first change is the acquisition of the yellow and green colour on the head and throat, and at the same time the two middle tail feathers grow a few inches longer than the rest, but remain webbed on both sides. At a later period these feathers are replaced by the long bare shafts of the full length, as in the adult bird; but there is still no sign of the magnificent orange side-plumes, which later still complete the attire of the perfect male. To effect these changes there must be at least three successive moultings; and as the birds were found by me in all the stages about the same time, it is probable that they moult only once a year, and that the full plumage is not acquired till the bird is four years old. It was long thought that the fine train of feathers was assumed for a short time only at the breeding season, but my own experience, as well as the observation of birds of an allied species which I brought home with me, and which lived two years in this country, show that the complete plumage is retained during the whole year, except during a short period of moulting as with most other birds. The Great Bird of Paradise is very active and vigorous and seems to be in constant motion all day long. It is very abundant, small flocks of females and young male being constantly met with; and though the full-plumaged birds are less plentiful, their loud cries, which are heard daily, show that they also are very numerous. Their note is, "Wawk-wawk-wawk-Wok-wok-wok," and is so loud and shrill as to be heard a great distance, and to form the most prominent and characteristic animal sound in the Aru Islands. The mode of nidification is unknown; but the natives told me that the nest was formed of leaves placed on an ant's nest, or on some projecting limb of a very lofty tree, and they believe that it contains only one young bird. The egg is quite unknown, and the natives declared they had never seen it; and a very high reward offered for one by a Dutch official did not meet with success. They moult about January or February, and in May, when they are in full plumage, the males assemble early in the morning to exhibit themselves in the singular manner already described at p. 252. This habit enables the natives to obtain specimens with comparative ease. As soon as they find that the birds have fled upon a tree on which to assemble, they build a little shelter of palm leaves in a convenient place among the branches, and the hunter ensconces himself in it before daylight, armed with his bow and a number of arrows terminating in a round knob. A boy waits at the foot of the tree, and when the birds come at sunrise, and a sufficient number have assembled, and have begun to dance, the hunter shoots with his blunt arrow so strongly as to stun the bird, which drops down, and is secured and killed by the boy without its plumage being injured by a drop of blood. The rest take no notice, and fall one after another till some of them take the alarm. (See Frontispiece.) The native mode of preserving them is to cut off the wings and feet, and then skin the body up to the beak, taking out the skull. A stout stick is then run up through the specimen coming out at the mouth. Round this some leaves are stuffed, and the whole is wrapped up in a palm spathe and dried in the smoky hut. By this plan the head, which is really large, is shrunk up almost to nothing, the body is much reduced and shortened, and the greatest prominence is given to the flowing plumage. Some of these native skins are very clean, and often have wings and feet left on; others are dreadfully stained with smoke, and all hive a most erroneous idea of the proportions of the living bird. The Paradisea apoda, as far as we have any certain knowledge, is confined to the mainland of the Aru Islands, never being found in the smaller islands which surround the central mass. It is certainly not found in any of the parts of New Guinea visited by the Malay and Bugis traders, nor in any of the other islands where Birds of Paradise are obtained. But this is by no means conclusive evidence, for it is only in certain localities that the natives prepare skins, and in other places the same birds may be abundant without ever becoming known. It is therefore quite possible that this species may inhabit the great southern mass of New Guinea, from which Aru has been separated; while its near ally, which I shall next describe, is confined to the north-western peninsula. The Lesser Bird of Paradise (Paradisea papuana of Bechstein), "Le petit Emeraude" of French authors, is a much smaller bird than the preceding, although very similar to it. It differs in its lighter brown colour, not becoming darker or purpled on the breast; in the extension of the yellow colour all over the upper part of the back and on the wing coverts; in the lighter yellow of the side plumes, which have only a tinge of orange, and at the tips are nearly pure white; and in the comparative shortness of the tail cirrhi. The female differs remarkably front the same sex in Paradisea apoda, by being entirely white on the under surface of the body, and is thus a much handsomer bird. The young males are similarly coloured, and as they grow older they change to brown, and go through the same stages in acquiring the perfect plumage as has already been described in the allied species. It is this bird which is most commonly used in ladies' head-dresses in this country, and also forms an important article of commerce in the East. The Paradisea papuana has a comparatively wide range, being the common species on the mainland of New Guinea, as well as on the islands of Mysol, Salwatty, Jobie, Biak and Sook. On the south coast of New Guinea, the Dutch naturalist, Muller, found it at the Oetanata river in longitude 136° E. I obtained it myself at Dorey; and the captain of the Dutch steamer Etna informed me that he had seen the feathers among the natives of Humboldt Bay, in 141° E. longitude. It is very probable, therefore, that it ranges over the whole of the mainland of New Guinea. The true Paradise Birds are omnivorous, feeding on fruits and insects--of the former preferring the small figs; of the latter, grasshoppers, locusts, and phasmas, as well as cockroaches and caterpillars. When I returned home, in 1862, I was so fortunate as to find two adult males of this species in Singapore; and as they seemed healthy, and fed voraciously on rice, bananas, and cockroaches, I determined on giving the very high price asked for them--£100.--and to bring them to England by the overland route under my own care. On my way home I stayed a week at Bombay, to break the journey, and to lay in a fresh stock of bananas for my birds. I had great difficulty, however, in supplying them with insect food, for in the Peninsular and Oriental steamers cockroaches were scarce, and it was only by setting traps in the store-rooms, and by hunting an hour every night in the forecastle, that I could secure a few dozen of these creatures,--scarcely enough for a single meal. At Malta, where I stayed a fortnight, I got plenty of cockroaches from a bake-house, and when I left, took with me several biscuit-tins' full, as provision for the voyage home. We came through the Mediterranean in March, with a very cold wind; and the only place on board the mail-steamer where their large cage could be accommodated was exposed to a strong current of air down a hatchway which stood open day and night, yet the birds never seemed to feel the cold. During the night journey from Marseilles to Paris it was a sharp frost; yet they arrived in London in perfect health, and lived in the Zoological Gardens for one, and two years, often displaying their beautiful plumes to the admiration of the spectators. It is evident, therefore, that the Paradise Birds are very hardy, and require air and exercise rather than heat; and I feel sure that if a good sized conservators` could be devoted to them, or if they could be turned loose in the tropical department of the Crystal Palace or the Great Palm House at Kew, they would live in this country for many years. The Red Bird of Paradise (Paradisea rubra of Viellot), though allied to the two birds already described, is much more distinct from them than they are from each other. It is about the same size as Paradisea papuana (13 to 14 inches long), but differs from it in many particulars. The side plumes, instead of being yellow, are rich crimson, and only extend about three or four inches beyond the end of the tail; they are somewhat rigid, and the ends are curved downwards and inwards, and are tipped with white. The two middle tail feathers, instead of being simply elongated and deprived of their webs, are transformed into stiff black ribands, a quarter of an inch wide, but curved like a split quill, and resembling thin half cylinders of horn or whalebone. When a dead bird is laid on its back, it is seen that these ribands take a curve or set, which brings them round so as to meet in a double circle on the neck of the bird; but when they hang downwards, during life, they assume a spiral twist, and form an exceedingly graceful double curve. They are about twenty-two inches long, and always attract attention as the most conspicuous and extraordinary feature of the species. The rich metallic green colour of the throat extends over the front half of the head to behind the eyes, and on the forehead forms a little double crest of scaly feathers, which adds much to the vivacity of the bird's aspect. The bill is gamboge yellow, and the iris blackish olive. (Figure at p. 353.) The female of this species is of a tolerably uniform coffee-brown colour, but has a blackish head, and the nape neck, and shoulders yellow, indicating the position of the brighter colours of the male. The changes of plumage follow the same order of succession as in the other species, the bright colours of the head and neck being first developed, then the lengthened filaments of the tail, and last of all, the red side plumes. I obtained a series of specimens, illustrating the manner in which the extraordinary black tail ribands are developed, which is very remarkable. They first appear as two ordinary feathers, rather shorter than the rest of the tail; the second stage would no doubt be that shown in a specimen of Paradisea apoda, in which the feathers are moderately lengthened, and with the web narrowed in the middle; the third stage is shown by a specimen which has part of the midrib bare, and terminated by a spatulate web; in another the bare midrib is a little dilated and semi-cylindrical, and the terminal web very small; in a fifth, the perfect black horny riband is formed, but it bears at its extremity a brown spatulate web, while in another a portion of the black riband itself bears, for a portion of its length, a narrow brown web. It is only after these changes are fully completed that the red side plumes begin to appear. The successive stages of development of the colours and plumage of the Birds of Paradise are very interesting, from the striking manner in which they accord with the theory of their having been produced by the simple action of variation, and the cumulative power of selection by the females, of those male birds which were more than usually ornamental. Variations of _colour_ are of all others the most frequent and the most striking, and are most easily modified and accumulated by man's selection of them. We should expect, therefore, that the sexual differences of _colour_ would be those most early accumulated and fixed, and would therefore appear soonest in the young birds; and this is exactly what occurs in the Paradise Birds. Of all variations in the _form_ of birds' feathers, none are so frequent as those in the head and tail. These occur more, or less in every family of birds, and are easily produced in many domesticated varieties, while unusual developments of the feathers of the body are rare in the whole class of birds, and have seldom or never occurred in domesticated species. In accordance with these facts, we find the scale-formed plumes of the throat, the crests of the head, and the long cirrhi of the tail, all fully developed before the plumes which spring from the side of the body begin to mane their appearance. If, on the other hand, the male Paradise Birds have not acquired their distinctive plumage by successive variations, but have been as they are mow from the moment they first appeared upon the earth, this succession becomes at the least unintelligible to us, for we can see no reason why the changes should not take place simultaneously, or in a reverse order to that in which they actually occur. What is known of the habits of this bird, and the way in which it is captured by the natives, have already been described at page 362. The Red Bird of Paradise offers a remarkable case of restricted range, being entirely confined to the small island of Waigiou, off the north-west extremity of New Guinea, where it replaces the allied species found in the other islands. The three birds just described form a well-marked group, agreeing in every point of general structure, in their comparatively large size, the brown colour of their bodies, wings, and tail, and in the peculiar character of the ornamental plumage which distinguishes the male bird. The group ranges nearly over the whole area inhabited by the family of the Paradiseidae, but each of the species has its own limited region, and is never found in the same district with either of its close allies. To these three birds properly belongs the generic title Paradisea, or true Paradise Bird. The next species is the Paradisea regia of Linnaeus, or Ding Bird of Paradise, which differs so much from the three preceding species as to deserve a distinct generic name, and it has accordingly been called Cicinnurus regius. By the Malays it is called "Burong rajah," or King Bird, and by the natives of the Aru Islands "Goby-goby." This lovely little bird is only about six and a half inches long, partly owing to the very short tail, which does not surpass the somewhat square wings. The head, throat, and entire upper surface are of the richest glossy crimson red, shading to orange-crimson on the forehead, where the feathers extend beyond the nostrils more than half-way down the beak. The plumage is excessively brilliant, shining in certain lights with a metallic or glassy lustre. The breast and belly are pure silky white, between which colour and the red of the throat there is a broad band of rich metallic green, and there is a small spot of the same colour close above each eye. From each side of the body beneath the wing, springs a tuft of broad delicate feathers about an inch and a half long, of an ashy colour, but tipped with a broad band of emerald green, bordered within by a narrow line of buff: These plumes are concealed beneath the wing, but when the bird pleases, can be raised and spread out so as to form an elegant semicircular fan on each shoulder. But another ornament still more extraordinary, and if possible more beautiful, adorns this little bird. The two middle tail feathers are modified into very slender wirelike shafts, nearly six inches long, each of which bears at the extremity, on the inner side only, a web of an emerald green colour, which is coiled up into a perfect spiral disc, and produces a most singular and charming effect. The bill is orange yellow, and the feet and legs of a fine cobalt blue. (See upper figure on the plate at the commencement of this chapter.) The female of this little gem is such a plainly coloured bird, that it can at first sight hardly be believed to belong to the same species. The upper surface is of a dull earthy brown, a slight tinge of orange red appearing only on the margins of the quills. Beneath, it is of a paler yellowish brown, scaled and banded with narrow dusky markings. The young males are exactly like the female, and they no doubt undergo a series of changes as singular as those of Paradisea rubra; but, unfortunately, I was unable to obtain illustrative specimens. This exquisite little creature frequents the smaller trees in the thickest parts of the forest, feeding on various fruits; often of a very large size for so small a bird. It is very active both on its wings and feet, and makes a whirring sound while flying, something like the South American manakins. It often flutters its wings and displays the beautiful fan which adorns its breast, while the star-bearing tail wires diverge in an elegant double curve. It is tolerably plentiful in the Aru Islands, which led to it, being brought to Europe at an early period along with Paradisea apoda. It also occurs in the island of Mysol and in every part of New Guinea which has been visited by naturalists. We now come to the remarkable little bird called the "Magnificent," first figured by Buffon, and named Paradisea speciosa by Boddaert, which, with one allied species, has been formed into a separate genus by Prince Buonaparte, under the name of Diphyllodes, from the curious double mantle which clothes the back. The head is covered with short brown velvety feathers, which advance on the back so as to cover the nostrils. From the nape springs a dense mass of feathers of a straw-yellow colour, and about one and a half inches long, forming a mantle over the upper part of the back. Beneath this, and forming a band about one-third of an inch beyond it, is a second mantle of rich, glossy, reddish-brown fathers. The rest of the bath is orange-brown, the tail-coverts and tail dark bronzy, the wings light orange-buff: The whole under surface is covered with an abundance of plumage springing from the margins of the breast, and of a rich deep green colour, with changeable hues of purple. Down the middle of the breast is a broad band of scaly plumes of the same colour, while the chin and throat are of a rich metallic bronze. From the middle of the tail spring two narrow feathers of a rich steel blue, and about ten inches long. These are webbed on the inner side only, and curve outward, so as to form a double circle. From what we know of the habits of allied species, we may be sure that the greatly developed plumage of this bird is erected and displayed in some remarkable manner. The mass of feathers on the under surface are probably expanded into a hemisphere, while the beautiful yellow mantle is no doubt elevated so as to give the bird a very different appearance from that which it presents in the dried and flattened skins of the natives, through which alone it is at present known. The feet appear to be dark blue. This rare and elegant little bird is found only on the mainland of New Guinea, and in the island of Mysol. A still more rare and beautiful species than the last is the Diphyllodes wilsoni, described by Mr. Cassin from a native skin in the rich museum of Philadelphia. The same bird was afterwards named "Diphyllodes respublica" by Prince Buonaparte, and still later, "Schlegelia calva," by Dr. Bernstein, who was so fortunate as to obtain fresh specimens in Waigiou. In this species the upper mantle is sulphur yellow, the lower one and the wings pure red, the breast plumes dark green, and the lengthened middle tail feathers much shorter than in the allied species. The most curious difference is, however, that the top of the head is bald, the bare skin being of a rich cobalt blue, crossed by several lines of black velvety feathers. It is about the same size as Diphyllodes speciosa, and is no doubt entirely confined to the island of Waigiou. The female, as figured and described by Dr. Bernstein, is very like that of Cicinnurus regius, being similarly banded beneath; and we may therefore conclude that its near ally, the "Magnificent," is at least equally plain in this sex, of which specimens have not yet been obtained. The Superb Bird of Paradise was first figured by Buffon, and was named by Boddaert, Paradisea atra, from the black ground colour of its plumage. It forms the genus Lophorina of Viellot, and is one of the rarest and most brilliant of the whole group, being only known front mutilated native skins. This bird is a little larger than the Magnificent. The ground colour of the plumage is intense black, but with beautiful bronze reflections on the neck, and the whole head scaled with feathers of brilliant metallic green and blue. Over its breast it bears a shield formed of narrow and rather stiff feathers, much elongated towards the sides, of a pure bluish-green colour, and with a satiny gloss. But a still more extraordinary ornament is that which springs from the back of the neck,--a shield of a similar form to that on the breast, but much larger, and of a velvety black colour, glossed with bronze and purple. The outermost feathers of this shield are half an inch longer than the wing, and when it is elevated it must, in conjunction with the breast shield, completely change the form and whole appearance of the bird. The bill is black, and the feet appear to be yellow. This wonderful little bird inhabits the interior of the northern peninsula of New Guinea only. Neither I nor Mr. Allen could hear anything of it in any of the islands or on any part of the coast. It is true that it was obtained from the coast-natives by Lesson; but when at Sorong in 1861, Mr. Allen learnt that it is only found three days' journey in the interior. Owing to these "Black Birds of Paradise," as they are called, not being so much valued as articles of merchandise, they now seem to be rarely preserved by the natives, and it thus happened that during several years spent on the coasts of New Guinea and in the Moluccas I was never able to obtain a skin. We are therefore quite ignorant of the habits of this bird, and also of its female, though the latter is no doubt as plain and inconspicuous as in all the other species of this family. The Golden, or Six-shafted, Paradise Bird, is another rare species, first figured by Buffon, and never yet obtained in perfect condition. It was named by Boddaert, Paradisea sexpennis, and forms the genus Parotia of Viellot. This wonderful bird is about the size of the female Paradisea rubra. The plumage appear, at first sight black, but it glows in certain light with bronze and deep purple. The throat and breast are scaled with broad flat feathers of an intense golden hue, changing to green and blue tints in certain lights. On the back of the head is a broad recurved band of feathers, whose brilliancy is indescribable, resembling the sheen of emerald and topaz rather than any organic substance. Over the forehead is a large patch of pure white feathers, which shine like satin; and from the sides of the head spring the six wonderful feathers from which the bird receives its name. These are slender wires, six inches long, with a small oval web at the extremity. In addition to these ornaments, there is also an immense tuft of soft feathers on each side of the breast, which when elevated must entirely hide the wings, and give the bird au appearance of being double its real bulk. The bill is black, short, and rather compressed, with the feathers advancing over the nostrils, as in Cicinnurus regius. This singular and brilliant bird inhabits the same region as the Superb Bird of Paradise, and nothing whatever is known about it but what we can derive from an examination of the skins preserved by the natives of New Guinea. The Standard Wing, named Semioptera wallacei by Mr. G. R. Gray, is an entirely new form of Bird of Paradise, discovered by myself in the island of Batchian, and especially distinguished by a pair of long narrow feathers of a white colour, which spring from among the short plumes which clothe the bend of the wing, and are capable of being erected at pleasure. The general colour of this bird is a delicate olive-brown, deepening to a loud of bronzy olive in the middle of the back, and changing to a delicate ashy violet with a metallic gloss, on the crown of the head. The feathers, which cover the nostrils and extend half-way down the beak, are loose and curved upwards. Beneath, it is much more beautiful. The scale-like feathers of the breast are margined with rich metallic blue-green, which colour entirely covers the throat and sides of the neck, as well as the long pointed plumes which spring from the sides of the breast, and extend nearly as far as the end of the wings. The most curious feature of the bird, however, and one altogether unique in the whole class, is found in the pair of long narrow delicate feathers which spring from each wing close to the bend. On lifting the wing-coverts they are seen to arise from two tubular horny sheaths, which diverge from near the point of junction of the carpal bones. As already described at p. 41, they are erectile, and when the bird is excited are spread out at right angles to the wing and slightly divergent. They are from six to six and a half inches long, the upper one slightly exceeding the lower. The total length of the bird is eleven inches. The bill is horny olive, the iris deep olive, and the feet bright orange. The female bird is remarkably plain, being entirely of a dull pale earthy brown, with only a slight tinge of ashy violet on the head to relieve its general monotony; and the young males exactly resemble her. (See figures at p. 41.) This bird, frequents the lower trees of the forests, and, like most Paradise Birds, is in constant motion--flying from branch to branch, clinging to the twigs and even to the smooth and vertical trunks almost as easily as a woodpecker. It continually utters a harsh, creaking note, somewhat intermediate between that of Paradisea apoda, and the more musical cry of Cicinnurus regius. The males at short intervals open and flutter their wings, erect the long shoulder feathers, and spread out the elegant green breast shields. The Standard Wing is found in Gilolo as well as in Batchian, and all the specimens from the former island have the green breast shield rather longer, the crown of the head darker violet, and the lower parts of the body rather more strongly scaled with green. This is the only Paradise Bird yet found in the Moluccan district, all the others being confined to the Papuan Islands and North Australia. We now come to the Epimachidae, or Long-billed Birds of Paradise, which, as before stated, ought not to be separated from the Paradiseidae by the intervention of any other birds. One of the most remarkable of these is the Twelve-wired Paradise Bird, Paradises alba of Blumenbach, but now placed in the genus Seleucides of Lesson. This bird is about twelve inches long, of which the compressed and curved beak occupies two inches. The colour of the breast and upper surface appears at first sight nearly black, but a close examination shows that no part of it is devoid of colour; and by holding it in various lights, the most rich and glowing tints become visible. The head, covered with short velvety feathers, which advance on the chic much further than on the upper part of the beak, is of a purplish bronze colour; the whole of the back and shoulders is rich bronzy green, while the closed wings and tail are of the most brilliant violet purple, all the plumage having a delicate silky gloss. The mass of feathers which cover the breast is really almost black, with faint glosses of green and purple, but their outer edges are margined with glittering bands of emerald green. The whole lower part of the body is rich buffy yellow, including the tuft of plumes which spring from the sides, and extend an inch and a half beyond the tail. When skins are exposed to the light the yellow fades into dull white, from which circumstance it derived its specific name. About six of the innermost of these plumes on each side have the midrib elongated into slender black wires, which bend at right angles, and curve somewhat backwards to a length of about ten inches, forming one of those extraordinary and fantastic ornaments with which this group of birds abounds. The bill is jet black, and the feet bright yellow. (See lower figure on the plate at the beginning of this chapter). The female, although not quite so plain a bird as in some other species, presents none of the gay colours or ornamental plumage of the male. The top of the head and back of the neck are black, the rest of the upper parts rich reddish brown; while the under surface is entirely yellowish ashy, somewhat blackish on the breast, and crossed throughout with narrow blackish wavy bands. The Seleucides alba is found in the island of Salwatty, and in the north-western parts of New Guinea, where it frequents flowering trees, especially sago-palms and pandani, sucking the flowers, round and beneath which its unusually large and powerful feet enable it to cling. Its motions are very rapid. It seldom rests more than a few moments on one tree, after which it flies straight off, and with great swiftness, to another. It has a loud shrill cry, to be heard a long way, consisting of "Cah, cah," repeated five or six times in a descending scale, and at the last note it generally flies away. The males are quite solitary in their habits, although, perhaps, they assemble at pertain times like the true Paradise Birds. All the specimens shot and opened by my assistant Mr. Allen, who obtained this fine bird during his last voyage to New Guinea, had nothing in their stomachs but a brown sweet liquid, probably the nectar of the flowers on which they had been feeding. They certainly, however, eat both fruit and insects, for a specimen which I saw alive on board a Dutch steamer ate cockroaches and papaya fruit voraciously. This bird had the curious habit of resting at noon with the bill pointing vertically upwards. It died on the passage to Batavia, and I secured the body and formed a skeleton, which shows indisputably that it is really a Bird of Paradise. The tongue is very long and extensible, but flat and little fibrous at the end, exactly like the true Paradiseas. In the island of Salwatty, the natives search in the forests till they find the sleeping place of this bird, which they know by seeing its dung upon the ground. It is generally in a low bushy tree. At night they climb up the trap, and either shoot the birds with blunt arrows, or even catch them alive with a cloth. In New Guinea they are caught by placing snares on the trees frequented by them, in the same way as the Red Paradise birds are caught in Waigiou, and which has already been described at page 362. The great Epimaque, or Long-tailed Paradise Bird (Epimachus magnus), is another of these wonderful creatures, only known by the imperfect skins prepared by the natives. In its dark velvety plumage, glowed with bronze and purple, it resembles the Seleucides alba, but it bears a magnificent tail more than two feet long, glossed on the upper surface with the most intense opalescent blue. Its chief ornament, however, consists in the group of broad plumes which spring from the sides of the breast, and which are dilated at the extremity, and banded with the most vivid metallic blue and green. The bill is long and curved, and the feet black, and similar to those of the allied forms. The total length of this fine bird is between three and four feet. This splendid bird inhabits the mountains of New Guinea, in the same district with the Superb and the Six-shafted Paradise Birds, and I was informed is sometimes found in the ranges near the coast. I was several times assured by different natives that this bird makes its nest in a hole under ground, or under rocks, always choosing a place with two apertures, so that it may enter at one and go out at the other. This is very unlike what we should suppose to be the habits of the bird, but it is not easy to conceive how the story originated if it is not true; and all travellers know that native accounts of the habits of animals, however strange they may seem, almost invariably turn out to be correct. The Scale-breasted Paradise Bird (Epimachus magnificus of Cuvier) is now generally placed with the Australian Rifle birds in the genus Ptiloris. Though very beautiful, these birds are less strikingly decorated with accessory plumage than the other species we have been describing, their chief ornament being a more or less developed breastplate of stiff metallic green feathers, and a small tuft of somewhat hairy plumes on the sides of the breast. The back and wings of this species are of an intense velvety black, faintly glossed in certain lights with rich purple. The two broad middle tail feathers are opalescent green-blue with a velvety surface, and the top of the head is covered with feathers resembling scales of burnished steel. A large triangular space covering the chin, throat, and breast, is densely scaled with feathers, having a steel-blue or green lustre, and a silky feel. This is edged below with a narrow band of black, followed by shiny bronzy green, below which the body is covered with hairy feathers of a rich claret colour, deepening to black at the tail. The tufts of side plumes somewhat resemble those of the true Birds of Paradise, but are scanty, about as long as the tail, and of a black colour. The sides of the head are rich violet, and velvety feathers extend on each side of the beak over the nostrils. I obtained at Dorey a young male of this bird, in a state of plumage which is no doubt that of the adult female, as is the case in all the allied species. The upper surface, wings, and tail are rich reddish brown, while the under surface is of a pale ashy colour, closely barred throughout with narrow wavy black bands. There is also a pale banded stripe over the eye, and a long dusky stripe from the gape down each side of the neck. This bird is fourteen inches long, whereas the native skins of the adult male are only about ten inches, owing to the way in which the tail is pushed in, so as to give as much prominence as possible to the ornamental plumage of the breast. At Cape York, in North Australia, there is a closely allied species, Ptiloris alberti, the female of which is very similar to the young male bird here described. The beautiful Rifle Birds of Australia, which much resemble those Paradise Birds, are named Ptiloris paradiseus and Ptiloris victories, The Scale-breasted Paradise Bird seems to be confined to the mainland of New Guinea, and is less rare than several of the other species. There are three other New Guinea birds which are by some authors classed with the Birds of Paradise, and which, being almost equally remarkable for splendid plumage, deserve to be noticed here. The first is the Paradise pie (Astrapia nigra of Lesson), a bird of the size of Paradises rubra, but with a very long tail, glossed above with intense violet. The back is bronzy black, the lower parts green, the throat and neck bordered with loose broad feathers of an intense coppery hue, while on the top of the head and neck they are glittering emerald green, All the plumage round the head is lengthened and erectile, and when spread out by the living bird must lave an effect hardly surpassed by any of the true Paradise birds. The bill is black and the feet yellow. The Astrapia seems to me to be somewhat intermediate between the Paradiseidae and Epimachidae. There is an allied species, having a bare carunculated head, which has been called Paradigalla carunculata. It is believed to inhabit, with the preceding, the mountainous, interior of New Guinea, but is exceedingly rare, the only known specimen being in the Philadelphia Museum. The Paradise Oriole is another beautiful bird, which is now sometimes classed with the Birds of Paradise. It has been named Paradises aurea and Oriolus aureus by the old naturalists, and is now generally placed in the same genus as the Regent Bird of Australia (Sericulus chrysocephalus). But the form of the bill and the character of the plumage seem to me to be so different that it will have to form a distinct genus. This bird is almost entirely yellow, with the exception of the throat, the tail, and part of the wings and back, which are black; but it is chiefly characterised by a quantity of long feathers of an intense glossy orange colour, which cover its neck down to the middle of the back, almost like the hackles of a game-cock. This beautiful bird inhabits the mainland of New Guinea, and is also found in Salwatty, but is so rare that I was only able to obtain one imperfect native skin, and nothing whatever is known of its habits. I will now give a list of all the Birds of Paradise yet known, with the places they are believed to inhabit. 1. Paradisea apoda (The Great Paradise Bird). Aru Islands. 2. Paradisea papuana (The Lesser Paradise Bird). New Guinea. Mysol, Jobie. 3. Paradisea rubra (The Red Paradise Bird). Waigiou. 4. Cicinnurus regius (The King Paradise Bird). New Guinea, Aru Islands, Mysol, Salwatty. 5. Diphyllodes speciosa (The Magnificent). New Guinea, Mysol, Salwatty. 6. Diphyllodes wilsoni (The Red Magnificent). Waigiou. 7. Lophorina atra (The Superb). New Guinea. 8. Parotia sexpennis (The Golden Paradise Bird). New Guinea. 9. Semioptera wallacei (The Standard Wing). Batchian, Gilolo. 10. Epimachus magnus (The Long-tailed Paradise Bird). New Guinea 11. Seleucides albs (The Twelve-wired Paradise Bird).New Guinea, Salwatty. 12. Ptiloris magnifica (The Scale-breasted Paradise Bird). New Guinea. 13. Ptiloris alberti (Prince Albert's Paradise Bird). North Australia. 14. Ptiloris Paradisea (The Rifle Bird). East Australia. 15. Ptiloris victoriae (The Victorian Rifle Bird). North-East Australia. 16. Astrapia nigra (The Paradise Pie). New Guinea. 17. Paradigalla carunculata (The Carunculated Paradise Pie). New Guinea. 18. (?) Sericulus aureus (The Paradise Oriole). New Guinea, Salwatty. We see, therefore, that of the eighteen species which seem to deserve a place among the Birds of Paradise, eleven are known to inhabit the great island of New Guinea, eight of which are entirely confined to it and the hardly separated island of Salwatty. But if we consider those islands which are now united to New Guinea by a shallow sea to really form a part of it, we shall find that fourteen of the Paradise Birds belong to that country, while three inhabit the northern and eastern parts of Australia, and one the Moluccas. All the more extraordinary and magnificent species are, however, entirely confined to the Papuan region. Although I devoted so much time to a search after these wonderful birds, I only succeeded myself in obtaining five species during a residence of many months in the Aru Islands, New Guinea, and Waigiou. Mr. Allen's voyage to Mysol did not procure a single additional species, but we both heard of a place called Sorong, on the mainland of New Guinea, near Salwatty, where we were told that all the kinds we desired could be obtained. We therefore determined that he should visit this place, and endeavour to penetrate into the interior among the natives, who actually shoot and skin the Birds of Paradise. He went in the small prau I had fitted up at Goram, and through the kind assistance of the Dutch Resident at Ternate, a lieutenant and two soldiers were sent by the Sultan of Tidore to accompany and protect him, and to assist him in getting men and in visiting the interior. Notwithstanding these precautions, Mr. Allen met with difficulties in this voyage which we had neither of us encountered before. To understand these, it is necessary to consider that the Birds of Paradise are an article of commerce, and are the monopoly of the chiefs of the coast villages, who obtain them at a low rate from the mountaineers, and sell them to the Bugis traders. A portion is also paid every year as tribute to the Sultan of Tidore. The natives are therefore very jealous of a stranger, especially a European, interfering in their trade, and above all of going into the interior to deal with the mountaineers themselves. They of course think he will raise the prices in the interior, and lessen the supply on the coast, greatly to their disadvantage; they also think their tribute will be raised if a European takes back a quantity of the rare sorts; and they have besides a vague and very natural dread of some ulterior object in a white man's coming at so much trouble and expense to their country only to get Birds of Paradise, of which they know he can buy plenty (of the common yellow ones which alone they value) at Ternate, Macassar, or Singapore. It thus happened that when Mr. Allen arrived at Sorong, and explained his intention of going to seek Birds of Paradise in the interior, innumerable objections were raised. He was told it was three or four days' journey over swamps and mountains; that the mountaineers were savages and cannibals, who would certainly kill him; and, lastly, that not a man in the village could be found who dare go with him. After some days spent in these discussions, as he still persisted in making the attempt, and showed them his authority from the Sultan of Tidore to go where he pleased and receive every assistance, they at length provided him with a boat to go the first part of the journey up a river; at the same time, however, they sent private orders to the interior villages to refuse to sell any provisions, so as to compel him to return. On arriving at the village where they were to leave the river and strike inland, the coast people returned, leaving Mr. Allen to get on as he could. Here he called on the Tidore lieutenant to assist him, and procure men as guides and to carry his baggage to the villages of the mountaineers. This, however, was not so easily done. A quarrel took place, and the natives, refusing to obey the imperious orders of the lieutenant, got out their knives and spears to attack him and his soldiers; and Mr. Allen himself was obliged to interfere to protect those who had come to guard him. The respect due to a white man and the timely distribution of a few presents prevailed; and, on showing the knives, hatchets, and beads he was willing to give to those who accompanied him, peace was restored, and the next day, travelling over a frightfully rugged country, they reached the villages of the mountaineers. Here Mr. Allen remained a month without any interpreter through whom he could understand a word or communicate a want. However, by signs and presents and a pretty liberal barter, he got on very well, some of them accompanying him every day in the forest to shoot, and receiving a small present when he was successful. In the grand matter of the Paradise Birds, however, little was done. Only one additional species was found, the Seleucides alba, of which he had already obtained a specimen in Salwatty; but he learnt that the other kinds' of which he showed them drawings, were found two or three days' journey farther in the interior. When I sent my men from Dorey to Amberbaki, they heard exactly the same story--that the rarer sorts were only found several days' journey in the interior, among rugged mountains, and that the skins were prepared by savage tribes who had never even been seen by any of the coast people. It seems as if Nature had taken precautions that these her choicest treasures should not be made too common, and thus be undervalued. This northern coast of New Guinea is exposed to the full swell of the Pacific Ocean, and is rugged and harbourless. The country is all rocky and mountainous, covered everywhere with dense forests, offering in its swamps and precipices and serrated ridges an almost impassable barrier to the unknown interior; and the people are dangerous savages, in the very lowest stage of barbarism. In such a country, and among such a people, are found these wonderful productions of Nature, the Birds of Paradise, whose exquisite beauty of form and colour and strange developments of plumage are calculated to excite the wonder and admiration of the most civilized and the most intellectual of mankind, and to furnish inexhaustible materials for study to the naturalist, and for speculation to the philosopher. Thus ended my search after these beautiful birds. Five voyages to different parts of the district they inhabit, each occupying in its preparation and execution the larger part of a year, produced me only five species out of the fourteen known to exist in the New Guinea district. The kinds obtained are those that inhabit the coasts of New Guinea and its islands, the remainder seeming to be strictly confined to the central mountain-ranges of the northern peninsula; and our researches at Dorey and Amberbaki, near one end of this peninsula, and at Salwatty and Sorong, near the other, enable me to decide with some certainty on the native country of these rare and lovely birds, good specimens of which have never yet been seen in Europe. It must be considered as somewhat extraordinary that, during five years' residence and travel in Celebes, the Moluccas, and New Guinea, I should never have been able to purchase skins of half the species which Lesson, forty years ago, obtained during a few weeks in the same countries. I believe that all, except the common species of commerce, are now much more difficult to obtain than they were even twenty years ago; and I impute it principally to their having been sought after by the Dutch officials through the Sultan of Tidore. The chiefs of the annual expeditions to collect tribute have had orders to get all the rare sorts of Paradise Birds; and as they pay little or nothing for them (it being sufficient to say they are for the Sultan), the head men of the coast villages would for the future refuse to purchase them from the mountaineers, and confine themselves instead to the commoner species, which are less sought after by amateurs, but are a more profitable merchandise. The same causes frequently lead the inhabitants of uncivilized countries to conceal minerals or other natural products with which they may become acquainted, from the fear of being obliged to pay increased tribute, or of bringing upon themselves a new and oppressive labour. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PAPUAN ISLANDS. NEW GUINEA, with the islands joined to it by a shallow sea, constitute the Papuan group, characterised by a very close resemblance in their peculiar forms of life. Having already, in my chapters on the Aru Islands and on the Birds of Paradise, given some details of the natural history of this district, I shall here confine myself to a general sketch of its animal productions, and of their relations to those of the rest of the world. New Guinea is perhaps the largest island on the globe, being a little larger than Borneo. It is nearly fourteen hundred miles long, and in the widest part four hundred broad, and seems to be everywhere covered with luxuriant forests. Almost everything that is yet known of its natural productions comes from the north-western peninsula, and a few islands grouped around it. These do not constitute a tenth part of the area of the whole island, and are so cut off from it, that their fauna may well he somewhat different; yet they have produced us (with a very partial exploration) no less than two hundred and fifty species of land birds, almost all unknown elsewhere, and comprising some of the most curious and most beautiful of the feathered tribes. It is needless to say how much interest attaches to the far larger unknown portion of this great island, the greatest terra incognita that still remains for the naturalist to explore, and the only region where altogether new and unimagined forms of life may perhaps be found. There is now, I am happy to say, some chance that this great country will no longer remain absolutely unknown to us. The Dutch Government have granted well-equipped steamer to carry a naturalist (Mr. Rosenberg, already mentioned in this work) and assistants to New Guinea, where they are to spend some years in circumnavigating the island, ascending its large rivers a< far as possible into the interior, and making extensive collections of its natural productions. The Mammalia of New Guinea and the adjacent islands, yet discovered, are only seventeen in number. Two of these are bats, one is a pig of a peculiar species (Sus papuensis), and the rest are all marsupials. The bats are, no doubt, much more numerous, but there is every reason to believe that whatever new land Mammalia man be discovered will belong to the marsupial order. One of these is a true kangaroo, very similar to some of middle-sized kangaroos of Australia, and it is remarkable as being the first animal of the kind ever seen by Europeans. It inhabits Mysol and the Aru Islands (an allied species being found in New Guinea), and was seen and described by Le Brun in 1714, from living specimens at Batavia. A much more extraordinary creature is the tree-kangaroo, two species of which are known from New Guinea. These animals do not differ very strikingly in form from the terrestrial kangaroos, and appear to be but imperfectly adapted to an arboreal life, as they move rather slowly, and do not seem to have a very secure footing on the limb of a tree. The leaping power of the muscular tail is lost, and powerful claws have been acquired to assist in climbing, but in other respects the animal seems better adapted to walls on terra firma. This imperfect adaptation may be due to the fact of there being no carnivore in New Guinea, and no enemies of any kind from which these animals have to escape by rapid climbing. Four species of Cuscus, and the small flying opossum, also inhabit New Guinea; and there are five other smaller marsupials, one of which is the size of a rat, and takes its place by entering houses and devouring provisions. The birds of New Guinea offer the greatest possible contrast to the Mammalia, since they are more numerous, more beautiful, and afford more new, curious, and elegant forms than those of any other island on the globe. Besides the Birds of Paradise, which we have already sufficiently considered, it possesses a number of other curious birds, which in the eyes of the ornithologist almost serves to distinguish it as one of the primary divisions of the earth. Among its thirty species of parrots are the Great Pluck Cockatoo, and the little rigid-tailed Nasiterna, the giant and the dwarf of the whole tribe. The bare-headed Dasyptilus is one of the most singular parrots known; while the beautiful little long-tailed Charmosyna, and the great variety of gorgeously-coloured lories, have no parallels elsewhere. Of pigeons it possesses about forty distinct species, among which are the magnificent crowned pigeons, now so well known in our aviaries, and pre-eminent both for size and beauty; the curious Trugon terrestris, which approaches the still more strange Didunculus of Samoa; and a new genus (Henicophaps), discovered by myself, which possesses a very long and powerful bill, quite unlike that of any other pigeon. Among its sixteen kingfishers, it possesses the carious hook-billed Macrorhina, and a red and blue Tanysiptera, the most beautiful of that beautiful genus. Among its perching birds are the fine genus of crow-like starlings, with brilliant plumage (Manucodia); the carious pale-coloured crow (Gymnocorvus senex); the abnormal red and black flycatcher (Peltops blainvillii); the curious little boat-billed flycatchers (Machaerirhynchus); and the elegant blue flycatcher-wrens (Todopsis). The naturalist will obtain a clearer idea of the variety and interest of the productions of this country, by the statement, that its land birds belong to 108 genera, of which 20 are exclusively characteristic of it; while 35 belong to that limited area which includes the Moluccas and North Australia, and whose species of these genera have been entirely derived from New Guinea. About one-half of the New Guinea genera are found also in Australia, about one-third in India and the Indo-Malay islands. A very curious fact, not hitherto sufficiently noticed, is the appearance of a pure Malay element in the birds of New Guinea. We find two species of Eupetes, a curious Malayan genus allied to the forked-tail water-chats; two of Alcippe, an Indian and Malay wren-like form; an Arachnothera, quite resembling the spider-catching honeysuckers of Malacca; two species of Gracula, the Mynahs of India; and a curious little black Prionochilus, a saw-billed fruit pecker, undoubtedly allied to the Malayan form, although perhaps a distinct genus. Now not one of these birds, or anything allied to them, occurs in the Moluccas, or (with one exception) in Celebes or Australia; and as they are most of them birds of short flight, it is very difficult to conceive how or when they could have crossed the space of more than a thousand miles, which now separates them from their nearest allies. Such facts point to changes of land and sea on a large scale, and at a rate which, measured by the time required for a change of species, must be termed rapid. By speculating on such changes, we may easily see how partial waves of immigration may have entered New Guinea, and how all trace of their passage may have been obliterated by the subsequent disappearance of the intervening land. There is nothing that the study of geology teaches us that is more certain or more impressive than the extreme instability of the earth's surface. Everywhere beneath our feet we find proofs that what is land has been sea, and that where oceans now spread out has once been land; and that this change from sea to land, and from land to sea, has taken place, not once or twice only, but again and again, during countless ages of past time. Now the study of the distribution of animal life upon the present surface of the earth, causes us to look upon this constant interchange of land and sea--this making and unmaking of continents, this elevation and disappearance of islands--as a potent reality, which has always and everywhere been in progress, and has been the main agent in determining the manner in which living things are now grouped and scattered over the earth's surface. And when we continually come upon such little anomalies of distribution as that just now described, we find the only rational explanation of them, in those repeated elevations and depressions which have left their record in mysterious, but still intelligible characters on the face of organic nature. The insects of New Guinea are less known than the birds, but they seem almost equally remarkable for fine forms and brilliant colours. The magnificent green and yellow Ornithopterae are abundant, and have most probably spread westward from this point as far as India. Among the smaller butterflies are several peculiar genera of Nymphalidae and Lycaenidae, remarkable for their large size, singular markings, or brilliant coloration. The largest and most beautiful of the clear-winged moths (Cocytia d'urvillei) is found here, as well as the large and handsome green moth (Nyctalemon orontes). The beetles furnish us with many species of large size, and of the most brilliant metallic lustre, among which the Tmesisternus mirabilis, a longicorn beetle of a golden green colour; the excessively brilliant rose-chafers, Lomaptera wallacei and Anacamptorhina fulgida; one of the handsomest of the Buprestidae, Calodema wallacei; and several fine blue weevils of the genus Eupholus, are perhaps the most conspicuous. Almost all the other orders furnish us with large or extraordinary forms. The curious horned flies have already been mentioned; and among the Orthoptera the great shielded grasshoppers are the most remarkable. The species here figured (Megalodon ensifer) has the thorax covered by a large triangular horny shield, two and a half inches long, with serrated edges, a somewhat wavy, hollow surface, and a faun median line, so as very closely to resemble a leaf. The glossy wing-coverts (when fully expanded, more than nine inches across) are of a fine green colour and so beautifully veined as to imitate closely some of the large shining tropical leaves. The body is short, and terminated in the female by a long curved sword-like ovipositor (not seen in the cut), and the legs are all long and strongly-spined. These insects are sluggish in their motions, depending for safety on their resemblance to foliage, their horny shield and wing-coverts, and their spiny legs. The large islands to the east of New Guinea are very little known, but the occurrence of crimson lories, which are quite absent from Australia, and of cockatoos allied to those of New Guinea and the Moluccas, shows that they belong to the Papuan group; and we are thus able to define the Malay Archipelago as extending eastward to the Solomon's Islands. New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, on the other hand, seem more nearly allied to Australia; and the rest of the islands of the Pacific, though very poor in all forms of life, possess a few peculiarities which compel us to class them as a separate group. Although as a matter of convenience I have always separated the Moluccas as a distinct zoological group from New Guinea, I have at the same time pointed out that its fauna was chiefly derived from that island, just as that of Timor was chiefly derived from Australia. If we were dividing the Australian region for zoological purposes alone, we should form three great groups: one comprising Australia, Timor, and Tasmania; another New Guinea, with the islands from Bouru to the Solomon's group; and the third comprising the greater part of the Pacific Islands. The relation of the New Guinea fauna to that of Australia is very close. It is best marked in the Mammalia by the abundance of marsupials, and the almost complete absence of all other terrestrial forms. In birds it is less striking, although still very clear, for all the remarkable old-world forms which are absent from the one are equally so from the other, such as Pheasants, Grouse, Vultures, and Woodpeckers; while Cockatoos, Broad-tailed Parrots, Podargi, and the great families of the Honeysuckers and Brush-turkeys, with many others, comprising no less than twenty-four genera of land-birds, are common to both countries, and are entirely confined to them. When we consider the wonderful dissimilarity of the two regions in all those physical conditions which were once supposed to determine the forms of life-Australia, with its open plains, stony deserts, dried up rivers, and changeable temperate climate; New Guinea, with its luxuriant forests, uniformly hot, moist, and evergreen--this great similarity in their productions is almost astounding, and unmistakeably points to a common origin. The resemblance is not nearly so strongly marked in insects, the reason obviously being, that this class of animals are much more immediately dependent on vegetation and climate than are the more highly organized birds and Mammalia. Insects also have far more effective means of distribution, and have spread widely into every district favourable to their development and increase. The giant Ornithopterae have thus spread from New Guinea over the whole Archipelago, and as far as the base of the Himalayas; while the elegant long-horned Anthribidae have spread in the opposite direction from Malacca to New Guinea, but owing to unfavourable conditions have not been able to establish themselves in Australia. That country, on the other hand, has developed a variety of flower-haunting Chafers and Buprestidae, and numbers of large and curious terrestrial Weevils, scarcely any of which are adapted to the damp gloomy forests of New Guinea, where entirely different forms are to be found. There are, however, some groups of insects, constituting what appear to be the remains of the ancient population of the equatorial parts of the Australian region, which are still almost entirely confined to it. Such are the interesting sub-family of Longicorn coleoptera--Tmesisternitae; one of the best-marked genera of Buprestidae--Cyphogastra; and the beautiful weevils forming the genus Eupholus. Among butterflies we have the genera Mynes, Hypocista, and Elodina, and the curious eye-spotted Drusilla, of which last a single species is found in Java, but in no other of the western islands. The facilities for the distribution of plants are still greater than they are for insects, and it is the opinion of eminent botanists, that no such clearly-defined regions pan be marked out in botany as in zoology. The causes which tend to diffusion are here most powerful, and have led to such intermingling of the floras of adjacent regions that none but broad and general divisions can now be detected. These remarks have an important bearing on the problem of dividing the surface of the earth into great regions, distinguished by the radical difference of their natural productions. Such difference we now know to be the direct result of long-continued separation by more or less impassable barriers; and as wide oceans and great contrast: of temperature are the most complete barriers to the dispersal of all terrestrial forms of life, the primary divisions of the earth should in the main serve for all terrestrial organisms. However various may be the effects of climate, however unequal the means of distribution; these will never altogether obliterate the radical effects of long-continued isolation; and it is my firm conviction, that when the botany and the entomology of New Guinea and the surrounding islands become as well known as are their mammals and birds, these departments of nature will also plainly indicate the radical distinctions of the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan regions of the great Malay Archipelago. CHAPTER XL. THE RACES OF MAN IN THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. PROPOSE to conclude this account of my Eastern travels, with a short statement of my views as to the races of man which inhabit the various parts of the Archipelago, their chief physical and mental characteristics, their affinities with each other and with surrounding tribes, their migrations, and their probable origin. Two very strongly contrasted races inhabit the Archipelago--the Malays, occupying almost exclusively the larger western half of it, and the Papuans, whose headquarters are New Guinea and several of the adjacent islands. Between these in locality, are found tribes who are also intermediate in their chief characteristics, and it is sometimes a nice point to determine whether they belong to one or the other race, or have been formed by a mixture of the two. The Malay is undoubtedly the most important of these two races, as it is the one which is the most civilized, which has come most into contact with Europeans, and which alone has any place in history. What may be called the true Malay races, as distinguished from others who have merely a Malay element in their language, present a considerable uniformity of physical and mental characteristics, while there are very great differences of civilization and of language. They consist of four great, and a few minor semi-civilized tribes, and a number of others who may be termed savages. The Malays proper inhabit the Malay peninsula, and almost all the coast regions of Borneo and Sumatra. They all speak the Malay language, or dialects of it; they write in the Arabic character, and are Mahometans in religion. The Javanese inhabit Java, part of Sumatra, Madura, Bali, and Bart of Lombock. They speak the Javanese and Kawi languages, which they write in a native character. They are now Mahometans in Java, but Brahmins in Bali and Lombock. The Bugis are the inhabitants of the greater parts of Celebes, and there seems to be an allied people in Sumbawa. They speak the Bugis and Macassar languages, with dialects, and have two different native characters in which they write these. They are all Mahometans. The fourth great race is that of the Tagalas in the Philippine Islands, about whom, as I did not visit those Islands, I shall say little. Many of them are now Christians, and speak Spanish as well as their native tongue, the Tagala. The Moluccan-Malays, who inhabit chiefly Ternate, Tidore, Batchian, and Amboyna, may be held to form a fifth division of semi-civilized Malays. They are all Mahometans, but they speak a variety of curious languages, which seem compounded of Bugis and Javanese, with the languages of the savage tribes of the Moluccas. The savage Malays are the Dyaks of Borneo; the Battaks and other wild tribes of Sumatra; the Jakuns of the Malay Peninsula; the aborigines of Northern Celebes, of the Sula island, and of part of Bouru. The colour of all these varied tribes is a light reddish brown, with more or less of an olive tinge, not varying in any important degree over an extent of country as large as all Southern Europe. The hair is equally constant, being invariably black and straight, and of a rather coarse texture, so that any lighter tint, or any wave or curl in it, is an almost certain proof of the admixture of some foreign blood. The face is nearly destitute of beard, and the breast and limbs are free from hair. The stature is tolerably equal, and is always considerably below that of the average European; the body is robust, the breast well developed, the feet small, thick, and short, the hands small and rather delicate. The face is a little broad, and inclined to be flat; the forehead is rather rounded, the brows low, the eyes black and very slightly oblique; the nose is rather small, not prominent, but straight and well-shaped, the apex a little rounded, the nostrils broad and slightly exposed; the cheek-bones are rather prominent, the mouth large, the lips broad and well cut, but not protruding, the chin round and well-formed. In this description there seems little to object to on the score of beauty, and yet on the whole the Malays are certainly not handsome. In youth, however, they are often very good-looking, and many of the boys and girls up to twelve or fifteen years of age are very pleasing, and some have countenances which are in their way almost perfect. I am inclined to think they lose much of their good looks by bad habits and irregular living. At a very early age they chew betel and tobacco almost incessantly; they suffer much want and exposure in their fishing and other excursions; their lives are often passed in alternate starvation and feasting, idleness and excessive labour,--and this naturally produces premature old age and harshness of features. In character the Malay is impassive. He exhibits a reserve, diffidence, and even bashfulness, which is in some degree attractive, and leads the observer to thinly that the ferocious and bloodthirsty character imputed to the race must be grossly exaggerated. He is not demonstrative. His feelings of surprise, admiration, or fear, are never openly manifested, and are probably not strongly felt. He is slow and deliberate in speech, and circuitous in introducing the subject he has come expressly to discuss. These are the main features of his moral nature, and exhibit themselves in every action of his life. Children and women are timid, and scream and run at the unexpected sight of a European. In the company of men they are silent, and are generally quiet and obedient. When alone the Malay is taciturn; he neither talks nor sings to himself. When several are paddling in a canoe, they occasionally chant a monotonous and plaintive song. He is cautious of giving offence to his equals. He does not quarrel easily about money matters; dislikes asking too frequently even for payment of his just debts, and will often give them up altogether rather than quarrel with his debtor. Practical joking is utterly repugnant to his disposition; for he is particularly sensitive to breaches of etiquette, or any interference with the personal liberty of himself or another. As an example, I may mention that I have often found it very difficult to get one Malay servant to waken another. He will call as loud as he can, but will hardly touch, much less shake his comrade. I have frequently had to waken a hard sleeper myself when on a land or sea journey. The higher classes of Malays are exceedingly polite, and have all the quiet ease and dignity of the best-bred Europeans. Yet this is compatible with a reckless cruelty and contempt of human life, which is the dark side of their character. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that different persons give totally opposite accounts of them--one praising them for their soberness, civility, and good-nature; another abusing them for their deceit, treachery, and cruelty. The old traveller Nicolo Conti, writing in 1430, says: "The inhabitants of Java and Sumatra exceed every other people in cruelty. They regard killing a man as a mere jest; nor is any punishment allotted for such a deed. If any one purchase a new sword, and wish to try it, he will thrust it into the breast of the first person he meets. The passers-by examine the wound, and praise the skill of the person who inflicted it, if he thrust in the weapon direct." Yet Drake says of the south of Java: "The people (as are their kings) are a very loving, true, and just-dealing people;" and Mr. Crawfurd says that the Javanese, whom he knew thoroughly, are "a peaceable, docile, sober, simple, and industrious people." Barbosa, on the other hand, who saw them at Malacca about 1660, says: "They are a people of great ingenuity, very subtle in all their dealings; very malicious, great deceivers, seldom speaking the truth; prepared to do all manner of wickedness, and ready to sacrifice their lives." The intellect of the Malay race seems rather deficient. They are incapable of anything beyond the simplest combinations of ideas, and have little taste or energy for the acquirement of knowledge. Their civilization, such as it is, does not seem to be indigenous, as it is entirely confined to those nations who have been converted to the Mahometan or Brahminical religions. I will now give an equally brief sketch of the other great race of the Malay Archipelago, the Papuan. The typical Papuan race is in many respects the very opposite of the Malay, and it has hitherto been very imperfectly described. The colour of the body is a deep sooty-brown or black, sometimes approaching, but never quite equalling, the jet-black of some negro races. It varies in tint, however, more than that of the Malay, and is sometimes a dusky-brown. The hair is very peculiar, being harsh, dry, and frizzly, growing in little tufts or curls, which in youth are very short and compact, but afterwards grow out to a considerable length, forming the compact frizzled mop which is the Papuans' pride and glory. The face is adorned with a beard of the same frizzly nature as the hair of the head. The arms, legs, and breast are also more or less clothed with hair of a similar nature. In stature the Papuan decidedly surpasses the Malay, and is perhaps equal, or even superior, to the average of Europeans. The legs are long and thin, and the hands and feet larger than in the Malays. The face is somewhat elongated, the forehead flatfish, the brows very prominent; the nose is large, rather arched and high, the base thick, the nostrils broad, with the aperture hidden, owing to the tip of the nose being elongated; the mouth is large, the lips thick and protuberant. The face has thus an altogether more European aspect than in the Malay, owing to the large nose; and the peculiar form of this organ, with the more prominent brows and the character of the hair on the head, face, and body, enable us at a glance to distinguish the two races. I have observed that most of these characteristic features are as distinctly visible in children of ten or twelve years old as in adults, and the peculiar form of the nose is always shown in the figures which they carve for ornaments to their houses, or as charms to wear round their necks. The moral characteristics of the Papuan appear to me to separate him as distinctly from the Malay as do his form and features. He is impulsive and demonstrative in speech and action. His emotions and passions express themselves in shouts and laughter, in yells and frantic leapings. Women and children take their share in every discussion, and seem little alarmed at the sight of strangers and Europeans. Of the intellect of this race it is very difficult to judge, but I am inclined to rate it somewhat higher than that of the Malays, notwithstanding the fact that the Papuans have never yet made any advance towards civilization. It must be remembered, however, that for centuries the Malays have been influenced by Hindoo, Chinese, and Arabic immigration, whereas the Papuan race has only been subjected to the very partial and local influence of Malay traders. The Papuan has much more vital energy, which would certainly greatly assist his intellectual development. Papuan slaves show no inferiority of intellect, compared with Malays, but rather the contrary; and in the Moluccas they are often promoted to places of considerable trust. The Papuan has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil with elaborate carving, a habit which is rarely found among tribes of the Malay race. In the affections and moral sentiments, on the other hand, the Papuans seem very deficient. In the treatment of their children they are often violent and cruel; whereas the Malays are almost invariably kind and gentle, hardly ever interfering at all with their children's pursuits and amusements, and giving them perfect liberty at whatever age they wish to claim it. But these very peaceful relations between parents and children are no doubt, in a great measure, due to the listless and apathetic character of the race, which never leads the younger members into serious opposition to the elders; while the harsher discipline of the Papuans may be chiefly due to that greater vigour and energy of mind which always, sooner or later, leads to the rebellion of the weaker against the stronger,--the people against their rulers, the slave against his master, or the child against its parent. It appears, therefore, that, whether we consider their physical conformation, their moral characteristics, or their intellectual capacities, the Malay and Papuan races offer remarkable differences and striking contrasts. The Malay is of short stature, brown-skinned, straight-haired, beardless, and smooth-bodied. The Papuan is taller, is black-skinned, frizzly-haired, bearded, and hairy-bodied. The former is broad-faced, has a small nose, and flat eyebrows; the latter is long-faced, has a large and prominent nose, and projecting eyebrows. The Malay is bashful, cold, undemonstrative, and quiet; the Papuan is bold, impetuous, excitable, and noisy. The former is grave and seldom laughs; the latter is joyous and laughter-loving,--the one conceals his emotions, the other displays them. Having thus described in some detail, the great physical, intellectual, and moral differences between the Malays and Papuans, we have to consider the inhabitants of the numerous islands which do not agree very closely with either of these races. The islands of Obi, Batchian, and the three southern peninsulas of Gilolo, possess no true indigenous population; but the northern peninsula is inhabited by a native race, the so-called Alfuros of Sahoe and Galela. These people are quite distinct from the Malays, and almost equally so from the Papuans. They are tall and well-made, with Papuan features, and curly hair; they are bearded and hairy-limbed, but quite as light in colour as the Malays. They are an industrious and enterprising race, cultivating rice and vegetables, and indefatigable in their search after game, fish, tripang, pearls, and tortoiseshell. In the great island of Ceram there is also an indigenous race very similar to that of Northern Gilolo. Bourn seems to contain two distinct races,--a shorter, round-faced people, with a Malay physiognomy, who may probably have come from Celebes by way of the Sula islands; and a taller bearded race, resembling that of Ceram. Far south of the Moluccas lies the island of Timor, inhabited by tribes much nearer to the true Papuan than those of the Moluccas. The Timorese of the interior are dusky brown or blackish, with bushy frizzled hair, and the long Papuan nose. They are of medium height, and rather slender figures. The universal dress is a long cloth twisted round the waist, the fringed ends of which hang below the knee. The people are said to be great thieves, and the tribes are always at war with each other, but they are not very courageous or bloodthirsty. The custom of "tabu," called here "pomali," is very general, fruit trees, houses, crop, and property of all kinds being protected from depredation by this ceremony, the reverence for which is very great. A palm branch stuck across an open door, showing that the house is tabooed, is a more effectual guard against robbery than any amount of locks and bars. The houses in Timor are different from those of most of the other islands; they seem all roof, the thatch overhanging the low walls and reaching the ground, except where it is cut away for an entrance. In some parts of the west end of Timor, and on the little island of Semau, the houses more resemble those of the Hottentots, being egg-shaped, very small, and with a door only about three feet high. These are built on the ground, while those of the eastern districts art, raised a few feet on posts. In their excitable disposition, loud voices, and fearless demeanour, the Timorese closely resemble the people of New Guinea. In the islands west of Timor, as far as Flores and Sandalwood Island, a very similar race is found, which also extends eastward to Timor-laut, where the true Papuan race begins to appear. The small islands of Savu and Rotti, however, to the west of Timor, are very remarkable in possessing a different and, in some respects, peculiar race. These people are very handsome, with good features, resembling in many characteristics the race produced by the mixture of the Hindoo or Arab with the Malay. They are certainly distinct from the Timorese or Papuan races, and must be classed in the western rather than the eastern ethnological division of the Archipelago. The whole of the great island of New Guinea, the Ke and Aru Islands, with Mysol, Salwatty, and Waigiou, are inhabited almost exclusively by the typical Papuans. I found no trace of any other tribes inhabiting the interior of New Guinea, but the coast people are in some places mixed with the browner races of the Moluccas. The same Papuan race seems to extend over the islands east of New Guinea as far as the Fijis. There remain to be noticed the black woolly-haired races of the Philippines and the Malay peninsula, the former called "Negritos," and the latter "Semangs." I have never seen these people myself, but from the numerous accurate descriptions of them that have been published, I have had no difficulty in satisfying myself that they have little affinity or resemblance to the Papuans, with which they have been hitherto associated. In most important characters they differ more from the Papuan than they do from the Malay. They are dwarfs in stature, only averaging four feet six inches to four feet eight inches high, or eight inches less than the Malays; whereas the Papuans are decidedly taller than the Malays. The nose is invariably represented as small, flattened, or turned up at the apex, whereas the most universal character of the Papuan race is to have the nose prominent and large, with the apex produced downwards, as it is invariably represented in their own rude idols. The hair of these dwarfish races agrees with that of the Papuans, but so it does with that of the negroes of Africa. The Negritos and the Semangs agree very closely in physical characteristics with each other and with the Andaman Islanders, while they differ in a marked manner from every Papuan race. A careful study of these varied races, comparing them with those of Eastern Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Australia, has led me to adopt a comparatively simple view as to their origin and affinities. If we draw a line (see Physical Map, Vol. 1. p. 14), commencing to the east of the Philippine Islands, thence along the western coast of Gilolo, through the island of Bouru, and curving round the west end of Mores, then bending back by Sandalwood Island to take in Rotti, we shall divide the Archipelago into two portions, the races of which have strongly marked distinctive peculiarities. This line will separate the Malayan and all the Asiatic races, from the Papuans and all that inhabit the Pacific; and though along the line of junction intermigration and commixture have taken place, yet the division is on the whole almost as well defined and strongly contrasted, as is the corresponding zoological division of the Archipelago, into an Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan region. I must briefly explain the reasons that have led me to consider this division of the Oceanic races to be a true and natural one. The Malayan race, as a whole, undoubtedly very closely resembles the East Asian populations, from Siam to Mandchouria. I was much struck with this, when in the island of Bali I saw Chinese traders who had adopted the costume of that country, and who could then hardly be distinguished from Malays; and, on the other hand, I have seen natives of Java who, as far as physiognomy was concerned, would pass very well for Chinese. Then, again, we have the most typical of the Malayan tribes inhabiting a portion of the Asiatic continent itself, together with those great islands which, possessing the same species of large Mammalia with the adjacent parts of the continent, have in all probability formed a connected portion of Asia during the human period. The Negritos are, no doubt, quite a distinct race from the Malay; but yet, as some of them inhabit a portion of the continent, and others the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, they must be considered to have had, in all probability, an Asiatic rather than a Polynesian origin. Now, turning to the eastern parts of the Archipelago, I find, by comparing my own observations with those of the most trustworthy travellers and missionaries, that a race identical in all its chief features with the Papuan, is found in all the islands as far east as the Fijis; beyond this the brown Polynesian race, or some intermediate type, is spread everywhere over the Pacific. The descriptions of these latter often agree exactly with the characters of the brown indigenes of Gilolo and Ceram. It is to be especially remarked that the brown and the black Polynesian races closely resemble each other. Their features are almost identical, so that portraits of a New Zealander or Otaheitan will often serve accurately to represent a Papuan or Timorese, the darker colour and more frizzly hair of the latter being the only differences. They are both tall races. They agree in their love of art and the style of their decorations. They are energetic, demonstrative, joyous, and laughter-loving, and in all these particulars they differ widely from the Malay. I believe, therefore, that the numerous intermediate forms that occur among the countless islands of the Pacific, are not merely the result of a mixture of these races, but are, to some extent, truly intermediate or transitional; and that the brown and the black, the Papuan, the natives of Gilolo and Ceram, the Fijian, the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands and those of New Zealand, are all varying forms of one great Oceanic or Polynesian race. It is, however, quite possible, and perhaps probable, that the brown Polynesians were originally the produce of a mixture of Malays, or some lighter coloured Mongol race with the dark Papuans; but if so, the intermingling took place at such a remote epoch, and has been so assisted by the continued influence of physical conditions and of natural selection, leading to the preservation of a special type suited to those conditions, that it has become a fixed and stable race with no signs of mongrelism, and showing such a decided preponderance of Papuan character, that it can best be classified as a modification of the Papuan type. The occurrence of a decided Malay element in the Polynesian languages, has evidently nothing to do with any such ancient physical connexion. It is altogether a recent phenomenon, originating in the roaming habits of the chief Malay tribes; and this is proved by the fact that we find actual modern words of the Malay and Javanese languages in use in Polynesia, so little disguised by peculiarities of pronunciation as to be easily recognisable--not mere Malay roots only to be detected by the elaborate researches of the philologist, as would certainly have been the case had their introduction been as remote as the origin of a very distinct race--a race as different from the Malay in mental and moral, as it is in physical characters. As bearing upon this question it is important to point out the harmony which exists, between the line of separation of the human races of the Archipelago and that of the animal productions of the same country, which I have already so fully explained and illustrated. The dividing lines do not, it is true, exactly agree; but I think it is a remarkable fact, and something more than a mere coincidence, that they should traverse the same district and approach each other so closely as they do. If, however, I am right in my supposition that the region where the dividing line of the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan regions of zoology can now be drawn, was formerly occupied by a much wider sea than at present, and if man existed on the earth at that period, we shall see good reason why the races inhabiting the Asiatic and Pacific areas should now meet and partially intermingle in the vicinity of that dividing line. It has recently been maintained by Professor Huxley, that the Papuans are more closely allied to the negroes of Africa than to any other race. The resemblance both in physical and mental characteristics had often struck myself, but the difficulties in the way of accepting it as probable or possible, have hitherto prevented me front giving full weight to those resemblances. Geographical, zoological, and ethnological considerations render it almost certain, that if these two races ever had a common origin, it could only have been at a period far more remote than any which has yet been assigned to the antiquity of the human race. And even if their lenity could be proved, it would in no way affect my argument for the close affinity of the Papuan and Polynesian races, and the radical distinctness of both from the Malay. Polynesia is pre-eminently an area of subsidence, and its great widespread groups of coral-reefs mark out the position of former continents and islands. The rich and varied, yet strangely isolated productions of Australia and New Guinea, also indicate an extensive continent where such specialized forms were developed. The races of men now inhabiting these countries are, therefore, most probably the descendants of the races which inhabited these continents and islands. This is the most simple and natural supposition to make. And if we find any signs of direct affinity between the inhabitants of any other part of the world and those of Polynesia, it by no means follows that the latter were derived from the former. For as, when a Pacific continent existed, the whole geography of the earth's surface would probably be very different from what it now is, the present continents may not then have risen above the ocean, and, when they were formed at a subsequent epoch, may have derived some of their inhabitants from the Polynesian area itself. It is undoubtedly true that there are proofs of extensive migrations among the Pacific islands, which have led to community of language from the sandwich group to New Zealand; but there are no proofs whatever of recent migration from any surrounding country to Polynesia, since there is no people to be found elsewhere sufficiently resembling the Polynesian race in their chief physical and mental characteristics. If the past history of these varied races is obscure and uncertain, the future is no less so. The true Polynesians, inhabiting the farthest isles of the Pacific, are no doubt doomed to an early extinction. But the more numerous Malay race seems well adapted to survive as the cultivator of the soil, even when his country and government have passed into the hands of Europeans. If the tide of colonization should be turned to New Guinea, there can be little doubt of the early extinction of the Papuan race. A warlike and energetic people, who will not submit to national slavery or to domestic servitude, must disappear before the white man as surely as do the wolf and the tiger. I have now concluded my task. I have given, in more or less detail, a sketch of my eight years' wanderings among the largest and the most luxuriant islands which adorn our earth's surface. I have endeavoured to convey my impressions of their scenery, their vegetation, their animal productions, and their human inhabitants. I have dwelt at some length on the varied and interesting problems they offer to the student of nature. Before bidding my reader farewell, I wish to make a few observations on a subject of yet higher interest and deeper importance, which the contemplation of savage life has suggested, and on which I believe that the civilized can learn something from the savage man. We most of us believe that we, the higher races have progressed and are progressing. If so, there must be some state of perfection, some ultimate goal, which we may never reach, but to which all true progress must bring nearer. What is this ideally perfect social state towards which mankind ever has been, and still is tending? Our best thinkers maintain, that it is a state of individual freedom and self-government, rendered possible by the equal development and just balance of the intellectual, moral, and physical parts of our nature,--a state in which we shall each be so perfectly fitted for a social existence, by knowing what is right, and at the same time feeling an irresistible impulse to do what we know to be right., that all laws and all punishments shall be unnecessary. In such a state every man would have a sufficiently well-balanced intellectual organization, to understand the moral law in all its details, and would require no other motive but the free impulses of his own nature to obey that law. Now it is very remarkable, that among people in a very low stage of civilization, we find some approach to such a perfect social state. I have lived with communities of savages in South America and in the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of the village freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community, all are nearly equal. There are cone of those wide distinctions, of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilization; there is none of that wide-spread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, products also conflicting interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence, or for wealth, which the dense population of civilized countries inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting, and petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his neighbour's right, which seems to be, in some degree, inherent in every race of man. Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage state in intellectual achievements, we have not advanced equally in morals. It is true that among those classes who have no wants that cannot be easily supplied, and among whom public opinion has great influence; the rights of others are fully respected. It is true, also, that we have vastly extended the sphere of those rights, and include within them all the brotherhood of man. But it is not too much to say, that the mass of our populations have not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in many cases sunk below it. A deficient morality is the great blot of modern civilization, and the greatest hindrance to true progress. During the last century, and especially in the last thirty years, our intellectual and material advancement has been too quickly achieved for us to reap the full benefit of it. Our mastery over the forces of mature has led to a rapid growth of population, and a vast accumulation of wealth; but these have brought with them such au amount of poverty and crime, and have fostered the growth of so much sordid feeling and so many fierce passions, that it may well be questioned, whether the mental and moral status of our population has not on the average been lowered, and whether the evil has not overbalanced the good. Compared with our wondrous progress in physical science and its practical applications, our system of government, of administering justice, of national education, and our whole social and moral organization, remains in a state of barbarism. [See note next page.] And if we continue to devote our chief energies to the utilizing of our knowledge the laws of nature with the view of still further extending our commerce and our wealth, the evils which necessarily accompany these when too eagerly pursued, may increase to such gigantic dimensions as to be beyond our power to alleviate. We should now clearly recognise the fact, that the wealth and knowledge and culture of the few do not constitute civilization, and do not of themselves advance us towards the "perfect social state." Our vast manufacturing system, our gigantic commerce, our crowded towns and cities, support and continually renew a mass of human misery and crime absolutely greater than has ever existed before. They create and maintain in life-long labour an ever-increasing army, whose lot is the more hard to bear, by contrast with the pleasures, the comforts, and the luxury which they see everywhere around them, but which they can never hope to enjoy; and who, in this respect, are worse off than the savage in the midst of his tribe. This is not a result to boast of, or to be satisfied with; and, until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our civilization--resulting mainly from our neglect to train and develop more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings and moral faculties of our nature, and to allow them a larger share of influence in our legislation, our commerce, and our whole social organization--we shall never, as regards the whole community, attain to any real or important superiority over the better class of savages. This is the lesson I have been taught by my observations of uncivilized man. I now bid my readers--Farewell! NOTE. THOSE who believe that our social condition approaches perfection, will think the above word harsh and exaggerated, but it seems to me the only word that can be truly applied to us. We are the richest country in the world, and yet cue-twentieth of our population are parish paupers, and one-thirtieth known criminals. Add to these, the criminals who escape detection; and the poor who live mainly on private charity, (which, according to Dr. Hawkesley, expends seven millions sterling annually is London alone,) and we may be sure that more than ONE-TENTH of our population are actually Paupers and Criminals. Both these classes we keep idle or at unproductive labour, and each criminal costs us annually in our prisons more than the wages of an honest agricultural labourer. We allow over a hundred thousand persons known to have no means of subsistence but by crime, to remain at large and prey upon the community, and many thousand children to grow up before our eyes in ignorance and vice, to supply trained criminals for the next generation. This, in a country which boasts of its rapid increase in wealth, of its enormous commerce and gigantic manufactures, of its mechanical skill and scientific knowledge, of its high civilization and its pure Christianity,--I can but term a state of social barbarism. We also boast of our love of justice, and that the law protects rich and poor alike, yet we retain money fines as a punishment, and make the very first steps to obtain justice a matter of expense--in both cases a barbarous injustice, or denial of justice to the poor. Again, our laws render it possible, that, by mere neglect of a legal form, and contrary to his own wish and intention, a man's property may all go to a stranger, and his own children be left destitute. Such cases have happened through the operation of the laws of inheritance of landed property; and that such unnatural injustice is possible among us, shows that we are in a state of social barbarism. One more example to justify my use of the term, and I have done. We permit absolute possession of the soil of our country, with no legal rights of existence on the soil, to the vast majority who do not possess it. A great landholder may legally convert his whole property into a forest or a hunting-ground, and expel every human being who has hitherto lived upon it. In a thickly-populated country like England, where every acre has its owner and its occupier, this is a power of legally destroying his fellow-creatures; and that such a power should exist, and be exercised by individuals, in however small a degree, indicates that, as regards true social science, we are still in a state of barbarism. 
2530	----	THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO, VOLUME I. (of II.) By Alfred Russel Wallace The land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature. To CHARLES DARWIN, AUTHOR OF "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES," I dedicate this book, Not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship But also To express my deep admiration For His genius and his works. Contents PREFACE. THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. CHAPTER II. SINGAPORE. CHAPTER III. MALACCA AND MOUNT OPHIR. CHAPTER IV. BORNEO--THE ORANGUTAN. CHAPTER V. BORNEO--JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR. CHAPTER VI. BORNEO--THE DYAKS. CHAPTER VII. JAVA. CHAPTER VIII. SUMATRA. CHAPTER IX. NATURAL HISTORY OF THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS. CHAPTER X. BALI AND LOMBOCK. CHAPTER XI. LOMBOCK: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE. CHAPTER XII. LOMBOCK: HOW THE RAJAH TOOK THE CENSUS. CHAPTER XIII. TIMOR. CHAPTER XIV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TIMOR GROUP. CHAPTER XV. CELEBES. CHAPTER XVI. CELEBES. CHAPTER XVII. CELEBES. CHAPTER XVIII. NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES. CHAPTER XIX. BANDA. CHAPTER XX. AMBOYNA.      PREFACE. My readers will naturally ask why I have delayed writing this book for six years after my return; and I feel bound to give them full satisfaction on this point. When I reached England in the spring of 1862, I found myself surrounded by a room full of packing cases containing the collections that I had, from time to time, sent home for my private use. These comprised nearly three thousand bird-skins of about one thousand species, at least twenty thousand beetles and butterflies of about seven thousand species, and some quadrupeds and land shells besides. A large proportion of these I had not seen for years, and in my then weakened state of health, the unpacking, sorting, and arranging of such a mass of specimens occupied a long time. I very soon decided that until I had done something towards naming and describing the most important groups in my collection, and had worked out some of the more interesting problems of variation and geographical distribution (of which I had had glimpses while collecting them), I would not attempt to publish my travels. Indeed, I could have printed my notes and journals at once, leaving all reference to questions of natural history for a future work; but, I felt that this would be as unsatisfactory to myself as it would be disappointing to my friends, and uninstructive to the public. Since my return, up to this date, I have published eighteen papers in the "Transactions" or "Proceedings of the Linnean Zoological and Entomological Societies", describing or cataloguing portions of my collections, along with twelve others in various scientific periodicals on more general subjects connected with them. Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my butterflies, have been already described by various eminent naturalists, British and foreign; but a much larger number remains undescribed. Among those to whom science is most indebted for this laborious work, I must name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of London, who had almost completed the classification and description of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession), comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least nine hundred were previously undescribed and new to European cabinets. The remaining orders of insects, comprising probably more than two thousand species, are in the collection of Mr. William Wilson Saunders, who has caused the larger portion of them to be described by good entomologists. The Hymenoptera alone amounted to more than nine hundred species, among which were two hundred and eighty different kinds of ants, of which two hundred were new. The six years' delay in publishing my travels thus enables me to give what I hope may be an interesting and instructive sketch of the main results yet arrived at by the study of my collections; and as the countries I have to describe are not much visited or written about, and their social and physical conditions are not liable to rapid change, I believe and hope that my readers will gain much more than they will lose by not having read my book six years ago, and by this time perhaps forgotten all about it. I must now say a few words on the plan of my work. My journeys to the various islands were regulated by the seasons and the means of conveyance. I visited some islands two or three times at distant intervals, and in some cases had to make the same voyage four times over. A chronological arrangement would have puzzled my readers. They would never have known where they were, and my frequent references to the groups of islands, classed in accordance with the peculiarities of their animal productions and of their human inhabitants, would have been hardly intelligible. I have adopted, therefore, a geographical, zoological, and ethnological arrangement, passing from island to island in what seems the most natural succession, while I transgress the order in which I myself visited them, as little as possible. I divide the Archipelago into five groups of islands, as follows: I. THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS: comprising the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. II. THE TIMOR GROUP: comprising the islands of Timor, Flores, Sumbawa, and Lombock, with several smaller ones. III. CELEBES: comprising also the Sula Islands and Bouton. IV. THE MOLUCCAN GROUP: comprising Bouru, Ceram, Batchian, Gilolo, and Morty; with the smaller islands of Ternate, Tidore, Makian, Kaióa, Amboyna, Banda, Goram, and Matabello. V. THE PAPUAN GROUP: comprising the great island of New Guinea, with the Aru Islands, Mysol, Salwatty, Waigiou, and several others. The Ke Islands are described with this group on account of their ethnology, though zoologically and geographically they belong to the Moluccas. The chapters relating to the separate islands of each of these groups are followed by one on the Natural History of that group; and the work may thus be divided into five parts, each treating one of the natural divisions of the Archipelago. The first chapter is an introductory one, on the Physical Geography of the whole region; and the last is a general sketch of the races of man in the Archipelago and the surrounding countries. With this explanation, and a reference to the maps which illustrate the work, I trust that my readers will always know where they are, and in what direction they are going. I am well aware that my book is far too small for the extent of the subjects it touches upon. It is a mere sketch; but so far as it goes, I have endeavoured to make it an accurate one. Almost the whole of the narrative and descriptive portions were written on the spot, and have had little more than verbal alterations. The chapters on Natural History, as well as many passages in other parts of the work, have been written in the hope of exciting an interest in the various questions connected with the origin of species and their geographical distribution. In some cases I have been able to explain my views in detail; while in others, owing to the greater complexity of the subject, I have thought it better to confine myself to a statement of the more interesting facts of the problem, whose solution is to be found in the principles developed by Mr. Darwin in his various works. The numerous illustrations will, it is believed, add much to the interest and value of the book. They have been made from my own sketches, from photographs, or from specimens--and such, only subjects that would really illustrate the narrative or the descriptions, have been chosen. I have to thank Messrs. Walter and Henry Woodbury, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making in Java, for a number of photographs of scenery and of natives, which have been of the greatest assistance to me. Mr. William Wilson Saunders has kindly allowed me to figure the curious horned flies; and to Mr. Pascoe I am indebted for a loan of two of the very rare Longicorns which appear in the plate of Bornean beetles. All the other specimens figured are in my own collection. As the main object of all my journeys was to obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to museums and amateurs, I will give a general statement of the number of specimens I collected, and which reached home in good condition. I must premise that I generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants to assist me; and for nearly half the time had the services of an English lad, Charles Allen. I was just eight years away from England, but as I travelled about fourteen thousand miles within the Archipelago, and made sixty or seventy separate journeys, each involving some preparation and loss of time, I do not think that more than six years were really occupied in collecting. I find that my Eastern collections amounted to: 310 specimens of Mammalia. 100 specimens of Reptiles. 8,050 specimens of Birds. 7,500 specimens of Shells. 13,100 specimens of Lepidoptera. 83,200 specimens of Coleoptera. 13,400 specimens of other Insects. 125,660 specimens of natural history in all. It now only remains for me to thank all those friends to whom I am indebted for assistance or information. My thanks are more especially due to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, through whose valuable recommendations I obtained important aid from our own Government and from that of Holland; and to Mr. William Wilson Saunders, whose kind and liberal encouragement in the early portion of my journey was of great service to me. I am also greatly indebted to Mr. Samuel Stevens (who acted as my agent), both for the care he took of my collections, and for the untiring assiduity with which he kept me supplied, both with useful information and with whatever necessaries I required. I trust that these, and all other friends who have been in any way interested in my travels and collections, may derive from the perusal of my book, some faint reflexion of the pleasures I myself enjoyed amid the scenes and objects it describes. THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. From a look at a globe or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we shall perceive between Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands forming a connected group distinct from those great masses of land, and having little connection with either of them. Situated upon the Equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical oceans, this region enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other part of the globe, and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere unknown. The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are Indigenous here. It produces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the great green-winged Ornithoptera (princes among the butterfly tribes), the man-like Orangutan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise. It is inhabited by a peculiar and interesting race of mankind--the Malay, found nowhere beyond the limits of this insular tract, which has hence been named the Malay Archipelago. To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part of the globe. Our possessions in it are few and scanty; scarcely any of our travellers go to explore it; and in many collections of maps it is almost ignored, being divided between Asia and the Pacific Islands. It thus happens that few persons realize that, as a whole, it is comparable with the primary divisions of the globe, and that some of its separate islands are larger than France or the Austrian Empire. The traveller, however, soon acquires different ideas. He sails for days or even weeks along the shores of one of these great islands, often so great that its inhabitants believe it to be a vast continent. He finds that voyages among these islands are commonly reckoned by weeks and months, and that their several inhabitants are often as little known to each other as are the native races of the northern to those of the southern continent of America. He soon comes to look upon this region as one apart from the rest of the world, with its own races of men and its own aspects of nature; with its own ideas, feelings, customs, and modes of speech, and with a climate, vegetation, and animated life altogether peculiar to itself. From many points of view these islands form one compact geographical whole, and as such they have always been treated by travellers and men of science; but, a more careful and detailed study of them under various aspects reveals the unexpected fact that they are divisible into two portions nearly equal in extent which differ widely in their natural products, and really form two parts of the primary divisions of the earth. I have been able to prove this in considerable detail by my observations on the natural history of the various parts of the Archipelago; and, as in the description of my travels and residence in the several islands I shall have to refer continually to this view, and adduce facts in support of it, I have thought it advisable to commence with a general sketch of the main features of the Malayan region as will render the facts hereafter brought forward more interesting, and their bearing upon the general question more easily understood. I proceed, therefore, to sketch the limits and extent of the Archipelago, and to point out the more striking features of its geology, physical geography, vegetation, and animal life. Definition and Boundaries.--For reasons which depend mainly on the distribution of animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago to include the Malay Peninsula as far as Tenasserim and the Nicobar Islands on the west, the Philippines on the north, and the Solomon Islands, beyond New Guinea, on the east. All the great islands included within these limits are connected together by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one of them seems to be distinctly separated from the rest. With but few exceptions all enjoy an uniform and very similar climate, and are covered with a luxuriant forest vegetation. Whether we study their form and distribution on maps, or actually travel from island to island, our first impression will be that they form a connected whole, all the parts of which are intimately related to each other. Extent of the Archipelago and Islands.--The Malay Archipelago extends for more than 4,000 miles in length from east to west, and is about 1,300 in breadth from north to south. It would stretch over an expanse equal to that of all Europe from the extreme west far into Central Asia, or would cover the widest parts of South America, and extend far beyond the land into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It includes three islands larger than Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the British Isles might be set down, and would be surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea, though less compact in shape, is probably larger than Borneo. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great Britain; Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as Jamaica; more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight; while the isles and islets of smaller size are innumerable. The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not greater than that contained by Western Europe from Hungary to Spain; but, owing to the manner in which the land is broken up and divided, the variety of its productions is rather in proportion to the immense surface over which the islands are spread, than to the quantity of land which they contain. Geological Contrasts.--One of the chief volcanic belts upon the globe passes through the Archipelago, and produces a striking contrast in the scenery of the volcanic and non-volcanic islands. A curving line, marked out by scores of active, and hundreds of extinct, volcanoes may be traced through the whole length of Sumatra and Java, and thence by the islands of Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, Flores, the Serwatty Islands, Banda, Amboyna, Batchian, Makian, Tidore, Ternate, and Gilolo, to Morty Island. Here there is a slight but well-marked break, or shift, of about 200 miles to the westward, where the volcanic belt begins again in North Celebes, and passes by Siau and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands along the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line, to their northern extremity. From the extreme eastern bend of this belt at Banda, we pass onwards for 1,000 miles over a non-volcanic district to the volcanoes observed by Dampier, in 1699, on the north-eastern coast of New Guinea, and can there trace another volcanic belt through New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands, to the eastern limits of the Archipelago. In the whole region occupied by this vast line of volcanoes, and for a considerable breadth on each side of it, earthquakes are of continual recurrence, slight shocks being felt at intervals of every few weeks or months, while more severe ones, shaking down whole villages, and doing more or less injury to life and property, are sure to happen, in one part or another of this district, almost every year. On many of the islands the years of the great earthquakes form the chronological epochs of the native inhabitants, by the aid of which the ages of their children are remembered, and the dates of many important events are determined. I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have taken place in this region. In the amount of injury to life and property, and in the magnitude of their effects, they have not been surpassed by any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed by the eruption of Papandayang in Java, in 1772, when the whole mountain was blown up by repeated explosions, and a large lake left in its place. By the great eruption of Tomboro in Sumbawa, in 1815, 12,000 people were destroyed, and the ashes darkened the air and fell thickly upon the earth and sea for 300 miles around. Even quite recently, since I left the country, a mountain which had been quiescent for more than 200 years suddenly burst into activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent open in 1646 by a violent eruption which left a huge chasm on one side, extending into the heart of the mountain. It was, when I last visited it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit, and contained twelve populous Malay villages. On the 29th of December, 1862, after 215 years of perfect inaction, it again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely altering the appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands. The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct, than any other known district of equal extent. They are about forty-five in number, and many of them exhibit most beautiful examples of the volcanic cone on a large scale, single or double, with entire or truncated summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high. It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been slowly built up by the accumulation of matter--mud, ashes, and lava--ejected by themselves. The openings or craters, however, frequently shift their position, so that a country may be covered with a more or less irregular series of hills in chains and masses, only here and there rising into lofty cones, and yet the whole may be produced by true volcanic action. In this manner the greater part of Java has been formed. There has been some elevation, especially on the south coast, where extensive cliffs of coral limestone are found; and there may be a substratum of older stratified rocks; but still essentially Java is volcanic, and that noble and fertile island--the very garden of the East, and perhaps upon the whole the richest, the best cultivated, and the best governed tropical island in the world--owes its very existence to the same intense volcanic activity which still occasionally devastates its surface. The great island of Sumatra exhibits, in proportion to its extent, a much smaller number of volcanoes, and a considerable portion of it has probably a non-volcanic origin. To the eastward, the long string of islands from Java, passing by the north of Timor and away to Banda, are probably all due to volcanic action. Timor itself consists of ancient stratified rocks, but is said to have one volcano near its centre. Going northward, Amboyna, a part of Bouru, and the west end of Ceram, the north part of Gilolo, and all the small islands around it, the northern extremity of Celebes, and the islands of Siau and Sanguir, are wholly volcanic. The Philippine Archipelago contains many active and extinct volcanoes, and has probably been reduced to its present fragmentary condition by subsidences attending on volcanic action. All along this great line of volcanoes are to be found more or less palpable signs of upheaval and depression of land. The range of islands south of Sumatra, a part of the south coast of Java and of the islands east of it, the west and east end of Timor, portions of all the Moluccas, the Ke and Aru Islands, Waigiou, and the whole south and east of Gilolo, consist in a great measure of upraised coral-rock, exactly corresponding to that now forming in the adjacent seas. In many places I have observed the unaltered surfaces of the elevated reefs, with great masses of coral standing up in their natural position, and hundreds of shells so fresh-looking that it was hard to believe that they had been more than a few years out of the water; and, in fact, it is very probable that such changes have occurred within a few centuries. The united lengths of these volcanic belts is about ninety degrees, or one-fourth of the entire circumference of the globe. Their width is about fifty miles; but, for a space of two hundred miles on each side of them, evidences of subterranean action are to be found in recently elevated coral-rock, or in barrier coral-reefs, indicating recent submergence. In the very centre or focus of the great curve of volcanoes is placed the large island of Borneo, in which no sign of recent volcanic action has yet been observed, and where earthquakes, so characteristic of the surrounding regions, are entirely unknown. The equally large island of New Guinea occupies another quiescent area, on which no sign of volcanic action has yet been discovered. With the exception of the eastern end of its northern peninsula, the large and curiously-shaped island of Celebes is also entirely free from volcanoes; and there is some reason to believe that the volcanic portion has once formed a separate island. The Malay Peninsula is also non-volcanic. The first and most obvious division of the Archipelago would therefore be into quiescent and volcanic regions, and it might, perhaps, be expected that such a division would correspond to some differences in the character of the vegetation and the forms of life. This is the case, however, to a very limited extent; and we shall presently see that, although this development of subterranean fires is on so vast a scale--has piled up chains of mountains ten or twelve thousand feet high--has broken up continents and raised up islands from the ocean--yet it has all the character of a recent action which has not yet succeeded in obliterating the traces of a more ancient distribution of land and water. Contrasts of Vegetation.--Placed immediately upon the Equator and surrounded by extensive oceans, it is not surprising that the various islands of the Archipelago should be almost always clothed with a forest vegetation from the level of the sea to the summits of the loftiest mountains. This is the general rule. Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, the Philippines and the Moluccas, and the uncultivated parts of Java and Celebes, are all forest countries, except a few small and unimportant tracts, due perhaps, in some cases, to ancient cultivation or accidental fires. To this, however, there is one important exception in the island of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which there is absolutely no forest such as exists in the other islands, and this character extends in a lesser degree to Flores, Sumbawa, Lombock, and Bali. In Timor the most common trees are Eucalypti of several species, also characteristic of Australia, with sandalwood, acacia, and other sorts in less abundance. These are scattered over the country more or less thickly, but, never so as to deserve the name of a forest. Coarse and scanty grasses grow beneath them on the more barren hills, and a luxuriant herbage in the moister localities. In the islands between Timor and Java there is often a more thickly wooded country abounding in thorny and prickly trees. These seldom reach any great height, and during the force of the dry season they almost completely lose their leaves, allowing the ground beneath them to be parched up, and contrasting strongly with the damp, gloomy, ever-verdant forests of the other islands. This peculiar character, which extends in a less degree to the southern peninsula of Celebes and the east end of Java, is most probably owing to the proximity of Australia. The south-east monsoon, which lasts for about two-thirds of the year (from March to November), blowing over the northern parts of that country, produces a degree of heat and dryness which assimilates the vegetation and physical aspect of the adjacent islands to its own. A little further eastward in Timor and the Ke Islands, a moister climate prevails; the southeast winds blowing from the Pacific through Torres Straits and over the damp forests of New Guinea, and as a consequence, every rocky islet is clothed with verdure to its very summit. Further west again, as the same dry winds blow over a wider and wider extent of ocean, they have time to absorb fresh moisture, and we accordingly find the island of Java possessing a less and less arid climate, until in the extreme west near Batavia, rain occurs more or less all the year round, and the mountains are everywhere clothed with forests of unexampled luxuriance. Contrasts in Depth of Sea.--It was first pointed out by Mr. George Windsor Earl, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in 1845, and subsequently in a pamphlet "On the Physical Geography of South-Eastern Asia and Australia", dated 1855, that a shallow sea connected the great islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo with the Asiatic continent, with which their natural productions generally agreed; while a similar shallow sea connected New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands to Australia, all being characterised by the presence of marsupials. We have here a clue to the most radical contrast in the Archipelago, and by following it out in detail I have arrived at the conclusion that we can draw a line among the islands, which shall so divide them that one-half shall truly belong to Asia, while the other shall no less certainly be allied to Australia. I term these respectively the Indo-Malayan and the Austro-Malayan divisions of the Archipelago. On referring to pages 12, 13, and 36 of Mr. Earl's pamphlet, it will be seen that he maintains the former connection of Asia and Australia as an important part of his view; whereas, I dwell mainly on their long continued separation. Notwithstanding this and other important differences between us, to him undoubtedly belongs the merit of first indicating the division of the Archipelago into an Australian and an Asiatic region, which it has been my good fortune to establish by more detailed observations. Contrasts in Natural Productions.--To understand the importance of this class of facts, and its bearing upon the former distribution of land and sea, it is necessary to consider the results arrived at by geologists and naturalists in other parts of the world. It is now generally admitted that the present distribution of living things on the surface of the earth is mainly the result of the last series of changes that it has undergone. Geology teaches us that the surface of the land, and the distribution of land and water, is everywhere slowly changing. It further teaches us that the forms of life which inhabit that surface have, during every period of which we possess any record, been also slowly changing. It is not now necessary to say anything about how either of those changes took place; as to that, opinions may differ; but as to the fact that the changes themselves have occurred, from the earliest geological ages down to the present day, and are still going on, there is no difference of opinion. Every successive stratum of sedimentary rock, sand, or gravel, is a proof that changes of level have taken place; and the different species of animals and plants, whose remains are found in these deposits, prove that corresponding changes did occur in the organic world. Taking, therefore, these two series of changes for granted, most of the present peculiarities and anomalies in the distribution of species may be directly traced to them. In our own islands, with a very few trifling exceptions, every quadruped, bird, reptile, insect, and plant, is found also on the adjacent continent. In the small islands of Sardinia and Corsica, there are some quadrupeds and insects, and many plants, quite peculiar. In Ceylon, more closely connected to India than Britain is to Europe, many animals and plants are different from those found in India, and peculiar to the island. In the Galapagos Islands, almost every indigenous living thing is peculiar to them, though closely resembling other kinds found in the nearest parts of the American continent. Most naturalists now admit that these facts can only be explained by the greater or less lapse of time since the islands were upraised from beneath the ocean, or were separated from the nearest land; and this will be generally (though not always) indicated by the depth of the intervening sea. The enormous thickness of many marine deposits through wide areas shows that subsidence has often continued (with intermitting periods of repose) during epochs of immense duration. The depth of sea produced by such subsidence will therefore generally be a measure of time; and in like manner, the change which organic forms have undergone is a measure of time. When we make proper allowance for the continued introduction of new animals and plants from surrounding countries by those natural means of dispersal which have been so well explained by Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Darwin, it is remarkable how closely these two measures correspond. Britain is separated from the continent by a very shallow sea, and only in a very few cases have our animals or plants begun to show a difference from the corresponding continental species. Corsica and Sardinia, divided from Italy by a much deeper sea, present a much greater difference in their organic forms. Cuba, separated from Yucatan by a wider and deeper strait, differs more markedly, so that most of its productions are of distinct and peculiar species; while Madagascar, divided from Africa by a deep channel three hundred miles wide, possesses so many peculiar features as to indicate separation at a very remote antiquity, or even to render it doubtful whether the two countries have ever been absolutely united. Returning now to the Malay Archipelago, we find that all the wide expanse of sea which divides Java, Sumatra, and Borneo from each other, and from Malacca and Siam, is so shallow that ships can anchor in any part of it, since it rarely exceeds forty fathoms in depth; and if we go as far as the line of a hundred fathoms, we shall include the Philippine Islands and Bali, east of Java. If, therefore, these islands have been separated from each other and the continent by subsidence of the intervening tracts of land, we should conclude that the separation has been comparatively recent, since the depth to which the land has subsided is so small. It is also to be remarked that the great chain of active volcanoes in Sumatra and Java furnishes us with a sufficient cause for such subsidence, since the enormous masses of matter they have thrown out would take away the foundations of the surrounding district; and this may be the true explanation of the often-noticed fact that volcanoes and volcanic chains are always near the sea. The subsidence they produce around them will, in time, make a sea, if one does not already exist. But, it is when we examine the zoology of these countries that we find what we most require--evidence of a very striking character that these great islands must have once formed a part of the continent, and could only have been separated at a very recent geological epoch. The elephant and tapir of Sumatra and Borneo, the rhinoceros of Sumatra and the allied species of Java, the wild cattle of Borneo and the kind long supposed to be peculiar to Java, are now all known to inhabit some part or other of Southern Asia. None of these large animals could possibly have passed over the arms of the sea which now separate these countries, and their presence plainly indicates that a land communication must have existed since the origin of the species. Among the smaller mammals, a considerable portion are common to each island and the continent; but the vast physical changes that must have occurred during the breaking up and subsidence of such extensive regions have led to the extinction of some in one or more of the islands, and in some cases there seems also to have been time for a change of species to have taken place. Birds and insects illustrate the same view, for every family and almost every genus of these groups found in any of the islands occurs also on the Asiatic continent, and in a great number of cases the species are exactly identical. Birds offer us one of the best means of determining the law of distribution; for though at first sight it would appear that the watery boundaries which keep out the land quadrupeds could be easily passed over by birds, yet practically it is not so; for if we leave out the aquatic tribes which are pre-eminently wanderers, it is found that the others (and especially the Passeres, or true perching-birds, which form the vast majority) are generally as strictly limited by straits and arms of the sea as are quadrupeds themselves. As an instance, among the islands of which I am now speaking, it is a remarkable fact that Java possesses numerous birds which never pass over to Sumatra, though they are separated by a strait only fifteen miles wide, and with islands in mid-channel. Java, in fact, possesses more birds and insects peculiar to itself than either Sumatra or Borneo, and this would indicate that it was earliest separated from the continent; next in organic individuality is Borneo, while Sumatra is so nearly identical in all its animal forms with the peninsula of Malacca, that we may safely conclude it to have been the most recently dismembered island. The general result therefore, at which we arrive, is that the great islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo resemble in their natural productions the adjacent parts of the continent, almost as much as such widely-separated districts could be expected to do even if they still formed a part of Asia; and this close resemblance, joined with the fact of the wide extent of sea which separates them being so uniformly and remarkably shallow, and lastly, the existence of the extensive range of volcanoes in Sumatra and Java, which have poured out vast quantities of subterranean matter and have built up extensive plateaux and lofty mountain ranges, thus furnishing a vera causa for a parallel line of subsidence--all lead irresistibly to the conclusion that at a very recent geological epoch, the continent of Asia extended far beyond its present limits in a south-easterly direction, including the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, and probably reaching as far as the present 100-fathom line of soundings. The Philippine Islands agree in many respects with Asia and the other islands, but present some anomalies, which seem to indicate that they were separated at an earlier period, and have since been subject to many revolutions in their physical geography. Turning our attention now to the remaining portion of the Archipelago, we shall find that all the islands from Celebes and Lombock eastward exhibit almost as close a resemblance to Australia and New Guinea as the Western Islands do to Asia. It is well known that the natural productions of Australia differ from those of Asia more than those of any of the four ancient quarters of the world differ from each other. Australia, in fact, stands alone: it possesses no apes or monkeys, no cats or tigers, wolves, bears, or hyenas; no deer or antelopes, sheep or oxen; no elephant, horse, squirrel, or rabbit; none, in short, of those familiar types of quadruped which are met with in every other part of the world. Instead of these, it has Marsupials only: kangaroos and opossums; wombats and the duckbilled Platypus. In birds it is almost as peculiar. It has no woodpeckers and no pheasants--families which exist in every other part of the world; but instead of them it has the mound-making brush-turkeys, the honeysuckers, the cockatoos, and the brush-tongued lories, which are found nowhere else upon the globe. All these striking peculiarities are found also in those islands which form the Austro-Malayan division of the Archipelago. The great contrast between the two divisions of the Archipelago is nowhere so abruptly exhibited as on passing from the island of Bali to that of Lombock, where the two regions are in closest proximity. In Bali we have barbets, fruit-thrushes, and woodpeckers; on passing over to Lombock these are seen no more, but we have abundance of cockatoos, honeysuckers, and brush-turkeys, which are equally unknown in Bali, or any island further west. [I was informed, however, that there were a few cockatoos at one spot on the west of Bali, showing that the intermingling of the productions of these islands is now going on.] The strait is here fifteen miles wide, so that we may pass in two hours from one great division of the earth to another, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America. If we travel from Java or Borneo to Celebes or the Moluccas, the difference is still more striking. In the first, the forests abound in monkeys of many kinds, wild cats, deer, civets, and otters, and numerous varieties of squirrels are constantly met with. In the latter none of these occur; but the prehensile-tailed Cuscus is almost the only terrestrial mammal seen, except wild pigs, which are found in all the islands, and deer (which have probably been recently introduced) in Celebes and the Moluccas. The birds which are most abundant in the Western Islands are woodpeckers, barbets, trogons, fruit-thrushes, and leaf-thrushes; they are seen daily, and form the great ornithological features of the country. In the Eastern Islands these are absolutely unknown, honeysuckers and small lories being the most common birds, so that the naturalist feels himself in a new world, and can hardly realize that he has passed from the one region to the other in a few days, without ever being out of sight of land. The inference that we must draw from these facts is, undoubtedly, that the whole of the islands eastwards beyond Java and Borneo do essentially form a part of a former Australian or Pacific continent, although some of them may never have been actually joined to it. This continent must have been broken up not only before the Western Islands were separated from Asia, but probably before the extreme southeastern portion of Asia was raised above the waters of the ocean; for a great part of the land of Borneo and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent formation, while the very great difference of species, and in many cases of genera also, between the productions of the Eastern Malay Islands and Australia, as well as the great depth of the sea now separating them, all point to a comparatively long period of isolation. It is interesting to observe among the islands themselves how a shallow sea always intimates a recent land connexion. The Aru Islands, Mysol, and Waigiou, as well as Jobie, agree with New Guinea in their species of mammalia and birds much more closely than they do with the Moluccas, and we find that they are all united to New Guinea by a shallow sea. In fact, the 100-fathom line round New Guinea marks out accurately the range of the true Paradise birds. It is further to be noted--and this is a very interesting point in connection with theories of the dependence of special forms of life on external conditions--that this division of the Archipelago into two regions characterised by a striking diversity in their natural productions does not in any way correspond to the main physical or climatal divisions of the surface. The great volcanic chain runs through both parts, and appears to produce no effect in assimilating their productions. Borneo closely resembles New Guinea not only in its vast size and its freedom from volcanoes, but in its variety of geological structure, its uniformity of climate, and the general aspect of the forest vegetation that clothes its surface. The Moluccas are the counterpart of the Philippines in their volcanic structure, their extreme fertility, their luxuriant forests, and their frequent earthquakes; and Bali with the east end of Java has a climate almost as dry and a soil almost as arid as that of Timor. Yet between these corresponding groups of islands, constructed as it were after the same pattern, subjected to the same climate, and bathed by the same oceans, there exists the greatest possible contrast when we compare their animal productions. Nowhere does the ancient doctrine--that differences or similarities in the various forms of life that inhabit different countries are due to corresponding physical differences or similarities in the countries themselves--meet with so direct and palpable a contradiction. Borneo and New Guinea, as alike physically as two distinct countries can be, are zoologically wide as the poles asunder; while Australia, with its dry winds, its open plains, its stony deserts, and its temperate climate, yet produces birds and quadrupeds which are closely related to those inhabiting the hot damp luxuriant forests, which everywhere clothe the plains and mountains of New Guinea. In order to illustrate more clearly the means by which I suppose this great contrast has been brought about, let us consider what would occur if two strongly contrasted divisions of the earth were, by natural means, brought into proximity. No two parts of the world differ so radically in their productions as Asia and Australia, but the difference between Africa and South America is also very great, and these two regions will well serve to illustrate the question we are considering. On the one side we have baboons, lions, elephants, buffaloes, and giraffes; on the other spider-monkeys, pumas, tapirs, anteaters, and sloths; while among birds, the hornbills, turacos, orioles, and honeysuckers of Africa contrast strongly with the toucans, macaws, chatterers, and hummingbirds of America. Now let us endeavour to imagine (what it is very probable may occur in future ages) that a slow upheaval of the bed of the Atlantic should take place, while at the same time earthquake-shocks and volcanic action on the land should cause increased volumes of sediment to be poured down by the rivers, so that the two continents should gradually spread out by the addition of newly-formed lands, and thus reduce the Atlantic which now separates them, to an arm of the sea a few hundred miles wide. At the same time we may suppose islands to be upheaved in mid-channel; and, as the subterranean forces varied in intensity, and shifted their points of greatest action, these islands would sometimes become connected with the land on one side or other of the strait, and at other times again be separated from it. Several islands would at one time be joined together, at another would be broken up again, until at last, after many long ages of such intermittent action, we might have an irregular archipelago of islands filling up the ocean channel of the Atlantic, in whose appearance and arrangement we could discover nothing to tell us which had been connected with Africa and which with America. The animals and plants inhabiting these islands would, however, certainly reveal this portion of their former history. On those islands which had ever formed a part of the South American continent, we should be sure to find such common birds as chatterers and toucans and hummingbirds, and some of the peculiar American quadrupeds; while on those which had been separated from Africa, hornbills, orioles, and honeysuckers would as certainly be found. Some portion of the upraised land might at different times have had a temporary connection with both continents, and would then contain a certain amount of mixture in its living inhabitants. Such seems to have been the case with the islands of Celebes and the Philippines. Other islands, again, though in such close proximity as Bali and Lombock, might each exhibit an almost unmixed sample of the productions of the continents of which they had directly or indirectly once formed a part. In the Malay Archipelago we have, I believe, a case exactly parallel to that which I have here supposed. We have indications of a vast continent, with a peculiar fauna and flora having been gradually and irregularly broken up; the island of Celebes probably marking its furthest westward extension, beyond which was a wide ocean. At the same time Asia appears to have been extending its limits in a southeast direction, first in an unbroken mass, then separated into islands as we now see it, and almost coming into actual contact with the scattered fragments of the great southern land. From this outline of the subject, it will be evident how important an adjunct Natural History is to Geology; not only in interpreting the fragments of extinct animals found in the earth's crust, but in determining past changes in the surface which have left no geological record. It is certainly a wonderful and unexpected fact that an accurate knowledge of the distribution of birds and insects should enable us to map out lands and continents which disappeared beneath the ocean long before the earliest traditions of the human race. Wherever the geologist can explore the earth's surface, he can read much of its past history, and can determine approximately its latest movements above and below the sea-level; but wherever oceans and seas now extend, he can do nothing but speculate on the very limited data afforded by the depth of the waters. Here the naturalist steps in, and enables him to fill up this great gap in the past history of the earth. One of the chief objects of my travels was to obtain evidence of this nature; and my search after such evidence has been rewarded by great success, so that I have been able to trace out with some probability the past changes which one of the most interesting parts of the earth has undergone. It may be thought that the facts and generalizations here given would have been more appropriately placed at the end rather than at the beginning of a narrative of the travels which supplied the facts. In some cases this might be so, but I have found it impossible to give such an account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous islands and groups of islands in the Archipelago, without constant reference to these generalizations which add so much to their interest. Having given this general sketch of the subject, I shall be able to show how the same principles can be applied to the individual islands of a group, as to the whole Archipelago; and thereby make my account of the many new and curious animals which inhabit them both, more interesting and more instructive than if treated as mere isolated facts. Contrasts of Races.--Before I had arrived at the conviction that the eastern and western halves of the Archipelago belonged to distinct primary regions of the earth, I had been led to group the natives of the Archipelago under two radically distinct races. In this I differed from most ethnologists who had before written on the subject; for it had been the almost universal custom to follow William von Humboldt and Pritchard, in classing all the Oceanic races as modifications of one type. Observation soon showed me, however, that Malays and Papuans differed radically in every physical, mental, and moral character; and more detailed research, continued for eight years, satisfied me that under these two forms, as types, the whole of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago and Polynesia could be classified. On drawing the line which separates these races, it is found to come near to that which divides the zoological regions, but somewhat eastward of it; a circumstance which appears to me very significant of the same causes having influenced the distribution of mankind that have determined the range of other animal forms. The reason why exactly the same line does not limit both is sufficiently intelligible. Man has means of traversing the sea which animals do not possess; and a superior race has power to press out or assimilate an inferior one. The maritime enterprise and higher civilization of the Malay races have enabled them to overrun a portion of the adjacent region, in which they have entirely supplanted the indigenous inhabitants if it ever possessed any; and to spread much of their language, their domestic animals, and their customs far over the Pacific, into islands where they have but slightly, or not at all, modified the physical or moral characteristics of the people. I believe, therefore, that all the peoples of the various islands can be grouped either with the Malays or the Papuans; and that these two have no traceable affinity to each other. I believe, further, that all the races east of the line I have drawn have more affinity for each other than they have for any of the races west of that line; that, in fact, the Asiatic races include the Malays, and all have a continental origin, while the Pacific races, including all to the east of the former (except perhaps some in the Northern Pacific), are derived, not from any existing continent, but from lands which now exist or have recently existed in the Pacific Ocean. These preliminary observations will enable the reader better to apprehend the importance I attach to the details of physical form or moral character, which I shall give in describing the inhabitants of many of the islands. CHAPTER II. SINGAPORE. (A SKETCH OF THE TOWN AND ISLAND AS SEEN DURING SEVERAL VISITS FROM 1854 TO 1862.) FEW places are more interesting to a traveller from Europe than the town and island of Singapore, furnishing, as it does, examples of a variety of Eastern races, and of many different religions and modes of life. The government, the garrison, and the chief merchants are English; but the great mass of the population is Chinese, including some of the wealthiest merchants, the agriculturists of the interior, and most of the mechanics and labourers. The native Malays are usually fishermen and boatmen, and they form the main body of the police. The Portuguese of Malacca supply a large number of the clerks and smaller merchants. The Klings of Western India are a numerous body of Mahometans, and, with many Arabs, are petty merchants and shopkeepers. The grooms and washermen are all Bengalees, and there is a small but highly respectable class of Parsee merchants. Besides these, there are numbers of Javanese sailors and domestic servants, as well as traders from Celebes, Bali, and many other islands of the Archipelago. The harbour is crowded with men-of-war and trading vessels of many European nations, and hundreds of Malay praus and Chinese junks, from vessels of several hundred tons burthen down to little fishing boats and passenger sampans; and the town comprises handsome public buildings and churches, Mahometan mosques, Hindu temples, Chinese joss-houses, good European houses, massive warehouses, queer old Kling and China bazaars, and long suburbs of Chinese and Malay cottages. By far the most conspicuous of the various kinds of people in Singapore, and those which most attract the stranger's attention, are the Chinese, whose numbers and incessant activity give the place very much the appearance of a town in China. The Chinese merchant is generally a fat round-faced man with an important and business-like look. He wears the same style of clothing (loose white smock, and blue or black trousers) as the meanest coolie, but of finer materials, and is always clean and neat; and his long tail tipped with red silk hangs down to his heels. He has a handsome warehouse or shop in town and a good house in the country. He keeps a fine horse and gig, and every evening may be seen taking a drive bareheaded to enjoy the cool breeze. He is rich--he owns several retail shops and trading schooners, he lends money at high interest and on good security, he makes hard bargains, and gets fatter and richer every year. In the Chinese bazaar are hundreds of small shops in which a miscellaneous collection of hardware and dry goods are to be found, and where many things are sold wonderfully cheap. You may buy gimlets at a penny each, white cotton thread at four balls for a halfpenny, and penknives, corkscrews, gunpowder, writing-paper, and many other articles as cheap or cheaper than you can purchase them in England. The shopkeeper is very good-natured; he will show you everything he has, and does not seem to mind if you buy nothing. He bates a little, but not so much as the Klings, who almost always ask twice what they are willing to take. If you buy a few things from him, he will speak to you afterwards every time you pass his shop, asking you to walk in and sit down, or take a cup of tea; and you wonder how he can get a living where so many sell the same trifling articles. The tailors sit at a table, not on one; and both they and the shoemakers work well and cheaply. The barbers have plenty to do, shaving heads and cleaning ears; for which latter operation they have a great array of little tweezers, picks, and brushes. In the outskirts of the town are scores of carpenters and blacksmiths. The former seem chiefly to make coffins and highly painted and decorated clothes-boxes. The latter are mostly gun-makers, and bore the barrels of guns by hand out of solid bars of iron. At this tedious operation they may be seen every day, and they manage to finish off a gun with a flintlock very handsomely. All about the streets are sellers of water, vegetables, fruit, soup, and agar-agar (a jelly made of seaweed), who have many cries as unintelligible as those of London. Others carry a portable cooking-apparatus on a pole balanced by a table at the other end, and serve up a meal of shellfish, rice, and vegetables for two or three halfpence--while coolies and boatmen waiting to be hired are everywhere to be met with. In the interior of the island the Chinese cut down forest trees in the jungle, and saw them up into planks; they cultivate vegetables, which they bring to market; and they grow pepper and gambir, which form important articles of export. The French Jesuits have established missions among these inland Chinese, which seem very successful. I lived for several weeks at a time with the missionary at Bukit-tima, about the centre of the island, where a pretty church has been built and there are about 300 converts. While there, I met a missionary who had just arrived from Tonquin, where he had been living for many years. The Jesuits still do their work thoroughly as of old. In Cochin China, Tonquin, and China, where all Christian teachers are obliged to live in secret, and are liable to persecution, expulsion, and sometimes death, every province--even those farthest in the interior--has a permanent Jesuit mission establishment constantly kept up by fresh aspirants, who are taught the languages of the countries they are going to at Penang or Singapore. In China there are said to be near a million converts; in Tonquin and Cochin China, more than half a million. One secret of the success of these missions is the rigid economy practised in the expenditure of the funds. A missionary is allowed about £30. a year, on which he lives in whatever country he may be. This renders it possible to support a large number of missionaries with very limited means; and the natives, seeing their teachers living in poverty and with none of the luxuries of life, are convinced that they are sincere in what they teach, and have really given up home and friends and ease and safety, for the good of others. No wonder they make converts, for it must be a great blessing to the poor people among whom they labour to have a man among them to whom they can go in any trouble or distress, who will comfort and advise them, who visits them in sickness, who relieves them in want, and who they see living from day-to-day in danger of persecution and death--entirely for their sakes. My friend at Bukit-tima was truly a father to his flock. He preached to them in Chinese every Sunday, and had evenings for discussion and conversation on religion during the week. He had a school to teach their children. His house was open to them day and night. If a man came to him and said, "I have no rice for my family to eat today," he would give him half of what he had in the house, however little that might be. If another said, "I have no money to pay my debt," he would give him half the contents of his purse, were it his last dollar. So, when he was himself in want, he would send to some of the wealthiest among his flock, and say, "I have no rice in the house," or "I have given away my money, and am in want of such and such articles." The result was that his flock trusted and loved him, for they felt sure that he was their true friend, and had no ulterior designs in living among them. The island of Singapore consists of a multitude of small hills, three or four hundred feet high, the summits of many of which are still covered with virgin forest. The mission-house at Bukit-tima was surrounded by several of these wood-topped hills, which were much frequented by woodcutters and sawyers, and offered me an excellent collecting ground for insects. Here and there, too, were tiger pits, carefully covered over with sticks and leaves, and so well concealed, that in several cases I had a narrow escape from falling into them. They are shaped like an iron furnace, wider at the bottom than the top, and are perhaps fifteen or twenty feet deep so that it would be almost impossible for a person unassisted to get out of one. Formerly a sharp stake was stuck erect in the bottom; but after an unfortunate traveller had been killed by falling on one, its use was forbidden. There are always a few tigers roaming about Singapore, and they kill on an average a Chinaman every day, principally those who work in the gambir plantations, which are always made in newly-cleared jungle. We heard a tiger roar once or twice in the evening, and it was rather nervous work hunting for insects among the fallen trunks and old sawpits when one of these savage animals might be lurking close by, awaiting an opportunity to spring upon us. Several hours in the middle of every fine day were spent in these patches of forest, which were delightfully cool and shady by contrast with the bare open country we had to walk over to reach them. The vegetation was most luxuriant, comprising enormous forest trees, as well as a variety of ferns, caladiums, and other undergrowth, and abundance of climbing rattan palms. Insects were exceedingly abundant and very interesting, and every day furnished scores of new and curious forms. In about two months I obtained no less than 700 species of beetles, a large proportion of which were quite new, and among them were 130 distinct kinds of the elegant Longicorns (Cerambycidae), so much esteemed by collectors. Almost all these were collected in one patch of jungle, not more than a square mile in extent, and in all my subsequent travels in the East I rarely if ever met with so productive a spot. This exceeding productiveness was due in part no doubt to some favourable conditions in the soil, climate, and vegetation, and to the season being very bright and sunny, with sufficient showers to keep everything fresh. But it was also in a great measure dependent, I feel sure, on the labours of the Chinese wood-cutters. They had been at work here for several years, and during all that time had furnished a continual supply of dry and dead and decaying leaves and bark, together with abundance of wood and sawdust, for the nourishment of insects and their larvae. This had led to the assemblage of a great variety of species in a limited space, and I was the first naturalist who had come to reap the harvest they had prepared. In the same place, and during my walks in other directions, I obtained a fair collection of butterflies and of other orders of insects, so that on the whole I was quite satisfied with these--my first attempts to gain a knowledge of the Natural History of the Malay Archipelago. CHAPTER III. MALACCA AND MOUNT OPHIR. (JULY TO SEPTEMBER, 1854.) BIRDS and most other kinds of animals being scarce at Singapore, I left it in July for Malacca, where I spent more than two months in the interior, and made an excursion to Mount Ophir. The old and picturesque town of Malacca is crowded along the banks of the small river, and consists of narrow streets of shops and dwelling houses, occupied by the descendants of the Portuguese, and by Chinamen. In the suburbs are the houses of the English officials and of a few Portuguese merchants, embedded in groves of palms and fruit-trees, whose varied and beautiful foliage furnishes a pleasing relief to the eye, as well as most grateful shade. The old fort, the large Government House, and the ruins of a cathedral attest the former wealth and importance of this place, which was once as much the centre of Eastern trade as Singapore is now. The following description of it by Linschott, who wrote two hundred and seventy years ago, strikingly exhibits the change it has undergone: "Malacca is inhabited by the Portuguese and by natives of the country, called Malays. The Portuguese have here a fortress, as at Mozambique, and there is no fortress in all the Indies, after those of Mozambique and Ormuz, where the captains perform their duty better than in this one. This place is the market of all India, of China, of the Moluccas, and of other islands around about--from all which places, as well as from Banda, Java, Sumatra, Siam, Pegu, Bengal, Coromandel, and India--arrive ships which come and go incessantly, charged with an infinity of merchandises. There would be in this place a much greater number of Portuguese if it were not for the inconvenience, and unhealthiness of the air, which is hurtful not only to strangers, but also to natives of the country. Thence it is that all who live in the country pay tribute of their health, suffering from a certain disease, which makes them lose either their skin or their hair. And those who escape consider it a miracle, which occasions many to leave the country, while the ardent desire of gain induces others to risk their health, and endeavour to endure such an atmosphere. The origin of this town, as the natives say, was very small, only having at the beginning, by reason of the unhealthiness of the air, but six or seven fishermen who inhabited it. But the number was increased by the meeting of fishermen from Siam, Pegu, and Bengal, who came and built a city, and established a peculiar language, drawn from the most elegant modes of speaking of other nations, so that in fact the language of the Malays is at present the most refined, exact, and celebrated of all the East. The name of Malacca was given to this town, which, by the convenience of its situation, in a short time grew to such wealth, that it does not yield to the most powerful towns and regions around about. The natives, both men and women, are very courteous and are reckoned the most skillful in the world in compliments, and study much to compose and repeat verses and love-songs. Their language is in vogue through the Indies, as the French is here." At present, a vessel over a hundred tons hardly ever enters its port, and the trade is entirely confined to a few petty products of the forests, and to the fruit, which the trees, planted by the old Portuguese, now produce for the enjoyment of the inhabitants of Singapore. Although rather subject to fevers, it is not at present considered very unhealthy. The population of Malacca consists of several races. The ubiquitous Chinese are perhaps the most numerous, keeping up their manners, customs, and language; the indigenous Malays are next in point of numbers, and their language is the Lingua-franca of the place. Next come the descendants of the Portuguese--a mixed, degraded, and degenerate race, but who still keep up the use of their mother tongue, though ruefully mutilated in grammar; and then there are the English rulers, and the descendants of the Dutch, who all speak English. The Portuguese spoken at Malacca is a useful philological phenomenon. The verbs have mostly lost their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses, numbers, and persons. Eu vai, serves for "I go," "I went," or, "I will go." Adjectives, too, have been deprived of their feminine and plural terminations, so that the language is reduced to a marvellous simplicity, and, with the admixture of a few Malay words, becomes rather puzzling to one who has heard only the pure Lusitanian. In costume these several peoples are as varied as in their speech. The English preserve the tight-fitting coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and the abominable hat and cravat; the Portuguese patronise a light jacket, or, more frequently, shirt and trousers only; the Malays wear their national jacket and sarong (a kind of kilt), with loose drawers; while the Chinese never depart in the least from their national dress, which, indeed, it is impossible to improve for a tropical climate, whether as regards comfort or appearance. The loosely-hanging trousers, and neat white half-shirt half-jacket, are exactly what a dress should be in this low latitude. I engaged two Portuguese to accompany me into the interior; one as a cook, the other to shoot and skin birds, which is quite a trade in Malacca. I first stayed a fortnight at a village called Gading, where I was accommodated in the house of some Chinese converts, to whom I was recommended by the Jesuit missionaries. The house was a mere shed, but it was kept clean, and I made myself sufficiently comfortable. My hosts were forming a pepper and gambir plantation, and in the immediate neighbourhood were extensive tin-washings, employing over a thousand Chinese. The tin is obtained in the form of black grains from beds of quartzose sand, and is melted into ingots in rude clay furnaces. The soil seemed poor, and the forest was very dense with undergrowth, and not at all productive of insects; but, on the other hand, birds were abundant, and I was at once introduced to the rich ornithological treasures of the Malayan region. The very first time I fired my gun I brought down one of the most curious and beautiful of the Malacca birds, the blue-billed gaper (Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchus), called by the Malays the "Rainbird." It is about the size of a starling, black and rich claret colour with white shoulder stripes, and a very large and broad bill of the most pure cobalt blue above and orange below, while the iris is emerald green. As the skins dry the bill turns dull black, but even then the bird is handsome. When fresh killed, the contrast of the vivid blue with the rich colours of the plumage is remarkably striking and beautiful. The lovely Eastern trogons, with their rich-brown backs, beautifully pencilled wings, and crimson breasts, were also soon obtained, as well as the large green barbets (Megalaema versicolor)--fruit-eating birds, something like small toucans, with a short, straight bristly bill, and whose head and neck are variegated with patches of the most vivid blue and crimson. A day or two after, my hunter brought me a specimen of the green gaper (Calyptomena viridis), which is like a small cock-of-the-rock, but entirely of the most vivid green, delicately marked on the wings with black bars. Handsome woodpeckers and gay kingfishers, green and brown cuckoos with velvety red faces and green beaks, red-breasted doves and metallic honeysuckers, were brought in day after day, and kept me in a continual state of pleasurable excitement. After a fortnight one of my servants was seized with fever, and on returning to Malacca, the same disease, attacked the other as well as myself. By a liberal use of quinine, I soon recovered, and obtaining other men, went to stay at the Government bungalow of Ayer-panas, accompanied by a young gentleman, a native of the place, who had a taste for natural history. At Ayer-panas we had a comfortable house to stay in, and plenty of room to dry and preserve our specimens; but, owing to there being no industrious Chinese to cut down timber, insects were comparatively scarce, with the exception of butterflies, of which I formed a very fine collection. The manner in which I obtained one fine insect was curious, and indicates how fragmentary and imperfect a traveller's collection must necessarily be. I was one afternoon walking along a favourite road through the forest, with my gun, when I saw a butterfly on the ground. It was large, handsome, and quite new to me, and I got close to it before it flew away. I then observed that it had been settling on the dung of some carnivorous animal. Thinking it might return to the same spot, I next day after breakfast took my net, and as I approached the place was delighted to see the same butterfly sitting on the same piece of dung, and succeeded in capturing it. It was an entirely new species of great beauty, and has been named by Mr. Hewitson--Nymphalis calydona. I never saw another specimen of it, and it was only after twelve years had elapsed that a second individual reached this country from the northwestern part of Borneo. Having determined to visit Mount Ophir, which is situated in the middle of the peninsula about fifty miles east of Malacca, we engaged six Malays to accompany us and carry our baggage. As we meant to stay at least a week at the mountain, we took with us a good supply of rice, a little biscuit, butter and coffee, some dried fish and a little brandy, with blankets, a change of clothes, insect and bird boxes, nets, guns and ammunition. The distance from Ayer-panas was supposed to be about thirty miles. Our first day's march lay through patches of forest, clearings, and Malay villages, and was pleasant enough. At night we slept at the house of a Malay chief, who lent us a verandah, and gave us a fowl and some eggs. The next day the country got wilder and more hilly. We passed through extensive forests, along paths often up to our knees in mud, and were much annoyed by the leeches for which this district is famous. These little creatures infest the leaves and herbage by the side of the paths, and when a passenger comes along they stretch themselves out at full length, and if they touch any part of his dress or body, quit their leaf and adhere to it. They then creep on to his feet, legs, or other part of his body and suck their fill, the first puncture being rarely felt during the excitement of walking. On bathing in the evening we generally found half a dozen or a dozen on each of us, most frequently on our legs, but sometimes on our bodies, and I had one who sucked his fill from the side of my neck, but who luckily missed the jugular vein. There are many species of these forest leeches. All are small, but some are beautifully marked with stripes of bright yellow. They probably attach themselves to deer or other animals which frequent the forest paths, and have thus acquired the singular habit of stretching themselves out at the sound of a footstep or of rustling foliage. Early in the afternoon we reached the foot of the mountain, and encamped by the side of a fine stream, whose rocky banks were overgrown with ferns. Our oldest Malay had been accustomed to shoot birds in this neighbourhood for the Malacca dealers, and had been to the top of the mountain, and while we amused ourselves shooting and insect hunting, he went with two others to clear the path for our ascent the next day. Early next morning we started after breakfast, carrying blankets and provisions, as we intended to sleep upon the mountain. After passing a little tangled jungle and swampy thickets through which our men had cleared a path, we emerged into a fine lofty forest pretty clear of undergrowth, and in which we could walk freely. We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles, having a deep ravine on our left. We then had a level plateau or shoulder to cross, after which the ascent was steeper and the forest denser until we came out upon the "Padang-batu," or stone field, a place of which we had heard much, but could never get anyone to describe intelligibly. We found it to be a steep slope of even rock, extending along the mountain side farther than we could see. Parts of it were quite bare, but where it was cracked and fissured there grew a most luxuriant vegetation, among which the pitcher plants were the most remarkable. These wonderful plants never seem to succeed well in our hot-houses, and are there seen to little advantage. Here they grew up into half climbing shrubs, their curious pitchers of various sizes and forms hanging abundantly from their leaves, and continually exciting our admiration by their size and beauty. A few coniferae of the genus Dacrydium here first appeared, and in the thickets just above the rocky surface we walked through groves of those splendid ferns Dipteris Horsfieldii and Matonia pectinata, which bear large spreading palmate fronds on slender stems six or eight feet high. The Matonia is the tallest and most elegant, and is known only from this mountain, and neither of them is yet introduced into our hot-houses. It was very striking to come out from the dark, cool, and shady forest in which we had been ascending since we started, on to this hot, open rocky slope where we seemed to have entered at one step from a lowland to an alpine vegetation. The height, as measured by a sympiesometer, was about 2,800 feet. We had been told we should find water at Padang-batu as we were exceedingly thirsty; but we looked about for it in vain. At last we turned to the pitcher-plants, but the water contained in the pitchers (about half a pint in each) was full of insects, and otherwise uninviting. On tasting it, however, we found it very palatable though rather warm, and we all quenched our thirst from these natural jugs. Farther on we came to forest again, but of a more dwarf and stunted character than below; and alternately passing along ridges and descending into valleys, we reached a peak separated from the true summit of the mountain by a considerable chasm. Here our porters gave in, and declared they could carry their loads no further; and certainly the ascent to the highest peak was very precipitous. But on the spot where we were there was no water, whereas it was well known that there was a spring close to the summit, so we determined to go on without them, and carry with us only what was absolutely necessary. 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. The night was calm and very mild, and having made a bed of twigs and branches over which we laid our blankets, we passed a very comfortable night. Our porters had followed us after a rest, bringing only their rice to cook, and luckily we did not require the baggage they left behind them. In the morning I caught a few butterflies and beetles, and my friend got a few land-shells; and we then descended, bringing with us some specimens of the ferns and pitcher-plants of Padang-batu. The place where we had first encamped at the foot of the mountain being very gloomy, we chose another in a kind of swamp near a stream overgrown with Zingiberaceous plants, in which a clearing was easily made. Here our men built two little huts without sides that would just shelter us from the rain; we lived in them for a week, shooting and insect-hunting, and roaming about the forests at the foot of the mountain. This was the country of the great Argus pheasant, and we continually heard its cry. On asking the old Malay to try and shoot one for me, he told me that although he had been for twenty years shooting birds in these forests he had never yet shot one, and had never even seen one except after it had been caught. The bird is so exceedingly shy and wary, and runs along the ground in the densest parts of the forest so quickly, that it is impossible to get near it; and its sober colours and rich eye-like spots, which are so ornamental when seen in a museum, must harmonize well with the dead leaves among which it dwells, and render it very inconspicuous. All the specimens sold in Malacca are caught in snares, and my informant, though he had shot none, had snared plenty. The tiger and rhinoceros are still found here, and a few years ago elephants abounded, but they have lately all disappeared. We found some heaps of dung, which seemed to be that of elephants, and some tracks of the rhinoceros, but saw none of the animals. However, we kept a fire up all night in case any of these creatures should visit us, and two of our men declared that they did one day see a rhinoceros. When our rice was finished, and our boxes full of specimens, we returned to Ayer-Panas, and a few days afterwards went on to Malacca, and thence to Singapore. Mount Ophir has quite a reputation for fever, and all our friends were astonished at our recklessness in staying so long at its foot; but none of us suffered in the least, and I shall ever look back with pleasure to my trip as being my first introduction to mountain scenery in the Eastern tropics. The meagreness and brevity of the sketch I have here given of my visit to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula is due to my having trusted chiefly to some private letters and a notebook, which were lost; and to a paper on Malacca and Mount Ophir which was sent to the Royal Geographical Society, but which was neither read nor printed owing to press of matter at the end of a session, and the MSS. of which cannot now be found. I the less regret this, however, as so many works have been written on these parts; and I always intended to pass lightly over my travels in the western and better known portions of the Archipelago, in order to devote more space to the remoter districts, about which hardly anything has been written in the English language. CHAPTER IV. BORNEO--THE ORANGUTAN. I ARRIVED at Sarawak on November 1st, 1854, and left it on January 25th, 1856. In the interval I resided at many different localities, and saw a good deal of the Dyak tribes as well as of the Bornean Malays. I was hospitably entertained by Sir James Brooke, and lived in his house whenever I was at the town of Sarawak in the intervals of my journeys. But so many books have been written about this part of Borneo since I was there, that I shall avoid going into details of what I saw and heard and thought of Sarawak and its ruler, confining myself chiefly to my experiences as a naturalist in search of shells, insects, birds and the Orangutan, and to an account of a journey through a part of the interior seldom visited by Europeans. The first four months of my visit were spent in various parts of the Sarawak River, from Santubong at its mouth up to the picturesque limestone mountains and Chinese gold-fields of Bow and Bede. This part of the country has been so frequently described that I shall pass it over, especially as, owing to its being the height of the wet season, my collections were comparatively poor and insignificant. In March 1865 I determined to go to the coalworks which were being opened near the Simunjon River, a small branch of the Sadong, a river east of Sarawak and between it and the Batang-Lupar. The Simunjon enters the Sadong River about twenty miles up. It is very narrow and very winding, and much overshadowed by the lofty forest, which sometimes almost meets over it. The whole country between it and the sea is a perfectly level forest-covered swamp, out of which rise a few isolated hills, at the foot of one of which the works are situated. From the landing-place to the hill a Dyak road had been formed, which consisted solely of tree-trunks laid end to end. Along these the barefooted natives walk and carry heavy burdens with the greatest ease, but to a booted European it is very slippery work, and when one's attention is constantly attracted by the various objects of interest around, a few tumbles into the bog are almost inevitable. During my first walk along this road I saw few insects or birds, but noticed some very handsome orchids in flower, of the genus Coelogyne, a group which I afterwards found to be very abundant, and characteristic of the district. On the slope of the hill near its foot a patch of forest had been cleared away, and several rude houses erected, in which were residing Mr. Coulson the engineer, and a number of Chinese workmen. I was at first kindly accommodated in Mr. Coulson's house, but finding the spot very suitable for me and offering great facilities for collecting, I had a small house of two rooms and a verandah built for myself. Here I remained nearly nine months, and made an immense collection of insects, to which class of animals I devoted my chief attention, owing to the circumstances being especially favourable. In the tropics a large proportion of the insects of all orders, and especially of the large and favourite group of beetles, are more or less dependent on vegetation, and particularly on timber, bark, and leaves in various stages of decay. In the untouched virgin forest, the insects which frequent such situations are scattered over an immense extent of country, at spots where trees have fallen through decay and old age, or have succumbed to the fury of the tempest; and twenty square miles of country may not contain so many fallen and decayed trees as are to be found in any small clearing. The quantity and the variety of beetles and of many other insects that can be collected at a given time in any tropical locality, will depend, first upon the immediate vicinity of a great extent of virgin forest, and secondly upon the quantity of trees that for some months past have been, and which are still being cut down, and left to dry and decay upon the ground. Now, during my whole twelve years' collecting in the western and eastern tropics, I never enjoyed such advantages in this respect as at the Simunjon coalworks. For several months from twenty to fifty Chinamen and Dyaks were employed almost exclusively in clearing a large space in the forest, and in making a wide opening for a railroad to the Sadong River, two miles distant. Besides this, sawpits were established at various points in the jungle, and large trees were felled to be cut up into beams and planks. For hundreds of miles in every direction a magnificent forest extended over plain and mountain, rock and morass, and I arrived at the spot just as the rains began to diminish and the daily sunshine to increase; a time which I have always found the most favourable season for collecting. The number of openings, sunny places, and pathways were also an attraction to wasps and butterflies; and by paying a cent each for all insects that were brought me, I obtained from the Dyaks and the Chinamen many fine locusts and Phasmidae, as well as numbers of handsome beetles. When I arrived at the mines, on the 14th of March, I had collected in the four preceding months, 320 different kinds of beetles. In less than a fortnight I had doubled this number, an average of about 24 new species every day. On one day I collected 76 different kinds, of which 34 were new to me. By the end of April I had more than a thousand species, and they then went on increasing at a slower rate, so that I obtained altogether in Borneo about two thousand distinct kinds, of which all but about a hundred were collected at this place, and on scarcely more than a square mile of ground. The most numerous and most interesting groups of beetles were the Longicorns and Rhynchophora, both pre-eminently wood-feeders. The former, characterised by their graceful forms and long antenna, were especially numerous, amounting to nearly three hundred species, nine-tenths of which were entirely new, and many of them remarkable for their large size, strange forms, and beautiful colouring. The latter correspond to our weevils and allied groups, and in the tropics are exceedingly numerous and varied, often swarming upon dead timber, so that I sometimes obtained fifty or sixty different kinds in a day. My Bornean collections of this group exceeded five hundred species. My collection of butterflies was not large; but I obtained some rare and very handsome insects, the most remarkable being the Ornithoptera Brookeana, one of the most elegant species known. This beautiful creature has very long and pointed wings, almost resembling a sphinx moth in shape. It is deep velvety black, with a curved band of spots of a brilliant metallic-green colour extending across the wings from tip to tip, each spot being shaped exactly like a small triangular feather, and having very much the effect of a row of the wing coverts of the Mexican trogon, laid upon black velvet. The only other marks are a broad neck-collar of vivid crimson, and a few delicate white touches on the outer margins of the hind wings. This species, which was then quite new and which I named after Sir James Brooke, was very rare. It was seen occasionally flying swiftly in the clearings, and now and then settling for an instant at puddles and muddy places, so that I only succeeded in capturing two or three specimens. In some other parts of the country I was assured it was abundant, and a good many specimens have been sent to England; but as yet all have been males, and we are quite unable to conjecture what the female may be like, owing to the extreme isolation of the species, and its want of close affinity to any other known insect. One of the most curious and interesting reptiles which I met with in Borneo was a large tree-frog, which was brought me by one of the Chinese workmen. He assured me that he had seen it come down in a slanting direction from a high tree, as if it flew. On examining it, I found the toes very long and fully webbed to their very extremity, so that when expanded they offered a surface much larger than the body. The forelegs were also bordered by a membrane, and the body was capable of considerable inflation. The back and limbs were of a very deep shining green colour, the undersurface and the inner toes yellow, while the webs were black, rayed with yellow. The body was about four inches long, while the webs of each hind foot, when fully expanded, covered a surface of four square inches, and the webs of all the feet together about twelve square inches. As the extremities of the toes have dilated discs for adhesion, showing the creature to be a true tree frog, it is difficult to imagine that this immense membrane of the toes can be for the purpose of swimming only, and the account of the Chinaman, that it flew down from the tree, becomes more credible. This is, I believe, the first instance known of a "flying frog," and it is very interesting to Darwinians as showing that the variability of the toes which have been already modified for purposes of swimming and adhesive climbing, have been taken advantage of to enable an allied species to pass through the air like the flying lizard. It would appear to be a new species of the genus Rhacophorus, which consists of several frogs of a much smaller size than this, and having the webs of the toes less developed. During my stay in Borneo I had no hunter to shoot for me regularly, and, being myself fully occupied with insects, I did not succeed in obtaining a very good collection of the birds or Mammalia, many of which, however, are well known, being identical with species found in Malacca. Among the Mammalia were five squirrels,and two tigercats--the Gymnurus Rafflesii, which looks like a cross between a pig and a polecat, and the Cynogale Bennetti--a rare, otter-like animal, with very broad muzzle clothed with long bristles. One of my chief objects in coming to stay at Simunjon was to see the Orangutan (or great man-like ape of Borneo) in his native haunts, to study his habits, and obtain good specimens of the different varieties and species of both sexes, and of the adult and young animals. In all these objects I succeeded beyond my expectations, and will now give some account of my experience in hunting the Orangutan, or "Mias," as it is called by the natives; and as this name is short, and easily pronounced, I shall generally use it in preference to Simia satyrus, or Orangutan. Just a week after my arrival at the mines, I first saw a Mias. I was out collecting insects, not more than a quarter of a mile from the house, when I heard a rustling in a tree near, and, looking up, saw a large red-haired animal moving slowly along, hanging from the branches by its arms. It passed on from tree to tree until it was lost in the jungle, which was so swampy that I could not follow it. This mode of progression was, however, very unusual, and is more characteristic of the Hylobates than of the Orang. I suppose there was some individual peculiarity in this animal, or the nature of the trees just in this place rendered it the most easy mode of progression. About a fortnight afterwards I heard that one was feeding in a tree in the swamp just below the house, and, taking my gun, was fortunate enough to find it in the same place. As soon as I approached, it tried to conceal itself among the foliage; but, I got a shot at it, and the second barrel caused it to fall down almost dead, the two balls having entered the body. This was a male, about half-grown, being scarcely three feet high. On April 26th, I was out shooting with two Dyaks, when we found another about the same size. It fell at the first shot, but did not seem much hurt, and immediately climbed up the nearest tree, when I fired, and it again fell, with a broken arm and a wound in the body. The two Dyaks now ran up to it, and each seized hold of a hand, telling me to cut a pole, and they would secure it. But although one arm was broken and it was only a half-grown animal, it was too strong for these young savages, drawing them up towards its mouth notwithstanding all their efforts, so that they were again obliged to leave go, or they would have been seriously bitten. It now began climbing up the tree again; and, to avoid trouble, I shot it through the heart. On May 2nd, I again found one on a very high tree, when I had only a small 80-bore gun with me. However, I fired at it, and on seeing me it began howling in a strange voice like a cough, and seemed in a great rage, breaking off branches with its hands and throwing them down, and then soon made off over the tree-tops. I did not care to follow it, as it was swampy, and in parts dangerous, and I might easily have lost myself in the eagerness of pursuit. On the 12th of May I found another, which behaved in a very similar manner, howling and hooting with rage, and throwing down branches. I shot at it five times, and it remained dead on the top of the tree, supported in a fork in such a manner that it would evidently not fall. I therefore returned home, and luckily found some Dyaks, who came back with me, and climbed up the tree for the animal. This was the first full-grown specimen I had obtained; but it was a female, and not nearly so large or remarkable as the full-grown males. It was, however, 3 ft. 6 in. high, and its arms stretched out to a width of 6 ft. 6 in. I preserved the skin of this specimen in a cask of arrack, and prepared a perfect skeleton, which was afterwards purchased for the Derby Museum. Only four days afterwards some Dyaks saw another Mias near the same place, and came to tell me. We found it to be a rather large one, very high up on a tall tree. At the second shot it fell rolling over, but almost immediately got up again and began to climb. At a third shot it fell dead. This was also a full-grown female, and while preparing to carry it home, we found a young one face downwards in the bog. This little creature was only about a foot long, and had evidently been hanging to its mother when she first fell. Luckily it did not appear to have been wounded, and after we had cleaned the mud out of its mouth it began to cry out, and seemed quite strong and active. While carrying it home it got its hands in my beard, and grasped so tightly that I had great difficulty in getting free, for the fingers are habitually bent inwards at the last joint so as to form complete hooks. At this time it had not a single tooth, but a few days afterwards it cut its two lower front teeth. Unfortunately, I had no milk to give it, as neither Malays, Chinese nor Dyaks ever use the article, and I in vain inquired for any female animal that could suckle my little infant. I was therefore obliged to give it rice-water from a bottle with a quill in the cork, which after a few trials it learned to suck very well. This was very meagre diet, and the little creature did not thrive well on it, although I added sugar and cocoa-nut milk occasionally, to make it more nourishing. When I put my finger in its mouth it sucked with great vigour, drawing in its cheeks with all its might in the vain effort to extract some milk, and only after persevering a long time would it give up in disgust, and set up a scream very like that of a baby in similar circumstances. When handled or nursed, it was very quiet and contented, but when laid down by itself would invariably cry; and for the first few nights was very restless and noisy. I fitted up a little box for a cradle, with a soft mat for it to lie upon, which was changed and washed every day; and I soon found it necessary to wash the little Mias as well. After I had done so a few times, it came to like the operation, and as soon as it was dirty would begin crying and not leave off until I took it out and carried it to the spout, when it immediately became quiet, although it would wince a little at the first rush of the cold water and make ridiculously wry faces while the stream was running over its head. It enjoyed the wiping and rubbing dry amazingly, and when I brushed its hair seemed to be perfectly happy, lying quite still with its arms and legs stretched out while I thoroughly brushed the long hair of its back and arms. For the first few days it clung desperately with all four hands to whatever it could lay hold of, and I had to be careful to keep my beard out of its way, as its fingers clutched hold of hair more tenaciously than anything else, and it was impossible to free myself without assistance. When restless, it would struggle about with its hands up in the air trying to find something to take hold of, and, when it had got a bit of stick or rag in two or three of its hands, seemed quite happy. For want of something else, it would often seize its own feet, and after a time it would constantly cross its arms and grasp with each hand the long hair that grew just below the opposite shoulder. The great tenacity of its grasp soon diminished, and I was obliged to invent some means to give it exercise and strengthen its limbs. For this purpose I made a short ladder of three or four rounds, on which I put it to hang for a quarter of an hour at a time. At first it seemed much pleased, but it could not get all four hands in a comfortable position, and, after changing about several times, would leave hold of one hand after the other, and drop onto the floor. Sometimes when hanging only by two hands, it would loose one, and cross it to the opposite shoulder, grasping its own hair; and, as this seemed much more agreeable than the stick, it would then loose the other and tumble down, when it would cross both and lie on its back quite contentedly, never seeming to be hurt by its numerous tumbles. Finding it so fond of hair, I endeavoured to make an artificial mother, by wrapping up a piece of buffalo-skin into a bundle, and suspending it about a foot from the floor. At first this seemed to suit it admirably, as it could sprawl its legs about and always find some hair, which it grasped with the greatest tenacity. I was now in hopes that I had made the little orphan quite happy; and so it seemed for some time, until it began to remember its lost parent, and try to suck. It would pull itself up close to the skin, and try about everywhere for a likely place; but, as it only succeeded in getting mouthfuls of hair and wool, it would be greatly disgusted, and scream violently, and, after two or three attempts, let go altogether. One day it got some wool into its throat, and I thought it would have choked, but after much gasping it recovered, and I was obliged to take the imitation mother to pieces again, and give up this last attempt to exercise the little creature. After the first week I found I could feed it better with a spoon, and give it a little more varied and more solid food. Well-soaked biscuit mixed with a little egg and sugar, and sometimes sweet potatoes, were readily eaten; and it was a never-failing amusement to observe the curious changes of countenance by which it would express its approval or dislike of what was given to it. The poor little thing would lick its lips, draw in its cheeks, and turn up its eyes with an expression of the most supreme satisfaction when it had a mouthful particularly to its taste. On the other hand, when its food was not sufficiently sweet or palatable, it would turn the mouthful about with its tongue for a moment as if trying to extract what flavour there was, and then push it all out between its lips. If the same food was continued, it would set up a scream and kick about violently, exactly like a baby in a passion. After I had had the little Mias about three weeks, I fortunately obtained a young hare-lip monkey (Macacus cynomolgus), which, though small, was very active, and could feed itself. I placed it in the same box with the Mias, and they immediately became excellent friends, neither exhibiting the least fear of the other. The little monkey would sit upon the other's stomach, or even on its face, without the least regard to its feelings. While I was feeding the Mias, the monkey would sit by, picking up all that was spilt, and occasionally putting out its hands to intercept the spoon; and as soon as I had finished would pick off what was left sticking to the Mias' lips, and then pull open its mouth and see if any still remained inside; afterwards lying down on the poor creature's stomach as on a comfortable cushion. The little helpless Mias would submit to all these insults with the most exemplary patience, only too glad to have something warm near it, which it could clasp affectionately in its arms. It sometimes, however, had its revenge; for when the monkey wanted to go away, the Mias would hold on as long as it could by the loose skin of its back or head, or by its tail, and it was only after many vigorous jumps that the monkey could make his escape. It was curious to observe the different actions of these two animals, which could not have differed much in age. The Mias, like a very young baby, lying on its back quite helpless, rolling lazily from side to side, stretching out all four hands into the air, wishing to grasp something, but hardly able to guide its fingers to any definite object; and when dissatisfied, opening wide its almost toothless mouth, and expressing its wants by a most infantine scream. The little monkey, on the other hand, in constant motion, running and jumping about wherever it pleased, examining everything around it, seizing hold of the smallest object with the greatest precision, balancing itself on the edge of the box or running up a post, and helping itself to anything eatable that came in its way. There could hardly be a greater contrast, and the baby Mias looked more baby-like by the comparison. When I had had it about a month, it began to exhibit some signs of learning to run alone. When laid upon the floor it would push itself along by its legs, or roll itself over, and thus make an unwieldy progression. When lying in the box it would lift itself up to the edge into almost an erect position, and once or twice succeeded in tumbling out. When left dirty, or hungry, or otherwise neglected, it would scream violently until attended to, varied by a kind of coughing or pumping noise very similar to that which is made by the adult animal. If no one was in the house, or its cries were not attended to, it would be quiet after a little while, but the moment it heard a footstep would begin again harder than ever. After five weeks it cut its two upper front teeth, but in all this time it had not grown the least bit, remaining both in size and weight the same as when I first procured it. This was no doubt owing to the want of milk or other equally nourishing food. Rice-water, rice, and biscuits were but a poor substitute, and the expressed milk of the cocoa-nut which I sometimes gave it did not quite agree with its stomach. To this I imputed an attack of diarrhoea from which the poor little creature suffered greatly, but a small dose of castor-oil operated well, and cured it. A week or two afterwards it was again taken ill, and this time more seriously. The symptoms were exactly those of intermittent fever, accompanied by watery swellings on the feet and head. It lost all appetite for its food, and, after lingering for a week a most pitiable object, died, after being in my possession nearly three months. I much regretted the loss of my little pet, which I had at one time looked forward to bringing up to years of maturity, and taking home to England. For several months it had afforded me daily amusement by its curious ways and the inimitably ludicrous expression of its little countenance. Its weight was three pounds nine ounces, its height fourteen inches, and the spread of its arms twenty-three inches. I preserved its skin and skeleton, and in doing so found that when it fell from the tree it must have broken an arm and a leg, which had, however, united so rapidly that I had only noticed the hard swellings on the limbs where the irregular junction of the bones had taken place. Exactly a week after I had caught this interesting little animal, I succeeded in shooting a full-grown male Orangutan. I had just come home from an entomologising excursion when Charles [Charles Allen, an English lad of sixteen, accompanied me as an assistant] rushed in out of breath with running and excitement, and exclaimed, interrupted by gasps, "Get the gun, sir,--be quick,--such a large Mias!" "Where is it?" I asked, taking hold of my gun as I spoke, which happened luckily to have one barrel loaded with ball. "Close by, sir--on the path to the mines--he can't get away." Two Dyaks chanced to be in the house at the time, so I called them to accompany me, and started off, telling Charley to bring all the ammunition after me as soon as possible. The path from our clearing to the mines led along the side of the hill a little way up its slope, and parallel with it at the foot a wide opening had been made for a road, in which several Chinamen were working, so that the animal could not escape into the swampy forest below without descending to cross the road or ascending to get round the clearings. We walked cautiously along, not making the least noise, and listening attentively for any sound which might betray the presence of the Mias, stopping at intervals to gaze upwards. Charley soon joined us at the place where he had seen the creature, and having taken the ammunition and put a bullet in the other barrel, we dispersed a little, feeling sure that it must be somewhere near, as it had probably descended the hill, and would not be likely to return again. After a short time I heard a very slight rustling sound overhead, but on gazing up could see nothing. I moved about in every direction to get a full view into every part of the tree under which I had been standing, when I again heard the same noise but louder, and saw the leaves shaking as if caused by the motion of some heavy animal which moved off to an adjoining tree. I immediately shouted for all of them to come up and try and get a view, so as to allow me to have a shot. This was not an easy matter, as the Mias had a knack of selecting places with dense foliage beneath. Very soon, however, one of the Dyaks called me and pointed upwards, and on looking I saw a great red hairy body and a huge black face gazing down from a great height, as if wanting to know what was making such a disturbance below. I instantly fired, and he made off at once, so that I could not then tell whether I had hit him. He now moved very rapidly and very noiselessly for so large an animal, so I told the Dyaks to follow and keep him in sight while I loaded. The jungle was here full of large angular fragments of rock from the mountain above, and thick with hanging and twisted creepers. Running, climbing, and creeping among these, we came up with the creature on the top of a high tree near the road, where the Chinamen had discovered him, and were shouting their astonishment with open mouths: "Ya Ya, Tuan; Orangutan, Tuan." Seeing that he could not pass here without descending, he turned up again towards the hill, and I got two shots, and following quickly, had two more by the time he had again reached the path, but he was always more or less concealed by foliage, and protected by the large branch on which he was walking. Once while loading I had a splendid view of him, moving along a large limb of a tree in a semi-erect posture, and showing it to be an animal of the largest size. At the path he got on to one of the loftiest trees in the forest, and we could see one leg hanging down useless, having been broken by a ball. He now fixed himself in a fork, where he was hidden by thick foliage, and seemed disinclined to move. I was afraid he would remain and die in this position, and as it was nearly evening. I could not have got the tree cut down that day. I therefore fired again, and he then moved off, and going up the hill was obliged to get on to some lower trees, on the branches of one of which he fixed himself in such a position that he could not fall, and lay all in a heap as if dead, or dying. I now wanted the Dyaks to go up and cut off the branch he was resting on, but they were afraid, saying he was not dead, and would come and attack them. We then shook the adjoining tree, pulled the hanging creepers, and did all we could to disturb him, but without effect, so I thought it best to send for two Chinamen with axes to cut down the tree. While the messenger was gone, however, one of the Dyaks took courage and climbed towards him, but the Mias did not wait for him to get near, moving off to another tree, where he got on to a dense mass of branches and creepers which almost completely hid him from our view. The tree was luckily a small one, so when the axes came we soon had it cut through; but it was so held up by jungle ropes and climbers to adjoining trees that it only fell into a sloping position. The Mias did not move, and I began to fear that after all we should not get him, as it was near evening, and half a dozen more trees would have to be cut down before the one he was on would fall. As a last resource we all began pulling at the creepers, which shook the tree very much, and, after a few minutes, when we had almost given up all hope, down he came with a crash and a thud like the fall of a giant. And he was a giant, his head and body being fully as large as a man's. He was of the kind called by the Dyaks "Mias Chappan," or "Mias Pappan," which has the skin of the face broadened out to a ridge or fold at each side. His outstretched arms measured seven feet three inches across, and his height, measuring fairly from the top of the head to the heel was four feet two inches. The body just below the arms was three feet two inches round, and was quite as long as a man's, the legs being exceedingly short in proportion. On examination we found he had been dreadfully wounded. Both legs were broken, one hip-joint and the root of the spine completely shattered, and two bullets were found flattened in his neck and jaws. Yet he was still alive when he fell. The two Chinamen carried him home tied to a pole, and I was occupied with Charley the whole of the next day preparing the skin and boiling the bones to make a perfect skeleton, which are now preserved in the Museum at Derby. About ten days after this, on June 4th, some Dyaks came to tell us that the day before a Mias had nearly killed one of their companions. A few miles down the river there is a Dyak house, and the inhabitants saw a large Orang feeding on the young shoots of a palm by the riverside. On being alarmed he retreated towards the jungle which was close by, and a number of the men, armed with spears and choppers, ran out to intercept him. The man who was in front tried to run his spear through the animal's body, but the Mias seized it in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man's arm, which he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the flesh above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man would have been more seriously injured, if not killed, as he was quite powerless; but they soon destroyed the creature with their spears and choppers. The man remained ill for a long time, and never fully recovered the use of his arm. They told me the dead Mias was still lying where it had been killed, so I offered them a reward to bring it up to our landing-place immediately, which they promised to do. They did not come, however, until the next day, and then decomposition had commenced, and great patches of the hair came off, so that it was useless to skin it. This I regretted much, as it was a very fine full-grown male. I cut off the head and took it home to clean, while I got my men to make a closed fence about five feet high around the rest of the body, which would soon be devoured by maggots, small lizards, and ants, leaving me the skeleton. There was a great gash in his face, which had cut deep into the bone, but the skull was a very fine one, and the teeth were remarkably large and perfect. On June 18th I had another great success, and obtained a fine adult male. A Chinaman told me he had seen him feeding by the side of the path to the river, and I found him at the same place as the first individual I had shot. He was feeding on an oval green fruit having a fine red arillus, like the mace which surrounds the nutmeg, and which alone he seemed to eat, biting off the thick outer rind and dropping it in a continual shower. I had found the same fruit in the stomach of some others which I had killed. Two shots caused this animal to loose his hold, but he hung for a considerable time by one hand, and then fell flat on his face and was half buried in the swamp. For several minutes he lay groaning and panting, while we stood close around, expecting every breath to be his last. Suddenly, however, by a violent effort he raised himself up, causing us all to step back a yard or two, when, standing nearly erect, he caught hold of a small tree, and began to ascend it. Another shot through the back caused him to fall down dead. A flattened bullet was found in his tongue, having entered the lower part of the abdomen and completely traversed the body, fracturing the first cervical vertebra. Yet it was after this fearful wound that he had risen, and begun climbing with considerable facility. This also was a full-grown male of almost exactly the same dimensions as the other two I had measured. On June 21st I shot another adult female, which was eating fruit in a low tree, and was the only one which I ever killed by a single ball. On June 24th I was called by a Chinaman to shoot a Mias, which, he said, was on a tree close by his house, at the coal-mines. Arriving at the place, we had some difficulty in finding the animal, as he had gone off into the jungle, which was very rocky and difficult to traverse. At last we found him up a very high tree, and could see that he was a male of the largest size. As soon as I had fired, he moved higher up the tree, and while he was doing so I fired again; and we then saw that one arm was broken. He had now reached the very highest part of an immense tree, and immediately began breaking off boughs all around, and laying them across and across to make a nest. It was very interesting to see how well he had chosen his place, and how rapidly he stretched out his unwounded arm in every direction, breaking off good-sized boughs with the greatest ease, and laying them back across each other, so that in a few minutes he had formed a compact mass of foliage, which entirely concealed him from our sight. He was evidently going to pass the night here, and would probably get away early the next morning, if not wounded too severely. I therefore fired again several times, in hopes of making him leave his nest; but, though I felt sure I had hit him, as at each shot he moved a little, he would not go away. At length he raised himself up, so that half his body was visible, and then gradually sank down, his head alone remaining on the edge of the nest. I now felt sure he was dead, and tried to persuade the Chinaman and his companion to cut down the tree; but it was a very large one, and they had been at work all day, and nothing would induce them to attempt it. The next morning, at daybreak, I came to the place, and found that the Mias was evidently dead, as his head was visible in exactly the same position as before. I now offered four Chinamen a day's wages each to cut the tree down at once, as a few hours of sunshine would cause decomposition on the surface of the skin; but, after looking at it and trying it, they determined that it was very big and very hard, and would not attempt it. Had I doubled my offer, they would probably have accepted it, as it would not have been more than two or three hours' work; and had I been on a short visit only, I would have done so; but as I was a resident, and intended remaining several months longer, it would not have answered to begin paying too exorbitantly, or I should have got nothing done in the future at a lower rate. For some weeks after, a cloud of flies could be seen all day, hovering over the body of the dead Mias; but in about a month all was quiet, and the body was evidently drying up under the influence of a vertical sun alternating with tropical rains. Two or three months later two Malays, on the offer of a dollar, climbed the tree and let down the dried remains. The skin was almost entirely enclosing the skeleton, and inside were millions of the pupa-cases of flies and other insects, with thousands of two or three species of small necrophagous beetles. The skull had been much shattered by balls, but the skeleton was perfect, except one small wristbone, which had probably dropped out and been carried away by a lizard. Three days after I had shot this one and lost it, Charles found three small Orangs feeding together. We had a long chase after them, and had a good opportunity of seeing how they make their way from tree to tree by always choosing those limbs whose branches are intermingled with those of some other tree, and then grasping several of the small twigs together before they venture to swing themselves across. Yet they do this so quickly and certainly, that they make way among the trees at the rate of full five or six miles an hour, as we had continually to run to keep up with them. One of these we shot and killed, but it remained high up in the fork of a tree; and, as young animals are of comparatively little interest, I did not have the tree cut down to get it. At this time I had the misfortune to slip among some fallen trees, and hurt my ankle; and, not being careful enough at first, it became a severe inflamed ulcer, which would not heal, and kept me a prisoner in the house the whole of July and part of August. When I could get out again, I determined to take a trip up a branch of the Simunjon River to Semabang, where there was said to be a large Dyak house, a mountain with abundance of fruit, and plenty of Orangs and fine birds. As the river was very narrow, and I was obliged to go in a very small boat with little luggage, I only took with me a Chinese boy as a servant. I carried a cask of medicated arrack to put Mias skins in, and stores and ammunition for a fortnight. After a few miles, the stream became very narrow and winding, and the whole country on each side was flooded. On the banks were an abundance of monkeys--the common Macacus cynomolgus, a black Semnopithecus, and the extraordinary long-nosed monkey (Nasalis larvatus), which is as large as a three-year old child, has a very long tail, and a fleshy nose longer than that of the biggest-nosed man. The further we went on the narrower and more winding the stream became; fallen trees sometimes blocked up our passage, and sometimes tangled branches and creepers met completely across it, and had to be cut away before we could get on. It took us two days to reach Semabang, and we hardly saw a bit of dry land all the way. In the latter part of the journey I could touch the bushes on each side for miles; and we were often delayed by the screw-pines (Pandanus), which grow abundantly in the water, falling across the stream. In other places dense rafts of floating grass completely filled up the channel, making our journey a constant succession of difficulties. Near the landing-place we found a fine house, 250 feet long, raised high above the ground on posts, with a wide verandah and still wider platform of bamboo in front of it. Almost all the people, however, were away on some excursion after edible birds'-nests or bees'-wax, and there only remained in the house two or three old men and women with a lot of children. The mountain or hill was close by, covered with a complete forest of fruit-trees, among which the Durian and Mangosteen were very abundant; but the fruit was not yet quite ripe, except a little here and there. I spent a week at this place, going out everyday in various directions about the mountain, accompanied by a Malay, who had stayed with me while the other boatmen returned. For three days we found no Orangs, but shot a deer and several monkeys. On the fourth day, however, we found a Mias feeding on a very lofty Durian tree, and succeeded in killing it, after eight shots. Unfortunately it remained in the tree, hanging by its hands, and we were obliged to leave it and return home, as it was several miles off. As I felt pretty sure it would fall during the night, I returned to the place early the next morning, and found it on the ground beneath the tree. To my astonishment and pleasure, it appeared to be a different kind from any I had yet seen; for although a full-grown male, by its fully developed teeth and very large canines, it had no sign of the lateral protuberance on the face, and was about one-tenth smaller in all its dimensions than the other adult males. The upper incisors, however, appeared to be broader than in the larger species, a character distinguishing the Simia morio of Professor Owen, which he had described from the cranium of a female specimen. As it was too far to carry the animal home, I set to work and skinned the body on the spot, leaving the head, hands, and feet attached, to be finished at home. This specimen is now in the British Museum. At the end of a week, finding no more Orangs, I returned home; and, taking in a few fresh stores, and this time accompanied by Charles, went up another branch of the river, very similar in character, to a place called Menyille, where there were several small Dyak houses and one large one. Here the landing place was a bridge of rickety poles, over a considerable distance of water; and I thought it safer to leave my cask of arrack securely placed in the fork of a tree. To prevent the natives from drinking it, I let several of them see me put in a number of snakes and lizards; but I rather think this did not prevent them from tasting it. We were accommodated here in the verandah of the large house, in which were several great baskets of dried human heads, the trophies of past generations of head-hunters. Here also there was a little mountain covered with fruit-trees, and there were some magnificent Durian trees close by the house, the fruit of which was ripe; and as the Dyaks looked upon me as a benefactor in killing the Mias, which destroys a great deal of their fruit, they let us eat as much as we liked; we revelled in this emperor of fruits in its greatest perfection. The very day after my arrival in this place, I was so fortunate as to shoot another adult male of the small Orang, the Mias-kassir of the Dyaks. It fell when dead, but caught in a fork of the tree and remained fixed. As I was very anxious to get it, I tried to persuade two young Dyaks who were with me to cut down the tree, which was tall, perfectly straight and smooth-barked, and without a branch for fifty or sixty feet. To my surprise, they said they would prefer climbing up it, but it would be a good deal of trouble, and, after a little talking together, they said they would try. They first went to a clump of bamboo that stood near, and cut down one of the largest stems. From this they chopped off a short piece, and splitting it, made a couple of stout pegs, about a foot long and sharp at one end. Then cutting a thick piece of wood for a mallet, they drove one of the pegs into the tree and hung their weight upon it. It held, and this seemed to satisfy them, for they immediately began making a quantity of pegs of the same kind, while I looked on with great interest, wondering how they could possibly ascend such a lofty tree by merely driving pegs in it, the failure of any one of which at a good height would certainly cause their death. When about two dozen pegs were made, one of them began cutting some very long and slender bamboo from another clump, and also prepared some cord from the bark of a small tree. They now drove in a peg very firmly at about three feet from the ground, and bringing one of the long bamboos, stood it upright close to the tree, and bound it firmly to the two first pegs, by means of the bark cord and small notches near the head of each peg. One of the Dyaks now stood on the first peg and drove in a third, about level with his face, to which he tied the bamboo in the same way, and then mounted another step, standing on one foot, and holding by the bamboo at the peg immediately above him, while he drove in the next one. In this manner he ascended about twenty feet; when the upright bamboo was becoming thin, another was handed up by his companion, and this was joined by tying both bamboos to three or four of the pegs. When this was also nearly ended, a third was added, and shortly after, the lowest branches of the tree were reached, along which the young Dyak scrambled, and soon sent the Mias tumbling down headlong. I was exceedingly struck by the ingenuity of this mode of climbing, and the admirable manner in which the peculiar properties of the bamboo were made available. The ladder itself was perfectly safe, since if any one peg were loose or faulty, and gave way, the strain would be thrown on several others above and below it. I now understood the use of the line of bamboo pegs sticking in trees, which I had often seen, and wondered for what purpose they could have been put there. This animal was almost identical in size and appearance with the one I had obtained at Semabang, and was the only other male specimen of the Simia morio which I obtained. It is now in the Derby Museum. I afterwards shot two adult females and two young ones of different ages, all of which I preserved. One of the females, with several young ones, was feeding on a Durian tree with unripe fruit; and as soon as she saw us she began breaking off branches and the great spiny fruits with every appearance of rage, causing such a shower of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching too near the tree. This habit of throwing down branches when irritated has been doubted, but I have, as here narrated, observed it myself on at least three separate occasions. It was however always the female Mias who behaved in this way, and it may be that the male, trusting more to his great strength and his powerful canine teeth, is not afraid of any other animal, and does not want to drive them away, while the parental instinct of the female leads her to adopt this mode of defending herself and her young ones. In preparing the skins and skeletons of these animals, I was much troubled by the Dyak dogs, which, being always kept in a state of semi-starvation, are ravenous for animal food. I had a great iron pan, in which I boiled the bones to make skeletons, and at night I covered this over with boards, and put heavy stones upon it; but the dogs managed to remove these and carried away the greater part of one of my specimens. On another occasion they gnawed away a good deal of the upper leather of my strong boots, and even ate a piece of my mosquito-curtain, where some lamp-oil had been spilt over it some weeks before. On our return down the stream, we had the fortune to fall in with a very old male Mias, feeding on some low trees growing in the water. The country was flooded for a long distance, but so full of trees and stumps that the laden boat could not be got in among them, and if it could have been we should only have frightened the Mias away. I therefore got into the water, which was nearly up to my waist, and waded on until I was near enough for a shot. The difficulty then was to load my gun again, for I was so deep in the water that I could not hold the gun sloping enough to pour the powder in. I therefore had to search for a shallow place, and after several shots under these trying circumstances, I was delighted to see the monstrous animal roll over into the water. I now towed him after me to the stream, but the Malays objected to having the animal put into the boat, and he was so heavy that I could not do it without their help. I looked about for a place to skin him, but not a bit of dry ground was to be seen, until at last I found a clump of two or three old trees and stumps, between which a few feet of soil had collected just above the water, which was just large enough for us to drag the animal upon it. I first measured him, and found him to be by far the largest I had yet seen, for, though the standing height was the same as the others (4 feet 2 inches), the outstretched arms were 7 feet 9 inches, which was six inches more than the previous one, and the immense broad face was 13 1/2 inches wide, whereas the widest I had hitherto seen was only 11 1/2 inches. The girth of the body was 3 feet 7 1/2 inches. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that the length and strength of the arms, and the width of the face continues increasing to a very great age, while the standing height, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, rarely if ever exceeds 4 feet 2 inches. As this was the last Mias I shot, and the last time I saw an adult living animal, I will give a sketch of its general habits, and any other facts connected with it. The Orangutan is known to inhabit Sumatra and Borneo, and there is every reason to believe that it is confined to these two great islands, in the former of which, however, it seems to be much more rare. In Borneo it has a wide range, inhabiting many districts on the southwest, southeast, northeast, and northwest coasts, but appears to be chiefly confined to the low and swampy forests. It seems, at first sight, very inexplicable that the Mias should be quite unknown in the Sarawak valley, while it is abundant in Sambas, on the west, and Sadong, on the east. But when we know the habits and mode of life of the animal, we see a sufficient reason for this apparent anomaly in the physical features of the Sarawak district. In the Sadong, where I observed it, the Mias is only found when the country is low level and swampy, and at the same time covered with a lofty virgin forest. From these swamps rise many isolated mountains, on some of which the Dyaks have settled and covered with plantations of fruit trees. These are a great attraction to the Mias, which comes to feed on the unripe fruits, but always retires to the swamp at night. Where the country becomes slightly elevated, and the soil dry, the Mias is no longer to be found. For example, in all the lower part of the Sadong valley it abounds, but as soon as we ascend above the limits of the tides, where the country, though still flat, is high enough to be dry, it disappears. Now the Sarawak valley has this peculiarity--the lower portion though swampy, is not covered with a continuous lofty forest, but is principally occupied by the Nipa palm; and near the town of Sarawak where the country becomes dry, it is greatly undulated in many parts, and covered with small patches of virgin forest, and much second-growth jungle on the ground, which has once been cultivated by the Malays or Dyaks. Now it seems probable to me that a wide extent of unbroken and equally lofty virgin forest is necessary to the comfortable existence of these animals. Such forests form their open country, where they can roam in every direction with as much facility as the Indian on the prairie, or the Arab on the desert, passing from tree-top to tree-top without ever being obliged to descend upon the earth. The elevated and the drier districts are more frequented by man, more cut up by clearings and low second-growth jungle--not adapted to its peculiar mode of progression, and where it would therefore be more exposed to danger, and more frequently obliged to descend upon the earth. There is probably also a greater variety of fruit in the Mias district, the small mountains which rise like islands out of it serving as gardens or plantations of a sort, where the trees of the uplands are to be found in the very midst of the swampy plains. It is a singular and very interesting sight to watch a Mias making his way leisurely through the forest. He walks deliberately along some of the larger branches in the semi-erect attitude which the great length of his arms and the shortness of his legs cause him naturally to assume; and the disproportion between these limbs is increased by his walking on his knuckles, not on the palm of the hand, as we should do. He seems always to choose those branches which intermingle with an adjoining tree, on approaching which he stretches out his long arms, and seizing the opposing boughs, grasps them together with both hands, seems to try their strength, and then deliberately swings himself across to the next branch, on which he walks along as before. He never jumps or springs, or even appears to hurry himself, and yet manages to get along almost as quickly as a person can run through the forest beneath. The long and powerful arms are of the greatest use to the animal, enabling it to climb easily up the loftiest trees, to seize fruits and young leaves from slender boughs which will not bear its weight, and to gather leaves and branches with which to form its nest. I have already described how it forms a nest when wounded, but it uses a similar one to sleep on almost every night. This is placed low down, however, on a small tree not more than from twenty to fifty feet from the ground, probably because it is warmer and less exposed to wind than higher up. Each Mias is said to make a fresh one for himself every night; but I should think that is hardly probable, or their remains would be much more abundant; for though I saw several about the coal-mines, there must have been many Orangs about every day, and in a year their deserted nests would become very numerous. The Dyaks say that, when it is very wet, the Mias covers himself over with leaves of pandanus, or large ferns, which has perhaps led to the story of his making a hut in the trees. The Orang does not leave his bed until the sun has well risen and has dried up the dew upon the leaves. He feeds all through the middle of the day, but seldom returns to the same tree two days running. They do not seem much alarmed at man, as they often stared down upon me for several minutes, and then only moved away slowly to an adjacent tree. After seeing one, I have often had to go half a mile or more to fetch my gun, and in nearly every case have found it on the same tree, or within a hundred yards, when I returned. I never saw two full-grown animals together, but both males and females are sometimes accompanied by half-grown young ones, while, at other times, three or four young ones were seen in company. Their food consists almost exclusively of fruit, with occasionally leaves, buds, and young shoots. They seem to prefer unripe fruits, some of which were very sour, others intensely bitter, particularly the large red, fleshy arillus of one which seemed an especial favourite. In other cases they eat only the small seed of a large fruit, and they almost always waste and destroy more than they eat, so that there is a continual rain of rejected portions below the tree they are feeding on. The Durian is an especial favourite, and quantities of this delicious fruit are destroyed wherever it grows surrounded by forest, but they will not cross clearings to get at them. It seems wonderful how the animal can tear open this fruit, the outer covering of which is so thick and tough, and closely covered with strong conical spines. It probably bites off a few of these first, and then, making a small hole, tears open the fruit with its powerful fingers. The Mias rarely descends to the ground, except when pressed by hunger, it seeks succulent shoots by the riverside; or, in very dry weather, has to search after water, of which it generally finds sufficient in the hollows of leaves. Only once I saw two half-grown Orangs on the ground in a dry hollow at the foot of the Simunjon hill. They were playing together, standing erect, and grasping each other by the arms. It may be safely stated, however, that the Orang never walks erect, unless when using its hands to support itself by branches overhead or when attacked. Representations of its walking with a stick are entirely imaginary. The Dyaks all declare that the Mias is never attacked by any animal in the forest, with two rare exceptions; and the accounts I received of these are so curious that I give them nearly in the words of my informants, old Dyak chiefs, who had lived all their lives in the places where the animal is most abundant. The first of whom I inquired said: "No animal is strong enough to hurt the Mias, and the only creature he ever fights with is the crocodile. When there is no fruit in the jungle, he goes to seek food on the banks of the river where there are plenty of young shoots that he likes, and fruits that grow close to the water. Then the crocodile sometimes tries to seize him, but the Mias gets upon him, and beats him with his hands and feet, and tears him and kills him." He added that he had once seen such a fight, and that he believes that the Mias is always the victor. My next informant was the Orang Kaya, or chief of the Balow Dyaks, on the Simunjon River. He said: "The Mias has no enemies; no animals dare attack it but the crocodile and the python. He always kills the crocodile by main strength, standing upon it, pulling open its jaws, and ripping up its throat. If a python attacks a Mias, he seizes it with his hands, and then bites it, and soon kills it. The Mias is very strong; there is no animal in the jungle so strong as he." It is very remarkable that an animal so large, so peculiar, and of such a high type of form as the Orangutan, should be confined to so limited a district--to two islands, and those almost the last inhabited by the higher Mammalia; for, east of Borneo and Java, the Quadrumania, Ruminants, Carnivora, and many other groups of Mammalia diminish rapidly, and soon entirely disappear. When we consider, further, that almost all other animals have in earlier ages been represented by allied yet distinct forms--that, in the latter part of the tertiary period, Europe was inhabited by bears, deer, wolves, and cats; Australia by kangaroos and other marsupials; South America by gigantic sloths and ant-eaters; all different from any now existing, though intimately allied to them--we have every reason to believe that the Orangutan, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla have also had their forerunners. With what interest must every naturalist look forward to the time when the caves and tertiary deposits of the tropics may be thoroughly examined, and the past history and earliest appearance of the great man-like apes be made known at length. I will now say a few words as to the supposed existence of a Bornean Orang as large as the Gorilla. I have myself examined the bodies of seventeen freshly-killed Orangs, all of which were carefully measured; and of seven of them, I preserved the skeleton. I also obtained two skeletons killed by other persons. Of this extensive series, sixteen were fully adult, nine being males, and seven females. The adult males of the large Orangs only varied from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2 inches in height, measured fairly to the heel, so as to give the height of the animal if it stood perfectly erect; the extent of the outstretched arms, from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 8 inches; and the width of the face, from 10 inches to 13 1/2 inches. The dimensions given by other naturalists closely agree with mine. The largest Orang measured by Temminck was 4 feet high. Of twenty-five specimens collected by Schlegel and Muller, the largest old male was 4 feet 1 inch; and the largest skeleton in the Calcutta Museum was, according to Mr. Blyth, 4 feet 1 1/2 inch. My specimens were all from the northwest coast of Borneo; those of the Dutch from the west and south coasts; and no specimen has yet reached Europe exceeding these dimensions, although the total number of skins and skeletons must amount to over a hundred. Strange to say, however, several persons declare that they have measured Orangs of a much larger size. Temminck, in his Monograph of the Orang, says that he has just received news of the capture of a specimen 5 feet 3 inches high. Unfortunately, it never seems to have a reached Holland, for nothing has since been heard of any such animal. Mr. St. John, in his "Life in the Forests of the Far East," vol. ii. p. 237, tells us of an Orang shot by a friend of his, which was 5 feet 2 inches from the heel to the top of the head, the arm 17 inches in girth, and the wrist 12 inches! The head alone was brought to Sarawak, and Mr. St. John tells us that he assisted to measure this, and that it was 15 inches broad by 14 long. Unfortunately, even this skull appears not to have been preserved, for no specimen corresponding to these dimensions has yet reached England. In a letter from Sir James Brooke, dated October 1857 in which he acknowledges the receipt of my Papers on the Orang, published in the "Annals and Magazine of Natural History," he sends me the measurements of a specimen killed by his nephew, which I will give exactly as I received it: "September 3rd, 1867, killed female Orangutan. Height, from head to heel, 4 feet 6 inches. Stretch from fingers to fingers across body, 6 feet 1 inch. Breadth of face, including callosities, 11 inches." Now, in these dimensions, there is palpably one error; for in every Orang yet measured by any naturalist, an expanse of arms of 6 feet 1 inch corresponds to a height of about 3 feet 6 inches, while the largest specimens of 4 feet to 4 feet 2 inches high, always have the extended arms as much as 7 feet 3 inches to 7 feet 8 inches. It is, in fact, one of the characters of the genus to have the arms so long that an animal standing nearly erect can rest its fingers on the ground. A height of 4 feet 6 inches would therefore require a stretch of arms of at least 8 feet! If it were only 6 feet to that height, as given in the dimensions quoted, the animal would not be an Orang at all, but a new genus of apes, differing materially in habits and mode of progression. But Mr. Johnson, who shot this animal, and who knows Orangs well, evidently considered it to be one; and we have therefore to judge whether it is more probable that he made a mistake of two feet in the stretch of the arms, or of one foot in the height. The latter error is certainly the easiest to make, and it will bring his animal into agreement, as to proportions and size, with all those which exist in Europe. How easy it is to be deceived as to the height of these animals is well shown in the case of the Sumatran Orang, the skin of which was described by Dr. Clarke Abel. The captain and crew who killed this animal declared that when alive he exceeded the tallest man, and looked so gigantic that they thought he was 7 feet high; but that, when he was killed and lay upon the ground, they found he was only about 6 feet. Now it will hardly be credited that the skin of this identical animal exists in the Calcutta Museum, and Mr. Blyth, the late curator, states "that it is by no means one of the largest size"; which means that it is about 4 feet high! Having these undoubted examples of error in the dimensions of Orangs, it is not too much to conclude that Mr. St. John's friend made a similar error of measurement, or rather, perhaps, of memory; for we are not told that the dimensions were noted down at the time they were made. The only figures given by Mr. St. John on his own authority are that "the head was 15 inches broad by 14 inches long." As my largest male was 13 1/2 broad across the face, measured as soon as the animal was killed, I can quite understand that when the head arrived at Sarawak from the Batang-Lupar, after two or three days' voyage, it was so swollen by decomposition as to measure an inch more than when it was fresh. On the whole, therefore, I think it will be allowed, that up to this time we have not the least reliable evidence of the existence of Orangs in Borneo more than 4 feet 2 inches high. CHAPTER V. BORNEO--JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR. (NOVEMBER 1855 TO JANUARY 1856.) As the wet season was approaching, I determined to return to Sarawak, sending all my collections with Charles Allen around by sea, while I myself proposed to go up to the sources of the Sadong River and descend by the Sarawak valley. As the route was somewhat difficult, I took the smallest quantity of baggage, and only one servant, a Malay lad named Bujon, who knew the language of the Sadong Dyaks, with whom he had traded. We left the mines on the 27th of November, and the next day reached the Malay village of Gúdong, where I stayed a short time to buy fruit and eggs, and called upon the Datu Bandar, or Malay governor of the place. He lived in a large, and well-built house, very dirty outside and in, and was very inquisitive about my business, and particularly about the coal-mines. These puzzle the natives exceedingly, as they cannot understand the extensive and costly preparations for working coal, and cannot believe it is to be used only as fuel when wood is so abundant and so easily obtained. It was evident that Europeans seldom came here, for numbers of women skeltered away as I walked through the village and one girl about ten or twelve years old, who had just brought a bamboo full of water from the river, threw it down with a cry of horror and alarm the moment she caught sight of me, turned around and jumped into the stream. She swam beautifully, and kept looking back as if expecting I would follow her, screaming violently all the time; while a number of men and boys were laughing at her ignorant terror. At Jahi, the next village, the stream became so swift in consequence of a flood, that my heavy boat could make no way, and I was obliged to send it back and go on in a very small open one. So far the river had been very monotonous, the banks being cultivated as rice-fields, and little thatched huts alone breaking the unpicturesque line of muddy bank crowned with tall grasses, and backed by the top of the forest behind the cultivated ground. A few hours beyond Jahi we passed the limits of cultivation, and had the beautiful virgin forest coming down to the water's edge, with its palms and creepers, its noble trees, its ferns, and epiphytes. The banks of the river were, however, still generally flooded, and we had some difficulty in finding a dry spot to sleep on. Early in the morning we reached Empugnan, a small Malay village, situated at the foot of an isolated mountain which had been visible from the mouth of the Simunjon River. Beyond here the tides are not felt, and we now entered upon a district of elevated forest, with a finer vegetation. Large trees stretch out their arms across the stream, and the steep, earthy banks are clothed with ferns and zingiberaceous plants. Early in the afternoon we arrived at Tabókan, the first village of the Hill Dyaks. On an open space near the river, about twenty boys were playing at a game something like what we call "prisoner's base;" their ornaments of beads and brass wire and their gay-coloured kerchiefs and waist-cloths showing to much advantage, and forming a very pleasing sight. On being called by Bujon, they immediately left their game to carry my things up to the "headhouse,"--a circular building attached to most Dyak villages, and serving as a lodging for strangers, the place for trade, the sleeping-room of the unmarried youths, and the general council-chamber. It is elevated on lofty posts, has a large fireplace in the middle and windows in the roof all round, and forms a very pleasant and comfortable abode. In the evening it was crowded with young men and boys, who came to look at me. They were mostly fine young fellows, and I could not help admiring the simplicity and elegance of their costume. Their only dress is the long "chawat," or waist-cloth, which hangs down before and behind. It is generally of blue cotton, ending in three broad bands of red, blue, and white. Those who can afford it wear a handkerchief on the head, which is either red, with a narrow border of gold lace, or of three colours, like the "chawat." The large flat moon-shaped brass earrings, the heavy necklace of white or black beads, rows of brass rings on the arms and legs, and armlets of white shell, all serve to relieve and set off the pure reddish brown skin and jet-black hair. Add to this the little pouch containing materials for betel-chewing, and a long slender knife, both invariably worn at the side, and you have the everyday dress of the young Dyak gentleman. The "Orang Kaya," or rich man, as the chief of the tribe is called, now came in with several of the older men; and the "bitchara" or talk commenced, about getting a boat and men to take me on the next morning. As I could not understand a word of their language, which is very different from Malay, I took no part in the proceedings, but was represented by my boy Bujon, who translated to me most of what was said. A Chinese trader was in the house, and he, too, wanted men the next day; but on his hinting this to the Orang Kaya, he was sternly told that a white man's business was now being discussed, and he must wait another day before his could be thought about. After the "bitchara" was over and the old chiefs gone, I asked the young men to play or dance, or amuse themselves in their accustomed way; and after some little hesitation they agreed to do so. They first had a trial of strength, two boys sitting opposite each other, foot being placed against foot, and a stout stick grasped by both their hands. Each then tried to throw himself back, so as to raise his adversary up from the ground, either by main strength or by a sudden effort. Then one of the men would try his strength against two or three of the boys; and afterwards they each grasped their own ankle with a hand, and while one stood as firm as he could, the other swung himself around on one leg, so as to strike the other's free leg, and try to overthrow him. When these games had been played all around with varying success, we had a novel kind of concert. Some placed a leg across the knee, and struck the fingers sharply on the ankle, others beat their arms against their sides like a cock when he is going to crow, this making a great variety of clapping sounds, while another with his hand under his armpit produced a deep trumpet note; and, as they all kept time very well, the effect was by no means unpleasing. This seemed quite a favourite amusement with them, and they kept it up with much spirit. The next morning we started in a boat about thirty feet long, and only twenty-eight inches wide. The stream here suddenly changes its character. Hitherto, though swift, it had been deep and smooth, and confined by steep banks. Now it rushed and rippled over a pebbly, sandy, or rocky bed, occasionally forming miniature cascades and rapids, and throwing up on one side or the other broad banks of finely coloured pebbles. No paddling could make way here, but the Dyaks with bamboo poles propelled us along with great dexterity and swiftness, never losing their balance in such a narrow and unsteady vessel, though standing up and exerting all their force. It was a brilliant day, and the cheerful exertions of the men, the rushing of the sparkling waters, with the bright and varied foliage, which from either bank stretched over our heads, produced an exhilarating sensation which recalled my canoe voyages on the grander waters of South America. Early in the afternoon we reached the village of Borotói, and, though it would have been easy to reach the next one before night, I was obliged to stay, as my men wanted to return and others could not possibly go on with me without the preliminary talking. Besides, a white man was too great a rarity to be allowed to escape them, and their wives would never have forgiven them if, when they returned from the fields, they found that such a curiosity had not been kept for them to see. On entering the house to which I was invited, a crowd of sixty or seventy men, women, and children gathered around me, and I sat for half an hour like some strange animal submitted for the first time to the gaze of an inquiring public. Brass rings were here in the greatest profusion, many of the women having their arms completely covered with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee. Round the waist they wear a dozen or more coils of fine rattan stained red, to which the petticoat is attached. Below this are generally a number of coils of brass wire, a girdle of small silver coins, and sometimes a broad belt of brass ring armour. On their heads they wear a conical hat without a crown, formed of variously coloured beads, kept in shape by rings of rattan, and forming a fantastic but not unpicturesque headdress. Walking out to a small hill near the village, cultivated as a rice-field, I had a fine view of the country, which was becoming quite hilly, and towards the south, mountainous. I took bearings and sketches of all that was visible, an operation which caused much astonishment to the Dyaks who accompanied me, and produced a request to exhibit the compass when I returned. I was then surrounded by a larger crowd than before, and when I took my evening meal in the midst of a circle of about a hundred spectators anxiously observing every movement and criticising every mouthful, my thoughts involuntarily recurred to the lion at feeding time. Like those noble animals, I too was used to it, and it did not affect my appetite. The children here were more shy than at Tabókan, and I could not persuade them to play. I therefore turned showman myself, and exhibited the shadow of a dog's head eating, which pleased them so much that all the village in succession came out to see it. The "rabbit on the wall" does not do in Borneo, as there is no animal it resembles. The boys had tops shaped something like whipping-tops, but spun with a string. The next morning we proceeded as before, but the river had become so rapid and shallow and the boats were all so small, that though I had nothing with me but a change of clothes, a gun, and a few cooking utensils, two were required to take me on. The rock which appeared here and there on the riverbank was an indurated clay-slate, sometimes crystalline, and thrown up almost vertically. Right and left of us rose isolated limestone mountains, their white precipices glistening in the sun and contrasting beautifully with the luxuriant vegetation that elsewhere clothed them. The river bed was a mass of pebbles, mostly pure white quartz, but with abundance of jasper and agate, presenting a beautifully variegated appearance. It was only ten in the morning when we arrived at Budw, and, though there were plenty of people about, I could not induce them to allow me to go on to the next village. The Orang Kaya said that if I insisted on having men, of course he would get them, but when I took him at his word and said I must have them, there came a fresh remonstrance; and the idea of my going on that day seemed so painful that I was obliged to submit. I therefore walked out over the rice-fields, which are here very extensive, covering a number of the little hills and valleys into which the whole country seems broken up, and obtained a fine view of hills and mountains in every direction. In the evening the Orang Kaya came in full dress (a spangled velvet jacket, but no trousers), and invited me over to his house, where he gave me a seat of honour under a canopy of white calico and coloured handkerchiefs. The great verandah was crowded with people, and large plates of rice with cooked and fresh eggs were placed on the ground as presents for me. A very old man then dressed himself in bright-coloured cloths and many ornaments, and sitting at the door, murmured a long prayer or invocation, sprinkling rice from a basin he held in his hand, while several large gongs were loudly beaten and a salute of muskets fired off. A large jar of rice wine, very sour but with an agreeable flavour, was then handed around, and I asked to see some of their dances. These were, like most savage performances, very dull and ungraceful affairs; the men dressing themselves absurdly like women, and the girls making themselves as stiff and ridiculous as possible. All the time six or eight large Chinese gongs were being beaten by the vigorous arms of as many young men, producing such a deafening discord that I was glad to escape to the round house, where I slept very comfortably with half a dozen smoke-dried human skulls suspended over my head. The river was now so shallow that boats could hardly get along. I therefore preferred walking to the next village, expecting to see something of the country, but was much disappointed, as the path lay almost entirely through dense bamboo thickets. The Dyaks get two crops off the ground in succession; one of rice, and the other of sugar-cane, maize, and vegetables. The ground then lies fallow eight or ten years, and becomes covered with bamboos and shrubs, which often completely arch over the path and shut out everything from the view. Three hours' walking brought us to the village of Senankan, where I was again obliged to remain the whole day, which I agreed to do on the promise of the Orang Kaya that his men should next day take me through two other villages across to Senna, at the head of the Sarawak River. I amused myself as I best could till evening, by walking about the high ground near, to get views of the country and bearings of the chief mountains. There was then another public audience, with gifts of rice and eggs, and drinking of rice wine. These Dyaks cultivate a great extent of ground, and supply a good deal of rice to Sarawak. They are rich in gongs, brass trays, wire, silver coins, and other articles in which a Dyak's wealth consists; and their women and children are all highly ornamented with bead necklaces, shells, and brass wire. In the morning I waited some time, but the men that were to accompany me did not make their appearance. On sending to the Orang Kaya I found that both he and another head-man had gone out for the day, and on inquiring the reason was told that they could not persuade any of their men to go with me because the journey was a long and fatiguing one. As I was determined to get on, I told the few men that remained that the chiefs had behaved very badly, and that I should acquaint the Rajah with their conduct, and I wanted to start immediately. Every man present made some excuse, but others were sent for, and by dint of threats and promises, and the exertion of all Bujon's eloquence, we succeeded in getting off after two hours' delay. For the first few miles our path lay over a country cleared for rice-fields, consisting entirely of small but deep and sharply-cut ridges and valleys without a yard of level ground. After crossing the Kayan river, a main branch of the Sadong, we got on to the lower slopes of the Seboran Mountain, and the path lay along a sharp and moderately steep ridge, affording an excellent view of the country. Its features were exactly those of the Himalayas in miniature, as they are described by Dr. Hooker and other travellers, and looked like a natural model of some parts of those vast mountains on a scale of about a tenth--thousands of feet being here represented by hundreds. I now discovered the source of the beautiful pebbles which had so pleased me in the riverbed. The slatey rocks had ceased, and these mountains seemed to consist of a sandstone conglomerate, which was in some places a mere mass of pebbles cemented together. I might have known that such small streams could not produce such vast quantities of well-rounded pebbles of the very hardest materials. They had evidently been formed in past ages, by the action of some continental stream or seabeach, before the great island of Borneo had risen from the ocean. The existence of such a system of hills and valleys reproducing in miniature all the features of a great mountain region, has an important bearing on the modern theory that the form of the ground is mainly due to atmospheric rather than to subterranean action. When we have a number of branching valleys and ravines running in many different directions within a square mile, it seems hardly possible to impute their formation, or even their origination, to rents and fissures produced by earthquakes. On the other hand, the nature of the rock, so easily decomposed and removed by water, and the known action of the abundant tropical rains, are in this case, at least, quite sufficient causes for the production of such valleys. But the resemblance between their forms and outlines, their mode of divergence, and the slopes and ridges that divide them, and those of the grand mountain scenery of the Himalayas, is so remarkable, that we are forcibly led to the conclusion that the forces at work in the two cases have been the same, differing only in the time they have been in action, and the nature of the material they have had to work upon. About noon we reached the village of Menyerry, beautifully situated on a spur of the mountain about 600 feet above the valley, and affording a delightful view of the mountains of this part of Borneo. I here got a sight of Penrissen Mountain, at the head of the Sarawak River, and one of the highest in the district, rising to about 6,000 feet above the sea. To the south the Rowan, and further off the Untowan Mountains in the Dutch territory appeared equally lofty. Descending from Menyerry we again crossed the Kayan, which bends round the spur, and ascended to the pass which divides the Sadong and Sarawak valleys, and which is about 2,000 feet high. The descent from this point was very fine. A stream, deep in a rocky gorge, rushed on each side of us, to one of which we gradually descended, passing over many lateral gullys and along the faces of some precipices by means of native bamboo bridges. Some of these were several hundred feet long and fifty or sixty high, a single smooth bamboo four inches diameter forming the only pathway, while a slender handrail of the same material was often so shaky that it could only be used as a guide rather than a support. Late in the afternoon we reached Sodos, situated on a spur between two streams, but so surrounded by fruit trees that little could be seen of the country. The house was spacious, clean and comfortable, and the people very obliging. Many of the women and children had never seen a white man before, and were very sceptical as to my being the same colour all over, as my face. They begged me to show them my arms and body, and they were so kind and good-tempered that I felt bound to give them some satisfaction, so I turned up my trousers and let them see the colour of my leg, which they examined with great interest. In the morning early we continued our descent along a fine valley, with mountains rising 2,000 or 3,000 feet in every direction. The little river rapidly increased in size until we reached Senna, when it had become a fine pebbly stream navigable for small canoes. Here again the upheaved slatey rock appeared, with the same dip and direction as in the Sadong River. On inquiring for a boat to take me down the stream, I was told that the Senna Dyaks, although living on the river-banks, never made or used boats. They were mountaineers who had only come down into the valley about twenty years before, and had not yet got into new habits. They are of the same tribe as the people of Menyerry and Sodos. They make good paths and bridges, and cultivate much mountain land, and thus give a more pleasing and civilized aspect to the country than where the people move about only in boats, and confine their cultivation to the banks of the streams. After some trouble I hired a boat from a Malay trader, and found three Dyaks who had been several times with Malays to Sarawak, and thought they could manage it very well. They turned out very awkward, constantly running aground, striking against rocks, and losing their balance so as almost to upset themselves and the boat--offering a striking contrast to the skill of the Sea Dyaks. At length we came to a really dangerous rapid where boats were often swamped, and my men were afraid to pass it. Some Malays with a boatload of rice here overtook us, and after safely passing down kindly sent back one of their men to assist me. As it was, my Dyaks lost their balance in the critical part of the passage, and had they been alone would certainly have upset the boat. The river now became exceedingly picturesque, the ground on each side being partially cleared for ricefields, affording a good view of the country. Numerous little granaries were built high up in trees overhanging the river, and having a bamboo bridge sloping up to them from the bank; and here and there bamboo suspension bridge crossed the stream, where overhanging trees favoured their construction. I slept that night in the village of the Sebungow Dyaks, and the next day reached Sarawak, passing through a most beautiful country where limestone mountains with their fantastic forms and white precipices shot up on every side, draped and festooned with a luxuriant vegetation. The banks of the Sarawak River are everywhere covered with fruit trees, which supply the Dyaks with a great deal of their food. The Mangosteen, Lansat, Rambutan, Jack, Jambou, and Blimbing, are all abundant; but most abundant and most esteemed is the Durian, a fruit about which very little is known in England, but which both by natives and Europeans in the Malay Archipelago is reckoned superior to all others. The old traveller Linschott, writing in 1599, says: "It is of such an excellent taste that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world, according to those who have tasted it." And Doctor Paludanus adds: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions, but immediately when they have tasted it, they prefer it to all other food. The natives give it honourable titles, exalt it, and make verses on it." When brought into a house the smell is often so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case when I first tried it in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian eater. The Durian grows on a large and lofty forest tree, somewhat resembling an elm in its general character, but with a more smooth and scaly bark. The fruit is round or slightly oval, about the size of a large cocoanut, of a green colour, and covered all over with short stout spines the bases of which touch each other, and are consequently somewhat hexagonal, while the points are very strong and sharp. It is so completely armed, that if the stalk is broken off it is a difficult matter to lift one from the ground. The outer rind is so thick and tough, that from whatever height it may fall it is never broken. From the base to the apex five very faint lines may be traced, over which the spines arch a little; these are the sutures of the carpels, and show where the fruit may be divided with a heavy knife and a strong hand. The five cells are satiny white within, and are each filled with an oval mass of cream-coloured pulp, imbedded in which are two or three seeds about the size of chestnuts. This pulp is the eatable part, and its consistency and flavour are indescribable. A rich butter-like custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but intermingled with it come wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, brown sherry, and other incongruities. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid, nor sweet, nor juicy; yet one feels the want of none of these qualities, for it is perfect as it is. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact to eat Durians is a new sensation, worth a voyage to the East to experience. When the fruit is ripe it falls of itself, and the only way to eat Durians in perfection is to get them as they fall; and the smell is then less overpowering. When unripe, it makes a very good vegetable if cooked, and it is also eaten by the Dyaks raw. In a good fruit season large quantities are preserved salted, in jars and bamboos, and kept the year round, when it acquires a most disgusting odour to Europeans, but the Dyaks appreciate it highly as a relish with their rice. There are in the forest two varieties of wild Durians with much smaller fruits, one of them orange-coloured inside; and these are probably the origin of the large and fine Durians, which are never found wild. It would not, perhaps, be correct to say that the Durian is the best of all fruits, because it cannot supply the place of the subacid juicy kinds, such as the orange, grape, mango, and mangosteen, whose refreshing and cooling qualities are so wholesome and grateful; but as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour, it is unsurpassed. If I had to fix on two only, as representing the perfection of the two classes, I should certainly choose the Durian and the Orange as the king and queen of fruits. The Durian is, however, sometimes dangerous. When the fruit begins to ripen it falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not unfrequently happen to persons walking or working under the trees. When a Durian strikes a man in its fall, it produces a dreadful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while the blow itself is very heavy; but from this very circumstance death rarely ensues, the copious effusion of blood preventing the inflammation which might otherwise take place. A Dyak chief informed me that he had been struck down by a Durian falling on his head, which he thought would certainly have caused his death, yet he recovered in a very short time. Poets and moralists, judging from our English trees and fruits, have thought that small fruits always grew on lofty trees, so that their fall should be harmless to man, while the large ones trailed on the ground. Two of the largest and heaviest fruits known, however, the Brazil-nut fruit (Bertholletia) and Durian, grow on lofty forest trees, from which they fall as soon as they are ripe, and often wound or kill the native inhabitants. From this we may learn two things: first, not to draw general conclusions from a very partial view of nature; and secondly, that trees and fruits, no less than the varied productions of the animal kingdom, do not appear to be organized with exclusive reference to the use and convenience of man. During my many journeys in Borneo, and especially during my various residences among the Dyaks, I first came to appreciate the admirable qualities of the Bamboo. In those parts of South America which I had previously visited, these gigantic grasses were comparatively scarce; and where found but little used, their place being taken as to one class of uses by the great variety of Palms, and as to another by calabashes and gourds. Almost all tropical countries produce Bamboos, and wherever they are found in abundance the natives apply them to a variety of uses. Their strength, lightness, smoothness, straightness, roundness and hollowness, the facility and regularity with which they can be split, their many different sizes, the varying length of their joints, the ease with which they can be cut and with which holes can be made through them, their hardness outside, their freedom from any pronounced taste or smell, their great abundance, and the rapidity of their growth and increase, are all qualities which render them useful for a hundred different purposes, to serve which other materials would require much more labour and preparation. The Bamboo is one of the most wonderful and most beautiful productions of the tropics, and one of nature's most valuable gifts to uncivilized man. The Dyak houses are all raised on posts, and are often two or three hundred feet long and forty or fifty wide. The floor is always formed of strips split from large Bamboos, so that each may be nearly flat and about three inches wide, and these are firmly tied down with rattan to the joists beneath. When well made, this is a delightful floor to walk upon barefooted, the rounded surfaces of the bamboo being very smooth and agreeable to the feet, while at the same time affording a firm hold. But, what is more important, they form with a mat over them an excellent bed, the elasticity of the Bamboo and its rounded surface being far superior to a more rigid and a flatter floor. Here we at once find a use for Bamboo which cannot be supplied so well by another material without a vast amount of labour--palms and other substitutes requiring much cutting and smoothing, and not being equally good when finished. When, however, a flat, close floor is required, excellent boards are made by splitting open large Bamboos on one side only, and flattening them out so as to form slabs eighteen inches wide and six feet long, with which some Dyaks floor their houses. These with constant rubbing of the feet and the smoke of years become dark and polished, like walnut or old oak, so that their real material can hardly be recognised. What labour is here saved to a savage whose only tools are an axe and a knife, and who, if he wants boards, must hew them out of the solid trunk of a tree, and must give days and weeks of labour to obtain a surface as smooth and beautiful as the Bamboo thus treated affords him. Again, if a temporary house is wanted, either by the native in his plantation or by the traveller in the forest, nothing is so convenient as the Bamboo, with which a house can be constructed with a quarter of the labour and time than if other materials are used. As I have already mentioned, the Hill Dyaks in the interior of Sarawak make paths for long distances from village to village and to their cultivated grounds, in the course of which they have to cross many gullies and ravines, and even rivers; or sometimes, to avoid a long circuit, to carry the path along the face of a precipice. In all these cases the bridges they construct are of Bamboo, and so admirably adapted is the material for this purpose, that it seems doubtful whether they ever would have attempted such works if they had not possessed it. The Dyak bridge is simple but well designed. It consists merely of stout Bamboos crossing each other at the road-way like the letter X, and rising a few feet above it. At the crossing they are firmly bound together, and to a large Bamboo which lays upon them and forms the only pathway, with a slender and often very shaky one to serve as a handrail. When a river is to be crossed, an overhanging tree is chosen from which the bridge is partly suspended and partly supported by diagonal struts from the banks, so as to avoid placing posts in the stream itself, which would be liable to be carried away by floods. In carrying a path along the face of a precipice, trees and roots are made use of for suspension; struts arise from suitable notches or crevices in the rocks, and if these are not sufficient, immense Bamboos fifty or sixty feet long are fixed on the banks or on the branch of a tree below. These bridges are traversed daily by men and women carrying heavy loads, so that any insecurity is soon discovered, and, as the materials are close at hand, immediately repaired. When a path goes over very steep ground, and becomes slippery in very wet or very dry weather, the Bamboo is used in another way. Pieces are cut about a yard long, and opposite notches being made at each end, holes are formed through which pegs are driven, and firm and convenient steps are thus formed with the greatest ease and celerity. It is true that much of this will decay in one or two seasons, but it can be so quickly replaced as to make it more economical than using a harder and more durable wood. One of the most striking uses to which Bamboo is applied by the Dyaks, is to assist them in climbing lofty trees by driving in pegs in the way I have already described at page 85. This method is constantly used in order to obtain wax, which is one of the most valuable products of the country. The honey-bee of Borneo very generally hangs its combs under the branches of the Tappan, a tree which towers above all others in the forest, and whose smooth cylindrical trunk often rises a hundred feet without a branch. The Dyaks climb these lofty trees at night, building up their Bamboo ladder as they go, and bringing down gigantic honeycombs. These furnish them with a delicious feast of honey and young bees, besides the wax, which they sell to traders, and with the proceeds buy the much-coveted brass wire, earrings, and bold-edged handkerchiefs with which they love to decorate themselves. In ascending Durian and other fruit trees which branch at from thirty to fifty feet from the ground, I have seen them use the Bamboo pegs only, without the upright Bamboo which renders them so much more secure. The outer rind of the Bamboo, split and shaved thin, is the strongest material for baskets; hen-coops, bird-cages, and conical fish-traps are very quickly made from a single joint, by splitting off the skin in narrow strips left attached to one end, while rings of the same material or of rattan are twisted in at regular distances. Water is brought to the houses by little aqueducts formed of large Bamboos split in half and supported on crossed sticks of various heights so as to give it a regular fall. Thin long-jointed Bamboos form the Dyaks' only water-vessels, and a dozen of them stand in the corner of every house. They are clean, light, and easily carried, and are in many ways superior to earthen vessels for the same purpose. They also make excellent cooking utensils; vegetables and rice can be boiled in them to perfection, and they are often used when travelling. Salted fruit or fish, sugar, vinegar, and honey are preserved in them instead of in jars or bottles. In a small Bamboo case, prettily carved and ornamented, the Dyak carries his sirih and lime for betel chewing, and his little long-bladed knife has a Bamboo sheath. His favourite pipe is a huge hubble-bubble, which he will construct in a few minutes by inserting a small piece of Bamboo for a bowl obliquely into a large cylinder about six inches from the bottom containing water, through which the smoke passes to a long slender Bamboo tube. There are many other small matters for which Bamboo is daily used, but enough has now been mentioned to show its value. In other parts of the Archipelago I have myself seen it applied to many new uses, and it is probable that my limited means of observation did not make me acquainted with one-half the ways in which it is serviceable to the Dyaks of Sarawak. While upon the subject of plants I may here mention a few of the more striking vegetable productions of Borneo. The wonderful Pitcher-plants, forming the genus Nepenthes of botanists, here reach their greatest development. Every mountain-top abounds with them, running along the ground, or climbing over shrubs and stunted trees; their elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these are long and slender, resembling in form the beautiful Philippine lace-sponge (Euplectella), which has now become so common; others are broad and short. Their colours are green, variously tinted and mottled with red or purple. The finest yet known were obtained on the summit of Kini-balou, in North-west Borneo. One of the broad sort, Nepenthes rajah, will hold two quarts of water in its pitcher. Another, Nepenthes Edwardsiania, has a narrow pitcher twenty inches long; while the plant itself grows to a length of twenty feet. Ferns are abundant, but are not so varied as on the volcanic mountains of Java; and Tree-ferns are neither so plentiful nor so large as on that island. They grow, however, quite down to the level of the sea, and are generally slender and graceful plants from eight to fifteen feet high. Without devoting much time to the search I collected fifty species of Ferns in Borneo, and I have no doubt a good botanist would have obtained twice the number. The interesting group of Orchids is very abundant, but, as is generally the case, nine-tenths of the species have small and inconspicuous flowers. Among the exceptions are the fine Coelogynes, whose large clusters of yellow flowers ornament the gloomiest forests, and that most extraordinary plant, Vanda Lowii, which last is particularly abundant near some hot springs at the foot of the Penin-jauh Mountain. It grows on the lower branches of trees, and its strange pendant flower-spires often hang down so as almost to reach the ground. These are generally six or eight feet long, bearing large and handsome flowers three inches across, and varying in colour from orange to red, with deep purple-red spots. I measured one spike, which reached the extraordinary length of nine feet eight inches, and bore thirty-six flowers, spirally arranged upon a slender thread-like stalk. Specimens grown in our English hot-houses have produced flower-spires of equal length, and with a much larger number of blossoms. Flowers were scarce, as is usual in equatorial forests, and it was only at rare intervals that I met with anything striking. A few fine climbers were sometimes seen, especially a handsome crimson and yellow Aeschynanthus, and a fine leguminous plant with clusters of large Cassia-like flowers of a rich purple colour. Once I found a number of small Anonaceous trees of the genus Polyalthea, producing a most striking effect in the gloomy forest shades. They were about thirty feet high, and their slender trunks were covered with large star-like crimson flowers, which clustered over them like garlands, and resembled some artificial decoration more than a natural product. The forests abound with gigantic trees with cylindrical, buttressed, or furrowed stems, while occasionally the traveller comes upon a wonderful fig-tree, whose trunk is itself a forest of stems and aerial roots. Still more rarely are found trees which appear to have begun growing in mid-air, and from the same point send out wide-spreading branches above and a complicated pyramid of roots descending for seventy or eighty feet to the ground below, and so spreading on every side, that one can stand in the very centre with the trunk of the tree immediately overhead. Trees of this character are found all over the Archipelago, and the accompanying illustration (taken from one which I often visited in the Aru Islands) will convey some idea of their general character. I believe that they originate as parasites, from seeds carried by birds and dropped in the fork of some lofty tree. Hence descend aerial roots, clasping and ultimately destroying the supporting tree, which is in time entirely replaced by the humble plant which was at first dependent upon it. Thus we have an actual struggle for life in the vegetable kingdom, not less fatal to the vanquished than the struggles among animals which we can so much more easily observe and understand. The advantage of quicker access to light and warmth and air, which is gained in one way by climbing plants, is here obtained by a forest tree, which has the means of starting in life at an elevation which others can only attain after many years of growth, and then only when the fall of some other tree has made room for then. Thus it is that in the warm and moist and equable climate of the tropics, each available station is seized upon and becomes the means of developing new forms of life especially adapted to occupy it. On reaching Sarawak early in December, I found there would not be an opportunity of returning to Singapore until the latter end of January. I therefore accepted Sir James Brooke's invitation to spend a week with him and Mr. St. John at his cottage on Peninjauh. This is a very steep pyramidal mountain of crystalline basaltic rock, about a thousand feet high, and covered with luxuriant forest. There are three Dyak villages upon it, and on a little platform near the summit is the rude wooden lodge where the English Rajah was accustomed to go for relaxation and cool fresh air. It is only twenty miles up the river, but the road up the mountain is a succession of ladders on the face of precipices, bamboo bridges over gullies and chasms, and slippery paths over rocks and tree-trunks and huge boulders as big as houses. A cool spring under an overhanging rock just below the cottage furnished us with refreshing baths and delicious drinking water, and the Dyaks brought us daily heaped-up baskets of Mangosteens and Lansats, two of the most delicious of the subacid tropical fruits. We returned to Sarawak for Christmas (the second I had spent with Sir James Brooke), when all the Europeans both in the town and from the out-stations enjoyed the hospitality of the Rajah, who possessed in a pre-eminent degree the art of making every one around him comfortable and happy. A few days afterwards I returned to the mountain with Charles and a Malay boy named Ali and stayed there three weeks for the purpose of making a collection of land-shells, butterflies and moths, ferns and orchids. On the hill itself ferns were tolerably plentiful, and I made a collection of about forty species. But what occupied me most was the great abundance of moths which on certain occasions I was able to capture. As during the whole of my eight years' wanderings in the East I never found another spot where these insects were at all plentiful, it will be interesting to state the exact conditions under which I here obtained them. On one side of the cottage there was a verandah, looking down the whole side of the mountain and to its summit on the right, all densely clothed with forest. The boarded sides of the cottage were whitewashed, and the roof of the verandah was low, and also boarded and whitewashed. As soon as it got dark I placed my lamp on a table against the wall, and with pins, insect-forceps, net, and collecting-boxes by my side, sat down with a book. Sometimes during the whole evening only one solitary moth would visit me, while on other nights they would pour in, in a continual stream, keeping me hard at work catching and pinning till past midnight. They came literally by the thousands. These good nights were very few. During the four weeks that I spent altogether on the hill I only had four really good nights, and these were always rainy, and the best of them soaking wet. But wet nights were not always good, for a rainy moonlight night produced next to nothing. All the chief tribes of moths were represented, and the beauty and variety of the species was very great. On good nights I was able to capture from a hundred to two hundred and fifty moths, and these comprised on each occasion from half to two-thirds that number of distinct species. Some of them would settle on the wall, some on the table, while many would fly up to the roof and give me a chase all over the verandah before I could secure them. In order to show the curious connection between the state of weather and the degree in which moths were attracted to light, I add a list of my captures each night of my stay on the hill: Date (1855) No. of Moths Remarks Dec. 13th 1 Fine; starlight. 14th 75 Drizzly and fog. 15th 41 Showery; cloudy. 16th 158 (120 species.) Steady rain. 17th 82 Wet; rather moonlight. 18th 9 Fine; moonlight. 19th 2 Fine; clear moonlight. 31st 200 (130 species.) Dark and windy; heavy rain. Date (1856) Jan. 1st 185 Very wet. 2d 68 Cloudy and showers. 3d 50 Cloudy. 4th 12 Fine. 5th 10 Fine. 6th 8 Very fine. 7th 8 Very fine. 8th 10 Fine. 9th 36 Showery. 10th 30 Showery. 11th 260 Heavy rain all night, and dark. 12th 56 Showery. 13th 44 Showery; some moonlight. 14th 4 Fine; moonlight. 15th 24 Rain; moonlight. 16th 6 Showers; moonlight. 17th 6 Showers; moonlight. 18th 1 Showers; moonlight. Total 1,386 It thus appears that on twenty-six nights I collected 1,386 moths, but that more than 800 of them were collected on four very wet and dark nights. My success here led me to hope that, by similar arrangements, I might on every island be able to obtain an abundance of these insects; but, strange to say, during the six succeeding years, I was never once able to make any collections at all approaching those at Sarawak. The reason for this I can pretty well understand to be owing to the absence of some one or other essential condition that were here all combined. Sometimes the dry season was the hindrance; more frequently residence in a town or village not close to virgin forest, and surrounded by other houses whose lights were a counter-attraction; still more frequently residence in a dark palm-thatched house, with a lofty roof, in whose recesses every moth was lost the instant it entered. This last was the greatest drawback, and the real reason why I never again was able to make a collection of moths; for I never afterwards lived in a solitary jungle-house with a low boarded and whitewashed verandah, so constructed as to prevent insects at once escaping into the upper part of the house, quite out of reach. After my long experience, my numerous failures, and my one success, I feel sure that if any party of naturalists ever make a yacht-voyage to explore the Malayan Archipelago, or any other tropical region, making entomology one of their chief pursuits, it would well repay them to carry a small framed verandah, or a verandah-shaped tent of white canvas, to set up in every favourable situation, as a means of making a collection of nocturnal Lepidoptera, and also of obtaining rare specimens of Coleoptera and other insects. I make the suggestion here, because no one would suspect the enormous difference in results that such an apparatus would produce; and because I consider it one of the curiosities of a collector's experience, to have found out that some such apparatus is required. When I returned to Singapore I took with me the Malay lad named Ali, who subsequently accompanied me all over the Archipelago. Charles Allen preferred staying at the Mission-house, and afterwards obtained employment in Sarawak and in Singapore, until he again joined me four years later at Amboyna in the Moluccas. CHAPTER VI. BORNEO--THE DYAKS. THE manners and customs of the aborigines of Borneo have been described in great detail, and with much fuller information than I possess, in the writings of Sir James Brooke, Messrs. Low, St. John, Johnson Brooke, and many others. I do not propose to go over the ground again, but shall confine myself to a sketch, from personal observation, of the general character of the Dyaks, and of such physical, moral, and social characteristics as have been less frequently noticed. The Dyak is closely allied to the Malay, and more remotely to the Siamese, Chinese, and other Mongol races. All these are characterised by a reddish-brown or yellowish-brown skin of various shades, by jet-black straight hair, by the scanty or deficient beard, by the rather small and broad nose, and high cheekbones; but none of the Malayan races have the oblique eyes which are characteristic of the more typical Mongols. The average stature of the Dyaks is rather more than that of the Malays, while it is considerably under that of most Europeans. Their forms are well proportioned, their feet and hands small, and they rarely or never attain the bulk of body so often seen in Malays and Chinese. I am inclined to rank the Dyaks above the Malays in mental capacity, while in moral character they are undoubtedly superior to them. They are simple and honest, and become the prey of the Malay and Chinese traiders, who cheat and plunder them continually. They are more lively, more talkative, less secretive, and less suspicious than the Malay, and are therefore pleasanter companions. The Malay boys have little inclination for active sports and games, which form quite a feature in the life of the Dyak youths, who, besides outdoor games of skill and strength, possess a variety of indoor amusements. One wet day, in a Dyak house, when a number of boys and young men were about me, I thought to amuse them with something new, and showed them how to make "cat's cradle" with a piece of string. Greatly to my surprise, they knew all about it, and more than I did; for, after Charles and I had gone through all the changes we could make, one of the boys took it off my hand, and made several new figures which quite puzzled me. They then showed me a number of other tricks with pieces of string, which seemed a favourite amusement with them. Even these apparently trifling matters may assist us to form a truer estimate of the Dyaks' character and social condition. We learn thereby, that these people have passed beyond that first stage of savage life in which the struggle for existence absorbs all of the faculties, and in which every thought and idea is connected with war or hunting, or the provision for their immediate necessities. These amusements indicate a capability of civilization, an aptitude to enjoy other than mere sensual pleasures, which might be taken advantage of to elevate their whole intellectual and social life. The moral character of the Dyaks is undoubtedly high--a statement which will seem strange to those who have heard of them only as head-hunters and pirates. The Hill Dyaks of whom I am speaking, however, have never been pirates, since they never go near the sea; and head-hunting is a custom originating in the petty wars of village with village, and tribe with tribe, which no more implies a bad moral character than did the custom of the slave-trade a hundred years ago imply want of general morality in all who participated in it. Against this one stain on their character (which in the case of the Sarawak Dyaks no longer exists) we have to set many good points. They are truthful and honest to a remarkable degree. From this cause it is very often impossible to get from them any definite information, or even an opinion. They say, "If I were to tell you what I don't know, I might tell a lie;" and whenever they voluntarily relate any matter of fact, you may be sure they are speaking the truth. In a Dyak village the fruit trees have each their owner, and it has often happened to me, on asking an inhabitant to gather me some fruit, to be answered, "I can't do that, for the owner of the tree is not here;" never seeming to contemplate the possibility of acting otherwise. Neither will they take the smallest thing belonging to an European. When living at Simunjon, they continually came to my house, and would pick up scraps of torn newspaper or crooked pins that I had thrown away, and ask as a great favour whether they might have them. Crimes of violence (other than head-hunting) are almost unknown; for in twelve years, under Sir James Brooke's rule, there had been only one case of murder in a Dyak tribe, and that one was committed by a stranger who had been adopted into the tribe. In several other matters of morality they rank above most uncivilized, and even above many civilized nations. They are temperate in food and drink, and the gross sensuality of the Chinese and Malays is unknown among them. They have the usual fault of all people in a half-savage state--apathy and dilatoriness, but, however annoying this may be to Europeans who come in contact with them, it cannot be considered a very grave offence, or be held to outweigh their many excellent qualities. During my residence among the Hill Dyaks, I was much struck by the apparent absence of those causes which are generally supposed to check the increase of population, although there were plain indications of stationary or but slowly increasing numbers. The conditions most favourable to a rapid increase of population are: an abundance of food, a healthy climate, and early marriages. Here these conditions all exist. The people produce far more food than they consume, and exchange the surplus for gongs and brass cannon, ancient jars, and gold and silver ornaments, which constitute their wealth. On the whole, they appear very free from disease, marriages take place early (but not too early), and old bachelors and old maids are alike unknown. Why, then, we must inquire, has not a greater population been produced? Why are the Dyak villages so small and so widely scattered, while nine-tenths of the country is still covered with forest? Of all the checks to population among savage nations mentioned by Malthus--starvation, disease, war, infanticide, immorality, and infertility of the women--the last is that which he seems to think least important, and of doubtful efficacy; and yet it is the only one that seems to me capable of accounting for the state of the population among the Sarawak Dyaks. The population of Great Britain increases so as to double itself in about fifty years. To do this it is evident that each married couple must average three children who live to be married at the age of about twenty-five. Add to these those who die in infancy, those who never marry, or those who marry late in life and have no offspring, the number of children born to each marriage must average four or five, and we know that families of seven or eight are very common, and of ten and twelve by no means rare. But from inquiries at almost every Dyak tribe I visited, I ascertained that the women rarely had more than three or four children, and an old chief assured me that he had never known a woman to have more than seven. In a village consisting of a hundred and fifty families, only one consisted of six children living, and only six of five children, the majority of families appearing to be two, three, or four. Comparing this with the known proportions in European countries, it is evident that the number of children to each marriage can hardly average more than three or four; and as even in civilized countries half the population die before the age of twenty-five, we should have only two left to replace their parents; and so long as this state of things continued, the population must remain stationary. Of course this is a mere illustration; but the facts I have stated seem to indicate that something of the kind really takes place; and if so, there is no difficulty in understanding the smallness and almost stationary population of the Dyak tribes. We have next to inquire what is the cause of the small number of births and of living children in a family. Climate and race may have something to do with this, but a more real and efficient cause seems to me to be the hard labour of the women, and the heavy weights they constantly carry. A Dyak woman generally spends the whole day in the field, and carries home every night a heavy load of vegetables and firewood, often for several miles, over rough and hilly paths; and not unfrequently has to climb up a rocky mountain by ladders, and over slippery stepping-stones, to an elevation of a thousand feet. Besides this, she has an hour's work every evening to pound the rice with a heavy wooden stamper, which violently strains every part of the body. She begins this kind of labour when nine or ten years old, and it never ceases but with the extreme decrepitude of age. Surely we need not wonder at the limited number of her progeny, but rather be surprised at the successful efforts of nature to prevent the extermination of the race. One of the surest and most beneficial effects of advancing civilization, will be the amelioration of the condition of these women. The precept and example of higher races will make the Dyak ashamed of his comparatively idle life, while his weaker partner labours like a beast of burthen. As his wants become increased and his tastes refined, the women will have more household duties to attend to, and will then cease to labour in the field--a change which has already to a great extent taken place in the allied Malay, Javanese, and Bugis tribes. Population will then certainly increase more rapidly, improved systems of agriculture and some division of labour will become necessary in order to provide the means of existence, and a more complicated social state will take the place of the simple conditions of society which now occur among them. But, with the sharper struggle for existence that will then arise, will the happiness of the people as a whole be increased or diminished? Will not evil passions be aroused by the spirit of competition, and crimes and vices, now unknown or dormant, be called into active existence? These are problems that time alone can solve; but it is to be hoped that education and a high-class European example may obviate much of the evil that too often arises in analogous cases, and that we may at length be able to point to one instance of an uncivilized people who have not become demoralized, and finally exterminated, by contact with European civilization. A few words in conclusion, about the government of Sarawak. Sir James Brooke found the Dyaks oppressed and ground down by the most cruel tyranny. They were cheated by the Malay traders and robbed by the Malay chiefs. Their wives and children were often captured and sold into slavery, and hostile tribes purchased permission from their cruel rulers to plunder, enslave, and murder them. Anything like justice or redress for these injuries was utterly unattainable. From the time Sir James obtained possession of the country, all this was stopped. Equal justice was awarded to Malay, Chinaman, and Dyak. The remorseless pirates from the rivers farther east were punished, and finally shut up within their own territories, and the Dyak, for the first time, could sleep in peace. His wife and children were now safe from slavery; his house was no longer burned over his head; his crops and his fruits were now his own to sell or consume as he pleased. And the unknown stranger who had done all this for them, and asked for nothing in return, what could he be? How was it possible for them to realize his motives? Was it not natural that they should refuse to believe he was a man? For of pure benevolence combined with great power, they had had no experience among men. They naturally concluded that he was a superior being, come down upon earth to confer blessings on the afflicted. In many villages where he had not been seen, I was asked strange questions about him. Was he not as old as the mountains? Could he not bring the dead to life? And they firmly believe that he can give them good harvests, and make their fruit-trees bear an abundant crop. In forming a proper estimate of Sir James Brooke's government it must ever be remembered that he held Sarawak solely by the goodwill of the native inhabitant. He had to deal with two races, one of whom, the Mahometan Malays, looked upon the other race, the Dyaks, as savages and slaves, only fit to be robbed and plundered. He has effectually protected the Dyaks, and has invariably treated them as, in his sight, equal to the Malays; and yet he has secured the affection and goodwill of both. Notwithstanding the religious prejudice, of Mahometans, he has induced them to modify many of their worst laws and customs, and to assimilate their criminal code to that of the civilized world. That his government still continues, after twenty-seven years--notwithstanding his frequent absences from ill-health, notwithstanding conspiracies of Malay chiefs, and insurrections of Chinese gold-diggers, all of which have been overcome by the support of the native population, and notwithstanding financial, political, and domestic troubles is due, I believe, solely to the many admirable qualities which Sir James Brooke possessed, and especially to his having convinced the native population, by every action of his life, that he ruled them, not for his own advantage, but for their good. Since these lines were written, his noble spirit has passed away. But though, by those who knew him not, he may be sneered at as an enthusiastic adventurer, abused as a hard-hearted despot, the universal testimony of everyone who came in contact with him in his adopted country, whether European, Malay, or Dyak, will be, that Rajah Brooke was a great, a wise, and a good ruler; a true and faithful friend--a man to be admired for his talents, respected for his honesty and courage, and loved for his genuine hospitality, his kindness of disposition, and his tenderness of heart. CHAPTER VII. JAVA. I SPENT three months and a half in Java, from July 18th to October 31st, 1861, and shall briefly describe my own movements, and my observations of the people and the natural history of the country. To all those who wish to understand how the Dutch now govern Java, and how it is that they are enabled to derive a large annual revenue from it, while the population increases, and the inhabitants are contented, I recommend the study of Mr. Money's excellent and interesting work, "How to Manage a Colony." The main facts and conclusions of that work I most heartily concur in, and I believe that the Dutch system is the very best that can be adopted, when a European nation conquers or otherwise acquires possession of a country inhabited by an industrious but semi-barbarous people. In my account of Northern Celebes, I shall show how successfully the same system has been applied to a people in a very different state of civilization from the Javanese; and in the meanwhile will state in the fewest words possible what that system is. The mode of government now adopted in Java is to retain the whole series of native rulers, from the village chief up to princes, who, under the name of Regents, are the heads of districts about the size of a small English county. With each Regent is placed a Dutch Resident, or Assistant Resident, who is considered to be his "elder brother," and whose "orders" take the form of "recommendations," which are, however, implicitly obeyed. Along with each Assistant Resident is a Controller, a kind of inspector of all the lower native rulers, who periodically visits every village in the district, examines the proceedings of the native courts, hears complaints against the head-men or other native chiefs, and superintends the Government plantations. This brings us to the "culture system," which is the source of all the wealth the Dutch derive from Java, and is the subject of much abuse in this country because it is the reverse of "free trade." To understand its uses and beneficial effects, it is necessary first to sketch the common results of free European trade with uncivilized peoples. Natives of tropical climates have few wants, and, when these are supplied, are disinclined to work for superfluities without some strong incitement. With such a people the introduction of any new or systematic cultivation is almost impossible, except by the despotic orders of chiefs whom they have been accustomed to obey, as children obey their parents. The free competition of European traders, however introduces two powerful inducements to exertion. Spirits or opium is a temptation too strong for most savages to resist, and to obtain these he will sell whatever he has, and will work to get more. Another temptation he cannot resist, is goods on credit. The trader offers him gay cloths, knives, gongs, guns, and gunpowder, to be paid for by some crop perhaps not yet planted, or some product yet in the forest. He has not sufficient forethought to take only a moderate quantity, and not enough energy to work early and late in order to get out of debt; and the consequence is that he accumulates debt upon debt, and often remains for years, or for life, a debtor and almost a slave. This is a state of things which occurs very largely in every part of the world in which men of a superior race freely trade with men of a lower race. It extends trade no doubt for a time, but it demoralizes the native, checks true civilization--and does not lead to any permanent increase in the wealth of the country; so that the European government of such a country must be carried on at a loss. The system introduced by the Dutch was to induce the people, through their chiefs, to give a portion of their time, to the cultivation of coffee, sugar, and other valuable products. A fixed rate of wages--low indeed, but, about equal to that of all places where European competition has not artificially raised it--was paid to the labourers engaged in clearing the ground and forming the plantations under Government superintendence. The produce is sold to the Government at a low, fixed price. Out of the net profit a percentage goes to the chiefs, and the remainder is divided among the workmen. This surplus in good years is something considerable. On the whole, the people are well fed and decently clothed, and have acquired habits of steady industry and the art of scientific cultivation, which must be of service to them in the future. It must be remembered, that the Government expended capital for years before any return was obtained; and if they now derive a large revenue, it is in a way which is far less burthensome, and far more beneficial to the people, than any tax that could be levied. But although the system may be a good one, and as well adapted to the development of arts and industry in a half civilized people as it is to the material advantage of the governing country, it is not pretended that in practice it is perfectly carried out. The oppressive and servile relations between chiefs and people, which have continued for perhaps a thousand years, cannot be at once abolished; and some evil must result from those relations, until the spread of education and the gradual infusion of European blood causes it naturally and insensibly to disappear. It is said that the Residents, desirous of showing a large increase in the products of their districts, have sometimes pressed the people to such continued labour on the plantations that their rice crops have been materially diminished, and famine has been the result. If this has happened, it is certainly not a common thing, and is to be set down to the abuse of the system, by the want of judgment, or want of humanity in the Resident. A tale has lately been written in Holland, and translated into English, entitled "Max Havelaar;" or, the "Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company," and with our usual one-sidedness in all relating to the Dutch Colonial System, this work has been excessively praised, both for its own merits, and for its supposed crushing exposure of the iniquities of the Dutch government of Java. Greatly to my surprise, I found it a very tedious and long-winded story, full of rambling digressions; and whose only point is to show that the Dutch Residents and Assistant Residents wink at the extortions of the native princes; and that in some districts the natives have to do work without payment, and have their goods taken away from them without compensation. Every statement of this kind is thickly interspersed with italics and capital letters; but as the names are all fictitious, and neither dates, figures, nor details are ever given, it is impossible to verify or answer them. Even if not exaggerated, the facts stated are not nearly so bad as those of the oppression by free-trade indigo-planters, and torturing by native tax-gatherers under British rule in India, with which the readers of English newspapers were familiar a few years ago. Such oppression, however, is not fairly to be imputed in either case to the particular form of government, but is rather due to the infirmity of human nature, and to the impossibility of at once destroying all trace of ages of despotism on the one side, and of slavish obedience to their chiefs on the other. It must be remembered, that the complete establishment of the Dutch power in Java is much more recent than that of our rule in India, and that there have been several changes of government, and in the mode of raising revenue. The inhabitants have been so recently under the rule of their native princes, that it is not easy at once to destroy the excessive reverence they feel for their old masters, or to diminish the oppressive exactions which the latter have always been accustomed to make. There is, however, one grand test of the prosperity, and even of the happiness, of a community, which we can apply here--the rate of increase of the population. It is universally admitted that when a country increases rapidly in population, the people cannot be very greatly oppressed or very badly governed. The present system of raising a revenue by the cultivation of coffee and sugar, sold to Government at a fixed price, began in 1832. Just before this, in 1826, the population by census was 5,500,000, while at the beginning of the century it was estimated at 3,500,000. In 1850, when the cultivation system had been in operation eighteen years, the population by census was over 9,500,000, or an increase of 73 per cent in twenty-four years. At the last census, in 1865, it amounted to 14,168,416, an increase of very nearly 50 per cent in fifteen years--a rate which would double the population in about twenty-six years. As Java (with Madura) contains about 38,500 geographical square miles, this will give an average of 368 persons to the square mile, just double that of the populous and fertile Bengal Presidency as given in Thornton's Gazetteer of India, and fully one-third more than that of Great Britain and Ireland at the last Census. If, as I believe, this vast population is on the whole contented and happy, the Dutch Government should consider well before abruptly changing a system which has led to such great results. Taking it as a whole, and surveying it from every point of view, Java is probably the very finest and most interesting tropical island in the world. It is not first in size, but it is more than 600 miles long, and from 60 to 120 miles wide, and in area is nearly equal to England; and it is undoubtedly the most fertile, the most productive, and the most populous island within the tropics. Its whole surface is magnificently varied with mountain and forest scenery. It possesses thirty-eight volcanic mountains, several of which rise to ten or twelve thousand feet high. Some of these are in constant activity, and one or other of them displays almost every phenomenon produced by the action of subterranean fires, except regular lava streams, which never occur in Java. The abundant moisture and tropical heat of the climate causes these mountains to be clothed with luxuriant vegetation, often to their very summits, while forests and plantations cover their lower slopes. The animal productions, especially the birds and insects, are beautiful and varied, and present many peculiar forms found nowhere else upon the globe. The soil throughout the island is exceedingly fertile, and all the productions of the tropics, together with many of the temperate zones, can be easily cultivated. Java too possesses a civilization, a history and antiquities of its own, of great interest. The Brahminical religion flourished in it from an epoch of unknown antiquity until about the year 1478, when that of Mahomet superseded it. The former religion was accompanied by a civilization which has not been equalled by the conquerors; for, scattered through the country, especially in the eastern part of it, are found buried in lofty forests, temples, tombs, and statues of great beauty and grandeur; and the remains of extensive cities, where the tiger, the rhinoceros, and the wild bull now roam undisturbed. A modern civilization of another type is now spreading over the land. Good roads run through the country from end to end; European and native rulers work harmoniously together; and life and property are as well secured as in the best governed states of Europe. I believe, therefore, that Java may fairly claim to be the finest tropical island in the world, and equally interesting to the tourist seeking after new and beautiful scenes; to the naturalist who desires to examine the variety and beauty of tropical nature; or to the moralist and the politician who want to solve the problem of how man may be best governed under new and varied conditions. The Dutch mail steamer brought me from Ternate to Sourabaya, the chief town and port in the eastern part of Java, and after a fortnight spent in packing up and sending off my last collections, I started on a short journey into the interior. Travelling in Java is very luxurious but very expensive, the only way being to hire or borrow a carriage, and then pay half a crown a mile for post-horses, which are changed at regular posts every six miles, and will carry you at the rate of ten miles an hour from one end of the island to the other. Bullock carts or coolies are required to carry all extra baggage. As this kind of travelling would not suit my means, I determined on making only a short journey to the district at the foot of Mount Arjuna, where I was told there were extensive forests, and where I hoped to be able to make some good collections. The country for many miles behind Sourabaya is perfectly flat and everywhere cultivated; being a delta or alluvial plain, watered by many branching streams. Immediately around the town the evident signs of wealth and of an industrious population were very pleasing; but as we went on, the constant succession of open fields skirted by rows of bamboos, with here and there the white buildings and a tall chimney of a sugar-mill, became monotonous. The roads run in straight lines for several miles at a stretch, and are bordered by rows of dusty tamarind-trees. At each mile there are little guardhouses, where a policeman is stationed; and there is a wooden gong, which by means of concerted signals may be made to convey information over the country with great rapidity. About every six or seven miles is the post-house, where the horses are changed as quickly as were those of the mail in the old coaching days in England. I stopped at Modjo-kerto, a small town about forty miles south of Sourabaya, and the nearest point on the high road to the district I wished to visit. I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Ball, an Englishman, long resident in Java and married to a Dutch lady; and he kindly invited me to stay with him until I could fix on a place to suit me. A Dutch Assistant Resident as well as a Regent or native Javanese prince lived here. The town was neat, and had a nice open grassy space like a village green, on which stood a magnificent fig-tree (allied to the Banyan of India, but more lofty), under whose shade a kind of market is continually held, and where the inhabitants meet together to lounge and chat. The day after my arrival, Mr. Ball drove me over to the village of Modjo-agong, where he was building a house and premises for the tobacco trade, which is carried on here by a system of native cultivation and advance purchase, somewhat similar to the indigo trade in British India. On our way we stayed to look at a fragment of the ruins of the ancient city of Modjo-pahit, consisting of two lofty brick masses, apparently the sides of a gateway. The extreme perfection and beauty of the brickwork astonished me. The bricks are exceedingly fine and hard, with sharp angles and true surfaces. They are laid with great exactness, without visible mortar or cement, yet somehow fastened together so that the joints are hardly perceptible, and sometimes the two surfaces coalesce in a most incomprehensible manner. Such admirable brickwork I have never seen before or since. There was no sculpture here, but an abundance of bold projections and finely-worked mouldings. Traces of buildings exist for many miles in every direction, and almost every road and pathway shows a foundation of brickwork beneath it--the paved roads of the old city. In the house of the Waidono or district chief at Modjo-agong, I saw a beautiful figure carved in high relief out of a block of lava, and which had been found buried in the ground near the village. On my expressing a wish to obtain some such specimen, Mr. B. asked the chief for it, and much to my surprise he immediately gave it me. It represented the Hindu goddess Durga, called in Java, Lora Jong-grang (the exalted virgin). She has eight arms, and stands on the back of a kneeling bull. Her lower right hand holds the tail of the bull, while the corresponding left hand grasps the hair of a captive, Dewth Mahikusor, the personification of vice, who has attempted to slay her bull. He has a cord round his waist, and crouches at her feet in an attitude of supplication. The other hands of the goddess hold, on her right side, a double hook or small anchor, a broad straight sword, and a noose of thick cord; on her left, a girdle or armlet of large beads or shells, an unstrung bow, and a standard or war flag. This deity was a special favourite among the old Javanese, and her image is often found in the ruined temples which abound in the eastern part of the island. The specimen I had obtained was a small one, about two feet high, weighing perhaps a hundredweight; and the next day we had it conveyed to Modjo-Kerto to await my return to Sourabaya. Having decided to stay some time at Wonosalem, on the lower slopes of the Arjuna Mountain, where I was informed I should find forest and plenty of game, I had first to obtain a recommendation from the Assistant Resident to the Regent, and then an order from the Regent to the Waidono; and when after a week's delay I arrived with my baggage and men at Modjo-agong, I found them all in the midst of a five days' feast, to celebrate the circumcision of the Waidono's younger brother and cousin, and had a small room in an on outhouse given me to stay in. The courtyard and the great open reception-shed were full of natives coming and going and making preparations for a feast which was to take place at midnight, to which I was invited, but preferred going to bed. A native band, or Gamelang, was playing almost all the evening, and I had a good opportunity of seeing the instruments and musicians. The former are chiefly gongs of various sizes, arranged in sets of from eight to twelve, on low wooden frames. Each set is played by one performer with one or two drumsticks. There are also some very large gongs, played singly or in pairs, and taking the place of our drums and kettledrums. Other instruments are formed by broad metallic bars, supported on strings stretched across frames; and others again of strips of bamboo similarly placed and producing the highest notes. Besides these there were a flute and a curious two-stringed violin, requiring in all twenty-four performers. There was a conductor, who led off and regulated the time, and each performer took his part, coming in occasionally with a few bars so as to form a harmonious combination. The pieces played were long and complicated, and some of the players were mere boys, who took their parts with great precision. The general effect was very pleasing, but, owing to the similarity of most of the instruments, more like a gigantic musical box than one of our bands; and in order to enjoy it thoroughly it is necessary to watch the large number of performers who are engaged in it. The next morning, while I was waiting for the men and horses who were to take me and my baggage to my destination, the two lads, who were about fourteen years old, were brought out, clothed in a sarong from the waist downwards, and having the whole body covered with yellow powder, and profusely decked with white blossom in wreaths, necklaces, and armlets, looking at first sight very like savage brides. They were conducted by two priests to a bench placed in front of the house in the open air, and the ceremony of circumcision was then performed before the assembled crowd. The road to Wonosalem led through a magnificent forest in the depths of which we passed a fine ruin of what appeared to have been a royal tomb or mausoleum. It is formed entirely of stone, and elaborately carved. Near the base is a course of boldly projecting blocks, sculptured in high relief, with a series of scenes which are probably incidents in the life of the defunct. These are all beautifully executed, some of the figures of animals in particular, being easily recognisable and very accurate. The general design, as far as the ruined state of the upper part will permit of its being seen, is very good, effect being given by an immense number and variety of projecting or retreating courses of squared stones in place of mouldings. The size of this structure is about thirty feet square by twenty high, and as the traveller comes suddenly upon it on a small elevation by the roadside, overshadowed by gigantic trees, overrun with plants and creepers, and closely backed by the gloomy forest, he is struck by the solemnity and picturesque beauty of the scene, and is led to ponder on the strange law of progress, which looks so like retrogression, and which in so many distant parts of the world has exterminated or driven out a highly artistic and constructive race, to make room for one which, as far as we can judge, is very far its inferior. Few Englishmen are aware of the number and beauty of the architectural remains in Java. They have never been popularly illustrated or described, and it will therefore take most persons by surprise to learn that they far surpass those of Central America, perhaps even those of India. To give some idea of these ruins, and perchance to excite wealthy amateurs to explore them thoroughly and obtain by photography an accurate record of their beautiful sculptures before it is too late, I will enumerate the most important, as briefly described in Sir Stamford Raffles' "History of Java." BRAMBANAM.--Near the centre of Java, between the native capitals of Djoko-kerta and Surakerta, is the village of Brambanam, near which are abundance of ruins, the most important being the temples of Loro-Jongran and Chandi Sewa. At Loro-Jongran there were twenty separate buildings, six large and fourteen small temples. They are now a mass of ruins, but the largest temples are supposed to have been ninety feet high. They were all constructed of solid stone, everywhere decorated with carvings and bas-reliefs, and adorned with numbers of statues, many of which still remain entire. At Chandi Sewa, or the "Thousand Temples," are many fine colossal figures. Captain Baker, who surveyed these ruins, said he had never in his life seen "such stupendous and finished specimens of human labour, and of the science and taste of ages long since forgot, crowded together in so small a compass as in this spot." They cover a space of nearly six hundred feet square, and consist of an outer row of eighty-four small temples, a second row of seventy-six, a third of sixty-four, a fourth of forty-four, and the fifth forming an inner parallelogram of twenty-eight, in all two hundred and ninety-six small temples; disposed in five regular parallelograms. In the centre is a large cruciform temple surrounded by lofty flights of steps richly ornamented with sculpture, and containing many apartments. The tropical vegetation has ruined most of the smaller temples, but some remain tolerably perfect, from which the effect of the whole may be imagined. About half a mile off is another temple, called Chandi Kali Bening, seventy-two feet square and sixty feet high, in very fine preservation, and covered with sculptures of Hindu mythology surpassing any that exist in India, other ruins of palaces, halls, and temples, with abundance of sculptured deities, are found in the same neighbourhood. BOROBODO.--About eighty miles westward, in the province of Kedu, is the great temple of Borobodo. It is built upon a small hill, and consists of a central dome and seven ranges of terraced walls covering the slope of the hill and forming open galleries each below the other, and communicating by steps and gateways. The central dome is fifty feet in diameter; around it is a triple circle of seventy-two towers, and the whole building is six hundred and twenty feet square, and about one hundred feet high. In the terrace walls are niches containing cross-legged figures larger than life to the number of about four hundred, and both sides of all the terrace walls are covered with bas-reliefs crowded with figures, and carved in hard stone and which must therefore occupy an extent of nearly three miles in length! The amount of human labour and skill expended on the Great Pyramid of Egypt sinks into insignificance when compared with that required to complete this sculptured hill-temple in the interior of Java. GUNONG PRAU.--About forty miles southwest of Samarang, on a mountain called Gunong Prau, an extensive plateau is covered with ruins. To reach these temples, four flights of stone steps were made up the mountain from opposite directions, each flight consisting of more than a thousand steps. Traces of nearly four hundred temples have been found here, and many (perhaps all) were decorated with rich and delicate sculptures. The whole country between this and Brambanam, a distance of sixty miles, abounds with ruins, so that fine sculptured images may be seen lying in the ditches, or built into the walls of enclosures. In the eastern part of Java, at Kediri and in Malang, there are equally abundant traces of antiquity, but the buildings themselves have been mostly destroyed. Sculptured figures, however, abound; and the ruins of forts, palaces, baths, aqueducts, and temples, can be everywhere traced. It is altogether contrary to the plan of this book to describe what I have not myself seen; but, having been led to mention them, I felt bound to do something to call attention to these marvellous works of art. One is overwhelmed by the contemplation of these innumerable sculptures, worked with delicacy and artistic feeling in a hard, intractable, trachytic rock, and all found in one tropical island. What could have been the state of society, what the amount of population, what the means of subsistence which rendered such gigantic works possible, will, perhaps, ever remain a mystery; and it is a wonderful example of the power of religious ideas in social life, that in the very country where, five hundred years ago, these grand works were being yearly executed, the inhabitants now only build rude houses of bamboo and thatch, and look upon these relics of their forefathers with ignorant amazement, as the undoubted productions of giants or of demons. It is much to be regretted that the Dutch Government does not take vigorous steps for the preservation of these ruins from the destroying agency of tropical vegetation; and for the collection of the fine sculptures which are everywhere scattered over the land. Wonosalem is situated about a thousand feet above the sea, but unfortunately it is at a distance from the forest, and is surrounded by coffee plantations, thickets of bamboo, and coarse grasses. It was too far to walk back daily to the forest, and in other directions I could find no collecting ground for insects. The place was, however, famous for peacocks, and my boy soon shot several of these magnificent birds, whose flesh we found to be tender, white, and delicate, and similar to that of a turkey. The Java peacock is a different species from that of India, the neck being covered with scale-like green feathers, and the crest of a different form; but the eyed train is equally large and equally beautiful. It is a singular fact in geographical distribution that the peacock should not be found in Sumatra or Borneo, while the superb Argus, Fire-backed and Ocellated pheasants of those islands are equally unknown in Java. Exactly parallel is the fact that in Ceylon and Southern India, where the peacock abounds, there are none of the splendid Lophophori and other gorgeous pheasants which inhabit Northern India. It would seem as if the peacock can admit of no rivals in its domain. Were these birds rare in their native country, and unknown alive in Europe, they would assuredly be considered as the true princes of the feathered tribes, and altogether unrivalled for stateliness and beauty. As it is, I suppose scarcely anyone if asked to fix upon the most beautiful bird in the world would name the peacock, any more than the Papuan savage or the Bugis trader would fix upon the bird of paradise for the same honour. Three days after my arrival at Wonosalem, my friend Mr. Ball came to pay me a visit. He told me that two evenings before, a boy had been killed and eaten by a tiger close to Modjo-agong. He was riding on a cart drawn by bullocks, and was coming home about dusk on the main road; and when not half a mile from the village a tiger sprang upon him, carried him off into the jungle close by, and devoured him. Next morning his remains were discovered, consisting only of a few mangled bones. The Waidono had got together about seven hundred men, and were in chase of the animal, which, I afterwards heard, they found and killed. They only use spears when in pursuit of a tiger in this way. They surround a large tract of country, and draw gradually together until the animal is enclosed in a compact ring of armed men. When he sees there is no escape he generally makes a spring, and is received on a dozen spears, and almost instantly stabbed to death. The skin of an animal thus killed is, of course, worthless, and in this case the skull, which I had begged Mr. Ball to secure for me, was hacked to pieces to divide the teeth, which are worn as charms. After a week at Wonosalem, I returned to the foot of the mountain, to a village named Djapannan, which was surrounded by several patches of forest, and seemed altogether pretty well suited to my pursuits. The chief of the village had prepared two small bamboo rooms on one side of his own courtyard to accommodate me, and seemed inclined to assist me as much as he could. The weather was exceedingly hot and dry, no rain having fallen for several months, and there was, in consequence, a great scarcity of insects, and especially of beetles. I therefore devoted myself chiefly to obtaining a good set of the birds, and succeeded in making a tolerable collection. All the peacocks we had hitherto shot had had short or imperfect tails, but I now obtained two magnificent specimens more than seven feet long, one of which I preserved entire, while I kept the train only attached to the tail of two or three others. When this bird is seen feeding on the ground, it appears wonderful how it can rise into the air with such a long and cumbersome train of feathers. It does so however with great ease, by running quickly for a short distance, and then rising obliquely; and will fly over trees of a considerable height. I also obtained here a specimen of the rare green jungle-fowl (Gallus furcatus), whose back and neck are beautifully scaled with bronzy feathers, and whose smooth-edged oval comb is of a violet purple colour, changing to green at the base. It is also remarkable in possessing a single large wattle beneath its throat, brightly coloured in three patches of red, yellow, and blue. The common jungle-cock (Gallus bankiva) was also obtained here. It is almost exactly like a common game-cock, but the voice is different, being much shorter and more abrupt; hence its native name is Bekeko. Six different kinds of woodpeckers and four kingfishers were found here, the fine hornbill, Buceros lunatus, more than four feet long, and the pretty little lorikeet, Loriculus pusillus, scarcely more than as many inches. One morning, as I was preparing and arranging specimens, I was told there was to be a trial; and presently four or five men came in and squatted down on a mat under the audience-shed in the court. The chief then came in with his clerk, and sat down opposite them. Each spoke in turn, telling his own tale, and then I found that those who first entered were the prisoner, accuser, policemen, and witness, and that the prisoner was indicated solely by having a loose piece of cord twined around his wrists, but not tied. It was a case of robbery, and after the evidence was given, and a few questions had been asked by the chief, the accused said a few words, and then sentence was pronounced, which was a fine. The parties then got up and walked away together, seeming quite friendly; and throughout there was nothing in the manner of any one present indicating passion or ill-feeling--a very good illustration of the Malayan type of character. In a month's collecting at Wonosalem and Djapannan I accumulated ninety-eight species of birds, but a most miserable lot of insects. I then determined to leave East Java and try the more moist and luxuriant districts at the western extremity of the island. I returned to Sourabaya by water, in a roomy boat which brought myself, servants, and baggage at one-fifth the expense it had cost me to come to Modjo-kerto. The river has been rendered navigable by being carefully banked up, but with the usual effect of rendering the adjacent country liable occasionally to severe floods. An immense traffic passes down this river; and at a lock we passed through, a mile of laden boats were waiting two or three deep, which pass through in their turn six at a time. A few days afterwards I went by steamer to Batavia, where I stayed about a week at the chief hotel, while I made arrangements for a trip into the interior. The business part of the city is near the harbour, but the hotels and all the residences of the officials and European merchants are in a suburb two miles off, laid out in wide streets and squares so as to cover a great extent of ground. This is very inconvenient for visitors, as the only public conveyances are handsome two-horse carriages, whose lowest charge is five guilders (8s. 4d.) for half a day, so that an hour's business in the morning and a visit in the evening costs 16s. 8d. a day for carriage hire alone. Batavia agrees very well with Mr. Money's graphic account of it, except that his "clear canals" were all muddy, and his "smooth gravel drives" up to the houses were one and all formed of coarse pebbles, very painful to walk upon, and hardly explained by the fact that in Batavia everybody drives, as it can hardly be supposed that people never walk in their gardens. The Hôtel des Indes was very comfortable, each visitor having a sitting-room and bedroom opening on a verandah, where he can take his morning coffee and afternoon tea. In the centre of the quadrangle is a building containing a number of marble baths always ready for use; and there is an excellent table d'hôte breakfast at ten, and dinner at six, for all which there is a moderate charge per day. I went by coach to Buitenzorg, forty miles inland and about a thousand feet above the sea, celebrated for its delicious climate and its Botanical Gardens. With the latter I was somewhat disappointed. The walks were all of loose pebbles, making any lengthened wanderings about them very tiring and painful under a tropical sun. The gardens are no doubt wonderfully rich in tropical and especially in Malayan plants, but there is a great absence of skillful laying-out; there are not enough men to keep the place thoroughly in order, and the plants themselves are seldom to be compared for luxuriance and beauty to the same species grown in our hothouses. This can easily be explained. The plants can rarely be placed in natural or very favourable conditions. The climate is either too hot or too cool, too moist or too dry, for a large proportion of them, and they seldom get the exact quantity of shade or the right quality of soil to suit them. In our stoves these varied conditions can be supplied to each individual plant far better than in a large garden, where the fact that the plants are most of them growing in or near their native country is supposed to preclude, the necessity of giving them much individual attention. Still, however, there is much to admire here. There are avenues of stately palms, and clumps of bamboos of perhaps fifty different kinds; and an endless variety of tropical shrubs and trees with strange and beautiful foliage. As a change from the excessive heat of Batavia, Buitenzorg is a delightful abode. It is just elevated enough to have deliciously cool evenings and nights, but not so much as to require any change of clothing; and to a person long resident in the hotter climate of the plains, the air is always fresh and pleasant, and admits of walking at almost any hour of the day. The vicinity is most picturesque and luxuriant, and the great volcano of Gunung Salak, with its truncated and jagged summit, forms a characteristic background to many of the landscapes. A great mud eruption took place in 1699, since which date the mountain has been entirely inactive. On leaving Buitenzorg, I had coolies to carry my baggage and a horse for myself, both to be changed every six or seven miles. The road rose gradually, and after the first stage the hills closed in a little on each side, forming a broad valley; and the temperature was so cool and agreeable, and the country so interesting, that I preferred walking. Native villages imbedded in fruit trees, and pretty villas inhabited by planters or retired Dutch officials, gave this district a very pleasing and civilized aspect; but what most attracted my attention was the system of terrace-cultivation, which is here universally adopted, and which is, I should think, hardly equalled in the world. The slopes of the main valley, and of its branches, were everywhere cut in terraces up to a considerable height, and when they wound round the recesses of the hills produced all the effect of magnificent amphitheatres. Hundreds of square miles of country are thus terraced, and convey a striking idea of the industry of the people and the antiquity of their civilization. These terraces are extended year by year as the population increases, by the inhabitants of each village working in concert under the direction of their chiefs; and it is perhaps by this system of village culture alone, that such extensive terracing and irrigation has been rendered possible. It was probably introduced by the Brahmins from India, since in those Malay countries where there is no trace of a previous occupation by a civilized people, the terrace system is unknown. I first saw this mode of cultivation in Bali and Lombock, and, as I shall have to describe it in some detail there (see CHAPTER X.), I need say no more about it in this place, except that, owing to the finer outlines and greater luxuriance of the country in West Java, it produces there the most striking and picturesque effect. The lower slopes of the mountains in Java possess such a delightful climate and luxuriant soil; living is so cheap and life and property are so secure, that a considerable number of Europeans who have been engaged in Government service, settle permanently in the country instead of returning to Europe. They are scattered everywhere throughout the more accessible parts of the island, and tend greatly to the gradual improvement of the native population, and to the continued peace and prosperity of the whole country. Twenty miles beyond Buitenzorg the post road passes over the Megamendong Mountain, at an elevation of about 4,500 feet. The country is finely mountainous, and there is much virgin forest still left upon the hills, together with some of the oldest coffee-plantations in Java, where the plants have attained almost the dimensions of forest trees. About 500 feet below the summit level of the pass there is a road-keeper's hut, half of which I hired for a fortnight, as the country looked promising for making collections. I almost immediately found that the productions of West Java were remarkably different from those of the eastern part of the island; and that all the more remarkable and characteristic Javanese birds and insects were to be found here. On the very first day, my hunters obtained for me the elegant yellow and green trogon (Harpactes Reinwardti), the gorgeous little minivet flycatcher (Pericrocotus miniatus), which looks like a flame of fire as it flutters among the bushes, and the rare and curious black and crimson oriole (Analcipus sanguinolentus), all of these species which are found only in Java, and even seem to be confined to its western portion. In a week I obtained no less than twenty-four species of birds, which I had not found in the east of the island, and in a fortnight this number increased to forty species, almost all of which are peculiar to the Javanese fauna. Large and handsome butterflies were also tolerably abundant. In dark ravines, and occasionally on the roadside, I captured the superb Papilio arjuna, whose wings seem powdered with grains of golden green, condensed into bands and moon-shaped spots; while the elegantly-formed Papilio coön was sometimes to be found fluttering slowly along the shady pathways (see figure at page 201). One day a boy brought me a butterfly between his fingers, perfectly unhurt. He had caught it as it was sitting with wings erect, sucking up the liquid from a muddy spot by the roadside. Many of the finest tropical butterflies have this habit, and they are generally so intent upon their meal that they can be easily be reached and captured. It proved to be the rare and curious Charaxes kadenii, remarkable for having on each hind wing two curved tails like a pair of callipers. It was the only specimen I ever saw, and is still the only representative of its kind in English collections. In the east of Java I had suffered from the intense heat and drought of the dry season, which had been very inimical to insect life. Here I had got into the other extreme of damp, wet, and cloudy weather, which was equally unfavourable. During the month which I spent in the interior of West Java, I never had a really hot fine day throughout. It rained almost every afternoon, or dense mists came down from the mountains, which equally stopped collecting, and rendered it most difficult to dry my specimens, so that I really had no chance of getting a fair sample of Javanese entomology. By far the most interesting incident in my visit to Java was a trip to the summit of the Pangerango and Gedeh mountains; the former an extinct volcanic cone about 10,000 feet high, the latter an active crater on a lower portion of the same mountain range. Tchipanas, about four miles over the Megamendong Pass, is at the foot of the mountain. A small country house for the Governor-General and a branch of the Botanic Gardens are situated here, the keeper of which accommodated me with a bed for a night. There are many beautiful trees and shrubs planted here, and large quantities of European vegetables are grown for the Governor-General's table. By the side of a little torrent that bordered the garden, quantities of orchids were cultivated, attached to the trunks of trees, or suspended from the branches, forming an interesting open air orchid-house. As I intended to stay two or three nights on the mountain, I engaged two coolies to carry my baggage, and with my two hunters we started early the next morning. The first mile was over open country, which brought us to the forest that covers the whole mountain from a height of about 5,000 feet. The next mile or two was a tolerably steep ascent through a grand virgin forest, the trees being of great size, and the undergrowth consisting of fine herbaceous plants, tree-ferns, and shrubby vegetation. I was struck by the immense number of ferns that grew by the side of the road. Their variety seemed endless, and I was continually stopping to admire some new and interesting forms. I could now well understand what I had been told by the gardener, that 300 species had been found on this one mountain. A little before noon we reached the small plateau of Tjiburong, at the foot of the steeper part of the mountain, where there is a plank-house for the accommodation of travellers. Close by is a picturesque waterfall and a curious cavern, which I had not time to explore. Continuing our ascent the road became narrow, rugged and steep, winding zigzag up the cone, which is covered with irregular masses of rock, and overgrown with a dense luxuriant but less lofty vegetation. We passed a torrent of water which is not much lower than the boiling point, and has a most singular appearance as it foams over its rugged bed, sending up clouds of steam, and often concealed by the overhanging herbage of ferns and lycopodia, which here thrive with more luxuriance than elsewhere. At about 7,500 feet we came to another hut of open bamboos, at a place called Kandang Badak, or "Rhinoceros-field," which we were going to make our temporary abode. Here was a small clearing, with abundance of tree-ferns and some young plantations of Cinchona. As there was now a thick mist and drizzling rain, I did not attempt to go on to the summit that evening, but made two visits to it during my stay, as well as one to the active crater of Gedeh. This is a vast semicircular chasm, bounded by black perpendicular walls of rock, and surrounded by miles of rugged scoria-covered slopes. The crater itself is not very deep. It exhibits patches of sulphur and variously-coloured volcanic products, and emits from several vents continual streams of smoke and vapour. The extinct cone of Pangerango was to me more interesting. The summit is an irregular undulating plain with a low bordering ridge, and one deep lateral chasm. Unfortunately, there was perpetual mist and rain either above or below us all the time I was on the mountain; so that I never once saw the plain below, or had a glimpse of the magnificent view which in fine weather is to be obtained from its summit. Notwithstanding this drawback I enjoyed the excursion exceedingly, for it was the first time I had been high enough on a mountain near the Equator to watch the change from a tropical to a temperate flora. I will now briefly sketch these changes as I observed them in Java. On ascending the mountain, we first meet with temperate forms of herbaceous plants, so low as 3,000 feet, where strawberries and violets begin to grow, but the former are tasteless, and the latter have very small and pale flowers. Weedy composites also begin to give a European aspect to the wayside herbage. It is between 2,000 and 5,000 feet that the forests and ravines exhibit the utmost development of tropical luxuriance and beauty. The abundance of noble Tree-ferns, sometimes fifty feet high, contributes greatly to the general effect, since of all the forms of tropical vegetation they are certainly the most striking and beautiful. Some of the deep ravines which have been cleared of large timber are full of them from top to bottom; and where the road crosses one of these valleys, the view of their feathery crowns, in varied positions above and below the eye, offers a spectacle of picturesque beauty never to be forgotten. The splendid foliage of the broad-leaved Musaceae and Zingiberaceae, with their curious and brilliant flowers; and the elegant and varied forms of plants allied to Begonia and Melastoma, continually attract the attention in this region. Filling in the spaces between the trees and larger plants, on every trunk and stump and branch, are hosts of Orchids, Ferns and Lycopods, which wave and hang and intertwine in ever-varying complexity. At about 5,000 feet I first saw horsetails (Equisetum), very like our own species. At 6,000 feet, raspberries abound, and thence to the summit of the mountain there are three species of eatable Rubus. At 7,000 feet Cypresses appear, and the forest trees become reduced in size, and more covered with mosses and lichens. From this point upward these rapidly increase, so that the blocks of rock and scoria that form the mountain slope are completely hidden in a mossy vegetation. At about 5,000 feet European forms of plants become abundant. Several species of Honeysuckle, St. John's-wort, and Guelder-rose abound, and at about 9,000 feet we first meet with the rare and beautiful Royal Cowslip (Primula imperialis), which is said to be found nowhere else in the world but on this solitary mountain summit. It has a tall, stout stem, sometimes more than three feet high, the root leaves are eighteen inches long, and it bears several whorls of cowslip-like flowers, instead of a terminal cluster only. The forest trees, gnarled and dwarfed to the dimensions of bushes, reach up to the very rim of the old crater, but do not extend over the hollow on its summit. Here we find a good deal of open ground, with thickets of shrubby Artemisias and Gnaphaliums, like our southernwood and cudweed, but six or eight feet high; while Buttercups, Violets, Whortleberries, Sow-thistles, Chickweed, white and yellow Cruciferae, Plantain, and annual grasses everywhere abound. Where there are bushes and shrubs, the St. John's-wort and Honeysuckle grow abundantly, while the Imperial Cowslip only exhibits its elegant blossoms under the damp shade of the thickets. Mr. Motley, who visited the mountain in the dry season, and paid much attention to botany, gives the following list of genera of European plants found on or near the summit:-- Two species of Violet, three of Ranunculus, three of Impatiens, eight or ten of Rubus, and species of Primula, Hypericum, Swertia, Convallaria (Lily of the Valley), Vaccinium (Cranberry), Rhododendron, Gnaphalium, Polygonum, Digitalis (Foxglove), Lonicera (Honeysuckle), Plantago (Rib-grass), Artemisia (Wormwood), Lobelia, Oxalis (Wood-sorrel), Quercus (Oak), and Taxus (Yew). A few of the smaller plants (Plantago major and lanceolata, Sonchus oleraceus, and Artemisia vulgaris) are identical with European species. The fact of a vegetation so closely allied to that of Europe occurring on isolated mountain peaks, in an island south of the Equator, while all the lowlands for thousands of miles around are occupied by a flora of a totally different character, is very extraordinary; and has only recently received an intelligible explanation. The Peak of Teneriffe, which rises to a greater height and is much nearer to Europe, contains no such Alpine flora; neither do the mountains of Bourbon and Mauritius. The case of the volcanic peaks of Java is therefore somewhat exceptional, but there are several analogous, if not exactly parallel cases, that will enable us better to understand in what way the phenomena may possibly have been brought about. The higher peaks of the Alps, and even of the Pyrenees, contain a number of plants absolutely identical with those of Lapland, but nowhere found in the intervening plains. On the summit of the White Mountains, in the United States, every plant is identical with species growing in Labrador. In these cases all ordinary means of transport fail. Most of the plants have heavy seeds, which could not possibly be carried such immense distances by the wind; and the agency of birds in so effectually stocking these Alpine heights is equally out of the question. The difficulty was so great, that some naturalists were driven to believe that these species were all separately created twice over on these distant peaks. The determination of a recent glacial epoch, however, soon offered a much more satisfactory solution, and one that is now universally accepted by men of science. At this period, when the mountains of Wales were full of glaciers, and the mountainous parts of Central Europe, and much of America north of the great lakes, were covered with snow and ice, and had a climate resembling that of Labrador and Greenland at the present day, an Arctic flora covered all these regions. As this epoch of cold passed away, and the snowy mantle of the country, with the glaciers that descended from every mountain summit, receded up their slopes and towards the north pole, the plants receded also, always clinging as now to the margins of the perpetual snow line. Thus it is that the same species are now found on the summits of the mountains of temperate Europe and America, and in the barren north-polar regions. But there is another set of facts, which help us on another step towards the case of the Javanese mountain flora. On the higher slopes of the Himalayas, on the tops of the mountains of Central India and of Abyssinia, a number of plants occur which, though not identical with those of European mountains, belong to the same genera, and are said by botanists to represent them; and most of these could not exist in the warm intervening plains. Mr. Darwin believes that this class of facts can be explained in the same way; for, during the greatest severity of the glacial epoch, temperate forms of plants will have extended to the confines of the tropics, and on its departure, will have retreated up these southern mountains, as well as northward to the plains and hills of Europe. But in this case, the time elapsed, and the great change of conditions, have allowed many of these plants to become so modified that we now consider them to be distinct species. A variety of other facts of a similar nature have led him to believe that the depression of temperature was at one time sufficient to allow a few north-temperate plants to cross the Equator (by the most elevated routes) and to reach the Antarctic regions, where they are now found. The evidence on which this belief rests will be found in the latter part of CHAPTER II. of the "Origin of Species"; and, accepting it for the present as an hypothesis, it enables us to account for the presence of a flora of European type on the volcanoes of Java. It will, however, naturally be objected that there is a wide expanse of sea between Java and the continent, which would have effectually prevented the immigration of temperate forms of plants during the glacial epoch. This would undoubtedly be a fatal objection, were there not abundant evidence to show that Java has been formerly connected with Asia, and that the union must have occurred at about the epoch required. The most striking proof of such a junction is, that the great Mammalia of Java, the rhinoceros, the tiger, and the Banteng or wild ox, occur also in Siam and Burmah, and these would certainly not have been introduced by man. The Javanese peacock and several other birds are also common to these two countries; but, in the majority of cases, the species are distinct, though closely allied, indicating that a considerable time (required for such modification) has elapsed since the separation, while it has not been so long as to cause an entire change. Now this exactly corresponds with the time we should require since the temperate forms of plants entered Java. These are now almost distinct species, but the changed conditions under which they are now forced to exist, and the probability of some of them having since died out on the continent of India, sufficiently accounts for the Javanese species being different. In my more special pursuits, I had very little success upon the mountain--owing, perhaps, to the excessively unpropitious weather and the shortness of my stay. At from 7,000 to 8,000 feet elevation, I obtained one of the most lovely of the small Fruit pigeons (Ptilonopus roseicollis), whose entire head and neck are of an exquisite rosy pink colour, contrasting finely with its otherwise green plumage; and on the very summit, feeding on the ground among the strawberries that have been planted there, I obtained a dull-coloured thrush, with the form and habits of a starling (Turdus fumidus). Insects were almost entirely absent, owing no doubt to the extreme dampness, and I did not get a single butterfly the whole trip; yet I feel sure that, during the dry season, a week's residence on this mountain would well repay the collector in every department of natural history. After my return to Toego, I endeavoured to find another locality to collect in, and removed to a coffee-plantation some miles to the north, and tried in succession higher and lower stations on the mountain; but, I never succeeded in obtaining insects in any abundance and birds were far less plentiful than on the Megamendong Mountain. The weather now became more rainy than ever, and as the wet season seemed to have set in in earnest, I returned to Batavia, packed up and sent off my collections, and left by steamer on November 1st for Banca and Sumatra. CHAPTER VIII. SUMATRA. (NOVEMBER 1861 to JANUARY 1862.) The mail steamer from Batavia to Singapore took me to Muntok (or as on English maps, "Minto"), the chief town and port of Banca. Here I stayed a day or two, until I could obtain a boat to take me across the straits, and up the river to Palembang. A few walks into the country showed me that it was very hilly, and full of granitic and laterite rocks, with a dry and stunted forest vegetation; and I could find very few insects. A good-sized open sailing-boat took me across to the mouth of the Palembang river where, at a fishing village, a rowing-boat was hired to take me up to Palembang--a distance of nearly a hundred miles by water. Except when the wind was strong and favourable we could only proceed with the tide, and the banks of the river were generally flooded Nipa-swamps, so that the hours we were obliged to lay at anchor passed very heavily. Reaching Palembang on the 8th of November, I was lodged by the Doctor, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction, and endeavoured to ascertain where I could find a good locality for collecting. Everyone assured me that I should have to go a very long way further to find any dry forest, for at this season the whole country for many miles inland was flooded. I therefore had to stay a week at Palembang before I could determine my future movements. The city is a large one, extending for three or four miles along a fine curve of the river, which is as wide as the Thames at Greenwich. The stream is, however, much narrowed by the houses which project into it upon piles, and within these, again, there is a row of houses built upon great bamboo rafts, which are moored by rattan cables to the shore or to piles, and rise and fall with the tide. The whole riverfront on both sides is chiefly formed of such houses, and they are mostly shops open to the water, and only raised a foot above it, so that by taking a small boat it is easy to go to market and purchase anything that is to be had in Palembang. The natives are true Malays, never building a house on dry land if they can find water to set it in, and never going anywhere on foot if they can reach the place in a boat. A considerable portion of the population are Chinese and Arabs, who carry on all the trade; while the only Europeans are the civil and military officials of the Dutch Government. The town is situated at the head of the delta of the river, and between it and the sea there is very little ground elevated above highwater mark; while for many miles further inland, the banks of the main stream and its numerous tributaries are swampy, and in the wet season flooded for a considerable distance. Palembang is built on a patch of elevated ground, a few miles in extent, on the north bank of the river. At a spot about three miles from the town this turns into a little hill, the top of which is held sacred by the natives, shaded by some fine trees, and inhabited by a colony of squirrels which have become half-tame. On holding out a few crumbs of bread or any fruit, they come running down the trunk, take the morsel out of your fingers, and dart away instantly. Their tails are carried erect, and the hair, which is ringed with grey, yellow, and brown, radiates uniformly around them, and looks exceedingly pretty. They have somewhat of the motions of mice, coming on with little starts, and gazing intently with their large black eyes before venturing to advance further. The manner in which Malays often obtain the confidence of wild animals is a very pleasing trait in their character, and is due in some degree to the quiet deliberation of their manners, and their love of repose rather than of action. The young are obedient to the wishes of their elders, and seem to feel none of that propensity to mischief which European boys exhibit. How long would tame squirrels continue to inhabit trees in the vicinity of an English village, even if close to the church? They would soon be pelted and driven away, or snared and confined in a whirling cage. I have never heard of these pretty animals being tamed in this way in England, but I should think it might be easily done in any gentleman's park, and they would certainly be as pleasing and attractive as they would be uncommon. After many inquiries, I found that a day's journey by water above Palembang there commenced a military road which extended up to the mountains and even across to Bencoolen, and I determined to take this route and travel on until I found some tolerable collecting ground. By this means I should secure dry land and a good road, and avoid the rivers, which at this season are very tedious to ascend owing to the powerful currents, and very unproductive to the collector owing to most of the lands in their vicinity being underwater. Leaving early in the morning we did not reach Lorok, the village where the road begins, until late at night. I stayed there a few days, but found that almost all the ground in the vicinity not underwater was cultivated, and that the only forest was in swamps which were now inaccessible. The only bird new to me which I obtained at Lorok was the fine long-tailed parroquet (Palaeornis longicauda). The people here assured me that the country was just the same as this for a very long way--more than a week's journey, and they seemed hardly to have any conception of an elevated forest-clad country, so that I began to think it would be useless going on, as the time at my disposal was too short to make it worth my while to spend much more of it in moving about. At length, however, I found a man who knew the country, and was more intelligent; and he at once told me that if I wanted forest I must go to the district of Rembang, which I found on inquiry was about twenty-five or thirty miles off. The road is divided into regular stages of ten or twelve miles each, and, without sending on in advance to have coolies ready, only this distance can be travelled in a day. At each station there are houses for the accommodation of passengers, with cooking-house and stables, and six or eight men always on guard. There is an established system for coolies at fixed rates, the inhabitants of the surrounding villages all taking their turn to be subject to coolie service, as well as that of guards at the station for five days at a time. This arrangement makes travelling very easy, and was a great convenience for me. I had a pleasant walk of ten or twelve miles in the morning, and the rest of the day could stroll about and explore the village and neighbourhood, having a house ready to occupy without any formalities whatever. In three days I reached Moera-dua, the first village in Rembang, and finding the country dry and undulating, with a good sprinkling of forest, I determined to remain a short time and try the neighbourhood. Just opposite the station was a small but deep river, and a good bathing-place; and beyond the village was a fine patch of forest, through which the road passed, overshadowed by magnificent trees, which partly tempted me to stay; but after a fortnight I could find no good place for insects, and very few birds different from the common species of Malacca. I therefore moved on another stage to Lobo Raman, where the guard-house is situated quite by itself in the forest, nearly a mile from each of three villages. This was very agreeable to me, as I could move about without having every motion watched by crowds of men, women and children, and I had also a much greater variety of walks to each of the villages and the plantations around them. The villages of the Sumatran Malays are somewhat peculiar and very picturesque. A space of some acres is surrounded with a high fence, and over this area the houses are thickly strewn without the least attempt at regularity. Tall cocoa-nut trees grow abundantly between them, and the ground is bare and smooth with the trampling of many feet. The houses are raised about six feet on posts, the best being entirely built of planks, others of bamboo. The former are always more or less ornamented with carving and have high-pitched roofs and overhanging eaves. The gable ends and all the chief posts and beams are sometimes covered with exceedingly tasteful carved work, and this is still more the case in the district of Menangkabo, further west. The floor is made of split bamboo, and is rather shaky, and there is no sign of anything we should call furniture. There are no benches or chairs or stools, but merely the level floor covered with mats, on which the inmates sit or lie. The aspect of the village itself is very neat, the ground being often swept before the chief houses; but very bad odours abound, owing to there being under every house a stinking mud-hole, formed by all waste liquids and refuse matter, poured down through the floor above. In most other things Malays are tolerably clean--in some scrupulously so; and this peculiar and nasty custom, which is almost universal, arises, I have little doubt, from their having been originally a maritime and water-loving people, who built their houses on posts in the water, and only migrated gradually inland, first up the rivers and streams, and then into the dry interior. Habits which were at once so convenient and so cleanly, and which had been so long practised as to become a portion of the domestic life of the nation, were of course continued when the first settlers built their houses inland; and without a regular system of drainage, the arrangement of the villages is such that any other system would be very inconvenient. In all these Sumatran villages I found considerable difficulty in getting anything to eat. It was not the season for vegetables, and when, after much trouble, I managed to procure some yams of a curious variety, I found them hard and scarcely eatable. Fowls were very scarce; and fruit was reduced to one of the poorest kinds of banana. The natives (during the wet season at least) live exclusively on rice, as the poorer Irish do on potatoes. A pot of rice cooked very dry and eaten with salt and red peppers, twice a day, forms their entire food during a large part of the year. This is no sign of poverty, but is simply custom; for their wives and children are loaded with silver armlets from wrist to elbow, and carry dozens of silver coins strung round their necks or suspended from their ears. As I had moved away from Palembang, I had found the Malay spoken by the common people less and less pure, until at length it became quite unintelligible, although the continual recurrence of many well-known words assured me it was a form of Malay, and enabled me to guess at the main subject of conversation. This district had a very bad reputation a few years ago, and travellers were frequently robbed and murdered. Fights between village and village were also of frequent occurrence, and many lives were lost, owing to disputes about boundaries or intrigues with women. Now, however, since the country has been divided into districts under "Controlleurs," who visit every village in turn to hear complaints and settle disputes, such things are heard of no more. This is one of the numerous examples I have met with of the good effects of the Dutch Government. It exercises a strict surveillance over its most distant possessions, establishes a form of government well adapted to the character of the people, reforms abuses, punishes crimes, and makes itself everywhere respected by the native population. Lobo Raman is a central point of the east end of Sumatra, being about a hundred and twenty miles from the sea to the east, north, and west. The surface is undulating, with no mountains or even hills, and there is no rock, the soil being generally a red friable clay. Numbers of small streams and rivers intersect the country, and it is pretty equally divided between open clearings and patches of forest, both virgin and second growth, with abundance of fruit trees; and there is no lack of paths to get about in any direction. Altogether it is the very country that would promise most for a naturalist, and I feel sure that at a more favourable time of year it would prove exceedingly rich; but it was now the rainy season, when, in the very best of localities, insects are always scarce, and there being no fruit on the trees, there was also a scarcity of birds. During a month's collecting, I added only three or four new species to my list of birds, although I obtained very fine specimens of many which were rare and interesting. In butterflies I was rather more successful, obtaining several fine species quite new to me, and a considerable number of very rare and beautiful insects. I will give here some account of two species of butterflies, which, though very common in collections, present us with peculiarities of the highest interest. The first is the handsome Papilio memnon, a splendid butterfly of a deep black colour, dotted over with lines and groups of scales of a clear ashy blue. Its wings are five inches in expanse, and the hind wings are rounded, with scalloped edges. This applies to the males; but the females are very different, and vary so much that they were once supposed to form several distinct species. They may be divided into two groups--those which resemble the male in shape, and, those which differ entirely from him in the outline of the wings. The first vary much in colour, being often nearly white with dusky yellow and red markings, but such differences often occur in butterflies. The second group are much more extraordinary, and would never be supposed to be the same insect, since the hind wings are lengthened out into large spoon-shaped tails, no rudiment of which is ever to be perceived in the males or in the ordinary form of females. These tailed females are never of the dark and blue-glossed tints which prevail in the male and often occur in the females of the same form, but are invariably ornamented with stripes and patches of white or buff, occupying the larger part of the surface of the hind wings. This peculiarity of colouring led me to discover that this extraordinary female closely resembles (when flying) another butterfly of the same genus but of a different group (Papilio coön), and that we have here a case of mimicry similar to those so well illustrated and explained by Mr. Bates.[ Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xviii. p. 495; "Naturalist on the Amazons," vol. i. p. 290.] That the resemblance is not accidental is sufficiently proved by the fact, that in the North of India, where Papilio coön is replaced by an allied form, (Papilio Doubledayi) having red spots in place of yellow, a closely-allied species or variety of Papilio memnon (P. androgeus) has the tailed female also red spotted. The use and reason of this resemblance appears to be that the butterflies imitated belong to a section of the genus Papilio which from some cause or other are not attacked by birds, and by so closely resembling these in form and colour the female of Memnon and its ally, also escape persecution. Two other species of this same section (Papilio antiphus and Papilio polyphontes) are so closely imitated by two female forms of Papilio theseus (which comes in the same section with Memnon), that they completely deceived the Dutch entomologist De Haan, and he accordingly classed them as the same species! But the most curious fact connected with these distinct forms is that they are both the offspring of either form. A single brood of larva were bred in Java by a Dutch entomologist, and produced males as well as tailed and tailless females, and there is every reason to believe that this is always the case, and that forms intermediate in character never occur. To illustrate these phenomena, let us suppose a roaming Englishman in some remote island to have two wives--one a black-haired, red-skinned Indian, the other a woolly-headed, sooty-skinned negress; and that instead of the children being mulattoes of brown or dusky tints, mingling the characteristics of each parent in varying degrees, all the boys should be as fair-skinned and blue-eyed as their father, while the girls should altogether resemble their mothers. This would be thought strange enough, but the case of these butterflies is yet more extraordinary, for each mother is capable not only of producing male offspring like the father, and female like herself, but also other females like her fellow wife, and altogether differing from herself! The other species to which I have to direct attention is the Kallima paralekta, a butterfly of the same family group as our Purple Emperor, and of about the same size or larger. Its upper surface is of a rich purple, variously tinged with ash colour, and across the forewings there is a broad bar of deep orange, so that when on the wing it is very conspicuous. This species was not uncommon in dry woods and thickets, and I often endeavoured to capture it without success, for after flying a short distance it would enter a bush among dry or dead leaves, and however carefully I crept up to the spot I could never discover it until it would suddenly start out again and then disappear in a similar place. If at length I was fortunate enough to see the exact spot where the butterfly settled, and though I lost sight of it for some time, I would discover that it was close before my eyes, but that in its position of repose it so closely resembled a dead leaf attached to a twig as almost certainly to deceive the eye even when gazing full upon it. I captured several specimens on the wing, and was able fully to understand the way in which this wonderful resemblance is produced. The end of the upper wings terminates in a fine point, just as the leaves of many tropical shrubs and trees are pointed, while the lower wings are somewhat more obtuse, and are lengthened out into a short thick tail. Between these two points there runs a dark curved line exactly representing the midrib of a leaf, and from this radiate on each side a few oblique marks which well imitate the lateral veins. These marks are more clearly seen on the outer portion of the base of the wings, and on the innerside towards the middle and apex, and they are produced by striae and markings which are very common in allied species, but which are here modified and strengthened so as to imitate more exactly the venation of a leaf. The tint of the undersurface varies much, but it is always some ashy brown or reddish colour, which matches with those of dead leaves. The habit of the species is always to rest on a twig and among dead or dry leaves, and in this position with the wings closely pressed together, their outline is exactly that of a moderately-sized leaf, slightly curved or shrivelled. The tail of the hind wings forms a perfect stalk, and touches the stick while the insect is supported by the middle pair of legs, which are not noticed among the twigs and fibres that surround it. The head and antennae are drawn back between the wings so as to be quite concealed, and there is a little notch hollowed out at the very base of the wings, which allows the head to be retracted sufficiently. All these varied details combine to produce a disguise that is so complete and marvellous as to astonish everyone who observes it; and the habits of the insects are such as to utilize all these peculiarities, and render them available in such a manner as to remove all doubt of the purpose of this singular case of mimicry, which is undoubtedly a protection to the insect. Its strong and swift flight is sufficient to save it from its enemies when on the wing, but if it were equally conspicuous when at rest it could not long escape extinction, owing to the attacks of the insectivorous birds and reptiles that abound in the tropical forests. A very closely allied species, Kallima inachis, inhabits India, where it is very common, and specimens are sent in every collection from the Himalayas. On examining a number of these, it will be seen that no two are alike, but all the variations correspond to those of dead leaves. Every tint of yellow, ash, brown, and red is found here, and in many specimens there occur patches and spots formed of small black dots, so closely resembling the way in which minute fungi grow on leaves that it is almost impossible at first not to believe that fungi have grown on the butterflies themselves! If such an extraordinary adaptation as this stood alone, it would be very difficult to offer any explanation of it; but although it is perhaps the most perfect case of protective imitation known, there are hundreds of similar resemblances in nature, and from these it is possible to deduce a general theory of the manner in which they have been slowly brought about. The principle of variation and that of "natural selection," or survival of the fittest, as elaborated by Mr. Darwin in his celebrated "Origin of Species," offers the foundation for such a theory; and I have myself endeavoured to apply it to all the chief cases of imitation in an article published in the "Westminster Review" for 1867, entitled, "Mimicry, and other Protective Resemblances Among Animals," to which any reader is referred who wishes to know more about this subject. In Sumatra, monkeys are very abundant, and at Lobo Kaman they used to frequent the trees which overhang the guard-house, and give me a fine opportunity of observing their gambols. Two species of Semnopithecus were most plentiful--monkeys of a slender form, with very long tails. Not being much shot at they are rather bold, and remain quite unconcerned when natives alone are present; but when I came out to look at them, they would stare for a minute or two and then make off. They take tremendous leaps from the branches of one tree to those of another a little lower, and it is very amusing when one strong leader takes a bold jump, to see the others following with more or less trepidation; and it often happens that one or two of the last seem quite unable to make up their minds to leap until the rest are disappearing, when, as if in desperation at being left alone, they throw themselves frantically into the air, and often go crashing through the slender branches and fall to the ground. A very curious ape, the Siamang, was also rather abundant, but it is much less bold than the monkeys, keeping to the virgin forests and avoiding villages. This species is allied to the little long-armed apes of the genus Hylobates, but is considerably larger, and differs from them by having the two first fingers of the feet united together, nearly to the end as does its Latin name, Siamanga syndactyla. It moves much more slowly than the active Hylobates, keeping lower down in trees, and not indulging in such tremendous leaps; but it is still very active, and by means of its immense long arms, five feet six inches across in an adult about three feet high, can swing itself along among the trees at a great rate. I purchased a small one, which had been caught by the natives and tied up so tightly as to hurt it. It was rather savage at first, and tried to bite; but when we had released it and given it two poles under the verandah to hang upon, securing it by a short cord, running along the pole with a ring so that it could move easily, it became more contented, and would swing itself about with great rapidity. It ate almost any kind of fruit and rice, and I was in hopes to have brought it to England, but it died just before I started. It took a dislike to me at first, which I tried to get over by feeding it constantly myself. One day, however, it bit me so sharply while giving it food, that I lost patience and gave it rather a severe beating, which I regretted afterwards, as from that time it disliked me more than ever. It would allow my Malay boys to play with it, and for hours together would swing by its arms from pole to pole and on to the rafters of the verandah, with so much ease and rapidity, that it was a constant source of amusement to us. When I returned to Singapore it attracted great attention, as no one had seen a Siamang alive before, although it is not uncommon in some parts of the Malay peninsula. As the Orangutan is known to inhabit Sumatra, and was in fact first discovered there, I made many inquiries about it; but none of the natives had ever heard of such an animal, nor could I find any of the Dutch officials who knew anything about it. We may conclude, therefore, that it does not inhabit the great forest plains in the east of Sumatra where one would naturally expect to find it, but is probably confined to a limited region in the northwest part of the island entirely in the hands of native rulers. The other great Mammalia of Sumatra, the elephant and the rhinoceros, are more widely distributed; but the former is much more scarce than it was a few years ago, and seems to retire rapidly before the spread of cultivation. Lobo Kaman tusks and bones are occasionally found about in the forest, but the living animal is now never seen. The rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sumatranus) still abounds, and I continually saw its tracks and its dung, and once disturbed one feeding, which went crashing away through the jungle, only permitting me a momentary glimpse of it through the dense underwood. I obtained a tolerably perfect cranium, and a number of teeth, which were picked up by the natives. Another curious animal, which I had met with in Singapore and in Borneo, but which was more abundant here, is the Galeopithecus, or flying lemur. This creature has a broad membrane extending all around its body to the extremities of the toes, and to the point of the rather long tail. This enables it to pass obliquely through the air from one tree to another. It is sluggish in its motions, at least by day, going up a tree by short runs of a few feet, and then stopping a moment as if the action was difficult. It rests during the day clinging to the trunks of trees, where its olive or brown fur, mottled with irregular whitish spots and blotches, resembles closely the colour of mottled bark, and no doubt helps to protect it. Once, in a bright twilight, I saw one of these animals run up a trunk in a rather open place, and then glide obliquely through the air to another tree, on which it alighted near its base, and immediately began to ascend. I paced the distance from the one tree to the other, and found it to be seventy yards; and the amount of descent I estimated at not more than thirty-five or forty feet, or less than one in five. This I think proves that the animal must have some power of guiding itself through the air, otherwise in so long a distance it would have little chance of alighting exactly upon the trunk. Like the Cuscus of the Moluccas, the Galeopithecus feeds chiefly on leaves, and possesses a very voluminous stomach and long convoluted intestines. The brain is very small, and the animal possesses such remarkable tenacity of life, that it is exceedingly difficult to kill it by any ordinary means. The tail is prehensile; and is probably made use of as an additional support while feeding. It is said to have only a single young one at a time, and my own observation confirms this statement, for I once shot a female with a very small blind and naked little creature clinging closely to its breast, which was quite bare and much wrinkled, reminding me of the young of Marsupials, to which it seemed to form a transition. On the back, and extending over the limbs and membrane, the fur of these animals is short, but exquisitely soft, resembling in its texture that of the Chinchilla. I returned to Palembang by water, and while staying a day at a village while a boat was being made watertight, I had the good fortune to obtain a male, female, and young bird of one of the large hornbills. I had sent my hunters to shoot, and while I was at breakfast they returned, bringing me a fine large male of the Buceros bicornis, which one of them assured me he had shot while feeding the female, which was shut up in a hole in a tree. I had often read of this curious habit, and immediately returned to the place, accompanied by several of the natives. After crossing a stream and a bog, we found a large tree leaning over some water, and on its lower side, at a height of about twenty feet, appeared a small hole, and what looked like a quantity of mud, which I was assured had been used in stopping up the large hole. After a while we heard the harsh cry of a bird inside, and could see the white extremity of its beak put out. I offered a rupee to anyone who would go up and get the bird out, with the egg or young one; but they all declared it was too difficult, and they were afraid to try. I therefore very reluctantly came away. About an hour afterwards, much to my surprise, a tremendous loud, hoarse screaming was heard, and the bird was brought me, together with a young one which had been found in the hole. This was a most curious object, as large as a pigeon, but without a particle of plumage on any part of it. It was exceedingly plump and soft, and with a semi-transparent skin, so that it looked more like a bag of jelly, with head and feet stuck on, than like a real bird. The extraordinary habit of the male, in plastering up the female with her egg, and feeding her during the whole time of incubation, and until the young one is fledged, is common to several of the large hornbills, and is one of those strange facts in natural history which are "stranger than fiction." CHAPTER IX. NATURAL HISTORY OF THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS. IN the first CHAPTER of this work I have stated generally the reasons which lead us to conclude that the large islands in the western portion of the Archipelago--Java, Sumatra, and Borneo--as well as the Malay peninsula and the Philippine islands, have been recently separated from the continent of Asia. I now propose to give a sketch of the Natural History of these, which I term the Indo-Malay islands, and to show how far it supports this view, and how much information it is able to give us of the antiquity and origin of the separate islands. The flora of the Archipelago is at present so imperfectly known, and I have myself paid so little attention to it, that I cannot draw from it many facts of importance. The Malayan type of vegetation is however a very important one; and Dr. Hooker informs us, in his "Flora Indica," that it spreads over all the moister and more equable parts of India, and that many plants found in Ceylon, the Himalayas, the Nilghiri, and Khasia mountains are identical with those of Java and the Malay peninsula. Among the more characteristic forms of this flora are the rattans--climbing palms of the genus Calamus, and a great variety of tall, as well as stemless palms. Orchids, Araceae, Zingiberaceae and ferns, are especially abundant, and the genus Grammatophyllum--a gigantic epiphytal orchid, whose clusters of leaves and flower-stems are ten or twelve feet long--is peculiar to it. Here, too, is the domain of the wonderful pitcher plants (Nepenthaceae), which are only represented elsewhere by solitary species in Ceylon, Madagascar, the Seychelles, Celebes, and the Moluccas. Those celebrated fruits, the Mangosteen and the Durian, are natives of this region, and will hardly grow out of the Archipelago. The mountain plants of Java have already been alluded to as showing a former connexion with the continent of Asia; and a still more extraordinary and more ancient connection with Australia has been indicated by Mr. Low's collections from the summit of Kini-balou, the loftiest mountain in Borneo. Plants have much greater facilities for passing across arms of the sea than animals. The lighter seeds are easily carried by the winds, and many of them are specially adapted to be so carried. Others can float a long time unhurt in the water, and are drifted by winds and currents to distant shores. Pigeons, and other fruit-eating birds, are also the means of distributing plants, since the seeds readily germinate after passing through their bodies. It thus happens that plants which grow on shores and lowlands have a wide distribution, and it requires an extensive knowledge of the species of each island to determine the relations of their floras with any approach to accuracy. At present we have no such complete knowledge of the botany of the several islands of the Archipelago; and it is only by such striking phenomena as the occurrence of northern and even European genera on the summits of the Javanese mountains that we can prove the former connection of that island with the Asiatic continent. With land animals, however, the case is very different. Their means of passing a wide expanse of sea are far more restricted. Their distribution has been more accurately studied, and we possess a much more complete knowledge of such groups as mammals and birds in most of the islands, than we do of the plants. It is these two classes which will supply us with most of our facts as to the geographical distribution of organized beings in this region. The number of Mammalia known to inhabit the Indo-Malay region is very considerable, exceeding 170 species. With the exception of the bats, none of these have any regular means of passing arms of the sea many miles in extent, and a consideration of their distribution must therefore greatly assist us in determining whether these islands have ever been connected with each other or with the continent since the epoch of existing species. The Quadrumana or monkey tribe form one of the most characteristic features of this region. Twenty-four distinct species are known to inhabit it, and these are distributed with tolerable uniformity over the islands, nine being found in Java, ten in the Malay peninsula, eleven in Sumatra, and thirteen in Borneo. The great man-like Orangutans are found only in Sumatra and Borneo; the curious Siamang (next to them in size) in Sumatra and Malacca; the long-nosed monkey only in Borneo; while every island has representatives of the Gibbons or long-armed apes, and of monkeys. The lemur-like animals, Nycticebus, Tarsius, and Galeopithecus, are found on all the islands. Seven species found on the Malay peninsula extend also into Sumatra, four into Borneo, and three into Java; while two range into Siam and Burma, and one into North India. With the exception of the Orangutan, the Siamang, the Tarsius spectrum, and the Galeopithecus, all the Malayan genera of Quadrumana are represented in India by closely allied species, although, owing to the limited range of most of these animals, so few are absolutely identical. Of Carnivora, thirty-three species are known from the Indo-Malay region, of which about eight are found also in Burma and India. Among these are the tiger, leopard, a tiger-cat, civet, and otter; while out of the twenty genera of Malayan Carnivora, thirteen are represented in India by more or less closely allied species. As an example, the Malayan bear is represented in North India by the Tibetan bear, both of which may be seen alive at the Zoological Society's Gardens. The hoofed animals are twenty-two in number, of which about seven extend into Burmah and India. All the deer are of peculiar species, except two, which range from Malacca into India. Of the cattle, one Indian species reaches Malacca, while the Bos sondiacus of Java and Borneo is also found in Siam and Burma. A goat-like animal is found in Sumatra which has its representative in India; while the two-horned rhinoceros of Sumatra and the single-horned species of Java, long supposed to be peculiar to these islands, are now both ascertained to exist in Burma, Pegu, and Moulmein. The elephant of Sumatra, Borneo, and Malacca is now considered to be identical with that of Ceylon and India. In all other groups of Mammalia the same general phenomena recur. A few species are identical with those of India. A much larger number are closely allied or representative forms, while there are always a small number of peculiar genera, consisting of animals unlike those found in any other part of the world. There are about fifty bats, of which less than one-fourth are Indian species; thirty-four Rodents (squirrels, rats, &c.), of which six or eight only are Indian; and ten Insectivora, with one exception peculiar to the Malay region. The squirrels are very abundant and characteristic, only two species out of twenty-five extending into Siam and Burma. The Tupaias are curious insect-eaters, which closely resemble squirrels, and are almost confined to the Malay islands, as are the small feather-tailed Ptilocerus lowii of Borneo, and the curious long-snouted and naked-tailed Gymnurus rafllesii. As the Malay peninsula is a part of the continent of Asia, the question of the former union of the islands to the mainland will be best elucidated by studying the species which are found in the former district, and also in some of the islands. Now, if we entirely leave out of consideration the bats, which have the power of flight, there are still forty-eight species of mammals common to the Malay peninsula and the three large islands. Among these are seven Quadrumana (apes, monkeys, and lemurs), animals who pass their whole existence in forests, who never swim, and who would be quite unable to traverse a single mile of sea; nineteen Carnivora, some of which no doubt might cross by swimming, but we cannot suppose so large a number to have passed in this way across a strait which, except at one point, is from thirty to fifty miles wide; and five hoofed animals, including the Tapir, two species of rhinoceros, and an elephant. Besides these there are thirteen Rodents and four Insectivora, including a shrew-mouse and six squirrels, whose unaided passage over twenty miles of sea is even more inconceivable than that of the larger animals. But when we come to the cases of the same species inhabiting two of the more widely separated islands, the difficulty is much increased. Borneo is distant nearly 150 miles from Biliton, which is about fifty miles from Banca, and this fifteen from Sumatra, yet there are no less than thirty-six species of mammals common to Borneo and Sumatra. Java again is more than 250 miles from Borneo, yet these two islands have twenty-two species in common, including monkeys, lemurs, wild oxen, squirrels and shrews. These facts seem to render it absolutely certain that there has been at some former period a connection between all these islands and the mainland, and the fact that most of the animals common to two or more of then, show little or no variation, but are often absolutely identical, indicates that the separation must have been recent in a geological sense; that is, not earlier than the Newer Pliocene epoch, at which time land animals began to assimilate closely with those now existing. Even the bats furnish an additional argument, if one were needed, to show that the islands could not have been peopled from each other and from the continent without some former connection. For if such had been the mode of stocking them with animals, it is quite certain that creatures which can fly long distances would be the first to spread from island to island, and thus produce an almost perfect uniformity of species over the whole region. But no such uniformity exists, and the bats of each island are almost, if not quite, as distinct as the other mammals. For example, sixteen species are known in Borneo, and of these ten are found in Java and five in Sumatra, a proportion about the same as that of the Rodents, which have no direct means of migration. We learn from this fact, that the seas which separate the islands from each other are wide enough to prevent the passage even of flying animals, and that we must look to the same causes as having led to the present distribution of both groups. The only sufficient cause we can imagine is the former connection of all the islands with the continent, and such a change is in perfect harmony with what we know of the earth's past history, and is rendered probable by the remarkable fact that a rise of only three hundred feet would convert the wide seas that separate them into an immense winding valley or plain about three hundred miles wide and twelve hundred long. It may, perhaps, be thought that birds which possess the power of flight in so pre-eminent a degree, would not be limited in their range by arms of the sea, and would thus afford few indications of the former union or separation of the islands they inhabit. This, however, is not the case. A very large number of birds appear to be as strictly limited by watery barriers as are quadrupeds; and as they have been so much more attentively collected, we have more complete materials to work upon, and are able to deduce from them still more definite and satisfactory results. Some groups, however, such as the aquatic birds, the waders, and the birds of prey, are great wanderers; other groups are little known except to ornithologists. I shall therefore refer chiefly to a few of the best known and most remarkable families of birds as a sample of the conclusions furnished by the entire class. The birds of the Indo-Malay region have a close resemblance to those of India; for though a very large proportion of the species are quite distinct, there are only about fifteen peculiar genera, and not a single family group confined to the former district. If, however, we compare the islands with the Burmese, Siamese, and Malayan countries, we shall find still less difference, and shall be convinced that all are closely united by the bond of a former union. In such well-known families as the woodpeckers, parrots, trogons, barbets, kingfishers, pigeons, and pheasants, we find some identical species spreading over all India, and as far as Java and Borneo, while a very large proportion are common to Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. The force of these facts can only be appreciated when we come to treat the islands of the Austro-Malay region, and show how similar barriers have entirely prevented the passage of birds from one island to another, so that out of at least three hundred and fifty land birds inhabiting Java and Borneo, not more than ten have passed eastward into Celebes. Yet the Straits of Macassar are not nearly so wide as the Java sea, and at least a hundred species are common to Borneo and Java. I will now give two examples to show how a knowledge of the distribution of animals may reveal unsuspected facts in the past history of the earth. At the eastern extremity of Sumatra, and separated from it by a strait about fifteen miles wide, is the small rocky island of Banca, celebrated for its tin mines. One of the Dutch residents there sent some collections of birds and animals to Leyden, and among them were found several species distinct from those of the adjacent coast of Sumatra. One of these was a squirrel (Sciurus bangkanus), closely allied to three other species inhabiting respectively the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo, but quite as distinct from them all as they are from each other. There were also two new ground thrushes of the genus Pitta, closely allied to, but quite distinct from, two other species inhabiting both Sumatra and Borneo, and which did not perceptibly differ in these large and widely separated islands. This is just as if the Isle of Man possessed a peculiar species of thrush and blackbird, distinct from the birds which are common to England and Ireland. These curious facts would indicate that Banca may have existed as a distinct island even longer than Sumatra and Borneo, and there are some geological and geographical facts which render this not so improbable as it would at first seem to be. Although on the map Banca appears so close to Sumatra, this does not arise from its having been recently separated from it; for the adjacent district of Palembang is new land, being a great alluvial swamp formed by torrents from the mountains a hundred miles distant. Banca, on the other hand, agrees with Malacca, Singapore, and the intervening island of Lingen, in being formed of granite and laterite; and these have all most likely once formed an extension of the Malay peninsula. As the rivers of Borneo and Sumatra have been for ages filling up the intervening sea, we may be sure that its depth has recently been greater, and it is very probable that those large islands were never directly connected with each other except through the Malay peninsula. At that period the same species of squirrel and Pitta may have inhabited all these countries; but when the subterranean disturbances occurred which led to the elevation of the volcanoes of Sumatra, the small island of Banca may have been separated first, and its productions being thus isolated might be gradually modified before the separation of the larger islands had been completed. As the southern part of Sumatra extended eastward and formed the narrow straits of Banca, many birds and insects and some Mammalia would cross from one to the other, and thus produce a general similarity of productions, while a few of the older inhabitants remained, to reveal by their distinct forms, their different origin. Unless we suppose some such changes in physical geography to have occurred, the presence of peculiar species of birds and mammals in such an island as Banca is a hopeless puzzle; and I think I have shown that the changes required are by no means so improbable as a mere glance at the map would lead us to suppose. For our next example let us take the great islands of Sumatra and Java. These approach so closely together, and the chain of volcanoes that runs through them gives such an air of unity to the two, that the idea of their having been recently dissevered is immediately suggested. The natives of Java, however, go further than this; for they actually have a tradition of the catastrophe which broke them asunder, and fix its date at not much more than a thousand years ago. It becomes interesting, therefore, to see what support is given to this view by the comparison of their animal productions. The Mammalia have not been collected with sufficient completeness in both islands to make a general comparison of much value, and so many species have been obtained only as live specimens in captivity, that their locality has often been erroneously given, the island in which they were obtained being substituted for that from which they originally came. Taking into consideration only those whose distribution is more accurately known, we learn that Sumatra is, in a zoological sense, more nearly related to Borneo than it is to Java. The great man-like apes, the elephant, the tapir, and the Malay bear, are all common to the two former countries, while they are absent from the latter. Of the three long-tailed monkeys (Semnopithecus) inhabiting Sumatra, one extends into Borneo, but the two species of Java are both peculiar to it. So also the great Malay deer (Rusa equina), and the small Tragulus kanchil, are common to Sumatra and Borneo, but do not extend into Java, where they are replaced by Tragulas javanicus. The tiger, it is true, is found in Sumatra and Java, but not in Borneo. But as this animal is known to swim well, it may have found its way across the Straits of Sunda, or it may have inhabited Java before it was separated from the mainland, and from some unknown cause have ceased to exist in Borneo. In Ornithology there is a little uncertainty owing to the birds of Java and Sumatra being much better known than those of Borneo; but the ancient separation of Java as an island is well exhibited by the large number of its species which are not found in any of the other islands. It possesses no less than seven pigeons peculiar to itself, while Sumatra has only one. Of its two parrots one extends into Borneo, but neither into Sumatra. Of the fifteen species of woodpeckers inhabiting Sumatra only four reach Java, while eight of them are found in Borneo and twelve in the Malay peninsula. The two Trogons found in Java are peculiar to it, while of those inhabiting Sumatra at least two extend to Malacca and one to Borneo. There are a very large number of birds, such as the great Argus pheasant, the fire-backed and ocellated pheasants, the crested partridge (Rollulus coronatus), the small Malacca parrot (Psittinus incertus), the great helmeted hornbill (Buceroturus galeatus), the pheasant ground-cuckoo (Carpococcyx radiatus), the rose-crested bee-eater (Nyctiornis amicta), the great gaper (Corydon sumatranus), and the green-crested gaper (Calyptomena viridis), and many others, which are common to Malacca, Sumatra, and Borneo, but are entirely absent from Java. On the other hand we have the peacock, the green jungle cock, two blue ground thrushes (Arrenga cyanea and Myophonus flavirostris), the fine pink-headed dove (Ptilonopus porphyreus), three broad-tailed ground pigeons (Macropygia), and many other interesting birds, which are found nowhere in the Archipelago out of Java. Insects furnish us with similar facts wherever sufficient data are to be had, but owing to the abundant collections that have been made in Java, an unfair preponderance may be given to that island. This does not, however, seem to be the case with the true Papilionidae or swallow-tailed butterflies, whose large size and gorgeous colouring has led to their being collected more frequently than other insects. Twenty-seven species are known from Java, twenty-nine from Borneo, and only twenty-one from Sumatra. Four are entirely confined to Java, while only two are peculiar to Borneo and one to Sumatra. The isolation of Java will, however, be best shown by grouping the islands in pairs, and indicating the number of species common to each pair. Thus:-- Borneo .. . .. 29 species Sumatra.. . .. 21 do. 20 species common to both islands. Borneo .. . .. 29 do. Java. .. . .. 27 do. 20 do. do. Sumatra.. . .. 21 do. Java. .. . .. 27 do. 11 do. do. Making some allowance for our imperfect knowledge of the Sumatran species, we see that Java is more isolated from the two larger islands than they are from each other, thus entirely confirming the results given by the distribution of birds and Mammalia, and rendering it almost certain that the last-named island was the first to be completely separated from the Asiatic continent, and that the native tradition of its having been recently separated from Sumatra is entirely without foundation. We are now able to trace out with some probability the course of events. Beginning at the time when the whole of the Java sea, the Gulf of Siam, and the Straits of Malacca were dry land, forming with Borneo, Sumatra, and Java, a vast southern prolongation of the Asiatic continent, the first movement would be the sinking down of the Java sea, and the Straits of Sunda, consequent on the activity of the Javanese volcanoes along the southern extremity of the land, and leading to the complete separation of that island. As the volcanic belt of Java and Sumatra increased in activity, more and more of the land was submerged, until first Borneo, and afterwards Sumatra, became entirely severed. Since the epoch of the first disturbance, several distinct elevations and depressions may have taken place, and the islands may have been more than once joined with each other or with the main land, and again separated. Successive waves of immigration may thus have modified their animal productions, and led to those anomalies in distribution which are so difficult to account for by any single operation of elevation or submergence. The form of Borneo, consisting of radiating mountain chains with intervening broad alluvial valleys, suggests the idea that it has once been much more submerged than it is at present (when it would have somewhat resembled Celebes or Gilolo in outline), and has been increased to its present dimensions by the filling up of its gulfs with sedimentary matter, assisted by gradual elevation of the land. Sumatra has also been evidently much increased in size by the formation of alluvial plains along its northeastern coasts. There is one peculiarity in the productions of Java that is very puzzling--the occurrence of several species or groups characteristic of the Siamese countries or of India, but which do not occur in Borneo or Sumatra. Among Mammals the Rhinoceros javanicus is the most striking example, for a distinct species is found in Borneo and Sumatra, while the Javanese species occurs in Burma and even in Bengal. Among birds, the small ground-dove, Geopelia striata, and the curious bronze-coloured magpie, Crypsirhina varians, are common to Java and Siam; while there are in Java species of Pteruthius, Arrenga, Myiophonus, Zoothera, Sturnopastor, and Estrelda, the near allies of which are found in various parts of India, while nothing like them is known to inhabit Borneo or Sumatra. Such a curious phenomenon as this can only be understood by supposing that, subsequent to the separation of Java, Borneo became almost entirely submerged, and on its re-elevation was for a time connected with the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, but not with Java or Siam. Any geologist who knows how strata have been contorted and tilted up, and how elevations and depressions must often have occurred alternately, not once or twice only, but scores and even hundreds of times, will have no difficulty in admitting that such changes as have been here indicated, are not in themselves improbable. The existence of extensive coal-beds in Borneo and Sumatra, of such recent origin that the leaves which abound in their shales are scarcely distinguishable from those of the forests which now cover the country, proves that such changes of level actually did take place; and it is a matter of much interest, both to the geologist and to the philosophic naturalist, to be able to form some conception of the order of those changes, and to understand how they may have resulted in the actual distribution of animal life in these countries; a distribution which often presents phenomena so strange and contradictory, that without taking such changes into consideration we are unable even to imagine how they could have been brought about. CHAPTER X. BALI AND LOMBOCK. (JUNE, JULY, 1856.) THE islands of Bali and Lombock, situated at the eastern end of Java, are particularly interesting. They are the only islands of the whole Archipelago in which the Hindu religion still maintains itself--and they form the extreme points of the two great zoological divisions of the Eastern hemisphere; for although so similar in external appearance and in all physical features, they differ greatly in their natural productions. It was after having spent two years in Borneo, Malacca and Singapore, that I made a somewhat involuntary visit to these islands on my way to Macassar. Had I been able to obtain a passage direct to that place from Singapore, I should probably never have gone near them, and should have missed some of the most important discoveries of my whole expedition the East. It was on the 13th of June, 1856, after a twenty days' passage from Singapore in the "Kembang Djepoon" (Rose of Japan), a schooner belonging to a Chinese merchant, manned by a Javanese crew, and commanded by an English captain, that we cast anchor in the dangerous roadstead of Bileling on the north side of the island of Bali. Going on shore with the captain and the Chinese supercargo, I was at once introduced to a novel and interesting scene. We went first to the house of the Chinese Bandar, or chief merchant, where we found a number of natives, well dressed, and all conspicuously armed with krisses, displaying their large handles of ivory or gold, or beautifully grained and polished wood. The Chinamen had given up their national costume and adopted the Malay dress, and could then hardly be distinguished from the natives of the island--an indication of the close affinity of the Malayan and Mongolian races. Under the thick shade of some mango-trees close by the house, several women-merchants were selling cotton goods; for here the women trade and work for the benefit of their husbands, a custom which Mahometan Malays never adopt. Fruit, tea, cakes, and sweetmeats were brought to us; many questions were asked about our business and the state of trade in Singapore, and we then took a walk to look at the village. It was a very dull and dreary place; a collection of narrow lanes bounded by high mud walls, enclosing bamboo houses, into some of which we entered and were very kindly received. During the two days that we remained here, I walked out into the surrounding country to catch insects, shoot birds, and spy out the nakedness or fertility of the land. I was both astonished and delighted; for as my visit to Java was some years later, I had never beheld so beautiful and well cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoast about ten or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by a wide range of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages, marked out by dense clumps of cocoa-nut palms, tamarind and other fruit trees, are dotted about in every direction; while between them extend luxuriant rice-grounds, watered by an elaborate system of irrigation that would be the pride of the best cultivated parts of Europe. The whole surface of the country is divided into irregular patches, following the undulations of the ground, from many acres to a few perches in extent, each of which is itself perfectly level, but stands a few inches or several feet above or below those adjacent to it. Every one of these patches can be flooded or drained at will by means of a system of ditches and small channels, into which are diverted the whole of the streams that descend from the mountains. Every patch now bore crops in various stages of growth, some almost ready for cutting, and all in the most flourishing condition and of the most exquisite green tints. The sides of the lanes and bridle roads were often edged with prickly Cacti and a leafless Euphorbia, but the country being so highly cultivated there was not much room for indigenous vegetation, except upon the sea-beach. We saw plenty of the fine race of domestic cattle descended from the Bos banteng of Java, driven by half naked boys, or tethered in pasture-grounds. They are large and handsome animals, of a light brown colour, with white legs, and a conspicuous oval patch behind of the same colour. Wild cattle of the same race are said to be still found in the mountains. In so well-cultivated a country it was not to be expected that I could do much in natural history, and my ignorance of how important a locality this was for the elucidation of the geographical distribution of animals, caused me to neglect obtaining some specimens which I never met with again. One of these was a weaver bird with a bright yellow head, which built its bottle-shaped nests by dozens on some trees near the beach. It was the Ploceus hypoxantha, a native of Java; and here, at the extreme limits of its range westerly, I shot and preserved specimens of a wagtail-thrush, an oriole, and some starlings, all species found in Java, and some of them peculiar to that island. I also obtained some beautiful butterflies, richly marked with black and orange on a white ground, and which were the most abundant insects in the country lanes. Among these was a new species, which I have named Pieris tamar. Leaving Bileling, a pleasant sail of two days brought us to Ampanam in the island of Lombock, where I proposed to remain till I could obtain a passage to Macassar. We enjoyed superb views of the twin volcanoes of Bali and Lombock, each about eight thousand feet high, which form magnificent objects at sunrise and sunset, when they rise out of the mists and clouds that surround their bases, glowing with the rich and changing tints of these the most charming moments in a tropical day. The bay or roadstead of Ampanam is extensive, and being at this season sheltered from the prevalent southeasterly winds, was as smooth as a lake. The beach of black volcanic sand is very steep, and there is at all times, a heavy surf upon it, which during spring-tides increases to such an extent that it is often impossible for boats to land, and many serious accidents have occurred. Where we lay anchored, about a quarter of a mile from the shore, not the slightest swell was perceptible, but on approaching nearer undulations began, which rapidly increased, so as to form rollers which toppled over onto the beach at regular intervals with a noise like thunder. Sometimes this surf increases suddenly during perfect calms to as great a force and fury as when a gale of wind is blowing, beating to pieces all boats that may not have been hauled sufficiently high upon the beach, and carrying away uncautious natives. This violent surf is probably in some way dependent upon the swell of the great southern ocean and the violent currents that flow through the Straits of Lombock. These are so uncertain that vessels preparing to anchor in the bay are sometimes suddenly swept away into the straits, and are not able to get back again for a fortnight. What seamen call the "ripples" are also very violent in the straits, the sea appearing to boil and foam and dance like the rapids below a cataract; vessels are swept about helplessly, and small ones are occasionally swamped in the finest weather and under the brightest skies. I felt considerably relieved when all my boxes and myself had passed in safety through the devouring surf, which the natives look upon with some pride, saying, that "their sea is always hungry, and eats up everything it can catch." I was kindly received by Mr. Carter, an Englishman, who is one of the Bandars or licensed traders of the port, who offered me hospitality and every assistance during my stay. His house, storehouses, and offices were in a yard surrounded by a tall bamboo fence, and were entirely constructed of bamboo with a thatch of grass, the only available building materials. Even these were now very scarce, owing to the great consumption in rebuilding the place since the great fire some months before, which in an hour or two had destroyed every building in the town. The next day I went to see Mr. S., another merchant to whom I had brought letters of introduction, and who lived about seven miles off. Mr. Carter kindly lent me a horse, and I was accompanied by a young Dutch gentleman residing at Ampanam, who offered to be my guide. We first passed through the town and suburbs along a straight road bordered by mud walls and a fine avenue of lofty trees; then through rice-fields, irrigated in the same manner as I had seen them at Bileling; and afterwards over sandy pastures near the sea, and occasionally along the beach itself. Mr. S. received us kindly, and offered me a residence at his house should I think the neighbourhood favourable for my pursuits. After an early breakfast we went out to explore, taking guns and insect nets. We reached some low hills which seemed to offer the most favourable ground, passing over swamps, sandy flats overgrown with coarse sedges, and through pastures and cultivated grounds, finding however very little in the way of either birds or insects. On our way we passed one or two human skeletons, enclosed within a small bamboo fence, with the clothes, pillow, mat, and betel-box of the unfortunate individual, who had been either murdered or executed. Returning to the house, we found a Balinese chief and his followers on a visit. Those of higher rank sat on chairs, the others squatted on the floor. The chief very coolly asked for beer and brandy, and helped himself and his followers, apparently more out of curiosity than anything else as regards the beer, for it seemed very distasteful to them, while they drank the brandy in tumblers with much relish. Returning to Ampanam, I devoted myself for some days to shooting the birds of the neighbourhood. The fine fig-trees of the avenues, where a market was held, were tenanted by superb orioles (Oriolus broderpii) of a rich orange colour, and peculiar to this island and the adjacent ones of Sumbawa and Flores. All round the town were abundance of the curious Tropidorhynchus timoriensis, allied to the Friar bird of Australia. They are here called "Quaich-quaich," from their strange loud voice, which seems to repeat these words in various and not unmelodious intonations. Every day boys were to be seen walking along the roads and by the hedges and ditches, catching dragonflies with birdlime. They carry a slender stick, with a few twigs at the end well annointed, so that the least touch captures the insect, whose wings are pulled off before it is consigned to a small basket. The dragon-flies are so abundant at the time of the rice flowering that thousands are soon caught in this way. The bodies are fried in oil with onions and preserved shrimps, or sometimes alone, and are considered a great delicacy. In Borneo, Celebes, and many other islands, the larvae of bees and wasps are eaten, either alive as pulled out of the cells, or fried like the dragonflies. In the Moluccas the grubs of the palm-beetles (Calandra) are regularly brought to market in bamboos and sold for food; and many of the great horned Lamellicorn beetles are slightly roasted on the embers and eaten whenever met with. The superabundance of insect life is therefore turned to some account by these islanders. Finding that birds were not very numerous, and hearing much of Labuan Tring at the southern extremity of the bay, where there was said to be much uncultivated country and plenty of birds as well as deer and wild pigs, I determined to go there with my two servants, Ali, the Malay lad from Borneo, and Manuel, a Portuguese of Malacca accustomed to bird-skinning. I hired a native boat with outriggers to take us with our small quantity of luggage, and a day's rowing and tracking along the shore brought us to the place. I had a note of introduction to an Amboynese Malay, and obtained the use of part of his house to live and work in. His name was "Inchi Daud" (Mr. David), and he was very civil; but his accommodations were limited, and he could only hire me part of his reception-room. This was the front part of a bamboo house (reached by a ladder of about six rounds very wide apart), and having a beautiful view over the bay. However, I soon made what arrangements were possible, and then set to work. The country around was pretty and novel to me, consisting of abrupt volcanic hills enclosing flat valleys or open plains. The hills were covered with a dense scrubby bush of bamboos and prickly trees and shrubs, the plains were adorned with hundreds of noble palm-trees, and in many places with a luxuriant shrubby vegetation. Birds were plentiful and very interesting, and I now saw for the first time many Australian forms that are quite absent from the islands westward. Small white cockatoos were abundant, and their loud screams, conspicuous white colour, and pretty yellow crests, rendered them a very important feature in the landscape. This is the most westerly point on the globe where any of the family are to be found. Some small honeysuckers of the genus Ptilotis, and the strange moundmaker (Megapodius gouldii), are also here first met with on the traveller's journey eastward. The last mentioned bird requires a fuller notice. The Megapodidae are a small family of birds found only in Australia and the surrounding islands, but extending as far as the Philippines and Northwest Borneo. They are allied to the gallinaceous birds, but differ from these and from all others in never sitting upon their eggs, which they bury in sand, earth, or rubbish, and leave to be hatched by the heat of the sun or by fermentation. They are all characterised by very large feet and long curved claws, and most of the species of Megapodius rake and scratch together all kinds of rubbish, dead leaves, sticks, stones, earth, rotten wood, etc., until they form a large mound, often six feet high and twelve feet across, in the middle of which they bury their eggs. The natives can tell by the condition of these mounds whether they contain eggs or not; and they rob them whenever they can, as the brick-red eggs (as large as those of a swan) are considered a great delicacy. A number of birds are said to join in making these mounds and lay their eggs together, so that sometimes forty or fifty may be found. The mounds are to be met with here and there in dense thickets, and are great puzzles to strangers, who cannot understand who can possibly have heaped together cartloads of rubbish in such out-of-the-way places; and when they inquire of the natives they are but little wiser, for it almost always appears to them the wildest romance to be told that it is all done by birds. The species found in Lombock is about the size of a small hen, and entirely of dark olive and brown tints. It is a miscellaneous feeder, devouring fallen fruits, earthworms, snails, and centipedes, but the flesh is white and well-flavoured when properly cooked. The large green pigeons were still better eating, and were much more plentiful. These fine birds, exceeding our largest tame pigeons in size, abounded on the palm-trees, which now bore huge bunches of fruits--mere hard globular nuts, about an inch in diameter, and covered with a dry green skin and a very small portion of pulp. Looking at the pigeon's bill and head, it would seem impossible that it could swallow such large masses, or that it could obtain any nourishment from them; yet I often shot these birds with several palm-fruits in the crop, which generally burst when they fell to the ground. I obtained here eight species of Kingfishers; among which was a very beautiful new one, named by Mr. Gould, Halcyon fulgidus. It was found always in thickets, away from water, and seemed to feed on snails and insects picked up from the ground after the manner of the great Laughing Jackass of Australia. The beautiful little violet and orange species (Ceyx rufidorsa) is found in similar situations, and darts rapidly along like a flame of fire. Here also I first met with the pretty Australian Bee-eater (Merops ornatus). This elegant little bird sits on twigs in open places, gazing eagerly around, and darting off at intervals to seize some insect which it sees flying near; returning afterwards to the same twig to swallow it. Its long, sharp, curved bill, the two long narrow feathers in its tail, its beautiful green plumage varied with rich brown and black and vivid blue on the throat, render it one of the most graceful and interesting objects a naturalist can see for the first time. Of all the birds of Lombock, however, I sought most after the beautiful ground thrushes (Pitta concinna), and always thought myself lucky if I obtained one. They were found only in the dry plains densely covered with thickets, and carpeted at this season with dead leaves. They were so shy that it was very difficult to get a shot at them, and it was only after a good deal of practice that I discovered how to do it. The habit of these birds is to hop about on the ground, picking up insects, and on the least alarm to run into the densest thicket or take a flight close to the ground. At intervals they utter a peculiar cry of two notes which when once heard is easily recognised, and they can also be heard hopping along among the dry leaves. My practice was, therefore, to walk cautiously along the narrow pathways with which the country abounded, and on detecting any sign of a Pitta's vicinity to stand motionless and give a gentle whistle occasionally, imitating the notes as near as possible. After half an hour's waiting I was often rewarded by seeing the pretty bird hopping along in the thicket. Then I would perhaps lose sight of it again, until having my gun raised and ready for a shot, a second glimpse would enable me to secure my prize, and admire its soft puffy plumage and lovely colours. The upper part is rich soft green, the head jet black with a stripe of blue and brown over each eye; at the base of the tail and on the shoulders are bands of bright silvery blue; the under side is delicate buff with a stripe of rich crimson, bordered with black on the belly. Beautiful grass-green doves, little crimson and black flower-peckers, large black cuckoos, metallic king-crows, golden orioles, and the fine jungle-cocks--the origin of all our domestic breeds of poultry--were among the birds that chiefly attracted my attention during our stay at Labuan Tring. The most characteristic feature of the jungle was its thorniness. The shrubs were thorny; the creepers were thorny; the bamboos even were thorny. Everything grew zigzag and jagged, and in an inextricable tangle, so that to get through the bush with gun or net or even spectacles, was generally not to be done, and insect-catching in such localities was out of the question. It was in such places that the Pittas often lurked, and when shot it became a matter of some difficulty to secure the bird, and seldom without a heavy payment of pricks and scratches and torn clothes could the prize be won. The dry volcanic soil and arid climate seem favourable to the production of such stunted and thorny vegetation, for the natives assured me that this was nothing to the thorns and prickles of Sumbawa whose surface still bears the covering of volcanic ashes thrown out forty years ago by the terrible eruption of Tomboro. Among the shrubs and trees that are not prickly the Apocynaceae were most abundant, their bilobed fruits of varied form and colour and often of most tempting appearance, hanging everywhere by the waysides as if to invite to destruction the weary traveller who may be unaware of their poisonous properties. One in particular with a smooth shining skin of a golden orange colour rivals in appearance the golden apples of the Hesperides, and has great attractions for many birds, from the white cockatoos to the little yellow Zosterops, who feast on the crimson seeds which are displayed when the fruit bursts open. The great palm called "Gubbong" by the natives, a species of Corypha, is the most striking feature of the plains, where it grows by thousands and appears in three different states--in leaf, in flower and fruit, or dead. It has a lofty cylindrical stem about a hundred feet high and two to three feet in diameter; the leaves are large and fan-shaped, and fall off when the tree flowers, which it does only once in its life in a huge terminal spike, upon which are produced masses of a smooth round fruit of a green colour and about an inch in diameter. When these ripen and fall the tree dies, and remains standing a year or two before it falls. Trees in leaf only are by far the most numerous, then those in flower and fruit, while dead trees are scattered here and there among them. The trees in fruit are the resort of the great green fruit pigeons, which have been already mentioned. Troops of monkeys (Macacus cynomolgus) may often be seen occupying a tree, showering down the fruit in great profusion, chattering when disturbed and making an enormous rustling as they scamper off among the dead palm leaves; while the pigeons have a loud booming voice more like the roar of a wild beast than the note of a bird. My collecting operations here were carried on under more than usual difficulties. One small room had to serve for eating, sleeping and working, and one for storehouse and dissecting-room; in it were no shelves, cupboards, chairs or tables; ants swarmed in every part of it, and dogs, cats and fowls entered it at pleasure. Besides this it was the parlour and reception-room of my host, and I was obliged to consult his convenience and that of the numerous guests who visited us. My principal piece of furniture was a box, which served me as a dining table, a seat while skinning birds, and as the receptacle of the birds when skinned and dried. To keep them free from ants we borrowed, with some difficulty, an old bench, the four legs of which being placed in cocoa-nut shells filled with water kept us tolerably free from these pests. The box and the bench were, however, literally the only places where anything could be put away, and they were generally well occupied by two insect boxes and about a hundred birds' skins in process of drying. It may therefore be easily conceived that when anything bulky or out of the common way was collected, the question "Where is it to be put?" was rather a difficult one to answer. All animal substances moreover require some time to dry thoroughly, emit a very disagreeable odour while doing so, and are particularly attractive to ants, flies, dogs, rats, cats, and other vermin, calling for special cautions and constant supervision, which under the circumstances above described were impossible. My readers may now partially understand why a travelling naturalist of limited means, like myself, does so much less than is expected or than he would himself wish to do. It would be interesting to preserve skeletons of many birds and animals, reptiles and fishes in spirits, skins of the larger animals, remarkable fruits and woods and the most curious articles of manufacture and commerce; but it will be seen that under the circumstances I have just described, it would have been impossible to add these to the collections which were my own more especial favourites. When travelling by boat the difficulties are as great or greater, and they are not diminished when the journey is by land. It was absolutely necessary therefore to limit my collections to certain groups to which I could devote constant personal attention, and thus secure from destruction or decay what had been often obtained by much labour and pains. While Manuel sat skinning his birds of an afternoon, generally surrounded by a little crowd of Malays and Sassaks (as the indigenes of Lombock are termed), he often held forth to them with the air of a teacher, and was listened to with profound attention. He was very fond of discoursing on the "special providences" of which he believed he was daily the subject. "Allah has been merciful today," he would say--for although a Christian he adopted the Mahometan mode of speech--"and has given us some very fine birds; we can do nothing without him." Then one of the Malays would reply, "To be sure, birds are like mankind; they have their appointed time to die; when that time comes nothing can save them, and if it has not come you cannot kill them." A murmur of assent follow, until sentiments and cries of "Butul! Butul!" (Right, right.) Then Manuel would tell a long story of one of his unsuccessful hunts--how he saw some fine bird and followed it a long way, and then missed it, and again found it, and shot two or three times at it, but could never hit it, "Ah!" says an old Malay, "its time was not come, and so it was impossible for you to kill it." A doctrine is this which is very consoling to the bad marksman, and which quite accounts for the facts, but which is yet somehow not altogether satisfactory. It is universally believed in Lombock that some men have the power to turn themselves into crocodiles, which they do for the sake of devouring their enemies, and many strange tales are told of such transformations. I was therefore rather surprised one evening to hear the following curious fact stated, and as it was not contradicted by any of the persons present, I am inclined to accept it provisionally as a contribution to the Natural History of the island. A Bornean Malay who had been for many years resident here said to Manuel, "One thing is strange in this country--the scarcity of ghosts." "How so?" asked Manuel. "Why, you know," said the Malay, "that in our countries to the westward, if a man dies or is killed, we dare not pass near the place at night, for all sorts of noises are heard which show that ghosts are about. But here there are numbers of men killed, and their bodies lie unburied in the fields and by the roadside, and yet you can walk by them at night and never hear or see anything at all, which is not the case in our country, as you know very well." "Certainly I do," said Manuel; and so it was settled that ghosts were very scarce, if not altogether unknown in Lombock. I would observe, however, that as the evidence is purely negative we should be wanting in scientific caution if we accepted this fact as sufficiently well established. One evening I heard Manuel, Ali, and a Malay man whispering earnestly together outside the door, and could distinguish various allusions to "krisses," throat-cutting, heads, etc. etc. At length Manuel came in, looking very solemn and frightened, and said to me in English, "Sir--must take care,--no safe here;--want cut throat." On further inquiry, I found that the Malay had been telling them that the Rajah had just sent down an order to the village, that they were to get a certain number of heads for an offering in the temples to secure a good crop of rice. Two or three other Malays and Bugis, as well as the Amboyna man in whose house we lived, confirmed this account, and declared that it was a regular thing every year, and that it was necessary to keep a good watch and never go out alone. I laughed at the whole thing, and tried to persuade them that it was a mere tale, but to no effect. They were all firmly persuaded that their lives were in danger. Manuel would not go out shooting alone, and I was obliged to accompany him every morning, but I soon gave him the slip in the jungle. Ali was afraid to go and look for firewood without a companion, and would not even fetch water from the well a few yards behind the house unless armed with an enormous spear. I was quite sure all the time that no such order had been sent or received, and that we were in perfect safety. This was well shown shortly afterwards, when an American sailor ran away from his ship on the east side of the island, and made his way on foot and unarmed across to Ampanam, having met with the greatest hospitality on the whole route. Nowhere would the smallest payment be taken for the food and lodging which were willingly furbished him. On pointing out this fact to Manuel, he replied, "He one bad man,--run away from his ship--no one can believe word he say;" and so I was obliged to leave him in the uncomfortable persuasion that he might any day have his throat cut. A circumstance occurred here which appeared to throw some light on the cause of the tremendous surf at Ampanam. One evening I heard a strange rumbling noise, and at the same time the house shook slightly. Thinking it might be thunder, I asked, "What is that?" "It is an earthquake," answered Inchi Daud, my host; and he then told me that slight shocks were occasionally felt there, but he had never known them to be severe. This happened on the day of the last quarter of the moon, and consequently when tides were low and the surf usually at its weakest. On inquiry afterwards at Ampanam, I found that no earthquake had been noticed, but that on one night there had been a very heavy surf, which shook the house, and the next day there was a very high tide, the water having flooded Mr. Carter's premises, higher than he had ever known it before. These unusual tides occur every now and then, and are not thought much of; but by careful inquiry I ascertained that the surf had occurred on the very night I had felt the earthquake at Labuan Tring, nearly twenty miles off. This would seem to indicate, that although the ordinary heavy surf may be due to the swell of the great Southern Ocean confined in a narrow channel, combined with a peculiar form of bottom near the shore, yet the sudden heavy surfs and high tides that occur occasionally in perfectly calm weather, may be due to slight upheavals of the ocean-bed in this eminently volcanic region. CHAPTER XI. LOMBOCK: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE. HAVING made a very fine and interesting collection of the birds of Labuan Tring, I took leave of my kind host, Inchi Daud, and returned to Ampanam to await an opportunity to reach Macassar. As no vessel had arrived bound for that port, I determined to make an excursion into the interior of the island, accompanied by Mr. Ross, an Englishman born in the Keeling Islands, and now employed by the Dutch Government to settle the affairs of a missionary who had unfortunately become bankrupt here. Mr. Carter kindly lent me a horse, and Mr. Ross took his native groom. Our route for some distance lay along a perfectly level country bearing ample crops of rice. The road was straight and generally bordered with lofty trees forming a fine avenue. It was at first sandy, afterwards grassy, with occasional streams and mudholes. At a distance about four miles we reached Mataram, the capital of the island and the residence of the Rajah. It is a large village with wide streets bordered by a magnificent avenue of trees, and low houses concealed behind mud walls. Within this royal city no native of the lower orders is allowed to ride, and our attendant, a Javanese, was obliged to dismount and lead his horse while we rode slowly through. The abodes of the Rajah and of the High Priest are distinguished by pillars of red brick constructed with much taste; but the palace itself seemed to differ but little from the ordinary houses of the country. Beyond Mataram and close to it is Karangassam, the ancient residence of the native or Sassak Rajahs before the conquest of the island by the Balinese. Soon after passing Mataram the country began gradually to rise in gentle undulations, swelling occasionally into low hills towards the two mountainous tracts in the northern and southern parts of the island. It was now that I first obtained an adequate idea of one of the most wonderful systems of cultivation in the world, equalling all that is related of Chinese industry, and as far as I know surpassing in the labour that has been bestowed upon it any tract of equal extent in the most civilized countries of Europe. I rode through this strange garden utterly amazed and hardly able to realize the fact that in this remote and little known island, from which all Europeans except a few traders at the port are jealously excluded, many hundreds of square miles of irregularly undulating country have been so skillfully terraced and levelled, and so permeated by artificial channels, that every portion of it can be irrigated and dried at pleasure. According as the slope of the ground is more or less rapid, each terraced plot consists in some places of many acres, in others of a few square yards. We saw them in every state of cultivation; some in stubble, some being ploughed, some with rice-crops in various stages of growth. Here were luxuriant patches of tobacco; there, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, yams, beans or Indian-corn varied the scene. In some places the ditches were dry, in others little streams crossed our road and were distributed over lands about to be sown or planted. The banks which bordered every terrace rose regularly in horizontal lines above each other; sometimes rounding an abrupt knoll and looking like a fortification, or sweeping around some deep hollow and forming on a gigantic scale the seats of an amphitheatre. Every brook and rivulet had been diverted from its bed, and instead of flowing along the lowest ground, were to be found crossing our road half-way up an ascent, yet bordered by ancient trees and moss-grown stones so as to have all the appearance of a natural channel, and bearing testimony to the remote period at which the work had been done. As we advanced further into the country, the scene was diversified by abrupt rocky hills, by steep ravines, and by clumps of bamboos and palm-trees near houses or villages; while in the distance the fine range of mountains of which Lombock Peak, eight thousand feet high, is the culminating point, formed a fit background to a view scarcely to be surpassed either in human interest or picturesque beauty. Along the first part of our road we passed hundreds of women carrying rice, fruit, and vegetables to market; and further on, an almost uninterrupted line of horses laden with rice in bags or in the ear, on their way to the port of Ampanam. At every few miles along the road, seated under shady trees or slight sheds, were sellers of sugar-cane, palm-wine, cooked rice, salted eggs, and fried plantains, with a few other native delicacies. At these stalls a hearty meal may be made for a penny, but we contented ourselves with drinking some sweet palm-wine, a most delicious beverage in the heat of the day. After having travelled about twenty miles we reached a higher and drier region, where, water being scarce, cultivation was confined to the little flats bordering the streams. Here the country was as beautiful as before, but of a different character; consisting of undulating downs of short turf interspersed with fine clumps of trees and bushes, sometimes the woodland, sometimes the open ground predominating. We only passed through one small patch of true forest, where we were shaded by lofty trees, and saw around us a dark and dense vegetation, highly agreeable after the heat and glare of the open country. At length, about an hour after noon, we reached our destination--the village of Coupang, situated nearly in the centre of the island--and entered the outer court of a house belonging to one of the chiefs with whom my friend Mr. Ross had a slight acquaintance. Here we were requested to seat ourselves under an open shed with a raised floor of bamboo, a place used to receive visitors and hold audiences. Turning our horses to graze on the luxuriant grass of the courtyard, we waited until the great man's Malay interpreter appeared, who inquired our business and informed us that the Pumbuckle (chief) was at the Rajah's house, but would soon be back. As we had not yet breakfasted, we begged he would get us something to eat, which he promised to do as soon as possible. It was however about two hours before anything appeared, when a small tray was brought containing two saucers of rice, four small fried fish, and a few vegetables. Having made as good a breakfast as we could, we strolled about the village, and returning, amused ourselves by conversation with a number of men and boys who gathered around us; and by exchanging glances and smiles with a number of women and girls who peeped at us through half-opened doors and other crevices. Two little boys named Mousa and Isa (Moses and Jesus) were great friends with us, and an impudent little rascal called Kachang (a bean) made us all laugh by his mimicry and antics. At length, about four o'clock, the Pumbuckle made his appearance, and we informed him of our desire to stay with him a few days, to shoot birds and see the country. At this he seemed somewhat disturbed, and asked if we had brought a letter from the Anak Agong (Son of Heaven) which is the title of the Rajah of Lombock. This we had not done, thinking it quite unnecessary; and he then abruptly told us that he must go and speak to his Rajah, to see if we could stay. Hours passed away, night came, and he did not return. I began to think we were suspected of some evil designs, for the Pumbuckle was evidently afraid of getting himself into trouble. He is a Sassak prince, and, though a supporter of the present Rajah, is related to some of the heads of a conspiracy which was quelled a few years since. About five o'clock a pack-horse bearing my guns and clothes arrived, with my men Ali and Manuel, who had come on foot. The sun set, and it soon became dark, and we got rather hungry as we sat wearily under the shed and no one came. Still hour after hour we waited, until about nine o'clock, the Pumbuckle, the Rajah, some priests, and a number of their followers arrived and took their seats around us. We shook hands, and for some minutes there was a dead silence. Then the Rajah asked what we wanted; to which Mr. Ross replied by endeavouring to make them understand who we were, and why we had come, and that we had no sinister intentions whatever; and that we had not brought a letter from the "Anak Agong," merely because we had thought it quite unnecessary. A long conversation in the Bali language then took place, and questions were asked about my guns, and what powder I had, and whether I used shot or bullets; also what the birds were for, and how I preserved them, and what was done with them in England. Each of my answers and explanations was followed by a low and serious conversation which we could not understand, but the purport of which we could guess. They were evidently quite puzzled, and did not believe a word we had told them. They then inquired if we were really English, and not Dutch; and although we strongly asserted our nationality, they did not seem to believe us. After about an hour, however, they brought us some supper (which was the same as the breakfast, but without the fish), and after it some very weak coffee and pumpkins boiled with sugar. Having discussed this, a second conference took place; questions were again asked, and the answers again commented on. Between whiles lighter topics were discussed. My spectacles (concave glasses) were tried in succession by three or four old men, who could not make out why they could not see through them, and the fact no doubt was another item of suspicion against me. My beard, too, was the subject of some admiration, and many questions were asked about personal peculiarities which it is not the custom to allude to in European society. At length, about one in the morning, the whole party rose to depart, and, after conversing some time at the gate, all went away. We now begged the interpreter, who with a few boys and men remained about us, to show us a place to sleep in, at which he seemed very much surprised, saying he thought we were very well accommodated where we were. It was quite chilly, and we were very thinly clad and had brought no blankets, but all we could get after another hour's talk was a native mat and pillow, and a few old curtains to hang round three sides of the open shed and protect us a little from the cold breeze. We passed the rest of the night very uncomfortably, and determined to return in the morning and not submit any longer to such shabby treatment. We rose at daybreak, but it was near an hour before the interpreter made his appearance. We then asked to have some coffee and to see the Pumbuckle, as we wanted a horse for Ali, who was lame, and wished to bid him adieu. The man looked puzzled at such unheard-of demands and vanished into the inner court, locking the door behind him and leaving us again to our meditations. An hour passed and no one came, so I ordered the horses to be saddled and the pack-horse to be loaded, and prepared to start. Just then the interpreter came up on horse back, and looked aghast at our preparations. "Where is the Pumbuckle?" we asked. "Gone to the Rajah's," said he. "We are going," said I. "Oh! pray don't," said he; "wait a little; they are having a consultation, and some priests are coming to see you, and a chief is going off to Mataram to ask the permission of the Anak Agong for you to stay." This settled the matter. More talk, more delay, and another eight or ten hours' consultation were not to be endured; so we started at once, the poor interpreter almost weeping at our obstinacy and hurry, and assuring us "the Pumbuckle would be very sorry, and the Rajah would be very sorry, and if we would but wait all would be right." I gave Ali my horse, and started on foot, but he afterwards mounted behind Mr. Ross's groom, and we got home very well, though rather hot and tired. At Mataram we called at the house of Gusti Gadioca, one of the princes of Lombock, who was a friend of Mr. Carter's, and who had promised to show me the guns made by native workmen. Two guns were exhibited, one six, the other seven feet long, and of a proportionably large bore. The barrels were twisted and well finished, though not so finely worked as ours. The stock was well made, and extended to the end of the barrel. Silver and gold ornament was inlaid over most of the surface, but the locks were taken from English muskets. The Gusti assured me, however, that the Rajah had a man who made locks and also rifled barrels. The workshop where these guns are made and the tools used were next shown us, and were very remarkable. An open shed with a couple of small mud forges were the chief objects visible. The bellows consisted of two bamboo cylinders, with pistons worked by hand. They move very easily, having a loose stuffing of feathers thickly set round the piston so as to act as a valve, and produce a regular blast. Both cylinders communicate with the same nozzle, one piston rising while the other falls. An oblong piece of iron on the ground was the anvil, and a small vice was fixed on the projecting root of a tree outside. These, with a few files and hammers, were literally the only tools with which an old man makes these fine guns, finishing then himself from the rough iron and wood. I was anxious to know how they bored these long barrels, which seemed perfectly true and are said to shoot admirably; and, on asking the Gusti, received the enigmatical answer: "We use a basket full of stones." Being utterly unable to imagine what he could mean, I asked if I could see how they did it, and one of the dozen little boys around us was sent to fetch the basket. He soon returned with this most extraordinary boring-machine, the mode of using which the Gusti then explained to me. It was simply a strong bamboo basket, through the bottom of which was stuck upright a pole about three feet long, kept in its place by a few sticks tied across the top with rattans. The bottom of the pole has an iron ring, and a hole in which four-cornered borers of hardened iron can be fitted. The barrel to be bored is buried upright in the ground, the borer is inserted into it, the top of the stick or vertical shaft is held by a cross-piece of bamboo with a hole in it, and the basket is filled with stones to get the required weight. Two boys turn the bamboo round. The barrels are made in pieces of about eighteen inches long, which are first bored small, and then welded together upon a straight iron rod. The whole barrel is then worked with borers of gradually increasing size, and in three days the boring is finished. The whole matter was explained in such a straightforward manner that I have no doubt the process described to me was that actually used; although, when examining one of the handsome, well-finished, and serviceable guns, it was very hard to realize the fact that they had been made from first to last with tools hardly sufficient for an English blacksmith to make a horseshoe. The day after we returned from our excursion, the Rajah came to Ampanam to a feast given by Gusti Gadioca, who resides there; and soon after his arrival we went to have an audience. We found him in a large courtyard sitting on a mat under a shady tree; and all his followers, to the number of three or four hundred, squatting on the ground in a large circle round him. He wore a sarong or Malay petticoat and a green jacket. He was a man about thirty-five years of age, and of a pleasing countenance, with some appearance of intellect combined with indecision. We bowed, and took our seats on the ground near some chiefs we were acquainted with, for while the Rajah sits no one can stand or sit higher. He first inquired who I was, and what I was doing in Lombock, and then requested to see some of my birds. I accordingly sent for one of my boxes of bird-skins and one of insects, which he examined carefully, and seemed much surprised that they could be so well preserved. We then had a little conversation about Europe and the Russian war, in which all natives take an interest. Having heard much of a country-seat of the Rajah's called Gunong Sari, I took the opportunity to ask permission to visit it and shoot a few birds there which he immediately granted. I then thanked him, and we took our leave. An hour after, his son came to visit Mr. Carter accompanied by about a hundred followers, who all sat on the ground while he came into the open shed where Manuel was skinning birds. After some time he went into the house, had a bed arranged to sleep a little, then drank some wine, and after an hour or two had dinner brought him from the Gusti's house, which he ate with eight of the principal priests and princes, he pronounced a blessing over the rice and commenced eating first, after which the rest fell to. They rolled up balls of rice in their hands, dipped them in the gravy and swallowed them rapidly, with little pieces of meat and fowl cooked in a variety of ways. A boy fanned the young Rajah while eating. He was a youth of about fifteen, and had already three wives. All wore the kris, or Malay crooked dagger, on the beauty and value of which they greatly pride themselves. A companion of the Rajah's had one with a golden handle, in which were set twenty-eight diamonds and several other jewels. He said it had cost him £700. The sheaths are of ornamental wood and ivory, often covered on one side with gold. The blades are beautifully veined with white metal worked into the iron, and they are kept very carefully. Every man without exception carries a kris, stuck behind into the large waist-cloth which all wear, and it is generally the most valuable piece of property he possesses. A few days afterwards our long-talked-of excursion to Gunong Sari took place. Our party was increased by the captain and supercargo of a Hamburg ship loading with rice for China. We were mounted on a very miscellaneous lot of Lombock ponies, which we had some difficulty in supplying with the necessary saddles, etc.; and most of us had to patch up our girths, bridles, or stirrup-leathers as best we could. We passed through Mataram, where we were joined by our friend Gusti Gadioca, mounted on a handsome black horse, and riding as all the natives do, without saddle or stirrups, using only a handsome saddlecloth and very ornamental bridle. About three miles further, along pleasant byways, brought us to the place. We entered through a rather handsome brick gateway supported by hideous Hindu deities in stone. Within was an enclosure with two square fish-ponds and some fine trees; then another gateway through which we entered into a park. On the right was a brick house, built somewhat in the Hindu style, and placed on a high terrace or platform; on the left a large fish-pond, supplied by a little rivulet which entered it out of the mouth of a gigantic crocodile well executed in brick and stone. The edges of the pond were bricked, and in the centre rose a fantastic and picturesque pavilion ornamented with grotesque statues. The pond was well stocked with fine fish, which come every morning to be fed at the sound of a wooden gong which is hung near for the purpose. On striking it a number of fish immediately came out of the masses of weed with which the pond abounds, and followed us along the margin expecting food. At the same time some deer came out of as adjacent wood, which, from being seldom shot at and regularly fed, are almost tame. The jungle and woods which surrounded the park appearing to abound in birds, I went to shoot a few, and was rewarded by getting several specimens of the fine new kingfisher, Halcyon fulgidus, and the curious and handsome ground thrush, Zoothera andromeda. The former belies its name by not frequenting water or feeding on fish. It lives constantly in low damp thickets picking up ground insects, centipedes, and small mollusca. Altogether I was much pleased with my visit to this place, and it gave me a higher opinion than I had before entertained of the taste of these people, although the style of the buildings and of the sculpture is very much inferior to those of the magnificent ruins in Java. I must now say a few words about the character, manners, and customs of these interesting people. The aborigines of Lombock are termed Sassaks. They are a Malay race hardly differing in appearance from the people of Malacca or Borneo. They are Mahometans and form the bulk of the population. The ruling classes, on the other hand, are natives of the adjacent island of Bali, and are of the Brahminical religion. The government is an absolute monarchy, but it seems to be conducted with more wisdom and moderation than is usual in Malay countries. The father of the present Rajah conquered the island, and the people seem now quite reconciled to their new rulers, who do not interfere with their religion, and probably do not tax them any heavier than did the native chiefs they have supplanted. The laws now in force in Lombock are very severe. Theft is punished by death. Mr. Carter informed me that a man once stole a metal coffee-pot from his house. He was caught, the pot restored, and the man brought to Mr. Carter to punish as he thought fit. All the natives recommended Mr. Carter to have him "krissed" on the spot; "for if you don't," said they, "he will rob you again." Mr. Carter, however, let him off with a warning, that if he ever came inside his premises again he would certainly be shot. A few months afterwards the same man stole a horse from Mr. Carter. The horse was recovered, but the thief was not caught. It is an established rule, that anyone found in a house after dark, unless with the owner's knowledge, may be stabbed, his body thrown out into the street or upon the beach, and no questions will be asked. The men are exceedingly jealous and very strict with their wives. A married woman may not accept a cigar or a sirih leaf from a stranger under pain of death. I was informed that some years ago one of the English traders had a Balinese woman of good family living with him--the connection being considered quite honourable by the natives. During some festival this girl offended against the law by accepting a flower or some such trifle from another man. This was reported to the Rajah (to some of whose wives the girl was related), and he immediately sent to the Englishman's house ordering him to give the woman up as she must be "krissed." In vain he begged and prayed, and offered to pay any fine the Rajah might impose, and finally refused to give her up unless he was forced to do so. This the Rajah did not wish to resort to, as he no doubt thought he was acting as much for the Englishman's honour as for his own; so he appeared to let the matter drop. But some time afterwards he sent one of his followers to the house, who beckoned the girl to the door, and then saying, "The Rajah sends you this," stabbed her to the heart. More serious infidelity is punished still more cruelly, the woman and her paramour being tied back to back and thrown into the sea, where some large crocodiles are always on the watch to devour the bodies. One such execution took place while I was at Ampanam, but I took a long walk into the country to be out of the way until it was all over, thus missing the opportunity of having a horrible narrative to enliven my somewhat tedious story. One morning, as we were sitting at breakfast, Mr. Carter's servant informed us that there was an "Amok" in the village--in other words, that a man was "running a muck." Orders were immediately given to shut and fasten the gates of our enclosure; but hearing nothing for some time, we went out, and found there had been a false alarm, owing to a slave having run away, declaring he would "amok," because his master wanted to sell him. A short time before, a man had been killed at a gaming-table because, having lost half-a-dollar more than he possessed, he was going to "amok." Another had killed or wounded seventeen people before he could be destroyed. In their wars a whole regiment of these people will sometimes agree to "amok," and then rush on with such energetic desperation as to be very formidable to men not so excited as themselves. Among the ancients these would have been looked upon as heroes or demigods who sacrificed themselves for their country. Here it is simply said--they made "amok." Macassar is the most celebrated place in the East for "running a muck." There are said to be one or two a month on the average, and five, ten, or twenty persons are sometimes killed or wounded at one of them. It is the national, and therefore the honourable, mode of committing suicide among the natives of Celebes, and is the fashionable way of escaping from their difficulties. A Roman fell upon his sword, a Japanese rips up his stomach, and an Englishman blows out his brains with a pistol. The Bugis mode has many advantages to one suicidically inclined. A man thinks himself wronged by society--he is in debt and cannot pay--he is taken for a slave or has gambled away his wife or child into slavery--he sees no way of recovering what he has lost, and becomes desperate. He will not put up with such cruel wrongs, but will be revenged on mankind and die like a hero. He grasps his kris-handle, and the next moment draws out the weapon and stabs a man to the heart. He runs on, with bloody kris in his hand, stabbing at everyone he meets. "Amok! Amok!" then resounds through the streets. Spears, krisses, knives and guns are brought out against him. He rushes madly forward, kills all he can--men, women, and children--and dies overwhelmed by numbers amid all the excitement of a battle. And what that excitement is those who have been in one best know, but all who have ever given way to violent passions, or even indulged in violent and exciting exercises, may form a very good idea. It is a delirious intoxication, a temporary madness that absorbs every thought and every energy. And can we wonder at the kris-bearing, untaught, brooding Malay preferring such a death, looked upon as almost honourable to the cold-blooded details of suicide, if he wishes to escape from overwhelming troubles, or the merciless clutches of the hangman and the disgrace of a public execution, when he has taken the law into his own hands and too hastily revenged himself upon his enemy? In either case he chooses rather to "amok." The great staples of the trade of Lombock as well as of Bali are rice and coffee; the former grown on the plains, the latter on the hills. The rice is exported very largely to other islands of the Archipelago, to Singapore, and even to China, and there are generally one or more vessels loading in the port. It is brought into Ampanam on pack-horses, and almost every day a string of these would come into Mr. Carter's yard. The only money the natives will take for their rice is Chinese copper cash, twelve hundred of which go to a dollar. Every morning two large sacks of this money had to be counted out into convenient sums for payment. From Bali quantities of dried beef and ox-tongues are exported, and from Lombock a good many ducks and ponies. The ducks are a peculiar breed, which have very long flat bodies, and walk erect almost like penguins. They are generally of a pale reddish ash colour, and are kept in large flocks. They are very cheap and are largely consumed by the crews of the rice ships, by whom they are called Baly-soldiers, but are more generally known elsewhere as penguin-ducks. My Portuguese bird-stuffer Fernandez now insisted on breaking his agreement and returning to Singapore; partly from homesickness, but more I believe from the idea that his life was not worth many months' purchase among such bloodthirsty and uncivilized peoples. It was a considerable loss to me, as I had paid him full three times the usual wages for three months in advance, half of which was occupied in the voyage and the rest in a place where I could have done without him, owing to there being so few insects that I could devote my own time to shooting and skinning. A few days after Fernandez had left, a small schooner came in bound for Macassar, to which place I took a passage. As a fitting conclusion to my sketch of these interesting islands, I will narrate an anecdote which I heard of the present Rajah; and which, whether altogether true or not, well illustrates native character, and will serve as a means of introducing some details of the manners and customs of the country to which I have not yet alluded. CHAPTER XII. LOMBOCK: HOW THE RAJAH TOOK THE CENSUS. The Rajah of Lombock was a very wise man and he showed his wisdom greatly in the way he took the census. For my readers must know that the chief revenues of the Rajah were derived from a head-tax of rice, a small measure being paid annually by every man, woman, and child in the island, There was no doubt that every one paid this tax, for it was a very light one, and the land was fertile and the people well off; but it had to pass through many hands before it reached the Government storehouses. When the harvest was over the villagers brought their rice to the Kapala kampong, or head of the village; and no doubt he sometimes had compassion for the poor or sick and passed over their short measure, and sometimes was obliged to grant a favour to those who had complaints against him; and then he must keep up his own dignity by having his granaries better filled than his neighbours, and so the rice that he took to the "Waidono" that was over his district was generally good deal less than it should have been. And all the "Waidonos" had of course to take care of themselves, for they were all in debt and it was so easy to take a little of the Government rice, and there would still be plenty for the Rajah. And the "Gustis" or princes who received the rice from the Waidonos helped themselves likewise, and so when the harvest was all over and the rice tribute was all brought in, the quantity was found to be less each year than the one before. Sickness in one district, and fevers in another, and failure of the crops in a third, were of course alleged as the cause of this falling off; but when the Rajah went to hunt at the foot of the great mountain, or went to visit a "Gusti" on the other side of the island, he always saw the villages full of people, all looking well-fed and happy. And he noticed that the krisses of his chiefs and officers were getting handsomer and handsomer; and the handles that were of yellow wood were changed for ivory, and those of ivory were changed for gold, and diamonds and emeralds sparkled on many of them; and he knew very well which way the tribute-rice went. But as he could not prove it he kept silence, and resolved in his own heart someday to have a census taken, so that he might know the number of his people, and not be cheated out of more rice than was just and reasonable. But the difficulty was how to get this census. He could not go himself into every village and every house, and count all the people; and if he ordered it to be done by the regular officers they would quickly understand what it was for, and the census would be sure to agree exactly with the quantity of rice he got last year. It was evident therefore that to answer his purpose no one must suspect why the census was taken; and to make sure of this, no one must know that there was any census taken at all. This was a very hard problem; and the Rajah thought and thought, as hard as a Malay Rajah can be expected to think, but could not solve it; and so he was very unhappy, and did nothing but smoke and chew betel with his favourite wife, and eat scarcely anything; and even when he went to the cock-fight did not seem to care whether his best birds won or lost. For several days he remained in this sad state, and all the court were afraid some evil eye had bewitched the Rajah; and an unfortunate Irish captain who had come in for a cargo of rice and who squinted dreadfully, was very nearly being krissed, but being first brought to the royal presence was graciously ordered to go on board and remain there while his ship stayed in the port. One morning however, after about a week's continuance of this unaccountable melancholy, a welcome change took place, for the Rajah sent to call together all the chiefs, priests, and princes who were then in Mataram, his capital city; and when they were all assembled in anxious expectation, he thus addressed them: "For many days my heart has been very sick and I knew not why, but now the trouble is cleared away, for I have had a dream. Last night the spirit of the 'Gunong Agong'--the great fire mountain--appeared to me, and told me that I must go up to the top of the mountain. All of you may come with me to near the top, but then I must go up alone, and the great spirit will again appear to me and will tell me what is of great importance to me and to you and to all the people of the island. Now go all of you and make this known through the island, and let every village furnish men to make clear a road for us to go through the forest and up the great mountain." So the news was spread over the whole island that the Rajah must go to meet the great spirit on the top of the mountain; and every village sent forth its men, and they cleared away the jungle and made bridges over the mountain streams and smoothed the rough places for the Rajah's passage. And when they came to the steep and craggy rocks of the mountain, they sought out the best paths, sometimes along the bed of a torrent, sometimes along narrow ledges of the black rocks; in one place cutting down a tall tree so as to bridge across a chasm, in another constructing ladders to mount the smooth face of a precipice. The chiefs who superintended the work fixed upon the length of each day's journey beforehand according to the nature of the road, and chose pleasant places by the banks of clear streams and in the neighbourhood of shady trees, where they built sheds and huts of bamboo well thatched with the leaves of palm-trees, in which the Rajah and his attendants might eat and sleep at the close of each day. And when all was ready, the princes and priests and chief men came again to the Rajah, to tell him what had been done and to ask him when he would go up the mountain. And he fixed a day, and ordered every man of rank and authority to accompany him, to do honour to the great spirit who had bid him undertake the journey, and to show how willingly they obeyed his commands. And then there was much preparation throughout the whole island. The best cattle were killed and the meat salted and sun-dried; and abundance of red peppers and sweet potatoes were gathered; and the tall pinang-trees were climbed for the spicy betel nut, the sirih-leaf was tied up in bundles, and every man filled his tobacco pouch and lime box to the brim, so that he might not want any of the materials for chewing the refreshing betel during the journey. The stores of provisions were sent on a day in advance. And on the day before that appointed for starting, all the chiefs both great and small came to Mataram, the abode of the king, with their horses and their servants, and the bearers of their sirih boxes, and their sleeping-mats, and their provisions. And they encamped under the tall Waringin-trees that border all the roads about Mataram, and with blazing fires frighted away the ghouls and evil spirits that nightly haunt the gloomy avenues. In the morning a great procession was formed to conduct the Rajah to the mountain. And the royal princes and relations of the Rajah mounted their black horses whose tails swept the ground; they used no saddle or stirrups, but sat upon a cloth of gay colours; the bits were of silver and the bridles of many-coloured cords. The less important people were on small strong horses of various colours, well suited to a mountain journey; and all (even the Rajah) were bare-legged to above the knee, wearing only the gay coloured cotton waist-cloth, a silk or cotton jacket, and a large handkerchief tastefully folded around the head. Everyone was attended by one or two servants bearing his sirih and betel boxes, who were also mounted on ponies; and great numbers more had gone on in advance or waited to bring up the rear. The men in authority were numbered by hundreds and their followers by thousands, and all the island wondered what great thing would come of it. For the first two days they went along good roads and through many villages which were swept clean, and where bright cloths were hung out at the windows; and all the people, when the Rajah came, squatted down upon the ground in respect, and every man riding got off his horse and squatted down also, and many joined the procession at every village. At the place where they stopped for the night, the people had placed stakes along each side of the roads in front of the houses. These were split crosswise at the top, and in the cleft were fastened little clay lamps, and between them were stuck the green leaves of palm-trees, which, dripping with the evening dew, gleamed prettily with the many twinkling lights. And few went to sleep that night until the morning hours, for every house held a knot of eager talkers, and much betel-nut was consumed, and endless were the conjectures what would come of it. On the second day they left the last village behind them and entered the wild country that surrounds the great mountain, and rested in the huts that had been prepared for them on the banks of a stream of cold and sparkling water. And the Rajah's hunters, armed with long and heavy guns, went in search of deer and wild bulls in the surrounding woods, and brought home the meat of both in the early morning, and sent it on in advance to prepare the mid-day meal. On the third day they advanced as far as horses could go, and encamped at the foot of high rocks, among which narrow pathways only could be found to reach the mountain-top. And on the fourth morning when the Rajah set out, he was accompanied only by a small party of priests and princes with their immediate attendants; and they toiled wearily up the rugged way, and sometimes were carried by their servants, until they passed up above the great trees, and then among the thorny bushes, and above them again on to the black and burned rock of the highest part of the mountain. And when they were near the summit, the Rajah ordered them all to halt, while he alone went to meet the great spirit on the very peak of the mountain. So he went on with two boys only who carried his sirih and betel, and soon reached the top of the mountain among great rocks, on the edge of the great gulf whence issue forth continually smoke and vapour. And the Rajah asked for sirih, and told the boys to sit down under a rock and look down the mountain, and not to move until he returned to them. And as they were tired, and the sun was warm and pleasant, and the rock sheltered them from the cold wind, the boys fell asleep. And the Rajah went a little way on under another rock; and as he was tired, and the sun was warm and pleasant, and he too fell asleep. And those who were waiting for the Rajah thought him a long time on the top of the mountain, and thought the great spirit must have much to say, or might perhaps want to keep him on the mountain always, or perhaps he had missed his way in coming down again. And they were debating whether they should go and search for him, when they saw him coming down with the two boys. And when he met them he looked very grave, but said nothing; and then all descended together, and the procession returned as it had come; and the Rajah went to his palace and the chiefs to their villages, and the people to their houses, to tell their wives and children all that had happened, and to wonder yet again what would come of it. And three days afterwards the Rajah summoned the priests and the princes and the chief men of Mataram, to hear what the great spirit had told him on the top of the mountain. And when they were all assembled, and the betel and sirih had been handed round, he told them what had happened. On the top of the mountain he had fallen into a trance, and the great spirit had appeared to him with a face like burnished gold, and had said--"Oh Rajah! much plague and sickness and fevers are coming upon all the earth, upon men and upon horses and upon cattle; but as you and your people have obeyed me and have come up to my great mountain, I will teach you how you and all the people of Lombock may escape this plague." And all waited anxiously, to hear how they were to be saved from so fearful a calamity. And after a short silence the Rajah spoke again and told them, that the great spirit had commanded that twelve sacred krisses should be made, and that to make them every village and every district must send a bundle of needles--a needle for every head in the village. And when any grievous disease appeared in any village, one of the sacred krisses should be sent there; and if every house in that village had sent the right number of needles, the disease would immediately cease; but if the number of needles sent had not been exact, the kris would have no virtue. So the princes and chiefs sent to all their villages and communicated the wonderful news; and all made haste to collect the needles with the greatest accuracy, for they feared that if but one were wanting, the whole village would suffer. So one by one the head men of the villages brought in their bundles of needles; those who were near Mataram came first, and those who were far off came last; and the Rajah received them with his own hands and put them away carefully in an inner chamber, in a camphor-wood chest whose hinges and clasps were of silver; and on every bundle was marked the name of the village and the district from whence it came, so that it might be known that all had heard and obeyed the commands of the great spirit. And when it was quite certain that every village had sent in its bundle, the Rajah divided the needles into twelve equal parts, and ordered the best steelworker in Mataram to bring his forge and his bellows and his hammers to the palace, and to make the twelve krisses under the Rajah's eye, and in the sight of all men who chose to see it. And when they were finished, they were wrapped up in new silk and put away carefully until they might be wanted. Now the journey to the mountain was in the time of the east wind when no rain falls in Lombock. And soon after the krisses were made it was the time of the rice harvest, and the chiefs of districts and of villages brought their tax to the Rajah according to the number of heads in their villages. And to those that wanted but little of the full amount, the Rajah said nothing; but when those came who brought only half or a fourth part of what was strictly due, he said to them mildly, "The needles which you sent from your village were many more than came from such-a-one's village, yet your tribute is less than his; go back and see who it is that has not paid the tax." And the next year the produce of the tax increased greatly, for they feared that the Rajah might justly kill those who a second time kept back the right tribute. And so the Rajah became very rich, and increased the number of his soldiers, and gave golden jewels to his wives, and bought fine black horses from the white-skinned Hollanders, and made great feasts when his children were born or were married; and none of the Rajahs or Sultans among the Malays were so great or powerful as the Rajah of Lombock. And the twelve sacred krisses had great virtue. And, when any sickness appeared in a village one of them was sent for; and sometimes the sickness went away, and then the sacred kris was taken back again with great Honour, and the head men of the village came to tell the Rajah of its miraculous power, and to thank him. And sometimes the sickness would not go away; and then everybody was convinced that there had been a mistake in the number of needles sent from that village, and therefore the sacred kris had no effect, and had to be taken back again by the head men with heavy hearts, but still, with all honour--for was not the fault their own? CHAPTER XIII. TIMOR. (COUPANG, 1857-1869. DELLI, 1861.) THE island of Timor is about three hundred miles long and sixty wide, and seems to form the termination of the great range of volcanic islands which begins with Sumatra more than two thousand miles to the west. It differs however very remarkably from all the other islands of the chain in not possessing any active volcanoes, with the one exception of Timor Peak near the centre of the island, which was formerly active, but was blown up during an eruption in 1638 and has since been quiescent. In no other part of Timor do there appear to be any recent igneous rocks, so that it can hardly be classed as a volcanic island. Indeed its position is just outside of the great volcanic belt, which extends from Flores through Ombay and Wetter to Banda. I first visited Timor in 1857, staying a day at Coupang, the chief Dutch town at the west end of the island; and again in May 1859, when I stayed a fortnight in the same neighbourhood. In the spring of 1861 I spent four months at Delli, the capital of the Portuguese possessions in the eastern part of the island. The whole neighbourhood of Coupang appears to have been elevated at a recent epoch, consisting of a rugged surface of coral rock, which rises in a vertical wall between the beach and the town, whose low, white, red-tiled houses give it an appearance very similar to other Dutch settlements in the East. The vegetation is everywhere scanty and scrubby. Plants of the families Apocynaceae and Euphorbiaceae, abound; but there is nothing that can be called a forest, and the whole country has a parched and desolate appearance, contrasting strongly with the lofty forest trees and perennial verdure of the Moluccas or of Singapore. The most conspicuous feature of the vegetation was the abundance of fine fan-leaved palms (Borassus flabelliformis), from the leaves of which are constructed the strong and durable water-buckets in general use, and which are much superior to those formed from any other species of palm. From the same tree, palm-wine and sugar are made, and the common thatch for houses formed of the leaves lasts six or seven years without removal. Close to the town I noticed the foundation of a ruined house below high-water mark, indicating recent subsidence. Earthquakes are not severe here, and are so infrequent and harmless that the chief houses are built of stone. The inhabitants of Coupang consist of Malays, Chinese, and Dutch, besides the natives, so that there are many strange and complicated mixtures among the population. There is one resident English merchant, and whalers as well as Australian ships often come here for stores and water. The native Timorese preponderate, and a very little examination serves to show that they have nothing in common with Malays, but are much more closely allied to the true Papuans of the Aru Islands and New Guinea. They are tall, have pronounced features, large somewhat aquiline noses, and frizzly hair, and are generally of a dusky brown colour. The way in which the women talk to each other and to the men, their loud voices and laughter, and general character of self-assertion, would enable an experienced observer to decide, even without seeing them, that they were not Malays. Mr. Arndt, a German and the Government doctor, invited me to stay at his house while in Coupang, and I gladly accepted his offer, as I only intended making a short visit. We at first began speaking French, but he got on so badly that we soon passed insensibly into Malay; and we afterwards held long discussions on literary, scientific, and philosophical questions in that semi-barbarous language, whose deficiencies we made up by the free use of French or Latin words. After a few walks in the neighbourhood of the town, I found such a poverty of insects and birds that I determined to go for a few days to the island of Semao at the western extremity of Timor, where I heard that there was forest country with birds not found at Coupang. With some difficulty I obtained a large dugout boat with outriggers, to take me over a distance of about twenty miles. I found the country pretty well wooded, but covered with shrubs and thorny bushes rather than forest trees, and everywhere excessively parched and dried up by the long-continued dry season. I stayed at the village of Oeassa, remarkable for its soap springs. One of these is in the middle of the village, bubbling out from a little cone of mud to which the ground rises all round like a volcano in miniature. The water has a soapy feel and produces a strong lather when any greasy substance is washed in it. It contains alkali and iodine, in such quantities as to destroy all vegetation for some distance around. Close by the village is one of the finest springs I have ever seen, contained in several rocky basins communicating by narrow channels. These have been neatly walled where required and partly levelled, and form fine natural baths. The water is well tasted and clear as crystal, and the basins are surrounded by a grove of lofty many-stemmed banyan-trees, which keep them always cool and shady, and add greatly to the picturesque beauty of the scene. The village consists of curious little houses very different from any I have seen elsewhere. They are of an oval figure, and the walls are made of sticks about four feet high placed close together. From this rises a high conical roof thatched with grass. The only opening is a door about three feet high. The people are like the Timorese with frizzly or wavy hair and of a coppery brown colour. The better class appear to have a mixture of some superior race which has much improved their features. I saw in Coupang some chiefs from the island of Savu further west, who presented characters very distinct from either the Malay or Papuan races. They most resembled Hindus, having fine well-formed features and straight thin noses with clear brown complexions. As the Brahminical religion once spread over all Java, and even now exists in Bali and Lombock, it is not at all improbable that some natives of India should have reached this island, either by accident or to escape persecution, and formed a permanent settlement there. I stayed at Oeassa four days, when, not finding any insects and very few new birds, I returned to Coupang to await the next mail steamer. On the way I had a narrow escape of being swamped. The deep coffin-like boat was filled up with my baggage, and with vegetables, cocoa-nut and other fruit for Coupang market, and when we had got some way across into a rather rough sea, we found that a quantity of water was coming in which we had no means of baling out. This caused us to sink deeper in the water, and then we shipped seas over our sides, and the rowers, who had before declared it was nothing, now became alarmed and turned the boat round to get back to the coast of Semao, which was not far off. By clearing away some of the baggage a little of the water could be baled out, but hardly so fast as it came in, and when we neared the coast we found nothing but vertical walls of rock against which the sea was violently beating. We coasted along some distance until we found a little cove, into which we ran the boat, hauled it on shore, and emptying it found a large hole in the bottom, which had been temporarily stopped up with a plug of cocoa-nut which had come out. Had we been a quarter of a mile further off before we discovered the leak, we should certainly have been obliged to throw most of our baggage overboard, and might easily have lost our lives. After we had put all straight and secure we again started, and when we were halfway across got into such a strong current and high cross sea that we were very nearly being swamped a second time, which made me vow never to trust myself again in such small and miserable vessels. The mail steamer did not arrive for a week, and I occupied myself in getting as many of the birds as I could, and found some which were very interesting. Among them were five species of pigeons of as many distinct genera, and most of them peculiar to the island; two parrots--the fine red-winged broad-tail (Platycercus vulneratus), allied to an Australian species, and a green species of the genus Geoffroyus. The Tropidorhynchus timorensis was as ubiquitous and as noisy as I had found it at Lombock; and the Sphaecothera viridis, a curious green oriole with bare red orbits, was a great acquisition. There were several pretty finches, warblers, and flycatchers, and among them I obtained the elegant blue and red Cyornis hyacinthina; but I cannot recognise among my collections the species mentioned by Dampier, who seems to have been much struck by the number of small songbirds in Timor. He says: "One sort of these pretty little birds my men called the ringing bird, because it had six notes, and always repeated all his notes twice, one after the other, beginning high and shrill and ending low. The bird was about the bigness of a lark, having a small, sharp, black bill and blue wings; the head and breast were of a pale red, and there was a blue streak about its neck." In Semao, monkeys are abundant. They are the common hare-lipped monkey (Macacus cynomolgus), which is found all over the western islands of the Archipelago, and may have been introduced by natives, who often carry it about captive. There are also some deer, but it is not quite certain whether they are of the same species as are found in Java. I arrived at Delli, the capital of the Portuguese possessions in Timor, on January 12, 1861, and was kindly received by Captain Hart, an Englishman and an old resident, who trades in the produce of the country and cultivates coffee on an estate at the foot of the hills. With him I was introduced to Mr. Geach, a mining-engineer who had been for two years endeavouring to discover copper in sufficient quantity to be worth working. Delli is a most miserable place compared with even the poorest of the Dutch towns. The houses are all of mud and thatch; the fort is only a mud enclosure; and the custom-house and church are built of the same mean materials, with no attempt at decoration or even neatness. The whole aspect of the place is that of a poor native town, and there is no sign of cultivation or civilization round about it. His Excellency the Governor's house is the only one that makes any pretensions to appearance, and that is merely a low whitewashed cottage or bungalow. Yet there is one thing in which civilization exhibits itself--officials in black and white European costume, and officers in gorgeous uniforms abound in a degree quite disproportionate to the size or appearance of the place. The town being surrounded for some distance by swamps and mudflats is very unhealthy, and a single night often gives a fever to newcomers which not unfrequently proves fatal. To avoid this malaria, Captain Hart always slept at his plantation, on a slight elevation about two miles from the town, where Mr. Geach also had a small house, which he kindly invited me to share. We rode there in the evening; and in the course of two days my baggage was brought up, and I was able to look about me and see if I could do any collecting. For the first few weeks I was very unwell and could not go far from the house. The country was covered with low spiny shrubs and acacias, except in a little valley where a stream came down from the hills, where some fine trees and bushes shaded the water and formed a very pleasant place to ramble up. There were plenty of birds about, and of a tolerable variety of species; but very few of them were gaily coloured. Indeed, with one or two exceptions, the birds of this tropical island were hardly so ornamental as those of Great Britain. Beetles were so scarce that a collector might fairly say there were none, as the few obscure or uninteresting species would not repay him for the search. The only insects at all remarkable or interesting were the butterflies, which, though comparatively few in species, were sufficiently abundant, and comprised a large proportion of new or rare sorts. The banks of the stream formed my best collecting-ground, and I daily wandered up and down its shady bed, which about a mile up became rocky and precipitous. Here I obtained the rare and beautiful swallow-tail butterflies, Papilio aenomaus and P. liris; the males of which are quite unlike each other, and belong in fact to distinct sections of the genus, while the females are so much alike that they are undistinguishable on the wing, and to an uneducated eye equally so in the cabinet. Several other beautiful butterflies rewarded my search in this place, among which I may especially mention the Cethosia leschenaultii, whose wings of the deepest purple are bordered with buff in such a manner as to resemble at first sight our own Camberwell beauty, although it belongs to a different genus. The most abundant butterflies were the whites and yellows (Pieridae), several of which I had already found at Lombock and at Coupang, while others were new to me. Early in February we made arrangements to stay for a week at a village called Baliba, situated about four miles off on the mountains, at an elevation of 2,000 feet. We took our baggage and a supply of all necessaries on packhorses; and though the distance by the route we took was not more than six or seven miles, we were half a day getting there. The roads were mere tracks, sometimes up steep rocky stairs, sometimes in narrow gullies worn by the horses' feet, and where it was necessary to tuck up our legs on our horses' necks to avoid having them crushed. At some of these places the baggage had to be unloaded, at others it was knocked off. Sometimes the ascent or descent was so steep that it was easier to walk than to cling to our ponies' backs; and thus we went up and down over bare hills whose surface was covered with small pebbles and scattered over with Eucalypti, reminding me of what I had read of parts of the interior of Australia rather than of the Malay Archipelago. The village consisted of three houses only, with low walls raised a few feet on posts, and very high roofs thatched with grass hanging down to within two or three feet of the ground. A house which was unfinished and partly open at the back was given for our use, and in it we rigged up a table, some benches, and a screen, while an inner enclosed portion served us for a sleeping apartment. We had a splendid view down upon Delli and the sea beyond. The country around was undulating and open, except in the hollows, where there were some patches of forest, which Mr. Geach, who had been all over the eastern part of Timor, assured me was the most luxuriant he had yet seen in the island. I was in hopes of finding some insects here, but was much disappointed, owing perhaps to the dampness of the climate; for it was not until the sun was pretty high that the mists cleared away, and by noon we were generally clouded up again, so that there was seldom more than an hour or two of fitful sunshine. We searched in every direction for birds and other game, but they were very scarce. On our way I had shot the fine white-headed pigeon, Ptilonopus cinctus, and the pretty little lorikeet, Trichoglossus euteles. I got a few more of these at the blossoms of the Eucalypti, and also the allied species Trichoglossus iris, and a few other small but interesting birds. The common jungle-cock of India (Gallus bankiva) was found here, and furnished us with some excellent meals; but we could get no deer. Potatoes are grown higher up the mountains in abundance, and are very good. We had a sheep killed every other day, and ate our mutton with much appetite in the cool climate, which rendered a fire always agreeable. Although one-half the European residents in Delli are continually ill from fever, and the Portuguese have occupied the place for three centuries, no one has yet built a house on these fine hills, which, if a tolerable road were made, would be only an hour's ride from the town; and almost equally good situations might be found on a lower level at half an hour's distance. The fact that potatoes and wheat of excellent quality are grown in abundance at from 3,000 to 3,500 feet elevation, shows what the climate and soil are capable of if properly cultivated. From one to two thousand feet high, coffee would thrive; and there are hundreds of square miles of country over which all the varied products which require climates between those of coffee and wheat would flourish; but no attempt has yet been made to form a single mile of road, or a single acre of plantation! There must be something very unusual in the climate of Timor to permit wheat being grown at so moderate an elevation. The grain is of excellent quality, the bread made from it being equal to any I have ever tasted, and it is universally acknowledged to be unsurpassed by any made from imported European or American flour. The fact that the natives have (quite of their own accord) taken to cultivating such foreign articles as wheat and potatoes, which they bring in small quantities on the backs of ponies by the most horrible mountain tracks, and sell very cheaply at the seaside, sufficiently indicates what might be done if good roads were made, and if the people were taught, encouraged, and protected. Sheep also do well on the mountains; and a breed of hardy ponies in much repute all over the Archipelago, runs half-wild, so that it appears as if this island, so barren-looking and devoid of the usual features of tropical vegetation, were yet especially adapted to supply a variety of products essential to Europeans, which the other islands will not produce, and which they accordingly import from the other side of the globe. On the 24th of February my friend Mr. Geach left Timor, having finally reported that no minerals worth working were to be found. The Portuguese were very much annoyed, having made up their minds that copper is abundant, and still believing it to be so. It appears that from time immemorial pure native copper has been found at a place on the coast about thirty miles east of Delli. The natives say they find it in the bed of a ravine, and many years ago a captain of a vessel is said to have got some hundreds-weight of it. Now, however, it is evidently very scarce, as during the two years Mr. Geach resided in the country, none was found. I was shown one piece several pounds' weight, having much the appearance of one of the larger Australian nuggets, but of pure copper instead of gold. The natives and the Portuguese have very naturally imagined that where these fragments come from there must be more; and they have a report or tradition, that a mountain at the head of the ravine is almost pure copper, and of course of immense value. After much difficulty a company was at length formed to work the copper mountain, a Portuguese merchant of Singapore supplying most of the capital. So confident were they of the existence of the copper, that they thought it would be waste of time and money to have any exploration made first; and accordingly, sent to England for a mining engineer, who was to bring out all necessary tools, machinery, laboratory, utensils, a number of mechanics, and stores of all kinds for two years, in order to commence work on a copper-mine which he was told was already discovered. On reaching Singapore a ship was freighted to take the men and stores to Timor, where they at length arrived after much delay, a long voyage, and very great expense. A day was then fixed to "open the mines." Captain Hart accompanied Mr. Geach as interpreter. The Governor, the Commandante, the Judge, and all the chief people of the place went in state to the mountain, with Mr. Geach's assistant and some of the workmen. As they went up the valley Mr. Geach examined the rocks, but saw no signs of copper. They went on and on, but still nothing except a few mere traces of very poor ore. At length they stood on the copper mountain itself. The Governor stopped, the officials formed a circle, and he then addressed them, saying, that at length the day had arrived they had all been so long expecting, when the treasures of the soil of Timor would be brought to light, and much more in very grandiloquent Portuguese; and concluded by turning to Mr. Geach, and requesting him to point out the best spot for them to begin work at once, and uncover the mass of virgin copper. As the ravines and precipices among which they had passed, and which had been carefully examined, revealed very clearly the nature and mineral constitution of the country, Mr. Geach simply told them that there was not a trace of copper there, and that it was perfectly useless to begin work. The audience were thunderstruck! The Governor could not believe his ears. At length, when Mr. Geach had repeated his statement, the Governor told him severely that he was mistaken; that they all knew there was copper there in abundance, and all they wanted him to tell them, as a mining-engineer, was how best to get at it; and that at all events he was to begin work somewhere. This Mr. Geach refused to do, trying to explain that the ravines had cut far deeper into the hill than he could do in years, and that he would not throw away money or time on any such useless attempt. After this speech had been interpreted to him, the Governor saw it was no use, and without saying a word turned his horse and rode away, leaving my friends alone on the mountain. They all believed there was some conspiracy that the Englishman would not find the copper, and that they had been cruelly betrayed. Mr. Geach then wrote to the Singapore merchant who was his employer, and it was arranged that he should send the mechanics home again, and himself explore the country for minerals. At first the Government threw obstacles in his way and entirely prevented his moving; but at length he was allowed to travel about, and for more than a year he and his assistant explored the eastern part of Timor, crossing it in several places from sea to sea, and ascending every important valley, without finding any minerals that would pay the expense of working. Copper ore exists in several places, but always too poor in quality. The best would pay well if situated in England; but in the interior of an utterly barren country, with roads to make, and all skilled labour and materials to import, it would have been a losing concern. Gold also occurs, but very sparingly and of poor quality. A fine spring of pure petroleum was discovered far in the interior, where it can never be available until the country is civilized. The whole affair was a dreadful disappointment to the Portuguese Government, who had considered it such a certain thing that they had contracted for the Dutch mail steamers to stop at Delli and several vessels from Australia were induced to come with miscellaneous cargoes, for which they expected to find a ready sale among the population at the newly-opened mines. The lumps of native copper are still, however, a mystery. Mr. Geach has examined the country in every direction without being able to trace their origin; so that it seems probable that they result from the debris of old copper-bearing strata, and are not really more abundant than gold nuggets are in Australia or California. A high reward was offered to any native who should find a piece and show the exact spot where he obtained it, but without effect. The mountaineers of Timor are a people of Papuan type, having rather slender forms, bushy frizzled hair, and the skin of a dusky brown colour. They have the long nose with overhanging apex which is so characteristic of the Papuan, and so absolutely unknown among races of Malayan origin. On the coast there has been much admixture of some of the Malay races, and perhaps of Hindu, as well as of Portuguese. The general stature there is lower, the hair wavy instead of frizzled, and the features less prominent. The houses are built on the ground, while the mountaineers raise theirs on posts three or four feet high. The common dress is a long cloth, twisted around the waist and hanging to the knee, as shown in the illustration (page 305), copied from a photograph. Both men carry the national umbrella, made of an entire fan-shaped palm leaf, carefully stitched at the fold of each leaflet to prevent splitting. This is opened out, and held sloping over the head and back during a shower. The small water-bucket is made from an entire unopened leaf of the same palm, and the covered bamboo probably contains honey for sale. A curious wallet is generally carried, consisting of a square of strongly woven cloth, the four corners of which are connected by cords, and often much ornamented with beads and tassels. Leaning against the house behind the figure on the right are bamboos, used instead of water jars. A prevalent custom is the "pomali," exactly equivalent to the "taboo" of the Pacific islanders, and equally respected. It is used on the commonest occasions, and a few palm leaves stuck outside a garden as a sign of the "pomali" will preserve its produce from thieves as effectually as the threatening notice of man-traps, spring guns, or a savage dog would do with us. The dead are placed on a stage, raised six or eight feet above the ground, sometimes open and sometimes covered with a roof. Here the body remains until the relatives can afford to make a feast, when it is buried. The Timorese are generally great thieves, but are not bloodthirsty. They fight continually among themselves, and take every opportunity of kidnapping unprotected people of other tribes for slaves; but Europeans may pass anywhere through the country in safety. Except for a few half-breeds in the town, there are no native Christians in the island of Timor. The people retain their independence in a great measure, and both dislike and despise their would-be rulers, whether Portuguese or Dutch. The Portuguese government in Timor is a most miserable one. Nobody seems to care the least about the improvement of the country, and at this time, after three hundred years of occupation, there has not been a mile of road made beyond the town, and there is not a solitary European resident anywhere in the interior. All the Government officials oppress and rob the natives as much as they can, and yet there is no care taken to render the town defensible should the Timorese attempt to attack it. So ignorant are the military officers, that having received a small mortar and some shells, no one could be found who knew how to use them; and during an insurrection of the natives (while I was at Delli) the officer who expected to be sent against the insurgents was instantly taken ill! And they were allowed to get possession of an important pass within three miles of the town, where they could defend themselves against ten times the force. The result was that no provisions were brought down from the hills; a famine was imminent; and the Governor had to send off to beg for supplies from the Dutch Governor of Amboyna. In its present state Timor is more trouble than profit to its Dutch and Portuguese rulers, and it will continue to be so unless a different system is pursued. A few good roads into the elevated districts of the interior; a conciliatory policy and strict justice towards the natives, and the introduction of a good system of cultivation as in Java and northern Celebes, might yet make Timor a productive and valuable island. Rice grows well on the marshy flats, which often fringe the coast, and maize thrives in all the lowlands, and is the common food of the natives as it was when Dampier visited the island in 1699. The small quantity of coffee now grown is of very superior quality, and it might be increased to any extent. Sheep thrive, and would always be valuable as fresh food for whalers and to supply the adjacent islands with mutton, if not for their wool; although it is probable that on the mountains this product might soon be obtained by judicious breeding. Horses thrive amazingly; and enough wheat might be grown to supply the whole Archipelago if there were sufficient inducements to the natives to extend its cultivation, and good roads by which it could be cheaply transported to the coast. Under such a system the natives would soon perceive that European government was advantageous to them. They would begin to save money, and property being rendered secure they would rapidly acquire new wants and new tastes, and become large consumers of European goods. This would be a far surer source of profit to their rulers than imposts and extortion, and would be at the same time more likely to produce peace and obedience than the mock-military rule which has hitherto proved most ineffective. To inaugurate such a system would however require an immediate outlay of capital, which neither Dutch nor Portuguese seem inclined to make, and a number of honest and energetic officials, which the latter nation at least seems unable to produce; so that it is much to be feared that Timor will for many years to come remain in its present state of chronic insurrection and misgovernment. Morality at Delli is at as low an ebb as in the far interior of Brazil, and crimes are connived at which would entail infamy and criminal prosecution in Europe. While I was there it was generally asserted and believed in the place, that two officers had poisoned the husbands of women with whom they were carrying on intrigues, and with whom they immediately cohabited on the death of their rivals. Yet no one ever thought for a moment of showing disapprobation of the crime, or even of considering it a crime at all, the husbands in question being low half-castes, who of course ought to make way for the pleasures of their superiors. Judging from what I saw myself and by the descriptions of Mr. Geach, the indigenous vegetation of Timor is poor and monotonous. The lower ranges of the hills are everywhere covered with scrubby Eucalypti, which only occasionally grow into lofty forest trees. Mingled with these in smaller quantities are acacias and the fragrant sandalwood, while the higher mountains, which rise to about six or seven thousand feet, are either covered with coarse grass or are altogether barren. In the lower grounds are a variety of weedy bushes, and open waste places are covered everywhere with a nettle-like wild mint. Here is found the beautiful crown lily, Gloriosa superba, winding among the bushes, and displaying its magnificent blossoms in great profusion. A wild vine also occurs, bearing great irregular bunches of hairy grapes of a coarse but very luscious flavour. In some of the valleys where the vegetation is richer, thorny shrubs and climbers are so abundant as to make the thickets quite impenetrable. The soil seems very poor, consisting chiefly of decomposing clayey shales; and the bare earth and rock is almost everywhere visible. The drought of the hot season is so severe that most of the streams dry up in the plains before they reach the sea; everything becomes burned up, and the leaves of the larger trees fall as completely as in our winter. On the mountains from two to four thousand feet elevation there is a much moister atmosphere, so that potatoes and other European products can be grown all the year round. Besides ponies, almost the only exports of Timor are sandalwood and beeswax. The sandalwood (Santalum sp.) is the produce of a small tree, which grows sparingly in the mountains of Timor and many of the other islands in the far East. The wood is of a fine yellow colour, and possesses a well-known delightful fragrance which is wonderfully permanent. It is brought down to Delli in small logs, and is chiefly exported to China, where it is largely used to burn in the temples, and in the houses of the wealthy. The beeswax is a still more important and valuable product, formed by the wild bees (Apis dorsata), which build huge honeycombs, suspended in the open air from the underside of the lofty branches of the highest trees. These are of a semicircular form, and often three or four feet in diameter. I once saw the natives take a bees' nest, and a very interesting sight it was. In the valley where I used to collect insects, I one day saw three or four Timorese men and boys under a high tree, and, looking up, saw on a very lofty horizontal branch three large bees' combs. The tree was straight and smooth-barked and without a branch, until at seventy or eighty feet from the ground it gave out the limb which the bees had chosen for their home. As the men were evidently looking after the bees, I waited to watch their operations. One of them first produced a long piece of wood apparently the stem of a small tree or creeper, which he had brought with him, and began splitting it through in several directions, which showed that it was very tough and stringy. He then wrapped it in palm-leaves, which were secured by twisting a slender creeper round them. He then fastened his cloth tightly round his loins, and producing another cloth wrapped it around his head, neck, and body, and tied it firmly around his neck, leaving his face, arms, and legs completely bare. Slung to his girdle he carried a long thin coil of cord; and while he had been making these preparations, one of his companions had cut a strong creeper or bush-rope eight or ten yards long, to one end of which the wood-torch was fastened, and lighted at the bottom, emitting a steady stream of smoke. Just above the torch a chopping-knife was fastened by a short cord. The bee-hunter now took hold of the bush-rope just above the torch and passed the other end around the trunk of the tree, holding one end in each hand. Jerking it up the tree a little above his head he set his foot against the trunk, and leaning back began walking up it. It was wonderful to see the skill with which he took advantage of the slightest irregularities of the bark or obliquity of the stem to aid his ascent, jerking the stiff creeper a few feet higher when he had found a firm hold for his bare foot. It almost made me giddy to look at him as he rapidly got up--thirty, forty, fifty feet above the ground; and I kept wondering how he could possibly mount the next few feet of straight smooth trunk. Still, however, he kept on with as much coolness and apparent certainty as if he were going up a ladder, until he got within ten or fifteen feet of the bees. Then he stopped a moment, and took care to swing the torch (which hung just at his feet) a little towards these dangerous insects, so as to send up the stream of smoke between him and them. Still going on, in a minute more he brought himself under the limb, and, in a manner quite unintelligible to me, seeing that both hands were occupied in supporting himself by the creeper, managed to get upon it. By this time the bees began to be alarmed, and formed a dense buzzing swarm just over him, but he brought the torch up closer to him, and coolly brushed away those that settled on his arms or legs. Then stretching himself along the limb, he crept towards the nearest comb and swung the torch just under it. The moment the smoke touched it, its colour changed in a most curious manner from black to white, the myriads of bees that had covered it flying off and forming a dense cloud above and around. The man then lay at full length along the limb, and brushed off the remaining bees with his hand, and then drawing his knife cut off the comb at one slice close to the tree, and attaching the thin cord to it, let it down to his companions below. He was all this time enveloped in a crowd of angry bees, and how he bore their stings so coolly, and went on with his work at that giddy height so deliberately, was more than I could understand. The bees were evidently not stupified by the smoke or driven away far by it, and it was impossible that the small stream from the torch could protect his whole body when at work. There were three other combs on the same tree, and all were successively taken, and furnished the whole party with a luscious feast of honey and young bees, as well as a valuable lot of wax. After two of the combs had been let down, the bees became rather numerous below, flying about wildly and stinging viciously. Several got about me, and I was soon stung, and had to run away, beating them off with my net and capturing them for specimens. Several of them followed me for at least half a mile, getting into my hair and persecuting me most pertinaciously, so that I was more astonished than ever at the immunity of the natives. I am inclined to think that slow and deliberate motion, and no attempt at escape, are perhaps the best safeguards. A bee settling on a passive native probably behaves as it would on a tree or other inanimate substance, which it does not attempt to sting. Still they must often suffer, but they are used to the pain and learn to bear it impassively, as without doing so no man could be a bee-hunter. CHAPTER XIV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TIMOR GROUP. IF we look at a map of the Archipelago, nothing seems more unlikely than that the closely connected chain of islands from Java to Timor should differ materially in their natural productions. There are, it is true, certain differences of climate and of physical geography, but these do not correspond with the division the naturalist is obliged to make. Between the two ends of the chain there is a great contrast of climate, the west being exceedingly moist and leaving only a short and irregular dry season, the east being as dry and parched up, and having but a short wet season. This change, however, occurs about the middle of Java, the eastern portion of that island having as strongly marked seasons as Lombock and Timor. There is also a difference in physical geography; but this occurs at the eastern termination of the chain where the volcanoes which are the marked feature of Java, Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, and Flores, turn northwards through Gunong Api to Banda, leaving Timor with only one volcanic peak near its centre, while the main portion of the island consists of old sedimentary rocks. Neither of these physical differences corresponds with the remarkable change in natural productions which occurs at the Straits of Lombock, separating the island of that name from Bali, and which is at once so large in amount and of so fundamental a character, as to form an important feature in the zoological geography of our globe. The Dutch naturalist Zollinger, who resided a long time on the island of Bali, informs us that its productions completely assimilate with those of Java, and that he is not aware of a single animal found in it which does not inhabit the larger island. During the few days which I stayed on the north coast of Bali on my way to Lombock, I saw several birds highly characteristic of Javan ornithology. Among these were the yellow-headed weaver (Ploceus hypoxantha), the black grasshopper thrush (Copsychus amoenus), the rosy barbet (Megalaema rosea), the Malay oriole (Oriolus horsfieldi), the Java ground starling (Sturnopastor jalla), and the Javanese three-toed woodpecker (Chrysonotus tiga). On crossing over to Lombock, separated from Bali by a strait less than twenty miles wide, I naturally expected to meet with some of these birds again; but during a stay there of three months I never saw one of them, but found a totally different set of species, most of which were utterly unknown not only in Java, but also in Borneo, Sumatra, and Malacca. For example, among the commonest birds in Lombock were white cockatoos and three species of Meliphagidae or honeysuckers, belonging to family groups which are entirely absent from the western or Indo-Malayan region of the Archipelago. On passing to Flores and Timor the distinctness from the Javanese productions increases, and we find that these islands form a natural group, whose birds are related to those of Java and Australia, but are quite distinct from either. Besides my own collections in Lombock and Timor, my assistant Mr. Allen made a good collection in Flores; and these, with a few species obtained by the Dutch naturalists, enable us to form a very good idea of the natural history of this group of islands, and to derive therefrom some very interesting results. The number of birds known from these islands up to this date is: 63 from Lombock, 86 from Flores, and 118 from Timor; and from the whole group, 188 species. With the exception of two or three species which appear to have been derived from the Moluccas, all these birds can be traced, either directly or by close allies, to Java on the one side or to Australia on the other; although no less than 82 of them are found nowhere out of this small group of islands. There is not, however, a single genus peculiar to the group, or even one which is largely represented in it by peculiar species; and this is a fact which indicates that the fauna is strictly derivative, and that its origin does not go back beyond one of the most recent geological epochs. Of course there are a large number of species (such as most of the waders, many of the raptorial birds, some of the kingfishers, swallows, and a few others), which range so widely over a large part of the Archipelago that it is impossible to trace them as having come from any one part rather than from another. There are fifty-seven such species in my list, and besides these there are thirty-five more which, though peculiar to the Timor group, are yet allied to wide-ranging forms. Deducting these ninety-two species, we have nearly a hundred birds left whose relations with those of other countries we will now consider. If we first take those species which, as far as we yet know, are absolutely confined to each island, we find, in: Lombock 4 belonging to 2 genera, of which 1 is Australian, 1 Indian. Flores 12 " 7 " 5 are " 2 " Timor 42 " 20 " 16 are " 4 " The actual number of peculiar species in each island I do not suppose to be at all accurately determined, since the rapidly increasing numbers evidently depend upon the more extensive collections made in Timor than in Flores, and in Flores than in Lombock; but what we can depend more upon, and what is of more special interest, is the greatly increased proportion of Australian forms and decreased proportion of Indian forms, as we go from west to east. We shall show this in a yet more striking manner by counting the number of species identical with those of Java and Australia respectively in each island, thus: In Lombock. In Flores. In Timor. Javan birds... . 33 23 11 Australian birds.. 4 5 10 Here we see plainly the course of the migration which has been going on for hundreds or thousands of years, and is still going on at the present day. Birds entering from Java are most numerous in the island nearest Java; each strait of the sea to be crossed to reach another island offers an obstacle, and thus a smaller number get over to the next island. [The names of all the birds inhabiting these islands are to be found in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London" for the year 1863.] It will be observed that the number of birds that appear to have entered from Australia is much less than those which have come from Java; and we may at first sight suppose that this is due to the wide sea that separates Australia from Timor. But this would be a hasty and, as we shall soon see, an unwarranted supposition. Besides these birds identical with species inhabiting Java and Australia, there are a considerable number of others very closely allied to species peculiar to those countries, and we must take these also into account before we form any conclusion on the matter. It will be as well to combine these with the former table thus: In Lombock. In Flores. In Timor. Javan birds........ ... 33 23 11 Closely allied to Javan birds.. 1 5 6 Total.............. 34 28 17 Australian birds......... 4 5 10 Closely allied to Australian birds 3 9 26 Total..... ......... 7 14 36 We now see that the total number of birds which seem to have been derived from Java and Australia is very nearly equal, but there is this remarkable difference between the two series: that whereas the larger proportion by far of the Java set are identical with those still inhabiting that country, an almost equally large proportion of the Australian set are distinct, though often very closely allied species. It is to be observed also, that these representative or allied species diminish in number as they recede from Australia, while they increase in number as they recede from Java. There are two reasons for this, one being that the islands decrease rapidly in size from Timor to Lombock, and can therefore support a decreasing number of species; the other and the more important is, that the distance of Australia from Timor cuts off the supply of fresh immigrants, and has thus allowed variation to have full play; while the vicinity of Lombock to Bali and Java has allowed a continual influx of fresh individuals which, by crossing with the earlier immigrants, has checked variation. To simplify our view of the derivative origin of the birds of these islands let us treat them as a whole, and thus perhaps render more intelligible their respective relations to Java and Australia. The Timor group of islands contains: Javan birds....... 36 Australian birds... 13 Closely allied species.. 11 Closely allied species.. 35 Derived from Java .... 47 Derived from Australia... 48 We have here a wonderful agreement in the number of birds belonging to Australian and Javanese groups, but they are divided in exactly a reverse manner, three-fourths of the Javan birds being identical species and one-fourth representatives, while only one-fourth of the Australian forms are identical and three-fourths representatives. This is the most important fact which we can elicit from a study of the birds of these islands, since it gives us a very complete clue to much of their past history. Change of species is a slow process--on that we are all agreed, though we may differ about how it has taken place. The fact that the Australian species in these islands have mostly changed, while the Javan species have almost all remained unchanged, would therefore indicate that the district was first peopled from Australia. But, for this to have been the case, the physical conditions must have been very different from what they are now. Nearly three hundred miles of open sea now separate Australia from Timor, which island is connected with Java by a chain of broken land divided by straits which are nowhere more than about twenty miles wide. Evidently there are now great facilities for the natural productions of Java to spread over and occupy the whole of these islands, while those of Australia would find very great difficulty in getting across. To account for the present state of things, we should naturally suppose that Australia was once much more closely connected with Timor than it is at present; and that this was the case is rendered highly probable by the fact of a submarine bank extending along all the north and west coast of Australia, and at one place approaching within twenty miles of the coast of Timor. This indicates a recent subsidence of North Australia, which probably once extended as far as the edge of this bank, between which and Timor there is an unfathomed depth of ocean. I do not think that Timor was ever actually connected with Australia, because such a large number of very abundant and characteristic groups of Australian birds are quite absent, and not a single Australian mammal has entered Timor--which would certainly not have been the case had the lands been actually united. Such groups as the bower birds (Ptilonorhynchus), the black and red cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus), the blue wrens (Malurus), the crowshrikes (Cracticus), the Australian shrikes (Falcunculus and Colluricincla), and many others, which abound all over Australia, would certainly have spread into Timor if it had been united to that country, or even if for any long time it had approached nearer to it than twenty miles. Neither do any of the most characteristic groups of Australian insects occur in Timor; so that everything combines to indicate that a strait of the sea has always separated it from Australia, but that at one period this strait was reduced to a width of about twenty miles. But at the time when this narrowing of the sea took place in one direction, there must have been a greater separation at the other end of the chain, or we should find more equality in the numbers of identical and representative species derived from each extremity. It is true that the widening of the strait at the Australian end by subsidence, would, by putting a stop to immigration and intercrossing of individuals from the mother country, have allowed full scope to the causes which have led to the modification of the species; while the continued stream of immigrants from Java, would, by continual intercrossing, check such modification. This view will not, however, explain all the facts; for the character of the fauna of the Timorese group is indicated as well by the forms which are absent from it as by those which it contains, and is by this kind of evidence shown to be much more Australian than Indian. No less than twenty-nine genera, all more or less abundant in Java, and most of which range over a wide area, are altogether absent; while of the equally diffused Australian genera only about fourteen are wanting. This would clearly indicate that there has been, until recently, a wide separation from Java; and the fact that the islands of Bali and Lombock are small, and are almost wholly volcanic, and contain a smaller number of modified forms than the other islands, would point them out as of comparatively recent origin. A wide arm of the sea probably occupied their place at the time when Timor was in the closest proximity to Australia; and as the subterranean fires were slowly piling up the now fertile islands of Bali and Lombock, the northern shores of Australia would be sinking beneath the ocean. Some such changes as have been here indicated, enable us to understand how it happens, that though the birds of this group are on the whole almost as much Indian as Australian, yet the species which are peculiar to the group are mostly Australian in character; and also why such a large number of common Indian forms which extend through Java to Bali, should not have transmitted a single representative to the island further east. The Mammalia of Timor as well as those of the other islands of the group are exceedingly scanty, with the exception of bats. These last are tolerably abundant, and no doubt many more remain to be discovered. Out of fifteen species known from Timor, nine are found also in Java, or the islands west of it; three are Moluccan species, most of which are also found in Australia, and the rest are peculiar to Timor. The land mammals are only seven in number, as follows: 1. The common monkey, Macacus cynomolgus, which is found in all the Indo-Malayan islands, and has spread from Java through Bali and Lombock to Timor. This species is very frequent on the banks of rivers, and may have been conveyed from island to island on trees carried down by floods. 2. Paradoxurus fasciatus; a civet cat, very common over a large part of the Archipelago. 3. Felis megalotis; a tiger cat, said to be peculiar to Timor, where it exists only in the interior, and is very rare. Its nearest allies are in Java. 4. Cervus timoriensis; a deer, closely allied to the Javan and Moluccan species, if distinct. 5. A wild pig, Sus timoriensis; perhaps the same as some of the Moluccan species. 6. A shrew mouse, Sorex tenuis; supposed to be peculiar to Timor. 7. An Eastern opossum, Cuscus orientalis; found also in the Moluccas, if not a distinct species. The fact that not one of these species is Australian or nearly allied to any Australian form, is strongly corroborative of the opinion that Timor has never formed a part of that country; as in that case some kangaroo or other marsupial animal would almost certainly be found there. It is no doubt very difficult to account for the presence of some of the few mammals that do exist in Timor, especially the tiger cat and the deer. We must consider, however, that during thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, these islands and the seas between them have been subjected to volcanic action. The land has been raised and has sunk again; the straits have been narrowed or widened; many of the islands may have been joined and dissevered again; violent floods have again and again devastated the mountains and plains, carrying out to sea hundreds of forest trees, as has often happened during volcanic eruptions in Java; and it does not seem improbable that once in a thousand, or ten thousand years, there should have occurred such a favourable combination of circumstances as would lead to the migration of two or three land animals from one island to another. This is all that we need ask to account for the very scanty and fragmentary group of Mammalia which now inhabit the large island of Timor. The deer may very probably have been introduced by man, for the Malays often keep tame fawns; and it may not require a thousand, or even five hundred years, to establish new characters in an animal removed to a country so different in climate and vegetation as is Timor from the Moluccas. I have not mentioned horses, which are often thought to be wild in Timor, because there are no grounds whatever for such a belief. The Timor ponies have every one an owner, and are quite as much domesticated animals as the cattle on a South American hacienda. I have dwelt at some length upon the origin of the Timorese fauna because it appears to be a most interesting and instructive problem. It is very seldom that we can trace the animals of a district so clearly as we can in this case to two definite sources, and still more rarely that they furnish such decisive evidence of the time, the manner, and the proportions of their introduction. We have here a group of Oceanic Islands in miniature--islands which have never formed part of the adjacent lands, although so closely approaching them; and their productions have the characteristics of true Oceanic Islands slightly modified. These characteristics are: the absence all Mammalia except bats; and the occurrence of peculiar species of birds, insects, and land shells, which, though found nowhere else, are plainly related to those of the nearest land. Thus, we have an entire absence of all Australian mammals, and the presence of only a few stragglers from the west which can be accounted for in the manner already indicated. Bats are tolerably abundant. Birds have many peculiar species, with a decided relationship to those of the two nearest masses of land. The insects have similar relations with the birds. As an example, four species of the Papilionidae are peculiar to Timor, three others are also found in Java, and one in Australia. Of the four peculiar species two are decided modifications of Javanese forms, while the others seem allied to those of the Moluccas and Celebes. The very few land shells known are all, curiously enough, allied to or identical with Moluccan or Celebes forms. The Pieridae (white and yellow butterflies) which wander more, and from frequenting open grounds, are more liable to be blown out to sea, seem about equally related to those of Java, Australia, and the Moluccas. It has been objected to in Mr. Darwin's theory, of Oceanic Islands having never been connected with the mainland, that this would imply that their animal population was a matter of chance; it has been termed the "flotsam and jetsam theory," and it has been maintained that nature does not work by the "CHAPTER of accidents." But in the case which I have here described, we have the most positive evidence that such has been the mode of peopling the islands. Their productions are of that miscellaneous character which we should expect from such an origin; and to suppose that they have been portions of Australia or of Java will introduce perfectly gratuitous difficulties, and render it quite impossible to explain those curious relations which the best known group of animals (the birds) have been shown to exhibit. On the other hand, the depth of the surrounding seas, the form of the submerged banks, and the volcanic character of most of the islands, all point to an independent origin. Before concluding, I must make one remark to avoid misapprehension. When I say that Timor has never formed part of Australia, I refer only to recent geological epochs. In Secondary or even Eocene or Miocene times, Timor and Australia may have been connected; but if so, all record of such a union has been lost by subsequent submergence, and in accounting for the present land-inhabitants of any country we have only to consider those changes which have occurred since its last elevation above the waters. Since such last elevation, I feel confident that Timor has not formed part of Australia. CHAPTER XV. CELEBES. (MACASSAR, SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER, 1856.) I LEFT Lombock on the 30th of August, and reached Macassar in three days. It was with great satisfaction that I stepped on a shore which I had been vainly trying to reach since February, and where I expected to meet with so much that was new and interesting. The coast of this part of Celebes is low and flat, lined with trees and villages so as to conceal the interior, except at occasional openings which show a wide extent of bare and marshy rice-fields. A few hills of no great height were visible in the background; but owing to the perpetual haze over the land at this time of the year, I could nowhere discern the high central range of the peninsula, or the celebrated peak of Bontyne at its southern extremity. In the roadstead of Macassar there was a fine 42-gun frigate, the guardship of the place, as well as a small war steamer and three or four little cutters used for cruising after the pirates which infest these seas. There were also a few square-rigged trading-vessels, and twenty or thirty native praus of various sizes. I brought letters of introduction to a Dutch gentleman, Mr. Mesman, and also to a Danish shopkeeper, who could both speak English and who promised to assist me in finding a place to stay, suitable for my pursuits. In the meantime, I went to a kind of clubhouse, in default of any hotel in the place. Macassar was the first Dutch town I had visited, and I found it prettier and cleaner than any I had yet seen in the East. The Dutch have some admirable local regulations. All European houses must be kept well white-washed, and every person must, at four in the afternoon, water the road in front of his house. The streets are kept clear of refuse, and covered drains carry away all impurities into large open sewers, into which the tide is admitted at high-water and allowed to flow out when it has ebbed, carrying all the sewage with it into the sea. The town consists chiefly of one long narrow street along the seaside, devoted to business, and principally occupied by the Dutch and Chinese merchants' offices and warehouses, and the native shops or bazaars. This extends northwards for more than a mile, gradually merging into native houses often of a most miserable description, but made to have a neat appearance by being all built up exactly to the straight line of the street, and being generally backed by fruit trees. This street is usually thronged with a native population of Bugis and Macassar men, who wear cotton trousers about twelve inches long, covering only from the hip to half-way down the thigh, and the universal Malay sarong, of gay checked colours, worn around the waist or across the shoulders in a variety of ways. Parallel to this street run two short ones which form the old Dutch town, and are enclosed by gates. These consist of private houses, and at their southern end is the fort, the church, and a road at right angles to the beach, containing the houses of the Governor and of the principal officials. Beyond the fort, again along the beach, is another long street of native huts and many country-houses of the tradesmen and merchants. All around extend the flat rice-fields, now bare and dry and forbidding, covered with dusty stubble and weeds. A few months back these were a mass of verdure, and their barren appearance at this season offered a striking contrast to the perpetual crops on the same kind of country in Lombock and Bali, where the seasons are exactly similar, but where an elaborate system of irrigation produces the effect of a perpetual spring. The day after my arrival I paid a visit of ceremony to the Governor, accompanied by my friend the Danish merchant, who spoke excellent English. His Excellency was very polite, and offered me every facility for travelling about the country and prosecuting my researches in natural history. We conversed in French, which all Dutch officials speak very well. Finding it very inconvenient and expensive to stay in the town, I removed at the end of a week to a little bamboo house, kindly offered me by Mr. Mesman. It was situated about two miles away, on a small coffee plantation and farm, and about a mile beyond Mr. M.'s own country-house. It consisted of two rooms raised about seven feet above the ground, the lower part being partly open (and serving excellently to skin birds in) and partly used as a granary for rice. There was a kitchen and other outhouses, and several cottages nearby, occupied by men in Mr. M.'s employ. After being settled a few days in my new house, I found that no collections could be made without going much further into the country. The rice-fields for some miles around resembled English stubbles late in autumn, and were almost as unproductive of bird or insect life. There were several native villages scattered about, so embosomed in fruit trees that at a distance they looked like clumps or patches of forest. These were my only collecting places; but they produced a very limited number of species, and were soon exhausted. Before I could move to any more promising district it was necessary to obtain permission from the Rajah of Goa, whose territories approach to within two miles of the town of Macassar. I therefore presented myself at the Governor's office and requested a letter to the Rajah, to claim his protection, and permission to travel in his territories whenever I might wish to do so. This was immediately granted, and a special messenger was sent with me to carry the letter. My friend Mr. Mesman kindly lent me a horse, and accompanied me on my visit to the Rajah, with whom he was great friends. We found his Majesty seated out of doors, watching the erection of a new house. He was naked from the waist up, wearing only the usual short trousers and sarong. Two chairs were brought out for us, but all the chiefs and other natives were seated on the ground. The messenger, squatting down at the Rajah's feet, produced the letter, which was sewn up in a covering of yellow silk. It was handed to one of the chief officers, who ripped it open and returned it to the Rajah, who read it, and then showed it to Mr. M., who both speaks and reads the Macassar language fluently, and who explained fully what I required. Permission was immediately granted me to go where I liked in the territories of Goa, but the Rajah desired, that should I wish to stay any time at a place I would first give him notice, in order that he might send someone to see that no injury was done me. Some wine was then brought us, and afterwards some detestable coffee and wretched sweetmeats, for it is a fact that I have never tasted good coffee where people grow it themselves. Although this was the height of the dry season, and there was a fine wind all day, it was by no means a healthy time of year. My boy Ali had hardly been a day on shore when he was attacked by fever, which put me to great inconvenience, as at the house where I was staying, nothing could be obtained but at mealtime. After having cured Ali, and with much difficulty got another servant to cook for me, I was no sooner settled at my country abode than the latter was attacked with the same disease; and, having a wife in the town, left me. Hardly was he gone than I fell ill myself with strong intermittent fever every other day. In about a week I got over it, by a liberal use of quinine, when scarcely was I on my legs than Ali again became worse than ever. Ali's fever attacked him daily, but early in the morning he was pretty well, and then managed to cook enough for me for the day. In a week I cured him, and also succeeded in getting another boy who could cook and shoot, and had no objection to go into the interior. His name was Baderoon, and as he was unmarried and had been used to a roving life, having been several voyages to North Australia to catch trepang or "beche de mer", I was in hopes of being able to keep him. I also got hold of a little impudent rascal of twelve or fourteen, who could speak some Malay, to carry my gun or insect-net and make himself generally useful. Ali had by this time become a pretty good bird-skinner, so that I was fairly supplied with servants. I made many excursions into the country, in search of a good station for collecting birds and insects. Some of the villages a few miles inland are scattered about in woody ground which has once been virgin forest, but of which the constituent trees have been for the most part replaced by fruit trees, and particularly by the large palm, Arenga saccharifera, from which wine and sugar are made, and which also produces a coarse black fibre used for cordage. That necessary of life, the bamboo, has also been abundantly planted. In such places I found a good many birds, among which were the fine cream-coloured pigeon, Carpophaga luctuosa, and the rare blue-headed roller, Coracias temmincki, which has a most discordant voice, and generally goes in pairs, flying from tree to tree, and exhibiting while at rest that all-in-a-heap appearance and jerking motion of the head and tail which are so characteristic of the great Fissirostral group to which it belongs. From this habit alone, the kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, trogons, and South American puff-birds, might be grouped together by a person who had observed them in a state of nature, but who had never had an opportunity of examining their form and structure in detail. Thousands of crows, rather smaller than our rook, keep up a constant cawing in these plantations; the curious wood-swallows (Artami), which closely resemble swallows in their habits and flight but differ much in form and structure, twitter from the tree-tops; while a lyre-tailed drongo-shrike, with brilliant black plumage and milk-white eyes, continually deceives the naturalist by the variety of its unmelodious notes. In the more shady parts butterflies were tolerably abundant; the most common being species of Euplaea and Danais, which frequent gardens and shrubberies, and owing to their weak flight are easily captured. A beautiful pale blue and black butterfly, which flutters along near the ground among the thickets, and settles occasionally upon flowers, was one of the most striking; and scarcely less so, was one with a rich orange band on a blackish ground--these both belong to the Pieridae, the group that contains our common white butterflies, although differing so much from them in appearance. Both were quite new to European naturalists. [The former has been named Eronia tritaea; the latter Tachyris ithonae.] Now and then I extended my walks some miles further, to the only patch of true forest I could find, accompanied by my two boys with guns and insect-net. We used to start early, taking our breakfast with us, and eating it wherever we could find shade and water. At such times my Macassar boys would put a minute fragment of rice and meat or fish on a leaf, and lay it on a stone or stump as an offering to the deity of the spot; for though nominal Mahometans the Macassar people retain many pagan superstitions, and are but lax in their religious observances. Pork, it is true, they hold in abhorrence, but will not refuse wine when offered them, and consume immense quantities of "sagueir," or palm-wine, which is about as intoxicating as ordinary beer or cider. When well made it is a very refreshing drink, and we often took a draught at some of the little sheds dignified by the name of bazaars, which are scattered about the country wherever there is any traffic. One day Mr. Mesman told me of a larger piece of forest where he sometimes went to shoot deer, but he assured me it was much further off, and that there were no birds. However, I resolved to explore it, and the next morning at five o'clock we started, carrying our breakfast and some other provisions with us, and intending to stay the night at a house on the borders of the wood. To my surprise two hours' hard walking brought us to this house, where we obtained permission to pass the night. We then walked on, Ali and Baderoon with a gun each, Baso carrying our provisions and my insect-box, while I took only my net and collecting-bottle and determined to devote myself wholly to the insects. Scarcely had I entered the forest when I found some beautiful little green and gold speckled weevils allied to the genus Pachyrhynchus, a group which is almost confined to the Philippine Islands, and is quite unknown in Borneo, Java, or Malacca. The road was shady and apparently much trodden by horses and cattle, and I quickly obtained some butterflies I had not before met with. Soon a couple of reports were heard, and coming up to my boys I found they had shot two specimens of one of the finest of known cuckoos, Phoenicophaus callirhynchus. This bird derives its name from its large bill being coloured of a brilliant yellow, red, and black, in about equal proportions. The tail is exceedingly long, and of a fine metallic purple, while the plumage of the body is light coffee brown. It is one of the characteristic birds of the island of Celebes, to which it is confined. After sauntering along for a couple of hours we reached a small river, so deep that horses could only cross it by swimming, so we had to turn back; but as we were getting hungry, and the water of the almost stagnant river was too muddy to drink, we went towards a house a few hundred yards off. In the plantation we saw a small raised hut, which we thought would do well for us to breakfast in, so I entered, and found inside a young woman with an infant. She handed me a jug of water, but looked very much frightened. However, I sat down on the doorstep, and asked for the provisions. In handing them up, Baderoon saw the infant, and started back as if he had seen a serpent. It then immediately struck me that this was a hut in which, as among the Dyaks of Borneo and many other savage tribes, the women are secluded for some time after the birth of their child, and that we did very wrong to enter it; so we walked off and asked permission to eat our breakfast in the family mansion close at hand, which was of course granted. While I ate, three men, two women, and four children watched every motion, and never took eyes off me until I had finished. On our way back in the heat of the day, I had the good fortune to capture three specimens of a fine Ornithoptera, the largest, the most perfect, and the most beautiful of butterflies. I trembled with excitement as I took the first out of my net and found it to be in perfect condition. The ground colour of this superb insect was a rich shining bronzy black, the lower wings delicately grained with white, and bordered by a row of large spots of the most brilliant satiny yellow. The body was marked with shaded spots of white, yellow, and fiery orange, while the head and thorax were intense black. On the under-side the lower wings were satiny white, with the marginal spots half black and half yellow. I gazed upon my prize with extreme interest, as I at first thought it was quite a new species. It proved however to be a variety of Ornithoptera remus, one of the rarest and most remarkable species of this highly esteemed group. I also obtained several other new and pretty butterflies. When we arrived at our lodging-house, being particularly anxious about my insect treasures, I suspended the box from a bamboo on which I could detect no sign of ants, and then began skinning some of my birds. During my work I often glanced at my precious box to see that no intruders had arrived, until after a longer spell of work than usual I looked again, and saw to my horror that a column of small red ants were descending the string and entering the box. They were already busy at work at the bodies of my treasures, and another half-hour would have seen my whole day's collection destroyed. As it was, I had to take every insect out, clean them thoroughly as well as the box, and then seek a place of safety for them. As the only effectual one, I begged a plate and a basin from my host, filled the former with water, and standing the latter in it placed my box on the top, and then felt secure for the night; a few inches of clean water or oil being the only barrier these terrible pests are not able to pass. On returning home to Mamajam (as my house was called) I had a slight return of intermittent fever, which kept me some days indoors. As soon as I was well, I again went to Goa, accompanied by Mr. Mesman, to beg the Rajah's assistance in getting a small house built for me near the forest. We found him at a cock-fight in a shed near his palace, which however, he immediately left to receive us, and walked with us up an inclined plane of boards which serves for stairs to his house. This was large, well-built, and lofty, with bamboo floor and glass windows. The greater part of it seemed to be one large hall divided by the supporting posts. Near a window sat the Queen, squatting on a rough wooden arm-chair, chewing the everlasting sirih and betel-nut, while a brass spittoon by her side and a sirih-box in front were ready to administer to her wants. The Rajah seated himself opposite to her in a similar chair, and a similar spittoon and sirih-box were held by a little boy squatting at his side. Two other chairs were brought for us. Several young women, some the Rajah's daughters, others slaves, were standing about; a few were working at frames making sarongs, but most of them were idle. And here I might (if I followed the example of most travellers) launch out into a glowing description of the charms of these damsels, the elegant costumes they wore, and the gold and silver ornaments with which they were adorned. The jacket or body of purple gauze would figure well in such a description, allowing the heaving bosom to be seen beneath it, while "sparkling eyes," and "jetty tresses," and "tiny feet" might be thrown in profusely. But, alas! regard for truth will not permit me to expatiate too admiringly on such topics, determined as I am to give as far as I can a true picture of the people and places I visit. The princesses were, it is true, sufficiently good-looking, yet neither their persons nor their garments had that appearance of freshness and cleanliness without which no other charms can be contemplated with pleasure. Everything had a dingy and faded appearance, very disagreeable and unroyal to a European eye. The only thing that excited some degree of admiration was the quiet and dignified manner of the Rajah and the great respect always paid to him. None can stand erect in his presence, and when he sits on a chair, all present (Europeans of course excepted) squat upon the ground. The highest seat is literally, with these people, the place of honour and the sign of rank. So unbending are the rules in this respect, that when an English carriage which the Rajah of Lombock had sent for arrived, it was found impossible to use it because the driver's seat was the highest, and it had to be kept as a show in its coach house. On being told the object of my visit, the Rajah at once said that he would order a house to be emptied for me, which would be much better than building one, as that would take a good deal of time. Bad coffee and sweetmeats were given us as before. Two days afterwards, I called on the Rajah to ask him to send a guide with me to show me the house I was to occupy. He immediately ordered a man to be sent for, gave him instructions, and in a few minutes we were on our way. My conductor could speak no Malay, so we walked on in silence for an hour, when we turned into a pretty good house and I was asked to sit down. The head man of the district lived here, and in about half an hour we started again, and another hour's walk brought us to the village and where I was to be lodged. We went to the residence of the village chief, who conversed with my conductor for some time. Getting tired, I asked to be shown the house that was prepared for me, but the only reply I could get was, "Wait a little," and the parties went on talking as before. So I told them I could not wait, as I wanted to see the house and then to go shooting in the forest. This seemed to puzzle them, and at length, in answer to questions, very poorly explained by one or two bystanders who knew a little Malay, it came out that no house was ready, and no one seemed to have the least idea where to get one. As I did not want to trouble the Rajah any more, I thought it best to try to frighten them a little; so I told them that if they did not immediately find me a house as the Rajah had ordered, I should go back and complain to him, but that if a house was found me I would pay for the use of it. This had the desired effect, and one of the head men of the village asked me to go with him and look for a house. He showed me one or two of the most miserable and ruinous description, which I at once rejected, saying, "I must have a good one, and near to the forest." The next he showed me suited very well, so I told him to see that it was emptied the next day, for that the day after I should come and occupy it. On the day mentioned, as I was not quite ready to go, I sent my two Macassar boys with brooms to sweep out the house thoroughly. They returned in the evening and told me that when they got there the house was inhabited, and not a single article removed. However, on hearing they had come to clean and take possession, the occupants made a move, but with a good deal of grumbling, which made me feel rather uneasy as to how the people generally might take my intrusion into their village. The next morning we took our baggage on three packhorses, and, after a few break-downs, arrived about noon at our destination. After getting all my things set straight, and having made a hasty meal, I determined if possible to make friends with the people. I therefore sent for the owner of the house and as many of his acquaintances as liked to come, to have a "bitchara," or talk. When they were all seated, I gave them a little tobacco all around, and having my boy Baderoon for interpreter, tried to explain to them why I came there; that I was very sorry to turn them out of the house, but that the Rajah had ordered it rather than build a new one, which was what I had asked for, and then placed five silver rupees in the owner's hand as one month's rent. I then assured them that my being there would be a benefit to them, as I should buy their eggs and fowls and fruit; and if their children would bring me shells and insects, of which I showed them specimens, they also might earn a good many coppers. After all this had been fully explained to them, with a long talk and discussion between every sentence, I could see that I had made a favourable impression; and that very afternoon, as if to test my promise to buy even miserable little snail-shells, a dozen children came one after another, bringing me a few specimens each of a small Helix, for which they duly received "coppers," and went away amazed but rejoicing. A few days' exploration made me well acquainted with the surrounding country. I was a long way from the road in the forest which I had first visited, and for some distance around my house were old clearings and cottages. I found a few good butterflies, but beetles were very scarce, and even rotten timber and newly-felled trees (generally so productive) here produced scarcely anything. This convinced me that there was not a sufficient extent of forest in the neighbourhood to make the place worth staying at long, but it was too late now to think of going further, as in about a month the wet season would begin; so I resolved to stay here and get what was to be had. Unfortunately, after a few days I became ill with a low fever which produced excessive lassitude and disinclination to all exertion. In vain I endeavoured to shake it off; all I could do was to stroll quietly each day for an hour about the gardens near, and to the well, where some good insects were occasionally to be found; and the rest of the day to wait quietly at home, and receive what beetles and shells my little corps of collectors brought me daily. I imputed my illness chiefly to the water, which was procured from shallow wells, around which there was almost always a stagnant puddle in which the buffaloes wallowed. Close to my house was an enclosed mudhole where three buffaloes were shut up every night, and the effluvia from which freely entered through the open bamboo floor. My Malay boy Ali was affected with the same illness, and as he was my chief bird-skinner I got on but slowly with my collections. The occupations and mode of life of the villagers differed but little from those of all other Malay races. The time of the women was almost wholly occupied in pounding and cleaning rice for daily use, in bringing home firewood and water, and in cleaning, dyeing, spinning, and weaving the native cotton into sarongs. The weaving is done in the simplest kind of frame stretched on the floor; and is a very slow and tedious process. To form the checked pattern in common use, each patch of coloured threads has to be pulled up separately by hand and the shuttle passed between them; so that about an inch a day is the usual progress in stuff a yard and a half wide. The men cultivate a little sirih (the pungent pepper leaf used for chewing with betel-nut) and a few vegetables; and once a year rudely plough a small patch of ground with their buffaloes and plant rice, which then requires little attention until harvest time. Now and then they have to see to the repairs of their houses, and make mats, baskets, or other domestic utensils, but a large part of their time is passed in idleness. Not a single person in the village could speak more than a few words of Malay, and hardly any of the people appeared to have seen a European before. One most disagreeable result of this was that I excited terror alike in man and beast. Wherever I went, dogs barked, children screamed, women ran away, and men stared as though I were some strange and terrible cannibal or monster. Even the pack-horses on the roads and paths would start aside when I appeared and rush into the jungle; and as to those horrid, ugly brutes, the buffaloes, they could never be approached by me; not for fear of my own but of others' safety. They would first stick out their necks and stare at me, and then on a nearer view break loose from their halters or tethers, and rush away helter-skelter as if a demon were after them, without any regard for what might be in their way. Whenever I met buffaloes carrying packs along a pathway, or being driven home to the village, I had to turn aside into the jungle and hide myself until they had passed, to avoid a catastrophe which would increase the dislike with which I was already regarded. Everyday about noon the buffaloes were brought into the villa, and were tethered in the shade around the houses; and then I had to creep about like a thief by back ways, for no one could tell what mischief they might do to children and houses were I to walk among them. If I came suddenly upon a well where women were drawing water or children bathing, a sudden flight was the certain result; which things occurring day after day, were very unpleasant to a person who does not like to be disliked, and who had never been accustomed to be treated as an ogre. About the middle of November, finding my health no better, and insects, birds, and shells all very scarce, I determined to return to Mamajam, and pack up my collections before the heavy rains commenced. The wind had already begun to blow from the west, and many signs indicated that the rainy season might set in earlier than usual; and then everything becomes very damp, and it is almost impossible to dry collections properly. My kind friend Mr. Mesman again lent me his pack-horses, and with the assistance of a few men to carry my birds and insects, which I did not like to trust on horses' backs, we got everything home safe. Few can imagine the luxury it was to stretch myself on a sofa, and to take my supper comfortably at table seated in my easy bamboo chair, after having for five weeks taken all my meals uncomfortably on the floor. Such things are trifles in health, but when the body is weakened by disease the habits of a lifetime cannot be so easily set aside. My house, like all bamboo structures in this country, was a leaning one, the strong westerly winds of the wet season having set all its posts out of the perpendicular to such a degree as to make me think it might someday possibly go over altogether. It is a remarkable thing that the natives of Celebes have not discovered the use of diagonal struts in strengthening buildings. I doubt if there is a native house in the country two years old and at all exposed to the wind, which stands upright; and no wonder, as they merely consist of posts and joists all placed upright or horizontal, and fastened rudely together with rattans. They may be seen in every stage of the process of tumbling down, from the first slight inclination, to such a dangerous slope that it becomes a notice to quit to the occupiers. The mechanical geniuses of the country have only discovered two ways of remedying the evil. One is, after it has commenced, to tie the house to a post in the ground on the windward side by a rattan or bamboo cable. The other is a preventive, but how they ever found it out and did not discover the true way is a mystery. This plan is, to build the house in the usual way, but instead of having all the principal supports of straight posts, to have two or three of them chosen as crooked as possible. I had often noticed these crooked posts in houses, but imputed it to the scarcity of good, straight timber, until one day I met some men carrying home a post shaped something like a dog's hind leg, and inquired of my native boy what they were going to do with such a piece of wood. "To make a post for a house," said he. "But why don't they get a straight one, there are plenty here?" said I. "Oh," replied he, "they prefer some like that in a house, because then it won't fall," evidently imputing the effect to some occult property of crooked timber. A little consideration and a diagram will, however, show, that the effect imputed to the crooked post may be really produced by it. A true square changes its figure readily into a rhomboid or oblique figure, but when one or two of the uprights are bent or sloping, and placed so as to oppose each other, the effect of a strut is produced, though in a rude and clumsy manner. Just before I had left Mamajam the people had sown a considerable quantity of maize, which appears above ground in two or three days, and in favourable seasons ripens in less than two months. Owing to a week's premature rains the ground was all flooded when I returned, and the plants just coming into ear were yellow and dead. Not a grain would be obtained by the whole village, but luckily it is only a luxury, not a necessity of life. The rain was the signal for ploughing to begin, in order to sow rice on all the flat lands between us and the town. The plough used is a rude wooden instrument with a very short single handle, a tolerably well-shaped coulter, and the point formed of a piece of hard palm-wood fastened in with wedges. One or two buffaloes draw it at a very slow pace. The seed is sown broadcast, and a rude wooden harrow is used to smooth the surface. By the beginning of December the regular wet season had set in. Westerly winds and driving rains sometimes continued for days together; the fields for miles around were under water, and the ducks and buffaloes enjoyed themselves amazingly. All along the road to Macassar, ploughing was daily going on in the mud and water, through which the wooden plough easily makes its way, the ploughman holding the plough-handle with one hand while a long bamboo in the other serves to guide the buffaloes. These animals require an immense deal of driving to get them on at all; a continual shower of exclamations is kept up at them, and "Oh! ah! Gee! ugh!" are to be heard in various keys and in an uninterrupted succession all day long. At night we were favoured with a different kind of concert. The dry ground around my house had become a marsh tenanted by frogs, who kept up a most incredible noise from dusk to dawn. They were somewhat musical too, having a deep vibrating note which at times closely resembles the tuning of two or three bass-viols in an orchestra. In Malacca and Borneo I had heard no such sounds as these, which indicates that the frogs, like most of the animals of Celebes, are of species peculiar to it. My kind friend and landlord, Mr. Mesman, was a good specimen of the Macassar-born Dutchman. He was about thirty-five years of age, had a large family, and lived in a spacious house near the town, situated in the midst of a grove of fruit trees, and surrounded by a perfect labyrinth of offices, stables, and native cottages occupied by his numerous servants, slaves, or dependants. He usually rose before the sun, and after a cup of coffee looked after his servants, horses, and dogs, until seven, when a substantial breakfast of rice and meat was ready in a cool verandah. Putting on a clean white linen suit, he then drove to town in his buggy, where he had an office, with two or three Chinese clerks who looked after his affairs. His business was that of a coffee and opium merchant. He had a coffee estate at Bontyne, and a small prau which traded to the Eastern islands near New Guinea, for mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell. About one he would return home, have coffee and cake or fried plantain, first changing his dress for a coloured cotton shirt and trousers and bare feet, and then take a siesta with a book. About four, after a cup of tea, he would walk round his premises, and generally stroll down to Mamajam to pay me a visit, and look after his farm. This consisted of a coffee plantation and an orchard of fruit trees, a dozen horses and a score of cattle, with a small village of Timorese slaves and Macassar servants. One family looked after the cattle and supplied the house with milk, bringing me also a large glassful every morning, one of my greatest luxuries. Others had charge of the horses, which were brought in every afternoon and fed with cut grass. Others had to cut grass for their master's horses at Macassar--not a very easy task in the dry season, when all the country looks like baked mud; or in the rainy season, when miles in every direction are flooded. How they managed it was a mystery to me, but they know grass must be had, and they get it. One lame woman had charge of a flock of ducks. Twice a day she took them out to feed in the marshy places, let them waddle and gobble for an hour or two, and then drove them back and shut them up in a small dark shed to digest their meal, whence they gave forth occasionally a melancholy quack. Every night a watch was set, principally for the sake of the horses--the people of Goa, only two miles off, being notorious thieves, and horses offering the easiest and most valuable spoil. This enabled me to sleep in security, although many people in Macassar thought I was running a great risk, living alone in such a solitary place and with such bad neighbours. My house was surrounded by a kind of straggling hedge of roses, jessamines, and other flowers, and every morning one of the women gathered a basketful of the blossoms for Mr. Mesman's family. I generally took a couple for my own breakfast table, and the supply never failed during my stay, and I suppose never does. Almost every Sunday Mr. M. made a shooting excursion with his eldest son, a lad of fifteen, and I generally accompanied him; for though the Dutch are Protestants, they do not observe Sunday in the rigid manner practised in England and English colonies. The Governor of the place has his public reception every Sunday evening, when card-playing is the regular amusement. On December 13th I went on board a prau bound for the Aru Islands, a journey which will be described in the latter part of this work. On my return, after a seven months' absence, I visited another district to the north of Macassar, which will form the subject of the next CHAPTER. CHAPTER XVI. CELEBES. (MACASSAR, JULY TO NOVEMBER, 1857.) I REACHED Macassar again on the 11th of July, and established myself in my old quarters at Mamajam, to sort, arrange, clean, and pack up my Aru collections. This occupied me a month; and having shipped them off for Singapore, had my guns repaired, and received a new one from England, together with a stock of pins, arsenic, and other collecting requisites. I began to feel eager for work again, and had to consider where I should spend my time until the end of the year; I had left Macassar seven months before, a flooded marsh being ploughed up for the rice-sowing. The rains had continued for five months, yet now all the rice was cut, and dry and dusty stubble covered the country just as when I had first arrived there. After much inquiry I determined to visit the district of Maros, about thirty miles north of Macassar, where Mr. Jacob Mesman, a brother of my friend, resided, who had kindly offered to find me house-room and give me assistance should I feel inclined to visit him. I accordingly obtained a pass from the Resident, and having hired a boat set off one evening for Maros. My boy Ali was so ill with fever that I was obliged to leave him in the hospital, under the care of my friend the German doctor, and I had to make shift with two new servants utterly ignorant of everything. We coasted along during the night, and at daybreak entered the Maros river, and by three in the afternoon reached the village. I immediately visited the Assistant Resident, and applied for ten men to carry my baggage, and a horse for myself. These were promised to be ready that night, so that I could start as soon as I liked in the morning. After having taken a cup of tea I took my leave, and slept in the boat. Some of the men came at night as promised, but others did not arrive until the next morning. It took some time to divide my baggage fairly among them, as they all wanted to shirk the heavy boxes, and would seize hold of some light article and march off with it, until made to come back and wait until the whole had been fairly apportioned. At length about eight o'clock all was arranged, and we started for our walk to Mr. M.'s farm. The country was at first a uniform plain of burned-up rice-grounds, but at a few miles' distance precipitous hills appeared, backed by the lofty central range of the peninsula. Towards these our path lay, and after having gone six or eight miles the hills began to advance into the plain right and left of us, and the ground became pierced here and there with blocks and pillars of limestone rock, while a few abrupt conical hills and peaks rose like islands. Passing over an elevated tract forming the shoulder of one of the hills, a picturesque scene lay before us. We looked down into a little valley almost entirely surrounded by mountains, rising abruptly in huge precipices, and forming a succession of knolls and peaks and domes of the most varied and fantastic shapes. In the very centre of the valley was a large bamboo house, while scattered around were a dozen cottages of the same material. I was kindly received by Mr. Jacob Mesman in an airy saloon detached from the house, and entirely built of bamboo and thatched with grass. After breakfast he took me to his foreman's house, about a hundred yards off, half of which was given up to me until I should decide where to have a cottage built for my own use. I soon found that this spot was too much exposed to the wind and dust, which rendered it very difficult to work with papers or insects. It was also dreadfully hot in the afternoon, and after a few days I got a sharp attack of fever, which determined me to move. I accordingly fixed on a place about a mile off, at the foot of a forest-covered hill, where in a few days Mr. M. built for me a nice little house, consisting of a good-sized enclosed verandah or open room, and a small inner sleeping-room, with a little cookhouse outside. As soon as it was finished I moved into it, and found the change most agreeable. The forest which surrounded me was open and free from underwood, consisting of large trees, widely scattered with a great quantity of palm-trees (Arenga saccharifera), from which palm wine and sugar are made. There were also great numbers of a wild Jack-fruit tree (Artocarpus), which bore abundance of large reticulated fruit, serving as an excellent vegetable. The ground was as thickly covered with dry leaves as it is in an English wood in November; the little rocky streams were all dry, and scarcely a drop of water or even a damp place was anywhere to be seen. About fifty yards below my house, at the foot of the hill, was a deep hole in a watercourse where good water was to be had, and where I went daily to bathe by having buckets of water taken out and pouring it over my body. My host Mr. M. enjoyed a thoroughly country life, depending almost entirely on his gun and dogs to supply his table. Wild pigs of large size were very plentiful and he generally got one or two a week, besides deer occasionally, and abundance of jungle-fowl, hornbills, and great fruit pigeons. His buffaloes supplied plenty of milk from which he made his own butter; he grew his own rice and coffee, and had ducks, fowls, and their eggs, in profusion. His palm-trees supplied him all the year round with "sagueir," which takes the place of beer; and the sugar made from them is an excellent sweetmeat. All the fine tropical vegetables and fruits were abundant in their season, and his cigars were made from tobacco of his own raising. He kindly sent me a bamboo of buffalo-milk every morning; it was as thick as cream, and required diluting with water to keep it fluid during the day. It mixes very well with tea and coffee, although it has a slight peculiar flavour, which after a time is not disagreeable. I also got as much sweet "sagueir" as I liked to drink, and Mr. M. always sent me a piece of each pig he killed, which with fowls, eggs, and the birds we shot ourselves, and buffalo beef about once a fortnight, kept my larder sufficiently well supplied. Every bit of flatland was cleared and used as rice-fields, and on the lower slopes of many of the hills tobacco and vegetables were grown. Most of the slopes are covered with huge blocks of rock, very fatiguing to scramble over, while a number of the hills are so precipitous as to be quite inaccessible. These circumstances, combined with the excessive drought, were very unfavourable for my pursuits. Birds were scarce, and I got but few new to me. Insects were tolerably plentiful, but unequal. Beetles, usually so numerous and interesting, were exceedingly scarce, some of the families being quite absent and others only represented by very minute species. The Flies and Bees, on the other hand, were abundant, and of these I daily obtained new and interesting species. The rare and beautiful Butterflies of Celebes were the chief object of my search, and I found many species altogether new to me, but they were generally so active and shy as to render their capture a matter of great difficulty. Almost the only good place for them was in the dry beds of the streams in the forest, where, at damp places, muddy pools, or even on the dry rocks, all sorts of insects could be found. In these rocky forests dwell some of the finest butterflies in the world. Three species of Ornithoptera, measuring seven or eight inches across the wings, and beautifully marked with spots or masses of satiny yellow on a black ground, wheel through the thickets with a strong sailing flight. About the damp places are swarms of the beautiful blue-banded Papilios, miletus and telephus, the superb golden green P. macedon, and the rare little swallow-tail Papilio rhesus, of all of which, though very active, I succeeded in capturing fine series of specimens. I have rarely enjoyed myself more than during my residence here. As I sat taking my coffee at six in the morning, rare birds would often be seen on some tree close by, when I would hastily sally out in my slippers, and perhaps secure a prize I had been seeking after for weeks. The great hornbills of Celebes (Buceros cassidix) would often come with loud-flapping wings, and perch upon a lofty tree just in front of me; and the black baboon-monkeys, Cynopithecus nigrescens, often stared down in astonishment at such an intrusion into their domains while at night herds of wild pigs roamed about the house, devouring refuse, and obliging us to put away everything eatable or breakable from our little cooking-house. A few minutes' search on the fallen trees around my house at sunrise and sunset, would often produce me more beetles than I would meet with in a day's collecting, and odd moments could be made valuable which when living in villages or at a distance from the forest are inevitably wasted. Where the sugar-palms were dripping with sap, flies congregated in immense numbers, and it was by spending half an hour at these when I had the time to spare, that I obtained the finest and most remarkable collection of this group of insects that I have ever made. Then what delightful hours I passed wandering up and down the dry river-courses, full of water-holes and rocks and fallen trees, and overshadowed by magnificent vegetation. I soon got to know every hole and rock and stump, and came up to each with cautious step and bated breath to see what treasures it would produce. At one place I would find a little crowd of the rare butterfly Tachyris zarinda, which would rise up at my approach, and display their vivid orange and cinnabar-red wings, while among them would flutter a few of the fine blue-banded Papilios. Where leafy branches hung over the gully, I might expect to find a grand Ornithoptera at rest and an easy prey. At certain rotten trunks I was sure to get the curious little tiger beetle, Therates flavilabris. In the denser thickets I would capture the small metal-blue butterflies (Amblypodia) sitting on the leaves, as well as some rare and beautiful leaf-beetles of the families Hispidae and Chrysomelidae. I found that the rotten jack-fruits were very attractive to many beetles, and used to split them partly open and lay them about in the forest near my house to rot. A morning's search at these often produced me a score of species--Staphylinidae, Nitidulidae, Onthophagi, and minute Carabidae, being the most abundant. Now and then the "sagueir" makers brought me a fine rosechafer (Sternoplus schaumii) which they found licking up the sweet sap. Almost the only new birds I met with for some time were a handsome ground thrush (Pitta celebensis), and a beautiful violet-crowned dove (Ptilonopus celebensis), both very similar to birds I had recently obtained at Aru, but of distinct species. About the latter part of September a heavy shower of rain fell, admonishing us that we might soon expect wet weather, much to the advantage of the baked-up country. I therefore determined to pay a visit to the falls of the Maros river, situated at the point where it issues from the mountains--a spot often visited by travellers and considered very beautiful. Mr. M. lent me a horse, and I obtained a guide from a neighbouring village; and taking one of my men with me, we started at six in the morning, and after a ride of two hours over the flat rice-fields skirting the mountains which rose in grand precipices on our left, we reached the river about half-way between Maros and the falls, and thence had a good bridle-road to our destination, which we reached in another hour. The hills had closed in around us as we advanced; and when we reached a ruinous shed which had been erected for the accommodation of visitors, we found ourselves in a flat-bottomed valley about a quarter of a mile wide, bounded by precipitous and often overhanging limestone rocks. So far the ground had been cultivated, but it now became covered with bushes and large scattered trees. As soon as my scanty baggage had arrived and was duly deposited in the shed, I started off alone for the fall, which was about a quarter of a mile further on. The river is here about twenty yards wide, and issues from a chasm between two vertical walls of limestone, over a rounded mass of basaltic rock about forty feet high, forming two curves separated by a slight ledge. The water spreads beautifully over this surface in a thin sheet of foam, which curls and eddies in a succession of concentric cones until it falls into a fine deep pool below. Close to the very edge of the fall a narrow and very rugged path leads to the river above, and thence continues close under the precipice along the water's edge, or sometimes in the water, for a few hundred yards, after which the rocks recede a little, and leave a wooded bank on one side, along which the path is continued, until in about half a mile, a second and smaller fall is reached. Here the river seems to issue from a cavern, the rocks having fallen from above so as to block up the channel and bar further progress. The fall itself can only be reached by a path which ascends behind a huge slice of rock which has partly fallen away from the mountain, leaving a space two or three feet wide, but disclosing a dark chasm descending into the bowels of the mountain, and which, having visited several such, I had no great curiosity to explore. Crossing the stream a little below the upper fall, the path ascends a steep slope for about five hundred feet, and passing through a gap enters a narrow valley, shut in by walls of rock absolutely perpendicular and of great height. Half a mile further this valley turns abruptly to the right, and becomes a mere rift in the mountain. This extends another half mile, the walls gradually approaching until they are only two feet apart, and the bottom rising steeply to a pass which leads probably into another valley, but which I had no time to explore. Returning to where this rift had begun the main path turns up to the left in a sort of gully, and reaches a summit over which a fine natural arch of rock passes at a height of about fifty feet. Thence was a steep descent through thick jungle with glimpses of precipices and distant rocky mountains, probably leading into the main river valley again. This was a most tempting region to explore, but there were several reasons why I could go no further. I had no guide, and no permission to enter the Bugis territories, and as the rains might at any time set in, I might be prevented from returning by the flooding of the river. I therefore devoted myself during the short time of my visit to obtaining what knowledge I could of the natural productions of the place. The narrow chasms produced several fine insects quite new to me, and one new bird, the curious Phlaegenas tristigmata, a large ground pigeon with yellow breast and crown, and purple neck. This rugged path is the highway from Maros to the Bugis country beyond the mountains. During the rainy season it is quite impassable, the river filling its bed and rushing between perpendicular cliffs many hundred feet high. Even at the time of my visit it was most precipitous and fatiguing, yet women and children came over it daily, and men carrying heavy loads of palm sugar (of very little value). It was along the path between the lower and the upper falls, and about the margin of the upper pool, that I found most insects. The large semi-transparent butterfly, Idea tondana, flew lazily along by dozens, and it was here that I at length obtained an insect which I had hoped but hardly expected to meet with--the magnificent Papilio androcles, one of the largest and rarest known swallow-tailed butterflies. During my four days' stay at the falls, I was so fortunate as to obtain six good specimens. As this beautiful creature flies, the long white tails flicker like streamers, and when settled on the beach it carries them raised upwards, as if to preserve them from injury. It is scarce even here, as I did not see more than a dozen specimens in all, and had to follow many of them up and down the river's bank repeatedly before I succeeded in their capture. When the sun shone hottest, about noon, the moist beach of the pool below the upper fall presented a beautiful sight, being dotted with groups of gay butterflies--orange, yellow, white, blue, and green--which on being disturbed rose into the air by hundreds, forming clouds of variegated colours. Such gorges, chasms, and precipices here abound, as I have nowhere seen in the Archipelago. A sloping surface is scarcely anywhere to be found, huge walls and rugged masses of rock terminating all the mountains and enclosing the valleys. In many parts there are vertical or even overhanging precipices five or six hundred feet high, yet completely clothed with a tapestry of vegetation. Ferns, Pandanaceae, shrubs, creepers, and even forest trees, are mingled in an evergreen network, through the interstices of which appears the white limestone rock or the dark holes and chasms with which it abounds. These precipices are enabled to sustain such an amount of vegetation by their peculiar structure. Their surfaces are very irregular, broken into holes and fissures, with ledges overhanging the mouths of gloomy caverns; but from each projecting part have descended stalactites, often forming a wild gothic tracery over the caves and receding hollows, and affording an admirable support to the roots of the shrubs, trees, and creepers, which luxuriate in the warm pure atmosphere and the gentle moisture which constantly exudes from the rocks. In places where the precipice offers smooth surfaces of solid rock, it remains quite bare, or only stained with lichens, and dotted with clumps of ferns that grow on the small ledges and in the minutest crevices. The reader who is familiar with tropical nature only through the medium of books and botanical gardens will picture to himself in such a spot many other natural beauties. He will think that I have unaccountably forgotten to mention the brilliant flowers, which, in gorgeous masses of crimson, gold or azure, must spangle these verdant precipices, hang over the cascade, and adorn the margin of the mountain stream. But what is the reality? In vain did I gaze over these vast walls of verdure, among the pendant creepers and bushy shrubs, all around the cascade on the river's bank, or in the deep caverns and gloomy fissures--not one single spot of bright colour could be seen, not one single tree or bush or creeper bore a flower sufficiently conspicuous to form an object in the landscape. In every direction the eye rested on green foliage and mottled rock. There was infinite variety in the colour and aspect of the foliage; there was grandeur in the rocky masses and in the exuberant luxuriance of the vegetation; but there was no brilliancy of colour, none of those bright flowers and gorgeous masses of blossom so generally considered to be everywhere present in the tropics. I have here given an accurate sketch of a luxuriant tropical scene as noted down on the spot, and its general characteristics as regards colour have been so often repeated, both in South America and over many thousand miles in the Eastern tropics, that I am driven to conclude that it represents the general aspect of nature at the equatorial (that is, the most tropical) parts of the tropical regions. How is it then, that the descriptions of travellers generally give a very different idea? and where, it may be asked, are the glorious flowers that we know do exist in the tropics? These questions can be easily answered. The fine tropical flowering-plants cultivated in our hothouses have been culled from the most varied regions, and therefore give a most erroneous idea of their abundance in any one region. Many of them are very rare, others extremely local, while a considerable number inhabit the more arid regions of Africa and India, in which tropical vegetation does not exhibit itself in its usual luxuriance. Fine and varied foliage, rather than gay flowers, is more characteristic of those parts where tropical vegetation attains its highest development, and in such districts each kind of flower seldom lasts in perfection more than a few weeks, or sometimes a few days. In every locality a lengthened residence will show an abundance of magnificent and gaily-blossomed plants, but they have to be sought for, and are rarely at any one time or place so abundant as to form a perceptible feature in the landscape. But it has been the custom of travellers to describe and group together all the fine plants they have met with during a long journey, and thus produce the effect of a gay and flower-painted landscape. They have rarely studied and described individual scenes where vegetation was most luxuriant and beautiful, and fairly stated what effect was produced in them by flowers. I have done so frequently, and the result of these examinations has convinced me that the bright colours of flowers have a much greater influence on the general aspect of nature in temperate than in tropical climates. During twelve years spent amid the grandest tropical vegetation, I have seen nothing comparable to the effect produced on our landscapes by gorse, broom, heather, wild hyacinths, hawthorn, purple orchises, and buttercups. The geological structure of this part of Celebes is interesting. The limestone mountains, though of great extent, seem to be entirely superficial, resting on a basis of basalt which in some places forms low rounded hills between the more precipitous mountains. In the rocky beds of the streams basalt is almost always found, and it is a step in this rock which forms the cascade already described. From it the limestone precipices rise abruptly; and in ascending the little stairway along the side of the fall, you step two or three times from one rock on to the other--the limestone dry and rough, being worn by the water and rains into sharp ridges and honeycombed holes--the basalt moist, even, and worn smooth and slippery by the passage of bare-footed pedestrians. The solubility of the limestone by rain-water is well seen in the little blocks and peaks which rise thickly through the soil of the alluvial plains as you approach the mountains. They are all skittle-shaped, larger in the middle than at the base, the greatest diameter occurring at the height to which the country is flooded in the wet season, and thence decreasing regularly to the ground. Many of them overhang considerably, and some of the slenderer pillars appear to stand upon a point. When the rock is less solid it becomes curiously honeycombed by the rains of successive winters, and I noticed some masses reduced to a complete network of stone through which light could be seen in every direction. From these mountains to the sea extends a perfectly flat alluvial plain, with no indication that water would accumulate at a great depth beneath it, yet the authorities at Macassar have spent much money in boring a well a thousand feet deep in hope of getting a supply of water like that obtained by the Artesian wells in the London and Paris basins. It is not to be wondered at that the attempt was unsuccessful. Returning to my forest hut, I continued my daily search after birds and insects. The weather, however, became dreadfully hot and dry, every drop of water disappearing from the pools and rock-holes, and with it the insects which frequented them. Only one group remained unaffected by the intense drought; the Diptera, or two-winged flies, continued as plentifully as ever, and on these I was almost compelled to concentrate my attention for a week or two, by which means I increased my collection of that Order to about two hundred species. I also continued to obtain a few new birds, among which were two or three kinds of small hawks and falcons, a beautiful brush-tongued paroquet, Trichoglossus ornatus, and a rare black and white crow, Corvus advena. At length, about the middle of October, after several gloomy days, down came a deluge of rain which continued to fall almost every afternoon, showing that the early part of the wet season had commenced. I hoped now to get a good harvest of insects, and in some respects I was not disappointed. Beetles became much more numerous, and under a thick bed of leaves that had accumulated on some rocks by the side of a forest stream, I found an abundance of Carabidae, a family generally scarce in the tropics. The butterflies, however, disappeared. Two of my servants were attacked with fever, dysentery, and swelled feet, just at the time that the third had left me, and for some days they both lay groaning in the house. When they got a little better I was attacked myself, and as my stores were nearly finished and everything was getting very damp, I was obliged to prepare for my return to Macassar, especially as the strong westerly winds would render the passage in a small open boat disagreeable, if not dangerous. Since the rains began, numbers of huge millipedes, as thick as one's finger and eight or ten inches long, crawled about everywhere--in the paths, on trees, about the house--and one morning when I got up I even found one in my bed! They were generally of a dull lead colour or of a deep brick red, and were very nasty-looking things to be coming everywhere in one's way, although quite harmless. Snakes too began to show themselves. I killed two of a very abundant species--big-headed, and of a bright green colour, which lie coiled up on leaves and shrubs and can scarcely be seen until one is close upon them. Brown snakes got into my net while beating among dead leaves for insects, and made me rather cautious about inserting my hand until I knew what kind of game I had captured. The fields and meadows which had been parched and sterile, now became suddenly covered with fine long grass; the river-bed where I had so many times walked over burning rocks, was now a deep and rapid stream; and numbers of herbaceous plants and shrubs were everywhere springing up and bursting into flower. I found plenty of new insects, and if I had had a good, roomy, water-and-wind-proof house, I should perhaps have stayed during the wet season, as I feel sure many things can then be obtained which are to be found at no other time. With my summer hut, however, this was impossible. During the heavy rains a fine drizzly mist penetrated into every part of it, and I began to have the greatest difficulty in keeping my specimens dry. Early in November I returned to Macassar, and having packed up my collections, started in the Dutch mail steamer for Amboyna and Ternate. Leaving this part of my journey for the present, I will in the next CHAPTER conclude my account of Celebes, by describing the extreme northern part of the island which I visited two years later. CHAPTER XVII. CELEBES. (MENADO, JUNE TO SEPTEMBER, 1859.) IT was after my residence at Timor-Coupang that I visited the northeastern extremity of Celebes, touching Banda, Amboyna, and Ternate on my way. I reached Menado on the 10th of June, 1859, and was very kindly received by Mr. Tower, an Englishman, but a very old resident in Menado, where he carries on a general business. He introduced me to Mr. L. Duivenboden (whose father had been my friend at Ternate), who had much taste for natural history; and to Mr. Neys, a native of Menado, but who was educated at Calcutta, and to whom Dutch, English, and Malay were equally mother-tongues. All these gentlemen showed me the greatest kindness, accompanied me in my earliest walks about the country, and assisted me by every means in their power. I spent a week in the town very pleasantly, making explorations and inquiries after a good collecting station, which I had much difficulty in finding, owing to the wide cultivation of coffee and cacao, which has led to the clearing away of the forests for many miles around the town, and over extensive districts far into the interior. The little town of Menado is one of the prettiest in the East. It has the appearance of a large garden containing rows of rustic villas with broad paths between, forming streets generally at right angles with each other. Good roads branch off in several directions towards the interior, with a succession of pretty cottages, neat gardens, and thriving plantations, interspersed with wildernesses of fruit trees. To the west and south the country is mountainous, with groups of fine volcanic peaks 6,000 or 7,000 feet high, forming grand and picturesque backgrounds to the landscape. The inhabitants of Minahasa (as this part of Celebes is called) differ much from those of all the rest of the island, and in fact from any other people in the Archipelago. They are of a light-brown or yellow tint, often approaching the fairness of a European; of a rather short stature, stout and well-made; of an open and pleasing countenance, more or less disfigured as age increases by projecting check-bones; and with the usual long, straight, jet-black hair of the Malayan races. In some of the inland villages where they may be supposed to be of the purest race, both men and women are remarkably handsome; while nearer the coasts where the purity of their blood has been destroyed by the intermixture of other races, they approach to the ordinary types of the wild inhabitants of the surrounding countries. In mental and moral characteristics they are also highly peculiar. They are remarkably quiet and gentle in disposition, submissive to the authority of those they consider their superiors, and easily induced to learn and adopt the habits of civilized people. They are clever mechanics, and seem capable of acquiring a considerable amount of intellectual education. Up to a very recent period these people were thorough savages, and there are persons now living in Menado who remember a state of things identical with that described by the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The inhabitants of the several villages were distinct tribes, each under its own chief, speaking languages unintelligible to each other, and almost always at war. They built their houses elevated upon lofty posts to defend themselves from the attacks of their enemies. They were headhunters like the Dyaks of Borneo, and were said to be sometimes cannibals. When a chief died, his tomb was adorned with two fresh human heads; and if those of enemies could not be obtained, slaves were killed for the occasion. Human skulls were the great ornaments of the chiefs' houses. Strips of bark were their only dress. The country was a pathless wilderness, with small cultivated patches of rice and vegetables, or clumps of fruit-trees, diversifying the otherwise unbroken forest. Their religion was that naturally engendered in the undeveloped human mind by the contemplation of grand natural phenomena and the luxuriance of tropical nature. The burning mountain, the torrent and the lake, were the abode of their deities; and certain trees and birds were supposed to have special influence over men's actions and destiny. They held wild and exciting festivals to propitiate these deities or demons, and believed that men could be changed by them into animals--either during life or after death. Here we have a picture of true savage life; of small isolated communities at war with all around them, subject to the wants and miseries of such a condition, drawing a precarious existence from the luxuriant soil, and living on, from generation to generation, with no desire for physical amelioration, and no prospect of moral advancement. Such was their condition down to the year 1822, when the coffee-plant was first introduced, and experiments were made as to its cultivation. It was found to succeed admirably from fifteen hundred feet, up to four thousand feet above the sea. The chiefs of villages were induced to undertake its cultivation. Seed and native instructors were sent from Java; food was supplied to the labourers engaged in clearing and planting; a fixed price was established at which all coffee brought to the government collectors was to be paid for, and the village chiefs who now received the titles of "Majors" were to receive five percent of the produce. After a time, roads were made from the port of Menado up to the plateau, and smaller paths were cleared from village to village; missionaries settled in the more populous districts and opened schools; and Chinese traders penetrated to the interior and supplied clothing and other luxuries in exchange for the money which the sale of the coffee had produced. At the same time, the country was divided into districts, and the system of "Controlleurs," which had worked so well in Java, was introduced. The "Controlleur" was a European, or a native of European blood, who was the general superintendent of the cultivation of the district, the adviser of the chiefs, the protector of the people, and the means of communication between both and the European Government. His duties obliged him to visit every village in succession once a month, and to send in a report on their condition to the Resident. As disputes between adjacent villages were now settled by appeal to a superior authority, the old and inconvenient semi-fortified houses were disused, and under the direction of the "Controlleurs" most of the houses were rebuilt on a neat and uniform plan. It was this interesting district which I was now about to visit. Having decided on my route, I started at 8 A.M. on the 22d of June. Mr. Tower drove me the first three miles in his chaise, and Mr. Neys accompanied me on horseback three miles further to the village of Lotta. Here we met the Controlleur of the district of Tondano, who was returning home from one of his monthly tours, and who had agreed to act as my guide and companion on the journey. From Lotta we had an almost continual ascent for six miles, which brought us on to the plateau of Tondano at an elevation of about 2,400 feet. We passed through three villages whose neatness and beauty quite astonished me. The main road, along which all the coffee is brought down from the interior in carts drawn by buffaloes, is always turned aside at the entrance of a village, so as to pass behind it, and thus allow the village street itself to be kept neat and clean. This is bordered by neat hedges often formed entirely of rose-trees, which are perpetually in blossom. There is a broad central path and a border of fine turf, which is kept well swept and neatly cut. The houses are all of wood, raised about six feet on substantial posts neatly painted blue, while the walls are whitewashed. They all have a verandah enclosed with a neat balustrade, and are generally surrounded by orange-trees and flowering shrubs. The surrounding scenery is verdant and picturesque. Coffee plantations of extreme luxuriance, noble palms and tree ferns, wooded hills and volcanic peaks, everywhere meet the eye. I had heard much of the beauty of this country, but the reality far surpassed my expectations. About one o'clock we reached Tomohón, the chief place of a district, having a native chief now called the "Major," at whose house we were to dine. Here was a fresh surprise for me. The house was large, airy and very substantially built of hard native timber, squared and put together in a most workmanlike manner. It was furnished in European style, with handsome chandelier lamps, and the chairs and tables all well made by native workmen. As soon as we entered, madeira and bitters were offered us. Then two handsome boys neatly dressed in white, and with smoothly brushed jet-black hair, handed us each a basin of water and a clean napkin on a salver. The dinner was excellent. Fowls cooked in various ways; wild pig roasted, stewed and fried; a fricassee of bats, potatoes, rice and other vegetables; all served on good china, with finger glasses and fine napkins, and abundance of good claret and beer, seemed to me rather curious at the table of a native chief on the mountains of Celebes. Our host was dressed in a suit of black with patent-leather shoes, and really looked comfortable and almost gentlemanly in them. He sat at the head of the table and did the honours well, though he did not talk much. Our conversation was entirely in Malay, as that is the official language here, and in fact the mother-tongue and only language of the Controlleur, who is a native-born half-breed. The Major's father who was chief before him, wore, I was informed, a strip of bark as his sole costume, and lived in a rude but raised home on lofty poles, and abundantly decorated with human heads. Of course we were expected, and our dinner was prepared in the best style, but I was assured that the chiefs all take a pride in adopting European customs, and in being able to receive their visitors in a handsome manner. After dinner and coffee, the Controlleur went on to Tondano, and I strolled about the village waiting for my baggage, which was coming in a bullock-cart, and did not arrive until after midnight. Supper was very similar to dinner, and on retiring I found an elegant little room with a comfortable bed, gauze curtains with blue and red hangings, and every convenience. Next morning at sunrise the thermometer in the verandah stood at 69°, which I was told is about the usual lowest temperature at this place, 2,500 feet above the sea. I had a good breakfast of coffee, eggs, and fresh bread and butter, which I took in the spacious verandah amid the odour of roses, jessamine, and other sweet-scented flowers, which filled the garden in front; and about eight o'clock left Tomohón with a dozen men carrying my baggage. Our road lay over a mountain ridge about 4,000 feet above the sea, and then descended about 500 feet to the little village of Rurúkan, the highest in the district of Minahasa, and probably in all Celebes. Here I had determined to stay for some time to see whether this elevation would produce any change in the zoology. The village had only been formed about ten years, and was quite as neat as those I had passed through, and much more picturesque. It is placed on a small level spot, from which there is an abrupt wooded descent down to the beautiful lake of Tondano, with volcanic mountains beyond. On one side is a ravine, and beyond it a fine mountainous and wooded country. Near the village are the coffee plantations. The trees are planted in rows, and are kept topped to about seven feet high. This causes the lateral branches to grow very strong, so that some of the trees become perfect hemispheres, loaded with fruit from top to bottom, and producing from ten to twenty pounds each of cleaned coffee annually. These plantations were all formed by the Government, and are cultivated by the villagers under the direction of their chief. Certain days are appointed for weeding or gathering, and the whole working population are summoned by the sound of a gong. An account is kept of the number of hours' work done by each family, and at the year's end, the produce of the sale is divided among them proportionately. The coffee is taken to Government stores established at central places over the whole country, and is paid for at a low fixed price. Out of this a certain percentage goes to the chiefs and majors, and the remainder is divided among the inhabitants. This system works very well, and I believe is at present far better for the people than free-trade would be. There are also large rice-fields, and in this little village of seventy houses, I was informed that a hundred pounds' worth of rice was sold annually. I had a small house at the very end of the village, almost hanging over the precipitous slope down to the stream, and with a splendid view from the verandah. The thermometer in the morning often stood at 62° and never rose so high as 80°, so that with the thin clothing used in the tropical plains we were always cool and sometimes positively cold, while the spout of water where I went daily for my bath had quite an icy feel. Although I enjoyed myself very much among these fine mountains and forests, I was somewhat disappointed as to my collections. There was hardly any perceptible difference between the animal life in this temperate region and in the torrid plains below, and what difference did exist was in most respects disadvantageous to me. There seemed to be nothing absolutely peculiar to this elevation. Birds and quadrupeds were less plentiful, but of the same species. In insects there seemed to be more difference. The curious beetles of the family Cleridae, which are found chiefly on bark and rotten wood, were finer than I have seen them elsewhere. The beautiful Longicorns were scarcer than usual, and the few butterflies were all of tropical species. One of these, Papilio blumei, of which I obtained a few specimens only, is among the most magnificent I have ever seen. It is a green and gold swallow-tail, with azure-blue and spoon-shaped tails, and was often seen flying about the village when the sun shone, but in a very shattered condition. The great amount of wet and cloudy weather was a great drawback all the time I was at Rurúkan. Even in the vegetation there is very little to indicate elevation. The trees are more covered with lichens and mosses, and the ferns and tree-ferns are finer and more luxuriant than I had been accustomed to seeing on the low grounds, both probably attributable to the almost perpetual moisture that here prevails. Abundance of a tasteless raspberry, with blue and yellow compositae, have somewhat of a temperate aspect; and minute ferns and Orchideae, with dwarf Begonias on the rocks, make some approach to a sub-alpine vegetation. The forest, however, is most luxuriant. Noble palms, Pandani, and tree-ferns are abundant in it, while the forest trees are completely festooned with Orchideae, Bromeliae, Araceae, Lycopodiums, and mosses. The ordinary stemless ferns abound; some with gigantic fronds ten or twelve feet long, others barely an inch high; some with entire and massive leaves, others elegantly waving their finely-cut foliage, and adding endless variety and interest to the forest paths. The cocoa-nut palm still produces fruit abundantly, but is said to be deficient in oil. Oranges thrive better than below, producing abundance of delicious fruit; but the shaddock or pumplemous (Citrus decumana) requires the full force of a tropical sun, for it will not thrive even at Tondano a thousand feet lower. On the hilly slopes rice is cultivated largely, and ripens well, although the temperature rarely or never rises to 80°, so that one would think it might be grown even in England in fine summers, especially if the young plants were raised under glass. The mountains have an unusual quantity of earth and vegetable mould spread over them. Even on the steepest slopes there is everywhere a covering of clays and sands, and generally a good thickness of vegetable soil. It is this which perhaps contributes to the uniform luxuriance of the forest, and delays the appearance of that sub-alpine vegetation which depends almost as much on the abundance of rocky and exposed surfaces as on difference of climate. At a much lower elevation on Mount Ophir in Malacca, Dacrydiums and Rhododendrons with abundance of Nepenthes, ferns, and terrestrial orchids suddenly took the place of the lofty forest; but this was plainly due to the occurrence of an extensive slope of bare, granitic rock at an elevation of less than 3,000 feet. The quantity of vegetable soil, and also of loose sands and clays, resting on steep slopes, hill-tops and the sides of ravines, is a curious and important phenomenon. It may be due in part to constant, slight earthquake shocks facilitating the disintegration of rock; but, would also seem to indicate that the country has been long exposed to gentle atmospheric action, and that its elevation has been exceedingly slow and continuous. During my stay at Rurúkan, my curiosity was satisfied by experiencing a pretty sharp earthquake-shock. On the evening of June 29th, at a quarter after eight, as I was sitting reading, the house began shaking with a very gentle, but rapidly increasing motion. I sat still enjoying the novel sensation for some seconds; but in less than half a minute it became strong enough to shake me in my chair, and to make the house visibly rock about, and creak and crack as if it would fall to pieces. Then began a cry throughout the village of "Tana goyang! tana goyang!" (Earthquake! earthquake!) Everybody rushed out of their houses--women screamed and children cried--and I thought it prudent to go out too. On getting up, I found my head giddy and my steps unsteady, and could hardly walk without falling. The shock continued about a minute, during which time I felt as if I had been turned round and round, and was almost seasick. Going into the house again, I found a lamp and a bottle of arrack upset. The tumbler which formed the lamp had been thrown out of the saucer in which it had stood. The shock appeared to be nearly vertical, rapid, vibratory, and jerking. It was sufficient, I have no doubt, to have thrown down brick, chimneys, walls, and church towers; but as the houses here are all low, and strongly framed of timber, it is impossible for them to be much injured, except by a shock that would utterly destroy a European city. The people told me it was ten years since they had had a stronger shock than this, at which time many houses were thrown down and some people killed. At intervals of ten minutes to half an hour, slight shocks and tremors were felt, sometimes strong enough to send us all out again. There was a strange mixture of the terrible and the ludicrous in our situation. We might at any moment have a much stronger shock, which would bring down the house over us, or--what I feared more--cause a landslip, and send us down into the deep ravine on the very edge of which the village is built; yet I could not help laughing each time we ran out at a slight shock, and then in a few moments ran in again. The sublime and the ridiculous were here literally but a step apart. On the one hand, the most terrible and destructive of natural phenomena was in action around us--the rocks, the mountains, the solid earth were trembling and convulsed, and we were utterly impotent to guard against the danger that might at any moment overwhelm us. On the other hand was the spectacle of a number of men, women, and children running in and out of their houses, on what each time proved a very unnecessary alarm, as each shock ceased just as it became strong enough to frighten us. It seemed really very much like "playing at earthquakes," and made many of the people join me in a hearty laugh, even while reminding each other that it really might be no laughing matter. At length the evening got very cold, and I became very sleepy, and determined to turn in; leaving orders to my boys, who slept nearer the door, to wake me in case the house was in danger of falling. But I miscalculated my apathy, for I could not sleep much. The shocks continued at intervals of half an hour or an hour all night, just strong enough to wake me thoroughly each time and keep me on the alert, ready to jump up in case of danger. I was therefore very glad when morning came. Most of the inhabitants had not been to bed at all, and some had stayed out of doors all night. For the next two days and nights shocks still continued at short intervals, and several times a day for a week, showing that there was some very extensive disturbance beneath our portion of the earth's crust. How vast the forces at work really are can only be properly appreciated when, after feeling their effects, we look abroad over the wide expanse of hill and valley, plain and mountain, and thus realize in a slight degree the immense mass of matter heaved and shaken. The sensation produced by an earthquake is never to be forgotten. We feel ourselves in the grasp of a power to which the wildest fury of the winds and waves are as nothing; yet the effect is more a thrill of awe than the terror which the more boisterous war of the elements produces. There is a mystery and an uncertainty as to the amount of danger we incur, which gives greater play to the imagination, and to the influences of hope and fear. These remarks apply only to a moderate earthquake. A severe one is the most destructive and the most horrible catastrophe to which human beings can be exposed. A few days after the earthquake I took a walk to Tondano, a large village of about 7,000 inhabitants, situated at the lower end of the lake of the same name. I dined with the Controlleur, Mr. Bensneider, who had been my guide to Tomohón. He had a fine large house, in which he often received visitors; and his garden was the best for flowers which I had seen in the tropics, although there was no great variety. It was he who introduced the rose hedges which give such a charming appearance to the villages; and to him is chiefly due the general neatness and good order that everywhere prevail. I consulted him about a fresh locality, as I found Rurúkan too much in the clouds, dreadfully damp and gloomy, and with a general stagnation of bird and insect life. He recommended me a village some distance beyond the lake, near which was a large forest, where he thought I should find plenty of birds. As he was going himself in a few days, I decided to accompany him. After dinner I asked him for a guide to the celebrated waterfall on the outlet stream of the lake. It is situated about a mile and half below the village, where a slight rising ground closes in the basin, and evidently once formed, the shore of the lake. Here the river enters a gorge, very narrow and tortuous, along which it rushes furiously for a short distance and then plunges into a great chasm, forming the head of a large valley. Just above the fall the channel is not more than ten feet wide, and here a few planks are thrown across, whence, half hid by luxuriant vegetation, the mad waters may be seen rushing beneath, and a few feet farther plunge into the abyss. Both sight and sound are grand and impressive. It was here that, four years before my visit, the Governor-General of the Netherland Indies committed suicide, by leaping into the torrent. This at least is the general opinion, as he suffered from a painful disease which was supposed to have made him weary of his life. His body was found next day in the stream below. Unfortunately, no good view of the fall could now be obtained, owing to the quantity of wood and high grass that lined the margins of the precipices. There are two falls, the lower being the most lofty; and it is possible, by long circuit, to descend into the valley and see them from below. Were the best points of view searched for and rendered accessible, these falls would probably be found to be the finest in the Archipelago. The chasm seems to be of great depth, probably 500 or 600 feet. Unfortunately, I had no time to explore this valley, as I was anxious to devote every fine day to increasing my hitherto scanty collections. Just opposite my abode in Rurúkan was the schoolhouse. The schoolmaster was a native, educated by the Missionary at Tomohón. School was held every morning for about three hours, and twice a week in the evening there was catechising and preaching. There was also a service on Sunday morning. The children were all taught in Malay, and I often heard them repeating the multiplication-table, up to twenty times twenty, very glibly. They always wound up with singing, and it was very pleasing to hear many of our old psalm-tunes in these remote mountains, sung with Malay words. Singing is one of the real blessings which Missionaries introduce among savage nations, whose native chants are almost always monotonous and melancholy. On catechising evenings the schoolmaster was a great man, preaching and teaching for three hours at a stretch much in the style of an English ranter. This was pretty cold work for his auditors, however warming to himself; and I am inclined to think that these native teachers, having acquired facility of speaking and an endless supply of religious platitudes to talk about, ride their hobby rather hard, without much consideration for their flock. The Missionaries, however, have much to be proud of in this country. They have assisted the Government in changing a savage into a civilized community in a wonderfully short space of time. Forty years ago the country was a wilderness, the people naked savages, garnishing their rude houses with human heads. Now it is a garden, worthy of its sweet native name of "Minahasa." Good roads and paths traverse it in every direction; some of the finest coffee plantations in the world surround the villages, interspersed with extensive rice-fields more than sufficient for the support of the population. The people are now the most industrious, peaceable, and civilized in the whole Archipelago. They are the best clothed, the best housed, the best fed, and the best educated; and they have made some progress towards a higher social state. I believe there is no example elsewhere of such striking results being produced in so short a time--results which are entirely due to the system of government now adopted by the Dutch in their Eastern possessions. The system is one which may be called a "paternal despotism." Now we Englishmen do not like despotism--we hate the name and the thing, and we would rather see people ignorant, lazy, and vicious, than use any but moral force to make them wise, industrious, and good. And we are right when we are dealing with men of our own race, and of similar ideas and equal capacities with ourselves. Example and precept, the force of public opinion, and the slow, but sure spread of education, will do everything in time, without engendering any of those bitter feelings, or producing any of that servility, hypocrisy, and dependence, which are the sure results of despotic government. But what should we think of a man who should advocate these principles of perfect freedom in a family or a school? We should say that he was applying a good, general principle to a case in which the conditions rendered it inapplicable--the case in which the governed are in an admitted state of mental inferiority to those who govern them, and are unable to decide what is best for their permanent welfare. Children must be subjected to some degree of authority, and guidance; and if properly managed they will cheerfully submit to it, because they know their own inferiority, and believe their elders are acting solely for their good. They learn many things the use of which they cannot comprehend, and which they would never learn without some moral and social, if not physical, pressure. Habits of order, of industry, of cleanliness, of respect and obedience, are inculcated by similar means. Children would never grow up into well-behaved and well-educated men, if the same absolute freedom of action that is allowed to men were allowed to them. Under the best aspect of education, children are subjected to a mild despotism for the good of themselves and of society; and their confidence in the wisdom and goodness of those who ordain and apply this despotism, neutralizes the bad passions and degrading feelings, which under less favourable conditions are its general results. Now, there is not merely an analogy--there is in many respects an identity of relation between master and pupil or parent and child on the one hand, and an uncivilized race and its civilized rulers on the other. We know (or think we know) that the education and industry, and the common usages of civilized man, are superior to those of savage life; and, as he becomes acquainted with them, the savage himself admits this. He admires the superior acquirements of the civilized man, and it is with pride that he will adopt such usages as do not interfere too much with his sloth, his passions, or his prejudices. But as the willful child or the idle schoolboy, who was never taught obedience, and never made to do anything which of his own free will he was not inclined to do, would in most cases obtain neither education nor manners; so it is much more unlikely that the savage, with all the confirmed habits of manhood and the traditional prejudices of race, should ever do more than copy a few of the least beneficial customs of civilization, without some stronger stimulus than precept, very imperfectly backed by example. If we are satisfied that we are right in assuming the government over a savage race, and occupying their country, and if we further consider it our duty to do what we can to improve our rude subjects and raise them up towards our own level, we must not be too much afraid of the cry of "despotism" and "slavery," but must use the authority we possess to induce them to do work which they may not altogether like, but which we know to be an indispensable step in their moral and physical advancement. The Dutch have shown much good policy in the means by which they have done this. They have in most cases upheld and strengthened the authority of the native chiefs, to whom the people have been accustomed to render a voluntary obedience; and by acting on the intelligence and self-interest of these chiefs, have brought about changes in the manners and customs of the people, which would have excited ill-feeling and perhaps revolt, had they been directly enforced by foreigners. In carrying out such a system, much depends upon the character of the people; and the system which succeeds admirably in one place could only be very partially worked out in another. In Minahasa the natural docility and intelligence of the race have made their progress rapid; and how important this is, is well illustrated by the fact, that in the immediate vicinity of the town of Menado are a tribe called Banteks, of a much less tractable disposition, who have hitherto resisted all efforts of the Dutch Government to induce them to adopt any systematic cultivation. These remain in a ruder condition, but engage themselves willingly as occasional porters and labourers, for which their greater strength and activity well adapt them. No doubt the system here sketched seems open to serious objection. It is to a certain extent despotic, and interferes with free trade, free labour, and free communication. A native cannot leave his village without a pass, and cannot engage himself to any merchant or captain without a Government permit. The coffee has all to be sold to Government, at less than half the price that the local merchant would give for it, and he consequently cries out loudly against "monopoly" and "oppression." He forgets, however, that the coffee plantations were established by the Government at great outlay of capital and skill; that it gives free education to the people, and that the monopoly is in lieu of taxation. He forgets that the product he wants to purchase and make a profit by, is the creation of the Government, without whom the people would still be savages. He knows very well that free trade would, as its first result, lead to the importation of whole cargoes of arrack, which would be carried over the country and exchanged for coffee. That drunkenness and poverty would spread over the land; that the public coffee plantations would not be kept up; that the quality and quantity of the coffee would soon deteriorate; that traders and merchants would get rich, but that the people would relapse into poverty and barbarism. That such is invariably the result of free trade with any savage tribes who possess a valuable product, native or cultivated, is well known to those who have visited such people; but we might even anticipate from general principles that evil results would happen. If there is one thing rather than another to which the grand law of continuity or development will apply, it is to human progress. There are certain stages through which society must pass in its onward march from barbarism to civilization. Now one of these stages has always been some form or other of despotism, such as feudalism or servitude, or a despotic paternal government; and we have every reason to believe that it is not possible for humanity to leap over this transition epoch, and pass at once from pure savagery to free civilization. The Dutch system attempts to supply this missing link, and to bring the people on by gradual steps to that higher civilization, which we (the English) try to force upon them at once. Our system has always failed. We demoralize and we extirpate, but we never really civilize. Whether the Dutch system can permanently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be possible to compress the work of ten centuries into one; but at all events it takes nature as a guide, and is therefore, more deserving of success, and more likely to succeed, than ours. There is one point connected with this question which I think the Missionaries might take up with great physical and moral results. In this beautiful and healthy country, and with abundance of food and necessaries, the population does not increase as it ought to do. I can only impute this to one cause. Infant mortality, produced by neglect while the mothers are working in the plantations, and by general ignorance of the conditions of health in infants. Women all work, as they have always been accustomed to do. It is no hardship to them, but I believe is often a pleasure and relaxation. They either take their infants with them, in which case they leave them in some shady spot on the ground, going at intervals to give them nourishment, or they leave them at home in the care of other children too young to work. Under neither of these circumstances can infants be properly attended to, and great mortality is the result, keeping the increase of population far below the rate which the general prosperity of the country and the universality of marriage would lead us to expect. This is a matter in which the Government is directly interested, since it is by the increase of the population alone that there can be any large and permanent increase in the production of coffee. The Missionaries should take up the question because, by inducing married women to confine themselves to domestic duties, they will decidedly promote a higher civilization, and directly increase the health and happiness of the whole community. The people are so docile and so willing to adopt the manners and customs of Europeans, that the change might be easily effected by merely showing them that it was a question of morality and civilization, and an essential step in their progress towards an equality with their white rulers. After a fortnight's stay at Rurúkan, I left that pretty and interesting village in search of a locality and climate more productive of birds and insects. I passed the evening with the Controlleur of Tondano, and the next morning at nine, left in a small boat for the head of the lake, a distance of about ten miles. The lower end of the lake is bordered by swamps and marshes of considerable extent, but a little further on, the hills come down to the water's edge and give it very much the appearance of a greet river, the width being about two miles. At the upper end is the village of Kakas, where I dined with the head man in a good house like those I have already described; and then went on to Langówan, four miles distant over a level plain. This was the place where I had been recommended to stay, and I accordingly unpacked my baggage and made myself comfortable in the large house devoted to visitors. I obtained a man to shoot for me, and another to accompany me the next day to the forest, where I was in hopes of finding a good collecting ground. In the morning after breakfast I started off, but found I had four miles to walk over a wearisome straight road through coffee plantations before I could get to the forest, and as soon as I did so, it came on to rain heavily and did not cease until night. This distance to walk every day was too far for any profitable work, especially when the weather was so uncertain. I therefore decided at once that I must go further on, until I found someplace close to or in a forest country. In the afternoon my friend Mr. Bensneider arrived, together with the Controlleur of the next district, called Belang, from whom I learned that six miles further on there was a village called Panghu, which had been recently formed and had a good deal of forest close to it; and he promised me the use of a small house if I liked to go there. The next morning I went to see the hot-springs and mud volcanoes, for which this place is celebrated. A picturesque path among plantations and ravines brought us to a beautiful circular basin about forty feet in diameter, bordered by a calcareous ledge, so uniform and truly curved, that it looked like a work of art. It was filled with clear water very near the boiling point, and emitted clouds of steam with a strong sulphureous odour. It overflows at one point and forms a little stream of hot water, which at a hundred yards' distance is still too hot to hold the hand in. A little further on, in a piece of rough wood, were two other springs not so regular in outline, but appearing to be much hotter, as they were in a continual state of active ebullition. At intervals of a few minutes, a great escape of steam or gas took place, throwing up a column of water three or four feet high. We then went to the mud-springs, which are about a mile off, and are still more curious. On a sloping tract of ground in a slight hollow is a small lake of liquid mud, with patches of blue, red, or white, and in many places boiling and bubbling most furiously. All around on the indurated clay are small wells and craters full of boiling mud. These seem to be forming continually, a small hole appearing first, which emits jets of steam and boiling mud, which upon hardening, forms a little cone with a crater in the middle. The ground for some distance is very unsafe, as it is evidently liquid at a small depth, and bends with pressure like thin ice. At one of the smaller, marginal jets which I managed to approach, I held my hand to see if it was really as hot as it looked, when a little drop of mud that spurted on to my finger scalded like boiling water. A short distance off, there was a flat bare surface of rock as smooth and hot as an oven floor, which was evidently an old mud-pool, dried up and hardened. For hundreds of yards around where there were banks of reddish and white clay used for whitewash, it was still so hot close to the surface that the hand could hardly bear to be held in cracks a few inches deep, and from which arose a strong sulphureous vapour. I was informed that some years back a French gentleman who visited these springs ventured too near the liquid mud, when the crust gave way and he was engulfed in the horrible caldron. This evidence of intense heat so near the surface over a large tract of country was very impressive, and I could hardly divest myself of the notion that some terrible catastrophe might at any moment devastate the country. Yet it is probable that all these apertures are really safety-valves, and that the inequalities of the resistance of various parts of the earth's crust will always prevent such an accumulation of force as would be required to upheave and overwhelm any extensive area. About seven miles west of this is a volcano which was in eruption about thirty years before my visit, presenting a magnificent appearance and covering the surrounding country with showers of ashes. The plains around the lake formed by the intermingling and decomposition of volcanic products are of amazing fertility, and with a little management in the rotation of crops might be kept in continual cultivation. Rice is now grown on them for three or four years in succession, when they are left fallow for the same period, after which rice or maize can be again grown. Good rice produces thirty-fold, and coffee trees continue bearing abundantly for ten or fifteen years, without any manure and with scarcely any cultivation. I was delayed a day by incessant rain, and then proceeded to Panghu, which I reached just before the daily rain began at 11 A.M. After leaving the summit level of the lake basin, the road is carried along the slope of a fine forest ravine. The descent is a long one, so that I estimated the village to be not more than 1,500 feet above the sea, yet I found the morning temperature often 69°, the same as at Tondano at least 600 or 700 feet higher. I was pleased with the appearance of the place, which had a good deal of forest and wild country around it; and found prepared for me a little house consisting only of a verandah and a back room. This was only intended for visitors to rest in, or to pass a night, but it suited me very well. I was so unfortunate, however, as to lose both my hunters just at this time. One had been left at Tondano with fever and diarrhoea, and the other was attacked at Langówan with inflammation of the chest, and as his case looked rather bad I had him sent back to Menado. The people here were all so busy with their rice-harvest, which was important for them to finish owing to the early rains, that I could get no one to shoot for me. During the three weeks that I stayed at Panghu it rained nearly every day, either in the afternoon only, or all day long; but there were generally a few hours' sunshine in the morning, and I took advantage of these to explore the roads and paths, the rocks and ravines, in search of insects. These were not very abundant, yet I saw enough to convince me that the locality was a good one, had I been there at the beginning instead of at the end of the dry season. The natives brought me daily a few insects obtained at the Sagueir palms, including some fine Cetonias and stag-beetles. Two little boys were very expert with the blowpipe, and brought me a good many small birds, which they shot with pellets of clay. Among these was a pretty little flower-pecker of a new species (Prionochilus aureolimbatus), and several of the loveliest honeysuckers I had yet seen. My general collection of birds was, however, almost at a standstill; for though I at length obtained a man to shoot for me, he was not good for much, and seldom brought me more than one bird a day. The best thing he shot was the large and rare fruit-pigeon peculiar to Northern Celebes (Carpophaga forsteni), which I had long been seeking. I was myself very successful in one beautiful group of insects, the tiger-beetles, which seem more abundant and varied here than anywhere else in the Archipelago. I first met with them on a cutting in the road, where a hard clayey bank was partially overgrown with mosses and small ferns. Here, I found running about, a small olive-green species which never took flight; and more rarely, a fine purplish black wingless insect, which was always found motionless in crevices, and was therefore, probably nocturnal. It appeared to me to form a new genus. About the roads in the forest, I found the large and handsome Cicindela heros, which I had before obtained sparingly at Macassar; but it was in the mountain torrent of the ravine itself that I got my finest things. On dead trunks overhanging the water and on the banks and foliage, I obtained three very pretty species of Cicindela, quite distinct in size, form, and colour, but having an almost identical pattern of pale spots. I also found a single specimen of a most curious species with very long antennae. But my finest discovery here was the Cicindela gloriosa, which I found on mossy stones just rising above the water. After obtaining my first specimen of this elegant insect, I used to walk up the stream, watching carefully every moss-covered rock and stone. It was rather shy, and would often lead me on a long chase from stone to stone, becoming invisible every time it settled on the damp moss, owing to its rich velvety green colour. On some days I could only catch a few glimpses of it; on others I got a single specimen; and on a few occasions two, but never without a more or less active pursuit. This and several other species I never saw but in this one ravine. Among the people here I saw specimens of several types, which, with the peculiarities of the languages, gives me some notion of their probable origin. A striking illustration of the low state of civilization of these people, until quite recently, is to be found in the great diversity of their languages. Villages three or four miles apart have separate dialects, and each group of three or four such villages has a distinct language quite unintelligible to all the rest; so that, until the recent introduction of Malay by the Missionaries, there must have been a bar to all free communication. These languages offer many peculiarities. They contain a Celebes-Malay element and a Papuan element, along with some radical peculiarities found also in the languages of the Siau and Sanguir islands further north, and therefore, probably derived from the Philippine Islands. Physical characteristics correspond. There are some of the less civilized tribes which have semi-Papuan features and hair, while in some villages the true Celebes or Bugis physiognomy prevails. The plateau of Tondano is chiefly inhabited by people nearly as white as the Chinese, and with very pleasing semi-European features. The people of Siau and Sanguir much resemble these, and I believe them to be perhaps immigrants from some of the islands of North Polynesia. The Papuan type will represent the remnant of the aborigines, while those of the Bugis character show the extension northward of the superior Malay races. As I was wasting valuable time at Panghu, owing to the bad weather and the illness of my hunters, I returned to Menado after a stay of three weeks. Here I had a little touch of fever, and what with drying and packing all of my collections and getting fresh servants, it was a fortnight before I was again ready to start. I now went eastward over an undulating country skirting the great volcano of Klabat, to a village called Lempias, situated close to the extensive forest that covers the lower slopes of that mountain. My baggage was carried from village to village by relays of men; and as each change involved some delay, I did not reach my destination (a distance of eighteen miles) until sunset. I was wet through, and had to wait for an hour in an uncomfortable state until the first installment of my baggage arrived, which luckily contained my clothes, while the rest did not come in until midnight. This being the district inhabited by that singular annual the Babirusa (Hog-deer), I inquired about skulls and soon obtained several in tolerable condition, as well as a fine one of the rare and curious "Sapi-utan" (Anoa depressicornis). Of this animal I had seen two living specimens at Menado, and was surprised at their great resemblance to small cattle, or still more to the Eland of South Africa. Their Malay name signifies "forest ox," and they differ from very small highbred oxen principally by the low-hanging dewlap, and straight, pointed horns which slope back over the neck. I did not find the forest here so rich in insects as I had expected, and my hunters got me very few birds, but what they did obtain were very interesting. Among these were the rare forest Kingfisher (Cittura cyanotis), a small new species of Megapodius, and one specimen of the large and interesting Maleo (Megacephalon rubripes), to obtain which was one of my chief reasons for visiting this district. Getting no more, however, after ten days' search, I removed to Licoupang, at the extremity of the peninsula, a place celebrated for these birds, as well as for the Babirusa and Sapi-utan. I found here Mr. Goldmann, the eldest son of the Governor of the Moluccas, who was superintending the establishment of some Government salt-works. This was a better locality, and I obtained some fine butterflies and very good birds, among which was one more specimen of the rare ground dove (Phlegaenas tristigmata), which I had first obtained near the Maros waterfall in South Celebes. Hearing what I was particularly in search of, Mr. Goldmann kindly offered to make a hunting-party to the place where the "Maleos" are most abundant, a remote and uninhabited sea-beach about twenty miles distant. The climate here was quite different from that on the mountains; not a drop of rain having fallen for four months; so I made arrangements to stay on the beach a week, in order to secure a good number of specimens. We went partly by boat and partly through the forest, accompanied by the Major or head-man of Licoupang, with a dozen natives and about twenty dogs. On the way they caught a young Sapi-utan and five wild pigs. Of the former I preserved the head. This animal is entirely confined to the remote mountain forests of Celebes and one or two adjacent islands which form part of the same group. In the adults the head is black, with a white mark over each eye, one on each cheek and another on the throat. The horns are very smooth and sharp when young, but become thicker and ridged at the bottom with age. Most naturalists consider this curious animal to be a small ox, but from the character of the horns, the fine coat of hair and the descending dewlap, it seemed closely to approach the antelopes. Arrived at our destination, we built a but and prepared for a stay of some days--I to shoot and skin "Maleos", and Mr. Goldmann and the Major to hunt wild pigs, Babirusa, and Sapi-utan. The place is situated in the large bay between the islands of Limbe and Banca, and consists of steep beach more than a mile in length, of deep loose and coarse black volcanic sand (or rather gravel), very fatiguing to walk over. It is bounded at each extremity by a small river with hilly ground beyond, while the forest behind the beach itself is tolerably level and its growth stunted. We probably have here an ancient lava stream from the Klabat volcano, which has flowed down a valley into the sea, and the decomposition of which has formed the loose black sand. In confirmation of this view, it may be mentioned that the beaches beyond the small rivers in both directions are of white sand. It is in this loose, hot, black sand that those singular birds, the "Maleos" deposit their eggs. In the months of August and September, when there is little or no rain, they come down in pairs from the interior to this or to one or two other favourite spots, and scratch holes three or four feet deep, just above high-water mark, where the female deposits a single large egg, which she covers over with about a foot of sand--and then returns to the forest. At the end of ten or twelve days she comes again to the same spot to lay another egg, and each female bird is supposed to lay six or eight eggs during the season. The male assists the female in making the hole, coming down and returning with her. The appearance of the bird when walking on the beach is very handsome. The glossy black and rosy white of the plumage, the helmeted head and elevated tail, like that of the common fowl, give a striking character, which their stately and somewhat sedate walk renders still more remarkable. There is hardly any difference between the sexes, except that the casque or bonnet at the back of the head and the tubercles at the nostrils are a little larger, and the beautiful rosy salmon colour a little deeper in the male bird; but the difference is so slight that it is not always possible to tell a male from a female without dissection. They run quickly, but when shot at or suddenly disturbed, take wing with a heavy noisy flight to some neighbouring tree, where they settle on a low branch; and, they probably roost at night in a similar situation. Many birds lay in the same hole, for a dozen eggs are often found together; and these are so large that it is not possible for the body of the bird to contain more than one fully-developed egg at the same time. In all the female birds which I shot, none of the eggs besides the one large one exceeded the size of peas, and there were only eight or nine of these, which is probably the extreme number a bird can lay in one season. Every year the natives come for fifty miles round to obtain these eggs, which are esteemed as a great delicacy, and when quite fresh, are indeed delicious. They are richer than hens' eggs and of a finer favour, and each one completely fills an ordinary teacup, and forms with bread or rice a very good meal. The colour of the shell is a pale brick red, or very rarely pure white. They are elongate and very slightly smaller at one end, from four to four and a half inches long by two and a quarter or two and a half wide. After the eggs are deposited in the sand, they are no further cared for by the mother. The young birds, upon breaking the shell, work their way up through the sand and run off at once to the forest; and I was assured by Mr. Duivenboden of Ternate, that they can fly the very day they are hatched. He had taken some eggs on board his schooner which hatched during the night, and in the morning the little birds flew readily across the cabin. Considering the great distances the birds come to deposit the eggs in a proper situation (often ten or fifteen miles) it seems extraordinary that they should take no further care of them. It is, however, quite certain that they neither do nor can watch them. The eggs being deposited by a number of hens in succession in the same hole, would render it impossible for each to distinguish its own; and the food necessary for such large birds (consisting entirely of fallen fruits) can only be obtained by roaming over an extensive district, so that if the numbers of birds which come down to this single beach in the breeding season, amounting to many hundreds, were obliged to remain in the vicinity, many would perish of hunger. In the structure of the feet of this bird, we may detect a cause for its departing from the habits of its nearest allies, the Megapodii and Talegalli, which heap up earth, leaves, stones, and sticks into a huge mound, in which they bury their eggs. The feet of the Maleo are not nearly so large or strong in proportion as in these birds, while its claws are short and straight instead of being long and much curved. The toes are, however, strongly webbed at the base, forming a broad powerful foot, which, with the rather long leg, is well adapted to scratch away the loose sand (which flies up in a perfect shower when the birds are at work), but which could not without much labour accumulate the heaps of miscellaneous rubbish, which the large grasping feet of the Megapodius bring together with ease. We may also, I think, see in the peculiar organization of the entire family of the Megapodidae or Brush Turkeys, a reason why they depart so widely from the usual habits of the Class of birds. Each egg being so large as entirely to fill up the abdominal cavity and with difficulty pass the walls of the pelvis, a considerable interval is required before the successive eggs can be matured (the natives say about thirteen days). Each bird lays six or eight eggs or even more each season, so that between the first and last there may be an interval of two or three months. Now, if these eggs were hatched in the ordinary way, either the parents must keep sitting continually for this long period, or if they only began to sit after the last egg was deposited, the first would be exposed to injury by the climate, or to destruction by the large lizards, snakes, or other animals which abound in the district; because such large birds must roam about a good deal in search of food. Here then we seem to have a case in which the habits of a bird may be directly traced to its exceptional organization; for it will hardly be maintained that this abnormal structure and peculiar food were given to the Megapodidae in order that they might not exhibit that parental affection, or possess those domestic instincts so general in the Class of birds, and which so much excite our admiration. It has generally been the custom of writers on Natural History to take the habits and instincts of animals as fixed points, and to consider their structure and organization, as specially adapted, to be in accordance with these. This assumption is however an arbitrary one, and has the bad effect of stifling inquiry into the nature and causes of "instincts and habits," treating them as directly due to a "first cause," and therefore, incomprehensible to us. I believe that a careful consideration of the structure of a species, and of the peculiar physical and organic conditions by which it is surrounded, or has been surrounded in past ages, will often, as in this case, throw much light on the origin of its habits and instincts. These again, combined with changes in external conditions, react upon structure, and by means of "variation" and "natural selection", both are kept in harmony. My friends remained three days, and got plenty of wild pigs and two Anóas, but the latter were much injured by the dogs, and I could only preserve the heads. A grand hunt which we attempted on the third day failed, owing to bad management in driving in the game, and we waited for five hours perched on platforms in trees without getting a shot, although we had been assured that pigs, Babirusas, and Anóas would rush past us in dozens. I myself, with two men, stayed three days longer to get more specimens of the Maleos, and succeeded in preserving twenty-six very fine ones--the flesh and eggs of which supplied us with abundance of good food. The Major sent a boat, as he had promised, to take home my baggage, while I walked through the forest with my two boys and a guide, about fourteen miles. For the first half of the distance there was no path, and we had often to cut our way through tangled rattans or thickets of bamboo. In some of our turnings to find the most practicable route, I expressed my fear that we were losing our way, as the sun being vertical, I could see no possible clue to the right direction. My conductors, however, laughed at the idea, which they seemed to consider quite ludicrous; and sure enough, about half way, we suddenly encountered a little hut where people from Licoupang came to hunt and smoke wild pigs. My guide told me he had never before traversed the forest between these two points; and this is what is considered by some travellers as one of the savage "instincts," whereas it is merely the result of wide general knowledge. The man knew the topography of the whole district; the slope of the land, the direction of the streams, the belts of bamboo or rattan, and many other indications of locality and direction; and he was thus enabled to hit straight upon the hut, in the vicinity of which he had often hunted. In a forest of which he knew nothing, he would be quite as much at a loss as a European. Thus it is, I am convinced, with all the wonderful accounts of Indians finding their way through trackless forests to definite points; they may never have passed straight between the two particular points before, but they are well acquainted with the vicinity of both, and have such a general knowledge of the whole country, its water system, its soil and its vegetation, that as they approach the point they are to reach, many easily-recognised indications enable them to hit upon it with certainty. The chief feature of this forest was the abundance of rattan palms hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting about on the ground, often in inextricable confusion. One wonders at first how they can get into such queer shapes; but it is evidently caused by the decay and fall of the trees up which they have first climbed, after which they grow along the ground until they meet with another trunk up which to ascend. A tangled mass of twisted living rattan, is therefore, a sign that at some former period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not the slightest vestige of it left. The rattan seems to have unlimited powers of growth, and a single plant may mount up several trees in succession, and thus reach the enormous length they are said sometimes to attain. They much improve the appearance of a forest as seen from the coast; for they vary the otherwise monotonous tree-tops with feathery crowns of leaves rising clear above them, and each terminated by an erect leafy spike like a lightning-conductor. The other most interesting object in the forest was a beautiful palm, whose perfectly smooth and cylindrical stem rises erect to more than a hundred feet high, with a thickness of only eight or ten inches; while the fan-shaped leaves which compose its crown, are almost complete circles of six or eight feet diameter, borne aloft on long and slender petioles, and beautifully toothed round the edge by the extremities of the leaflets, which are separated only for a few inches from the circumference. It is probably the Livistona rotundifolia of botanists, and is the most complete and beautiful fan-leaf I have ever seen, serving admirably for folding into water-buckets and impromptu baskets, as well as for thatching and other purposes. A few days afterwards I returned to Menado on horse-back, sending my baggage around by sea; and had just time to pack up all my collections to go by the next mail steamer to Amboyna. I will now devote a few pages to an account of the chief peculiarities of the Zoology of Celebes, and its relation to that of the surrounding countries. CHAPTER XVIII. NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES. THE position of Celebes is the most central in the Archipelago. Immediately to the north are the Philippine islands; on the west is Borneo; on the east are the Molucca islands; and on the south is the Timor group--and it is on all sides so connected with these islands by its own satellites, by small islets, and by coral reefs, that neither by inspection on the map nor by actual observation around its coast, is it possible to determine accurately which should be grouped with it, and which with the surrounding districts. Such being the case, we should naturally expect to find that the productions of this central island in some degree represented the richness and variety of the whole Archipelago, while we should not expect much individuality in a country, so situated, that it would seem as if it were pre-eminently fitted to receive stragglers and immigrants from all around. As so often happens in nature, however, the fact turns out to be just the reverse of what we should have expected; and an examination of its animal productions shows Celebes to be at once the poorest in the number of its species, and the most isolated in the character of its productions, of all the great islands in the Archipelago. With its attendant islets it spreads over an extent of sea hardly inferior in length and breadth to that occupied by Borneo, while its actual land area is nearly double that of Java; yet its Mammalia and terrestrial birds number scarcely more than half the species found in the last-named island. Its position is such that it could receive immigrants from every side more readily than Java, yet in proportion to the species which inhabit it, far fewer seem derived from other islands, while far more are altogether peculiar to it; and a considerable number of its animal forms are so remarkable, as to find no close allies in any other part of the world. I now propose to examine the best known groups of Celebesian animals in some detail, to study their relations to those of other islands, and to call attention to the many points of interest which they suggest. We know far more of the birds of Celebes than we do of any other group of animals. No less than 191 species have been discovered, and though no doubt, many more wading and swimming birds have to be added; yet the list of land birds, 144 in number, and which for our present purpose are much the most important, must be very nearly complete. I myself assiduously collected birds in Celebes for nearly ten months, and my assistant, Mr. Allen, spent two months in the Sula islands. The Dutch naturalist Forsten spent two years in Northern Celebes (twenty years before my visit), and collections of birds had also been sent to Holland from Macassar. The French ship of discovery, L'Astrolabe, also touched at Menado and procured collections. Since my return home, the Dutch naturalists Rosenberg and Bernstein have made extensive collections both in North Celebes and in the Sula islands; yet all their researches combined have only added eight species of land birds to those forming part of my own collection--a fact which renders it almost certain that there are very few more to discover. Besides Salayer and Boutong on the south, with Peling and Bungay on the east, the three islands of the Sula (or Zula) Archipelago also belong zoologically to Celebes, although their position is such that it would seem more natural to group them with the Moluccas. About 48 land birds are now known from the Sula group, and if we reject from these, five species which have a wide range over the Archipelago, the remainder are much more characteristic of Celebes than of the Moluccas. Thirty-one species are identical with those of the former island, and four are representatives of Celebes forms, while only eleven are Moluccan species, and two more representatives. But although the Sula islands belong to Celebes, they are so close to Bouru and the southern islands of the Gilolo group, that several purely Moluccan forms have migrated there, which are quite unknown to the island of Celebes itself; the whole thirteen Moluccan species being in this category, thus adding to the productions of Celebes a foreign element which does not really belong to it. In studying the peculiarities of the Celebesian fauna, it will therefore be well to consider only the productions of the main island. The number of land birds in the island of Celebes is 128, and from these we may, as before, strike out a small number of species which roam over the whole Archipelago (often from India to the Pacific), and which therefore only serve to disguise the peculiarities of individual islands. These are 20 in number, and leave 108 species which we may consider as more especially characteristic of the island. On accurately comparing these with the birds of all the surrounding countries, we find that only nine extend into the islands westward, and nineteen into the islands eastward, while no less than 80 are entirely confined to the Celebesian fauna--a degree of individuality which, considering the situation of the island, is hardly to be equalled in any other part of the world. If we still more closely examine these 80 species, we shall be struck by the many peculiarities of structure they present, and by the curious affinities with distant parts of the world which many of them seem to indicate. These points are of so much interest and importance that it will be necessary to pass in review all those species which are peculiar to the island, and to call attention to whatever is most worthy of remark. Six species of the Hawk tribe are peculiar to Celebes; three of these are very distinct from allied birds which range over all India to Java and Borneo, and which thus seem to be suddenly changed on entering Celebes. Another (Accipiter trinotatus) is a beautiful hawk, with elegant rows of large round white spots on the tail, rendering it very conspicuous and quite different from any other known bird of the family. Three owls are also peculiar; and one, a barn owl (Strix rosenbergii), is very much larger and stronger than its ally Strix javanica, which ranges from India through all the islands as far as Lombock. Of the ten Parrots found in Celebes, eight are peculiar. Among them are two species of the singular racquet-tailed parrots forming the genus Prioniturus, and which are characterised by possessing two long spoon-shaped feathers in the tail. Two allied species are found in the adjacent island of Mindanao, one of the Philippines, and this form of tail is found in no other parrots in the whole world. A small species of Lorikeet (Trichoglossus flavoviridis) seems to have its nearest ally in Australia. The three Woodpeckers which inhabit the island are all peculiar, and are allied to species found in Java and Borneo, although very different from them all. Among the three peculiar Cuckoos, two are very remarkable. Phoenicophaus callirhynchus is the largest and handsomest species of its genus, and is distinguished by the three colours of its beak, bright yellow, red, and black. Eudynamis melanorynchus differs from all its allies in having a jet-black bill, whereas the other species of the genus always have it green, yellow, or reddish. The Celebes Roller (Coracias temmincki) is an interesting example of one species of a genus being cut off from the rest. There are species of Coracias in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but none in the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, or Borneo. The present species seems therefore quite out of place; and what is still more curious is the fact that it is not at all like any of the Asiatic species, but seems more to resemble those of Africa. In the next family, the Bee-eaters, is another equally isolated bird, Meropogon forsteni, which combines the characters of African and Indian Bee-eaters, and whose only near ally, Meropogon breweri, was discovered by M. Du Chaillu in West Africa! The two Celebes Hornbills have no close allies in those which abound in the surrounding countries. The only Thrush, Geocichla erythronota, is most nearly allied to a species peculiar to Timor. Two of the Flycatchers are closely allied to Indian species, which are not found in the Malay islands. Two genera somewhat allied to the Magpies (Streptocitta and Charitornis), but whose affinities are so doubtful that Professor Schlegel places them among the Starlings, are entirely confined to Celebes. They are beautiful long-tailed birds, with black and white plumage, and with the feathers of the head somewhat rigid and scale-like. Doubtfully allied to the Starlings are two other very isolated and beautiful birds. One, Enodes erythrophrys, has ashy and yellow plumage, but is ornamented with broad stripes of orange-red above the eyes. The other, Basilornis celebensis, is a blue-black bird with a white patch on each side of the breast, and the head ornamented with a beautiful compressed scaly crest of feathers, resembling in form that of the well-known Cock-of-the-rock of South America. The only ally to this bird is found in Ceram, and has the feathers of the crest elongated upwards into quite a different form. A still more curious bird is the Scissirostrum pagei, which although it is at present classed in the Starling family, differs from all other species in the form of the bill and nostrils, and seems most nearly allied in its general structure to the Ox-peckers (Buphaga) of tropical Africa, next to which the celebrated ornithologist Prince Bonaparte finally placed it. It is almost entirely of a slatey colour, with yellow bill and feet, but the feathers of the rump and upper tail-coverts each terminate in a rigid, glossy pencil or tuft of a vivid crimson. These pretty little birds take the place of the metallic-green starlings of the genus Calornis, which are found in most other islands of the Archipelago, but which are absent from Celebes. They go in flocks, feeding upon grain and fruits, often frequenting dead trees, in holes of which they build their nests; and they cling to the trunks as easily as woodpeckers or creepers. Out of eighteen Pigeons found in Celebes, eleven are peculiar to it. Two of them, Ptilonopus gularis and Turacaena menadensis, have their nearest allies in Timor. Two others, Carpophaga forsteni and Phlaegenas tristigmata, most resemble Philippine island species; and Carpophaga radiata belongs to a New Guinea group. Lastly, in the Gallinaceous tribe, the curious helmeted Maleo (Megacephalon rubripes) is quite isolated, having its nearest (but still distant) allies in the Brush-turkeys of Australia and New Guinea. Judging, therefore, by the opinions of the eminent naturalists who have described and classified its birds, we find that many of the species have no near allies whatsoever in the countries which surround Celebes, but are either quite isolated, or indicate relations with such distant regions as New Guinea, Australia, India, or Africa. Other cases of similar remote affinities between the productions of distant countries no doubt exist, but in no spot upon the globe that I am yet acquainted with, do so many of them occur together, or do they form so decided a feature in the natural history of the country. The Mammalia of Celebes are very few in number, consisting of fourteen terrestrial species and seven bats. Of the former no less than eleven are peculiar, including two which there is reason to believe may have been recently carried into other islands by man. Three species which have a tolerably wide range in the Archipelago, are: (1) The curious Lemur, Tarsius spectrum, which is found in all the islands as far westward as Malacca; (2) the common Malay Civet, Viverra tangalunga, which has a still wider range; and (3) a Deer, which seems to be the same as the Rusa hippelaphus of Java, and was probably introduced by man at an early period. The more characteristic species are as follow: Cynopithecus nigrescens, a curious baboon-like monkey if not a true baboon, which abounds all over Celebes, and is found nowhere else but in the one small island of Batchian, into which it has probably been introduced accidentally. An allied species is found in the Philippines, but in no other island of the Archipelago is there anything resembling them. These creatures are about the size of a spaniel, of a jet-black colour, and have the projecting dog-like muzzle and overhanging brows of the baboons. They have large red callosities and a short fleshy tail, scarcely an inch long and hardly visible. They go in large bands, living chiefly in the trees, but often descending on the ground and robbing gardens and orchards. Anoa depressicornis, the Sapi-utan, or wild cow of the Malays, is an animal which has been the cause of much controversy, as to whether it should be classed as ox, buffalo, or antelope. It is smaller than any other wild cattle, and in many respects seems to approach some of the ox-like antelopes of Africa. It is found only in the mountains, and is said never to inhabit places where there are deer. It is somewhat smaller than a small Highland cow, and has long straight horns, which are ringed at the base and slope backwards over the neck. The wild pig seems to be of a species peculiar to the island; but a much more curious animal of this family is the Babirusa or Pig-deer; so named by the Malays from its long and slender legs, and curved tusks resembling horns. This extraordinary creature resembles a pig in general appearance, but it does not dig with its snout, as it feeds on fallen fruits. The tusks of the lower jaw are very long and sharp, but the upper ones instead of growing downwards in the usual way are completely reversed, growing upwards out of bony sockets through the skin on each side of the snout, curving backwards to near the eyes, and in old animals often reaching eight or ten inches in length. It is difficult to understand what can be the use of these extraordinary horn-like teeth. Some of the old writers supposed that they served as hooks, by which the creature could rest its head on a branch. But the way in which they usually diverge just over and in front of the eye has suggested the more probable idea, that they serve to guard these organs from thorns and spines, while hunting for fallen fruits among the tangled thickets of rattans and other spiny plants. Even this, however, is not satisfactory, for the female, who must seek her food in the same way, does not possess them. I should be inclined to believe rather, that these tusks were once useful, and were then worn down as fast as they grew; but that changed conditions of life have rendered them unnecessary, and they now develop into a monstrous form, just as the incisors of the Beaver or Rabbit will go on growing, if the opposite teeth do not wear them away. In old animals they reach an enormous size, and are generally broken off as if by fighting. Here again we have a resemblance to the Wart-hogs of Africa, whose upper canines grow outwards and curve up so as to form a transition from the usual mode of growth to that of the Babirusa. In other respects there seems no affinity between these animals, and the Babirusa stands completely isolated, having no resemblance to the pigs of any other part of the world. It is found all over Celebes and in the Sula islands, and also in Bourn, the only spot beyond the Celebes group to which it extends; and which island also shows some affinity to the Sula islands in its birds, indicating perhaps, a closer connection between them at some former period than now exists. The other terrestrial mammals of Celebes are five species of squirrels, which are all distinct from those of Java and Borneo, and mark the furthest eastward range of the genus in the tropics; and two of Eastern opossums (Cuscus), which are different from those of the Moluccas, and mark the furthest westward extension of this genus and of the Marsupial order. Thus we see that the Mammalia of Celebes are no less individual and remarkable than the birds, since three of the largest and most interesting species have no near allies in surrounding countries, but seem vaguely to indicate a relation to the African continent. Many groups of insects appear to be especially subject to local influences, their forms and colours changing with each change of conditions, or even with a change of locality where the conditions seem almost identical. We should therefore anticipate that the individuality manifested in the higher animals would be still more prominent in these creatures with less stable organisms. On the other hand, however, we have to consider that the dispersion and migration of insects is much more easily effected than that of mammals or even of birds. They are much more likely to be carried away by violent winds; their eggs may be carried on leaves either by storms of wind or by floating trees, and their larvae and pupae, often buried in trunks of trees or enclosed in waterproof cocoons, may be floated for days or weeks uninjured over the ocean. These facilities of distribution tend to assimilate the productions of adjacent lands in two ways: first, by direct mutual interchange of species; and secondly, by repeated immigrations of fresh individuals of a species common to other islands, which by intercrossing, tend to obliterate the changes of form and colour, which differences of conditions might otherwise produce. Bearing these facts in mind, we shall find that the individuality of the insects of Celebes is even greater than we have any reason to expect. For the purpose of insuring accuracy in comparisons with other islands, I shall confine myself to those groups which are best known, or which I have myself carefully studied. Beginning with the Papilionidae or Swallow-tailed butterflies, Celebes possesses 24 species, of which the large number of 18 are not found in any other island. If we compare this with Borneo, which out of 29 species has only two not found elsewhere, the difference is as striking as anything can be. In the family of the Pieridae, or white butterflies, the difference is not quite so great, owing perhaps to the more wandering habits of the group; but it is still very remarkable. Out of 30 species inhabiting Celebes, 19 are peculiar, while Java (from which more species are known than from Sumatra or Borneo), out of 37 species, has only 13 peculiar. The Danaidae are large, but weak-flying butterflies, which frequent forests and gardens, and are plainly but often very richly coloured. Of these my own collection contains 16 species from Celebes and 15 from Borneo; but whereas no less than 14 are confined to the former island, only two are peculiar to the latter. The Nymphalidae are a very extensive group, of generally strong-winged and very bright-coloured butterflies, very abundant in the tropics, and represented in our own country by our Fritillaries, our Vanessas, and our Purple-emperor. Some months ago I drew up a list of the Eastern species of this group, including all the new ones discovered by myself, and arrived at the following comparative results:-- Species of Species peculiar to Percentage Nymphalidae. each island. of peculiar Species. Java..... 70...... 23.......... 33 Borneo.... 52...... 15.......... 29 Celebes ... 48...... 35.......... 73 The Coleoptera are so extensive that few of the groups have yet been carefully worked out. I will therefore refer to one only, which I have myself recently studied--the Cetoniadae or Rose-chafers--a group of beetles which, owing to their extreme beauty, have been much sought after. From Java 37 species of these insects are known, and from Celebes only 30; yet only 13, or 35 percent, are peculiar to the former island, and 19, or 63 percent, to the latter. The result of these comparisons is, that although Celebes is a single, large island with only a few smaller ones closely grouped around it, we must really consider it as forming one of the great divisions of the Archipelago, equal in rank and importance to the whole of the Moluccan or Philippine groups, to the Papuan islands, or to the Indo-Malay islands (Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and the Malay peninsula). Taking those families of insects and birds which are best known, the following table shows the comparison of Celebes with the other groups of islands:-- PAPILIONIDAE AND HAWKS, PARROTS, AND PERIDAE PIGEONS. Percent of peculiar Percent of peculiar Species. Species. Indo-Malay region.... 56.......... 54 Philippine group .... 66.......... 73 Celebes......... 69.......... 60 Moluccan group ..... 52.......... 62 Timor group....... 42.......... 47 Papuan group ...... 64.......... 74 These large and well-known families well represent the general character of the zoology of Celebes; and they show that this island is really one of the most isolated portions of the Archipelago, although situated in its very centre. But the insects of Celebes present us with other phenomena more curious and more difficult to explain than their striking individuality. The butterflies of that island are in many cases characterised by a peculiarity of outline, which distinguishes them at a glance from those of any other part of the world. It is most strongly manifested in the Papilios and the Pieridae, and consists in the forewings being either strongly curved or abruptly bent near the base, or in the extremity being elongated and often somewhat hooked. Out of the 14 species of Papilio in Celebes, 13 exhibit this peculiarity in a greater or less degree, when compared with the most nearly allied species of the surrounding islands. Ten species of Pieridae have the same character, and in four or five of the Nymphalidae it is also very distinctly marked. In almost every case, the species found in Celebes are much larger than those of the islands westward, and at least equal to those of the Moluccas, or even larger. The difference of form is, however, the most remarkable feature, as it is altogether a new thing for a whole set of species in one country to differ in exactly the same way from the corresponding sets in all the surrounding countries; and it is so well marked, that without looking at the details of colouring, most Celebes Papilios and many Pieridae, can be at once distinguished from those of other islands by their form alone. The outside figure of each pair here given, shows the exact size and form of the fore-wing in a butterfly of Celebes, while the inner one represents the most closely allied species from one of the adjacent islands. Figure 1 shows the strongly curved margin of the Celebes species, Papilio gigon, compared with the much straighter margin of Papilio demolion from Singapore and Java. Figure 2 shows the abrupt bend over the base of the wing in Papilio miletus of Celebes, compared with the slight curvature in the common Papilio sarpedon, which has almost exactly the same form from India to New Guinea and Australia. Figure 3 shows the elongated wing of Tachyris zarinda, a native of Celebes, compared with the much shorter wing of Tachyris nero, a very closely allied species found in all the western islands. The difference of form is in each case sufficiently obvious, but when the insects themselves are compared, it is much more striking than in these partial outlines. From the analogy of birds, we should suppose that the pointed wing gave increased rapidity of flight, since it is a character of terns, swallows, falcons, and of the swift-flying pigeons. A short and rounded wing, on the other hand, always accompanies a more feeble or more laborious flight, and one much less under command. We might suppose, therefore, that the butterflies which possess this peculiar form were better able to escape pursuit. But there seems no unusual abundance of insectivorous birds to render this necessary; and as we cannot believe that such a curious peculiarity is without meaning, it seems probable that it is the result of a former condition of things, when the island possessed a much richer fauna, the relics of which we see in the isolated birds and Mammalia now inhabiting it; and when the abundance of insectivorous creatures rendered some unusual means of escape a necessity for the large-winged and showy butterflies. It is some confirmation of this view, that neither the very small nor the very obscurely coloured groups of butterflies have elongated wings, nor is any modification perceptible in those strong-winged groups which already possess great strength and rapidity of flight. These were already sufficiently protected from their enemies, and did not require increased power of escaping from them. It is not at all clear what effect the peculiar curvature of the wings has in modifying flight. Another curious feature in the zoology of Celebes is also worthy of attention. I allude to the absence of several groups which are found on both sides of it, in the Indo-Malay islands as well as in the Moluccas; and which thus seem to be unable, from some unknown cause, to obtain a footing in the intervening island. In Birds we have the two families of Podargidae and Laniadae, which range over the whole Archipelago and into Australia, and which yet have no representative in Celebes. The genera Ceyx among Kingfishers, Criniger among Thrushes, Rhipidura among Flycatchers, Calornis among Starlings, and Erythrura among Finches, are all found in the Moluccas as well as in Borneo and Java--but not a single species belonging to any one of them is found in Celebes. Among insects, the large genus of Rose-chafers, Lomaptera, is found in every country and island between India and New Guinea, except Celebes. This unexpected absence of many groups, from one limited district in the very centre of their area of distribution, is a phenomenon not altogether unique, but, I believe, nowhere so well marked as in this case; and it certainly adds considerably to the strange character of this remarkable island. The anomalies and eccentricities in the natural history of Celebes which I have endeavoured to sketch in this CHAPTER, all point to an origin in a remote antiquity. The history of extinct animals teaches us that their distribution in time and in space are strikingly similar. The rule is, that just as the productions of adjacent areas usually resemble each other closely, so do the productions of successive periods in the same area; and as the productions of remote areas generally differ widely, so do the productions of the same area at remote epochs. We are therefore led irresistibly to the conclusion, that change of species, still more of generic and of family form, is a matter of time. But time may have led to a change of species in one country, while in another the forms have been more permanent, or the change may have gone on at an equal rate but in a different manner in both. In either case, the amount of individuality in the productions of a district will be to some extent a measure of the time that a district has been isolated from those that surround it. Judged by this standard, Celebes must be one of the oldest parts of the Archipelago. It probably dates from a period not only anterior to that when Borneo, Java, and Sumatra were separated from the continent, but from that still more remote epoch when the land that now constitutes these islands had not risen above the ocean. Such an antiquity is necessary, to account for the number of animal forms it possesses, which show no relation to those of India or Australia, but rather with those of Africa; and we are led to speculate on the possibility of there having once existed a continent in the Indian Ocean which might serve as a bridge to connect these distant countries. Now it is a curious fact, that the existence of such a land has been already thought necessary, to account for the distribution of the curious Quadrumana forming the family of the Lemurs. These have their metropolis in Madagascar, but are found also in Africa, in Ceylon, in the peninsula of India, and in the Malay Archipelago as far as Celebes, which is its furthest eastern limit. Dr. Sclater has proposed for the hypothetical continent connecting these distant points, and whose former existence is indicated by the Mascarene islands and the Maldive coral group, the name of Lemuria. Whether or not we believe in its existence in the exact form here indicated, the student of geographical distribution must see in the extraordinary and isolated productions of Celebes, proof of the former existence of some continent from whence the ancestors of these creatures, and of many other intermediate forms, could have been derived. In this short sketch of the most striking peculiarities of the Natural History of Celebes, I have been obliged to enter much into details that I fear will have been uninteresting to the general reader, but unless I had done so, my exposition would have lost much of its force and value. It is by these details alone that I have been able to prove the unusual features that Celebes presents to us. Situated in the very midst of an Archipelago, and closely hemmed in on every side by islands teeming with varied forms of life, its productions have yet a surprising amount of individuality. While it is poor in the actual number of its species, it is yet wonderfully rich in peculiar forms, many of which are singular or beautiful, and are in some cases absolutely unique upon the globe. We behold here the curious phenomenon of groups of insects changing their outline in a similar manner when compared with those of surrounding islands, suggesting some common cause which never seems to have acted elsewhere in exactly the same way. Celebes, therefore, presents us with a most striking example of the interest that attaches to the study of the geographical distribution of animals. We can see that their present distribution upon the globe is the result of all the more recent changes the earth's surface has undergone; and, by a careful study of the phenomena, we are sometimes able to deduce approximately what those past changes must have been in order to produce the distribution we find to exist. In the comparatively simple case of the Timor group, we were able to deduce these changes with some approach to certainty. In the much more complicated case of Celebes, we can only indicate their general nature, since we now see the result, not of any single or recent change only, but of a whole series of the later revolutions which have resulted in the present distribution of land in the Eastern Hemisphere. CHAPTER XIX. BANDA. (DECEMBER 1857, MAY 1859, APRIL 1861.) THE Dutch mail steamer in which I travelled from Macassar to Banda and Amboyna was a roomy and comfortable vessel, although it would only go six miles an hour in the finest weather. As there were but three passengers besides myself, we had abundance of room, and I was able to enjoy a voyage more than I had ever done before. The arrangements are somewhat different from those on board English or Indian steamers. There are no cabin servants, as every cabin passenger invariably brings his own, and the ship's stewards attend only to the saloon and the eating department. At six A.M. a cup of tea or coffee is provided for those who like it. At seven to eight there is a light breakfast of tea, eggs, sardines, etc. At ten, Madeira, Gin and bitters are brought on deck as a whet for the substantial eleven o'clock breakfast, which differs from a dinner only in the absence of soup. Cups of tea and coffee are brought around at three P.M.; bitters, etc. again at five, a good dinner with beer and claret at half-past six, concluded by tea and coffee at eight. Between whiles, beer and sodawater are supplied when called for, so there is no lack of little gastronomical excitements to while away the tedium of a sea voyage. Our first stopping place was Coupang, at the west end of the large island of Timor. We then coasted along that island for several hundred miles, having always a view of hilly ranges covered with scanty vegetation, rising ridge behind ridge to the height of six or seven thousand feet. Turning off towards Banda we passed Pulo-Cambing, Wetter, and Roma, all of which are desolate and barren volcanic islands, almost as uninviting as Aden, and offering a strange contrast to the usual verdure and luxuriance of the Archipelago. In two days more we reached the volcanic group of Banda, covered with an unusually dense and brilliant green vegetation, indicating that we had passed beyond the range of the hot dry winds from the plains of Central Australia. Banda is a lovely little spot, its three islands enclosing a secure harbour from whence no outlet is visible, and with water so transparent, that living corals and even the minutest objects are plainly seen on the volcanic sand at a depth of seven or eight fathoms. The ever smoking volcano rears its bare cone on one side, while the two larger islands are clothed with vegetation to the summit of the hills. Going on shore, I walked up a pretty path which leads to the highest point of the island on which the town is situated, where there is a telegraph station and a magnificent view. Below lies the little town, with its neat red-tiled white houses and the thatched cottages of the natives, bounded on one side by the old Portuguese fort. Beyond, about half a mile distant, lies the larger island in the shape of a horseshoe, formed of a range of abrupt hills covered with fine forest and nutmeg gardens; while close opposite the town is the volcano, forming a nearly perfect cone, the lower part only covered with a light green bushy vegetation. On its north side the outline is more uneven, and there is a slight hollow or chasm about one-fifth of the way down, from which constantly issue two columns of smoke, as well as a good deal from the rugged surface around and from some spots nearer the summit. A white efflorescence, probably sulphur, is thickly spread over the upper part of the mountain, marked by the narrow black vertical lines of water gullies. The smoke unites as it rises, and forms a dense cloud, which in calm, damp weather spreads out into a wide canopy hiding the top of the mountain. At night and early morning, it often rises up straight and leaves the whole outline clear. It is only when actually gazing on an active volcano that one can fully realize its awfulness and grandeur. Whence comes that inexhaustible fire whose dense and sulphurous smoke forever issues from this bare and desolate peak? Whence the mighty forces that produced that peak, and still from time to time exhibit themselves in the earthquakes that always occur in the vicinity of volcanic vents? The knowledge from childhood of the fact that volcanoes and earthquakes exist, has taken away somewhat of the strange and exceptional character that really belongs to them. The inhabitant of most parts of northern Europe sees in the earth the emblem of stability and repose. His whole life-experience, and that of all his age and generation, teaches him that the earth is solid and firm, that its massive rocks may contain water in abundance, but never fire; and these essential characteristics of the earth are manifest in every mountain his country contains. A volcano is a fact opposed to all this mass of experience, a fact of so awful a character that, if it were the rule instead of the exception, it would make the earth uninhabitable a fact so strange and unaccountable that we may be sure it would not be believed on any human testimony, if presented to us now for the first time, as a natural phenomenon happening in a distant country. The summit of the small island is composed of a highly crystalline basalt; lower down I found a hard, stratified slatey sandstone, while on the beach are huge blocks of lava, and scattered masses of white coralline limestone. The larger island has coral rock to a height of three or four hundred feet, while above is lava and basalt. It seems probable, therefore, that this little group of four islands is the fragment of a larger district which was perhaps once connected with Ceram, but which was separated and broken up by the same forces which formed the volcanic cone. When I visited the larger island on another occasion, I saw a considerable tract covered with large forest trees--dead, but still standing. This was a record of the last great earthquake only two years ago, when the sea broke in over this part of the island and so flooded it as to destroy the vegetation on all the lowlands. Almost every year there is an earthquake here, and at intervals of a few years, very severe ones which throw down houses and carry ships out of the harbour bodily into the streets. Notwithstanding the losses incurred by these terrific visitations, and the small size and isolated position of these little islands, they have been and still are of considerable value to the Dutch Government, as the chief nutmeg-garden in the world. Almost the whole surface is planted with nutmegs, grown under the shade of lofty Kanary trees (Kanarium commune). The light volcanic soil, the shade, and the excessive moisture of these islands, where it rains more or less every month in the year, seem exactly to suit the nutmeg-tree, which requires no manure and scarcely any attention. All the year round flowers and ripe fruit are to be found, and none of those diseases occur which under a forced and unnatural system of cultivation have ruined the nutmeg planters of Singapore and Penang. Few cultivated plants are more beautiful than nutmeg-trees. They are handsomely shaped and glossy-leaved, growing to the height of twenty or thirty feet, and bearing small yellowish flowers. The fruit is the size and colour of a peach, but rather oval. It is of a tough fleshy consistence, but when ripe splits open, and shows the dark-brown nut within, covered with the crimson mace, and is then a most beautiful object. Within the thin, hard shell of the nut is the seed, which is the nutmeg of commerce. The nuts are eaten by the large pigeons of Banda, which digest the mace, but cast up the nut with its seed uninjured. The nutmeg trade has hitherto been a strict monopoly of the Dutch Government; but since leaving the country I believe that this monopoly has been partially or wholly discontinued, a proceeding which appears exceedingly injudicious and quite unnecessary. There are cases in which monopolies are perfectly justifiable, and I believe this to be one of them. A small country like Holland cannot afford to keep distant and expensive colonies at a loss; and having possession of a very small island where a valuable product, not a necessity of life, can be obtained at little cost, it is almost the duty of the state to monopolise it. No injury is done thereby to anyone, but a great benefit is conferred upon the whole population of Holland and its dependencies, since the produce of the state monopolies saves them from the weight of a heavy taxation. Had the Government not kept the nutmeg trade of Banda in its own hands, it is probable that the whole of the islands would long ago have become the property of one or more large capitalists. The monopoly would have been almost the same, since no known spot on the globe can produce nutmegs so cheaply as Banda, but the profits of the monopoly would have gone to a few individuals instead of to the nation. As an illustration of how a state monopoly may become a state duty, let us suppose that no gold existed in Australia, but that it had been found in immense quantities by one of our ships in some small and barren island. In this case it would plainly become the duty of the state to keep and work the mines for the public benefit, since by doing so, the gain would be fairly divided among the whole population by decrease of taxation; whereas by leaving it open to free trade while merely keeping the government of the island; we should certainly produce enormous evils during the first struggle for the precious metal, and should ultimately subside into the monopoly of some wealthy individual or great company, whose enormous revenue would not equally benefit the community. The nutmegs of Banda and the tin of Banca are to some extent parallel cases to this supposititious one, and I believe the Dutch Government will act most unwisely if they give up their monopoly. Even the destruction of the nutmeg and clove trees in many islands, in order to restrict their cultivation to one or two where the monopoly could be easily guarded, usually made the theme of so much virtuous indignation against the Dutch, may be defended on similar principles, and is certainly not nearly so bad as many monopolies we ourselves have until very recently maintained. Nutmegs and cloves are not necessaries of life; they are not even used as spices by the natives of the Moluccas, and no one was materially or permanently injured by the destruction of the trees, since there are a hundred other products that can be grown in the same islands, equally valuable and far more beneficial in a social point of view. It is a case exactly parallel to our prohibition of the growth of tobacco in England, for fiscal purposes, and is, morally and economically, neither better nor worse. The salt monopoly which we so long maintained in India was in much worse. As long as we keep up a system of excise and customs on articles of daily use, which requires an elaborate array of officers and coastguards to carry into effect, and which creates a number of purely legal crimes, it is the height of absurdity for us to affect indignation at the conduct of the Dutch, who carried out a much more justifiable, less hurtful, and more profitable system in their Eastern possessions. I challenge objectors to point out any physical or moral evils that have actually resulted from the action of the Dutch Government in this matter; whereas such evils are the admitted results of every one of our monopolies and restrictions. The conditions of the two experiments are totally different. The true "political economy" of a higher race, when governing a lower race, has never yet been worked out. The application of our "political economy" to such cases invariably results in the extinction or degradation of the lower race; whence, we may consider it probable that one of the necessary conditions of its truth is the approximate mental and social unity of the society in which it is applied. I shall again refer to this subject in my CHAPTER on Ternate, one of the most celebrated of the old spice-islands. The natives of Banda are very much mixed, and it is probable that at least three-fourths of the population are mongrels, in various degrees of Malay, Papuan, Arab, Portuguese, and Dutch. The first two form the bases of the larger portion, and the dark skins, pronounced features, and more or less frizzly hair of the Papuans preponderates. There seems little doubt that the aborigines of Banda were Papuans, and a portion of them still exists in the Ke islands, where they emigrated when the Portuguese first took possession of their native island. It is such people as these that are often looked upon as transitional forms between two very distinct races, like the Malays and Papuans, whereas they are only examples of intermixture. The animal productions of Banda, though very few, are interesting. The islands have perhaps no truly indigenous Mammalia but bats. The deer of the Moluccas and the pig have probably been introduced. A species of Cuscus or Eastern opossum is also found at Banda, and this may be truly indigenous in the sense of not having been introduced by man. Of birds, during my three visits of one or two days each, I collected eight kinds, and the Dutch collectors have added a few others. The most remarkable is a fine and very handsome fruit-pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, which feeds upon the nutmegs, or rather on the mace, and whose loud booming note is to be continually heard. This bird is found in the Ke and Matabello islands as well as Banda, but not in Ceram or any of the larger islands, which are inhabited by allied but very distinct species. A beautiful small fruit-dove, Ptilonopus diadematus, is also peculiar to Banda. CHAPTER XX. AMBOYNA. (DECEMBER 1857, OCTOBER 1859, FEBRUARY 1860.) TWENTY hours from Banda brought us to Amboyna, the capital of the Moluccas, and one of the oldest European settlements in the East. The island consists of two peninsulas, so nearly divided by inlets of the sea, as to leave only a sandy isthmus about a mile wide near their eastern extremity. The western inlet is several miles long and forms a fine harbour on the southern side of which is situated the town of Amboyna. I had a letter of introduction to Dr. Mohnike, the chief medical officer of the Moluccas, a German and a naturalist. I found that he could write and read English, but could not speak it, being like myself a bad linguist; so we had to use French as a medium of communication. He kindly offered me a room during my stay in Amboyna, and introduced me to his junior, Dr. Doleschall, a Hungarian and also an entomologist. He was an intelligent and most amiable young man but I was shocked to find that he was dying of consumption, though still able to perform the duties of his office. In the evening my host took me to the residence of the Governor, Mr. Goldmann, who received me in a most kind and cordial manner, and offered me every assistance. The town of Amboyna consists of a few business streets, and a number of roads set out at right angles to each other, bordered by hedges of flowering shrubs, and enclosing country houses and huts embossed in palms and fruit trees. Hills and mountains form the background in almost every direction, and there are few places more enjoyable for a morning or evening stroll than these sandy roads and shady lanes in the suburbs of the ancient city of Amboyna. There are no active volcanoes in the island, nor is it now subject to frequent earthquakes, although very severe ones have occurred and may be expected again. Mr. William Funnell, in his voyage with Dampier to the South Seas in 1705, says: "Whilst we were here, (at Amboyna) we had a great earthquake, which continued two days, in which time it did a great deal of mischief, for the ground burst open in many places, and swallowed up several houses and whole families. Several of the people were dug out again, but most of them dead, and many had their legs or arms broken by the fall of the houses. The castle walls were rent asunder in several places, and we thought that it and all the houses would have fallen down. The ground where we were swelled like a wave in the sea, but near us we had no hurt done." There are also numerous records of eruptions of a volcano on the west side of the island. In 1674 an eruption destroyed a village. In 1694 there was another eruption. In 1797 much vapour and heat was emitted. Other eruptions occurred in 1816 and 1820, and in 1824 a new crater is said to have been formed. Yet so capricious is the action of these subterranean fires, that since the last-named epoch all eruptive symptoms have so completely ceased, that I was assured by many of the most intelligent European inhabitants of Amboyna, that they had never heard of any such thing as a volcano on the island. During the few days that elapsed before I could make arrangements to visit the interior, I enjoyed myself much in the society of the two doctors, both amiable and well-educated men, and both enthusiastic entomologists, though obliged to increase their collections almost entirely by means of native collectors. Dr. Doleschall studied chiefly the flies and spiders, but also collected butterflies and moths, and in his boxes I saw grand specimens of the emerald Ornithoptera priamus and the azure Papilio ulysses, with many more of the superb butterflies of this rich island. Dr. Mohnike confined himself chiefly to the beetles, and had formed a magnificent collection during many years residence in Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Japan, and Amboyna. The Japanese collection was especially interesting, containing both the fine Carabi of northern countries, and the gorgeous Buprestidae and Longicorns of the tropics. The doctor made the voyage to Jeddo by land from Nagasaki, and is well acquainted with the character, manners, and customs of the people of Japan, and with the geology, physical features, and natural history of the country. He showed me collections of cheap woodcuts printed in colours, which are sold at less than a farthing each, and comprise an endless variety of sketches of Japanese scenery and manners. Though rude, they are very characteristic, and often exhibit touches of great humour. He also possesses a large collection of coloured sketches of the plants of Japan, made by a Japanese lady, which are the most masterly things I have ever seen. Every stem, twig, and leaf is produced by single touches of the brush, the character and perspective of very complicated plants being admirably given, and the articulations of stem and leaves shown in a most scientific manner. Having made arrangements to stay for three weeks at a small hut on a newly cleared plantation in the interior of the northern half of the island, I with some difficulty obtained a boat and men to take me across the water--for the Amboynese are dreadfully lazy. Passing up the harbour, in appearance like a fine river, the clearness of the water afforded me one of the most astonishing and beautiful sights I have ever beheld. The bottom was absolutely hidden by a continuous series of corals, sponges, actiniae, and other marine productions of magnificent dimensions, varied forms, and brilliant colours. The depth varied from about twenty to fifty feet, and the bottom was very uneven, rocks and chasms and little hills and valleys, offering a variety of stations for the growth of these animal forests. In and out among them, moved numbers of blue and red and yellow fishes, spotted and banded and striped in the most striking manner, while great orange or rosy transparent medusae floated along near the surface. It was a sight to gaze at for hours, and no description can do justice to its surpassing beauty and interest. For once, the reality exceeded the most glowing accounts I had ever read of the wonders of a coral sea. There is perhaps no spot in the world richer in marine productions, corals, shells and fishes, than the harbour of Amboyna. From the north side of the harbour, a good broad path passes through swamp, clearing and forest, over hill and valley, to the farther side of the island; the coralline rock constantly protruding through the deep red earth which fills all the hollows, and is more or less spread over the plains and hill-sides. The forest vegetation is here of the most luxuriant character; ferns and palms abound, and the climbing rattans were more abundant than I had ever seen them, forming tangled festoons over almost every large forest tree. The cottage I was to occupy was situated in a large clearing of about a hundred acres, part of which was already planted with young cacao-trees and plantains to shade them, while the rest was covered with dead and half-burned forest trees; and on one side there was a tract where the trees had been recently felled and were not yet burned. The path by which I had arrived continued along one side of this clearing, and then again entering the virgin forest passed over hill and dale to the northern aide of the island. My abode was merely a little thatched hut, consisting of an open verandah in front and a small dark sleeping room behind. It was raised about five feet from the ground, and was reached by rude steps to the centre of the verandah. The walls and floor were of bamboo, and it contained a table, two bamboo chairs, and a couch. Here I soon made myself comfortable, and set to work hunting for insects among the more recently felled timber, which swarmed with fine Curculionidae, Longicorns, and Buprestidae, most of them remarkable for their elegant forms or brilliant colours, and almost all entirely new to me. Only the entomologist can appreciate the delight with which I hunted about for hours in the hot sunshine, among the branches and twigs and bark of the fallen trees, every few minutes securing insects which were at that time almost all rare or new to European collections. In the shady forest paths were many fine butterflies, most conspicuous among which was the shining blue Papilio ulysses, one of the princes of the tribe, though at that time so rare in Europe, I found it absolutely common in Amboyna, though not easy to obtain in fine condition, a large number of the specimens being found when captured to have the wings torn or broken. It flies with a rather weak undulating motion, and from its large size, its tailed wings and brilliant colour, is one of the most tropical-looking insects the naturalist can gaze upon. There is a remarkable contrast between the beetles of Amboyna and those of Macassar, the latter generally small and obscure, the former large and brilliant. On the whole, the insects here most resemble those of the Aru islands, but they are almost always of distinct species, and when they are most nearly allied to each other, the species of Amboyna are of larger size and more brilliant colours, so that one might be led to conclude that in passing east and west into a less favourable soil and climate, they had degenerated into less striking forms. Of an evening I generally sat reading in the verandah, ready to capture any insects that were attracted to the light. One night about nine o'clock, I heard a curious noise and rustling overhead, as if some heavy animal were crawling slowly over the thatch. The noise soon ceased, and I thought no more about it and went to bed soon afterwards. The next afternoon just before dinner, being rather tired with my day's work, I was lying on the couch with a book in my hand, when gazing upwards I saw a large mass of something overhead which I had not noticed before. Looking more carefully I could see yellow and black marks, and thought it must be a tortoise-shell put up there out of the way between the ridge-pole and the roof. Continuing to gaze, it suddenly resolved itself into a large snake, compactly coiled up in a kind of knot; and I could detect his head and his bright eyes in the very centre of the folds. The noise of the evening before was now explained. A python had climbed up one of the posts of the house, and had made his way under the thatch within a yard of my head, and taken up a comfortable position in the roof--and I had slept soundly all night directly under him. I called to my two boys who were skinning birds below and said, "Here's a big snake in the roof;" but as soon as I had shown it to them they rushed out of the house and begged me to come out directly. Finding they were too much afraid to do anything, we called some of the labourers in the plantation, and soon had half a dozen men in consultation outside. One of these, a native of Bouru, where there are a great many snakes, said he would get him out, and proceeded to work in a businesslike manner. He made a strong noose of rattan, and with a long pole in the other hand poked at the snake, who then began slowly to uncoil itself. He then managed to slip the noose over its head, and getting it well on to the body, dragged the animal down. There was a great scuffle as the snake coiled round the chairs and posts to resist his enemy, but at length the man caught hold of its tail, rushed out of the house (running so quick that the creature seemed quite confounded), and tried to strike its head against a tree. He missed however, and let go, and the snake got under a dead trunk close by. It was again poked out, and again the Bouru man caught hold of its tail, and running away quickly dashed its head with a swing against a tree, and it was then easily killed with a hatchet. It was about twelve feet long and very thick, capable of doing much mischief and of swallowing a dog or a child. I did not get a great many birds here. The most remarkable were the fine crimson lory, Eos rubra--a brush-tongued parroquet of a vivid crimson colour, which was very abundant. Large flocks of them came about the plantation, and formed a magnificent object when they settled down upon some flowering tree, on the nectar of which lories feed. I also obtained one or two specimens of the fine racquet-tailed kingfisher of Amboyna, Tanysiptera nais, one of the most singular and beautiful of that beautiful family. These birds differ from all other kingfishers (which have usually short tails) by having the two middle tail-feathers immensely lengthened and very narrowly webbed, but terminated by a spoon-shaped enlargement, as in the motmots and some of the humming-birds. They belong to that division of the family termed king-hunters, living chiefly on insects and small land-molluscs, which they dart down upon and pick up from the ground, just as a kingfisher picks a fish out of the water. They are confined to a very limited area, comprising the Moluccas, New Guinea and Northern Australia. About ten species of these birds are now known, all much resembling each other, but yet sufficiently distinguishable in every locality. The Amboynese species, of which a very accurate representation is here given, is one of the largest and handsomest. It is full seventeen inches long to the tips of the tail-feathers; the bill is coral red, the under-surface pure white, the back and wings deep purple, while the shoulders, head and nape, and some spots on the upper part of the back and wings, are pure azure blue; the tail is white, with the feathers narrowly blue-edged, but the narrow part of the long feathers is rich blue. This was an entirely new species, and has been well named after an ocean goddess, by Mr. R. G. Gray. On Christmas eve I returned to Amboyna, where I stayed about ten days with my kind friend Dr. Mohnike. Considering that I had been away only twenty days, and that on five or six of those I was prevented doing anything by wet weather and slight attacks of fever, I had made a very nice collection of insects, comprising a much larger proportion of large and brilliant species than I had ever before obtained in so short a time. Of the beautiful metallic Buprestidae I had about a dozen handsome species, yet in the doctor's collection I observed four or five more very fine ones, so that Amboyna is unusually rich in this elegant group. During my stay here I had a good opportunity of seeing how Europeans live in the Dutch colonies, and where they have adopted customs far more in accordance with the climate than we have done in our tropical possessions. Almost all business is transacted in the morning between the hours of seven and twelve, the afternoon being given up to repose, and the evening to visiting. When in the house during the heat of the day, and even at dinner, they use a loose cotton dress, only putting on a suit of thin European-made clothes for out of doors and evening wear. They often walk about after sunset bareheaded, reserving the black hat for visits of ceremony. Life is thus made far more agreeable, and the fatigue and discomfort incident to the climate greatly diminished. Christmas day is not made much of, but on New Year's day official and complimentary visits are paid, and about sunset we went to the Governor's, where a large party of ladies and gentlemen were assembled. Tea and coffee were handed around, as is almost universal during a visit, as well as cigars, for on no occasion is smoking prohibited in Dutch colonies, cigars being generally lighted before the cloth is withdrawn at dinner, even though half the company are ladies. I here saw for the first time the rare black lory from New Guinea, Chalcopsitta atra. The plumage is rather glossy, and slightly tinged with yellowish and purple, the bill and feet being entirely black. The native Amboynese who reside in the city are a strange half-civilized, half-savage lazy people, who seem to be a mixture of at least three races--Portuguese, Malay, and Papuan or Ceramese, with an occasional cross of Chinese or Dutch. The Portuguese element decidedly predominates in the old Christian population, as indicated by features, habits, and the retention of many Portuguese words in the Malay, which is now their language. They have a peculiar style of dress which they wear among themselves, a close-fitting white shirt with black trousers, and a black frock or upper shirt. The women seem to prefer a dress entirely black. On festivals and state occasions they adopt the swallow-tail coat, chimneypot hat, and their accompaniments, displaying all the absurdity of our European fashionable dress. Though now Protestants, they preserve at feasts and weddings the processions and music of the Catholic Church, curiously mixed up with the gongs and dances of the aborigines of the country. Their language has still much more Portuguese than Dutch in it, although they have been in close communication with the latter nation for more than two hundred and fifty years; even many names of birds, trees and other natural objects, as well as many domestic terms, being plainly Portuguese. [The following are a few of the Portuguese words in common use by the Malay-speaking natives of Amboyna and the other Molucca islands: Pombo (pigeon); milo (maize); testa (forehead); horas (hours); alfinete (pin); cadeira (chair); lenco (handkerchief); fresco (cool); trigo (flour); sono (sloop); familia (family); histori (talk); vosse (you); mesmo (even); cunhado (brother-in-law); senhor (sir); nyora for signora (madam). None of them, however, have the least notion that these words belong to a European language.] This people seems to have had a marvellous power of colonization, and a capacity for impressing their national characteristics on every country they conquered, or in which they effected a merely temporary settlement. In a suburb of Amboyna there is a village of aboriginal Malays who are Mahometans, and who speak a peculiar language allied to those of Ceram, as well as Malay. They are chiefly fishermen, and are said to be both more industrious and more honest than the native Christians. I went on Sunday, by invitation, to see a collection of shells and fish made by a gentleman of Amboyna. The fishes are perhaps unrivalled for variety and beauty by those of any one spot on the earth. The celebrated Dutch ichthyologist, Dr. Blecker, has given a catalogue of seven hundred and eighty species found at Amboyna, a number almost equal to those of all the seas and rivers of Europe. A large proportion of them are of the most brilliant colours, being marked with bands and spots of the purest yellows, reds, and blues; while their forms present all that strange and endless variety so characteristic of the inhabitants of the ocean. The shells are also very numerous, and comprise a number of the finest species in the world. The Mactras and Ostreas in particular struck me by the variety and beauty of their colours. Shells have long been an object of traffic in Amboyna; many of the natives get their living by collecting and cleaning them, and almost every visitor takes away a small collection. The result is that many of the commoner-sorts have lost all value in the eyes of the amateur, numbers of the handsome but very common cones, cowries, and olives sold in the streets of London for a penny each, being natives of the distant isle of Amboyna, where they cannot be bought so cheaply. The fishes in the collection were all well preserved in clear spirit in hundreds of glass jars, and the shells were arranged in large shallow pith boxes lined with paper, every specimen being fastened down with thread. I roughly estimated that there were nearly a thousand different kinds of shells, and perhaps ten thousand specimens, while the collection of Amboyna fishes was nearly perfect. On the 4th of January I left Amboyna for Ternate; but two years later, in October 1859, I again visited it after my residence in Menado, and stayed a month in the town in a small house which I hired for the sake of assorting and packing up a large and varied collection which I had brought with me from North Celebes, Ternate, and Gilolo. I was obliged to do this because the mail steamer would have come the following month by way of Amboyna to Ternate, and I should have been delayed two months before I could have reached the former place. I then paid my first visit to Ceram, and on returning to prepare for my second more complete exploration of that island, I stayed (much against my will) two months at Paso, on the isthmus which connects the two portions of the island of Amboyna. This village is situated on the eastern side of the isthmus, on sandy ground, with a very pleasant view over the sea to the island of Harúka. On the Amboyna side of the isthmus there is a small river which has been continued by a shallow canal to within thirty yards of high-water mark on the other side. Across this small space, which is sandy and but slightly elevated, all small boats and praus can be easily dragged, and all the smaller traffic from Ceram and the islands of Saparúa and Harúka, passes through Paso. The canal is not continued quite through, merely because every spring-tide would throw up just such a sand-bank as now exists. I had been informed that the fine butterfly Ornithoptera priamus was plentiful here, as well as the racquet-tailed kingfisher and the ring-necked lory. I found, however, that I had missed the time for the former, and birds of all kinds were very scarce, although I obtained a few good ones, including one or two of the above-mentioned rarities. I was much pleased to get here the fine long-armed chafer, Euchirus longimanus. This extraordinary insect is rarely or never captured except when it comes to drink the sap of the sugar palms, where it is found by the natives when they go early in the morning to take away the bamboos which have been filled during the night. For some time one or two were brought me every day, generally alive. They are sluggish insects, and pull themselves lazily along by means of their immense forelegs. A figure of this and other Moluccan beetles is given in the 27th CHAPTER of this work. I was kept at Paso by an inflammatory eruption, brought on by the constant attacks of small acari-like harvest-bugs, for which the forests of Ceram are famous, and also by the want of nourishing food while in that island. At one time I was covered with severe boils. I had them on my eye, cheek, armpits, elbows, back, thighs, knees, and ankles, so that I was unable to sit or walk, and had great difficulty in finding a side to lie upon without pain. These continued for some weeks, fresh ones coming out as fast as others got well; but good living and sea baths ultimately cured them. About the end of January Charles Allen, who had been my assistant in Malacca and Borneo, again joined me on agreement for three years; and as soon as I got tolerably well, we had plenty to do laying in stores and making arrangements for our ensuing campaign. Our greatest difficulty was in obtaining men, but at last we succeeded in getting two each. An Amboyna Christian named Theodorus Matakena, who had been some time with me and had learned to skin birds very well, agreed to go with Allen, as well as a very quiet and industrious lad named Cornelius, whom I had brought from Menado. I had two Amboynese, named Petrus Rehatta, and Mesach Matakena; the latter of whom had two brothers, named respectively Shadrach and Abednego, in accordance with the usual custom among these people of giving only Scripture names to their children. During the time I resided in this place, I enjoyed a luxury I have never met with either before or since--the true bread-fruit. A good deal of it has been planted about here and in the surrounding villages, and almost every day we had opportunities of purchasing some, as all the boats going to Amboyna were unloaded just opposite my door to be dragged across the isthmus. Though it grows in several other parts of the Archipelago, it is nowhere abundant, and the season for it only lasts a short time. It is baked entire in the hot embers, and the inside scooped out with a spoon. I compared it to Yorkshire pudding; Charles Allen said it was like mashed potatoes and milk. It is generally about the size of a melon, a little fibrous towards the centre, but everywhere else quite smooth and puddingy, something in consistence between yeast-dumplings and batter-pudding. We sometimes made curry or stew of it, or fried it in slices; but it is no way so good as simply baked. It may be eaten sweet or savory. With meat and gravy it is a vegetable superior to any I know, either in temperate or tropical countries. With sugar, milk, butter, or treacle, it is a delicious pudding, having a very slight and delicate but characteristic flavour, which, like that of good bread and potatoes, one never gets tired of. The reason why it is comparatively scarce is that it is a fruit of which the seeds are entirely aborted by cultivation, and the tree can therefore only be propagated by cuttings. The seed-bearing variety is common all over the tropics, and though the seeds are very good eating, resembling chestnuts, the fruit is quite worthless as a vegetable. Now that steam and Ward's cases render the transport of young plants so easy, it is much to be wished that the best varieties of this unequalled vegetable should be introduced into our West India islands, and largely propagated there. As the fruit will keep some time after being gathered, we might then be able to obtain this tropical luxury in Covent Garden Market. Although the few months I at various times spent in Amboyna were not altogether very profitable to me in the way of collections, it will always remain as a bright spot in the review of my Eastern travels, since it was there that I first made the acquaintance of those glorious birds and insects which render the Moluccas classic ground in the eyes of the naturalist, and characterise its fauna as one of the most remarkable and beautiful upon the globe. On the 20th of February I finally quitted Amboyna for Ceram and Waigiou, leaving Charles Allen to go by a Government boat to Wahai on the north coast of Ceram, and thence to the unexplored island of Mysol.    Next Volume    
26844	----	BORNEO AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. London: SPOTTISWOODE AND SHAW, New-street Square. [Illustration: CHINESE JOSS HOUSE. F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] [Illustration: (Transcriber's Note: No caption in original text--Picture shows a Bornean ship with the book title, author's name and publisher printed on the sails and hull.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS] BORNEO AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. WITH DRAWINGS OF COSTUME AND SCENERY. BY FRANK S. MARRYAT, LATE MIDSHIPMAN OF H. M. S. SAMARANG, SURVEYING VESSEL. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1848. INTRODUCTION. I wish the readers of these pages to understand that it has been with no desire to appear before the public as an author that I have published this Narrative of the Proceedings of Her Majesty's ship Samarang during her last Surveying Cruise. During the time that I was in the ship, I made a large collection of drawings, representing, I hope faithfully, the costumes of the natives and the scenery of a country so new to Europeans. They were considered, on my return, as worthy to be presented to the public, as being more voluminous and more characteristic than drawings made in haste usually are. I may here observe, that it has been a great error on the part of the Admiralty, considering the great expense incurred in fitting out vessels for survey, that a little additional outlay is not made in supplying every vessel with a professional draughtsman, as was invariably the case in the first vessels sent out on discovery. The duties of officers in surveying vessels are much too fatiguing and severe to allow them the time to make anything but hasty sketches, and they require that practice with the pencil without which natural talent is of little avail; the consequence is, that the engravings, which have appeared in too many of the Narratives of Journeys and Expeditions, give not only an imperfect, but even an erroneous, idea of what they would describe. A hasty pencil sketch, from an unpractised hand, is made over to an artist to reduce to proportion; from him it passes over to the hand of an engraver, and an interesting plate is produced by their joint labours. But, in this making up, the character and features of the individual are lost, or the scenery is composed of foliage not indigenous to the country, but introduced by the artist to make a good picture. In describing people and countries hitherto unknown, no description given by the pen will equal one correct drawing. How far I may have succeeded must be decided by those who have, with me, visited the same places and mixed with the people delineated. How I found time to complete the drawings is explained by my not doing any duty on board at one time, and at another by my having been discharged into the hospital-ship at Hong Kong. It was my intention to have published these drawings without letter-press, but in this I have been overruled. I have therefore been compelled to have recourse to my own private journal, which certainly was never intended for publication. As I proceeded, I found that, as I was not on board during the whole of the time, it would be better, and make the work more perfect, if I published the whole of the cruise, which I could easily do by referring to the journals of my messmates. I would gladly mention their names, and publicly acknowledge their assistance; but, all things considered, I think it as well to withhold them, and I take this opportunity of thanking them for their kindness. FRANK S. MARRYAT. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES. Chinese Joss House _Frontispiece_ Bornese Vessel _Title-page_ Loondoo Dyak _To face page_ 5 River Sarawak and Town of Kuchin 6 Keeney-Ballo 59 Serebis Dyak 79 Saghai Dyak 80 War Dance of the Dyaks 85 Malay Chief (Sooloo) 101 Bruni 106 Court of the Sultan of Borneo 109 West Point, Hong Kong 142 View on the Island of Poo-too 151 Chinese Joss House at Ningpo 156 Quelpartians 182 Mandarin of Quelpart (Corea) 183 Japanese 185 Natives of Luzon (Philippines) 199 View in Samboangan 201 Illanoan Pirate 207 Dusum 210 Port Louis 220 WOODCUTS. Mr. Brooke's House 7 Dyak Head 13 Malays of Kuchin 23 Native of Batan 27 Native of Pa-tchu-san 31 Sooloo Village 42 Native Boat--Borneo 63 Dyak War Prahu 64 Dyak Women in Canoe 74 Teeth of Dyaks 79 Costumes of Dyak Women 80 Sum-pi-tan--Blow-pipe, with poisoned Arrows 80 Dyak Village 82 Obtaining Fire 89 View of Sincapore 93 Malay Woman 100 Proboscis Monkey 103 Natives of Bruni 108 City of Manilla 121 Procession of the Sultan of Gonong Tabor 133 Ears of Dyaks at Gonong Tabor 135 Portrait of Mahomed Pullulu, Sultan of Sooloo 139 Tanka Boats--Hong Kong 141 Chinese Fishermen 145 Cook's Shop 146 Pagoda--Ningpo 154 Tanka Boat Women 165 Man-of-War Junk 168 Trading Junks 169 Japanese Boat 184 Salt Smugglers 193 Spanish Galleon 196 Water Carriers--Manilla 199 Illanoan Pirates 208 Natives of N. E. Coast of Borneo 210 Convict 215 Kling Woman 216 BORNEO AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. On the 25th of January, 1843, H. M. S. Samarang, being completely equipped, went out of Portsmouth harbour and anchored at Spithead. The crew were paid advanced wages; and, five minutes after the money had been put into their hats at the pay-table, it was all most dexterously transferred to the pockets of their wives, whose regard and affection for their husbands at this peculiar time was most exemplary. On the following day, the crew of the Samarang made sail with full hearts and empty pockets. On the 25th February, sighted Fuerto Ventura: when off this island, the man at the mast-head reported a wreck in sight, which, as we neared it, appeared to be the wreck of a brig. Strange to say, the captain recognised it as an old acquaintance, which he had seen off Cape Finisterre on his return from China in the Sulphur. If this was not a mistake, it would be evidence of a southerly current in this quarter of the Atlantic. This may be, but I do not consider the proof to be sufficient to warrant the fact; although it may lead to the supposition. If this was the wreck seen at such a long interval by the captain, a succession of northerly winds and gales might have driven it down so far to the southward without the assistance of any current. It is well known that the great current of the Atlantic, the gulf stream (which is occasioned by the waters, being forced by the continuous trade winds into the Gulf of Mexico, finding a vent to the northward by the coast of America, from thence towards Newfoundland, and then in a more easterly direction), loses its force, and is expended to the northward of the Western Islands; and this is the cause why so many rocks have been yearly reported to have been fallen in with in this latitude. Wrecks, all over the Atlantic, which have been water-logged but do not sink, are borne by the various winds and currents until they get into the gulf stream, which sweeps them along in its course until they arrive to where its force is expended, and there they remain comparatively stationary. By this time, probably, years have passed, and they are covered with sea-weeds and barnacles, and, floating three or four feet out of the water, have every appearance of rocks; and, indeed, if run upon on a dark night, prove nearly as fatal. March 3rd.--Anchored off the town of Porto Praya, Island of St. Jago, in nine fathoms. Porto Praya is a miserable town, built on a most unhealthy spot, there being an extensive marsh behind it, which, from its miasma, creates a great mortality among the inhabitants. The consul is a native of Bona Vista: two English consuls having fallen victims to the climate in quick succession, no one was found very willing to succeed to such a certain provision from the Foreign Office. The interior of the island is, however, very different from what would be expected from the sight of Porto Praya. Some of the officers paid a visit to the valley of St. Domingo, which they described as a perfect paradise, luxuriant with every tropical fruit. Porto Praya is renowned for very large sharks. I was informed by a captain in Her Majesty's service, that once, when he anchored at Porto Praya, he had left the ship to go on shore in one of the twenty-two-foot gigs, not unaptly nick-named coffins in the service. He had not pulled more than a cable's length from the ship, when a shark, nearly as long as the gig, came up swimming with great velocity after them; and as he passed, the animal shouldered the boat, so as nearly to upset it: as it was, the boat took in the water over the gunwale. As the animal appeared preparing for another attack, the captain thought it advisable to pull alongside, and go on shore in the cutter instead of his own boat; and on this large boat the shark did not make a second attempt. April 25th.--Anchored in Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope. Sailed again on the 7th of May, and fell in with a favourable wind; and too much of it. For six days we were scudding before it under a close-reefed main-topsail and fore-staysail. On the 10th we lost one of the best men in the ship, the sailmaker, Charles Downing, who fell overboard; the ship was rounded to, the life-buoy let go, but we saw nothing of him. June 7th saw Christmas Islands, and on the same afternoon the land of Java. On the 11th we arrived off the town of Anger, in company with a fleet of merchant vessels of all nations and of all rigs. Having been so long without a fresh meal, we were not sorry to find ourselves surrounded by boats loaded with fish, fruit, and vegetables; we ate enormously, and they made us pay in proportion. On the 19th we arrived at Sincapore, and found the roads very gay with vessels of all descriptions, from the gallant free trader of 1000 tons to the Chinese junk. As Sincapore, as well as many other places, was more than once visited, I shall defer my description for the present. On June the 27th we weighed and made sail for the river of Sarawak (Borneo), to pay a visit to Mr. Brooke, who resides at Kuchin, a town situated on that river. The public have already been introduced to Mr. Brooke in the volumes published by Captain Henry Keppel. Mr. Brooke is a gentleman of independent fortune, who was formerly in the service of the Company. The usefulness and philanthropy of his public career are well known: if the private history which induced him to quit the service, and afterwards expatriate himself, could with propriety, and also regard to Mr. Brooke's feelings, be made known, it would redound still more to his honour and his high principle; but these I have no right to make public. Mr. Brooke, having made up his mind to the high task of civilising a barbarous people, and by every means in his power of putting an end to the wholesale annual murders committed by a nation of pirates, whose hands were, like Ishmael's, against every man, sailed from England in his yacht, the Royalist schooner, with a crew of picked and tried men, and proceeded to Sarawak, where he found the rajah, Muda Hassein, the uncle to the reigning sultan of Borneo, engaged in putting down the insurrection of various chiefs of the neighbouring territory. Mr. Brooke, with his small force, gave his assistance to the rajah; and through his efforts, and those of his well-armed band, the refractory chiefs were reduced to obedience. Willing to retain such a powerful ally, and partial to the English, the rajah made Mr. Brooke most splendid promises to induce him to remain; but the rajah, like all Asiatics, did not fulfil the performance of these promises until after much delay and vexation to Mr. Brooke, who required all the courage and patience with which he is so eminently gifted, before he could obtain his ends. At last he was successful: Muda Hassein made over to him a large tract of land, over which he was constituted rajah, and Mr. Brooke took up his residence at Kuchin; and this grant was ultimately confirmed by the seal of the sultan of Borneo. Such, in few words, is the history of Mr. Brooke: if the reader should wish for a more detailed account, I must refer him to Capt. Henry Keppel's work, in which is published a great portion of Mr. Brooke's own private memoranda. [Illustration: LOONDOO DYAK. (N. W. COAST OF BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] On the morning of the 29th June we saw the high land of Borneo, but for several days were unsuccessful in discovering the mouth of the river. On the night of July the 4th we anchored off the entrance of a river, which the captain supposed to be the Sarawak. The next morning the two barges, well armed, were sent up the river to obtain information. After pulling with the stream six or eight miles, they discovered a small canoe, which, on their approach, retreated up the river with great speed. Mr. Heard, the officer in charge of the boats, had taken the precaution, as he ascended the river, of cutting a palm branch for each boat, and these were now displayed at the bows as a sign of peaceable intentions. These universal tokens of amity reassured the natives, who, seeing them, now turned the bows of their canoes, and paddled towards the boats. The canoe contained four men, almost in a state of nudity, their only covering consisting of a narrow slip of cotton fastened round the middle. They were copper-coloured, and extremely ugly: their hair jet black, very long, and falling down the back; eyes were also black, and deeply sunk in the head, giving a vindictive appearance to the countenance; nose flattened; mouth very large; the lips of a bright vermilion, from the chewing of the betel-nut; and, to add to their ugliness, their teeth black, and filed to sharp points. Such is the personal appearance of a Loondoo Dyak. They informed us that the river we were then in was the Loondoo, and that the Sarawak was some distance to the eastward. They also gave us the information that the boats of the Dido had been engaged with pirates, and had been successful, having captured one prahu and sunk another. After great persuasion, we induced one of them to accompany us to the ship, and pilot her to the Sarawak. The same evening we weighed anchor, and stood towards a remarkable promontory (Tangong Sipang), to the eastward of which is the principal entrance of the Sarawak river; a second, but less safe, entrance being within a mile of the promontory. Light and variable winds prevented our arrival at the mouth of the river until the evening of the following day. From thence, after two days' incessant kedging and towing, we anchored off the town of Kuchin, on the morning of the 8th instant. The town of Kuchin is built on the left-hand side of the river Sarawak going up; and, from the windings of the river, you have to pull twenty-five miles up the river to arrive at it, whereas it is only five miles from the coast as the crow flies. It consists of about 800 houses, built on piles driven into the ground, the sides and roofs being enclosed with dried palm leaves. Strips of bamboo are laid across, which serve as a floor. In fact, there is little difference between these houses and those built by the Burmahs and other tribes in whose countries bamboo and ratan are plentiful. The houses of Mr. Brooke and the rajah are much superior to any others, having the advantage and comfort of wooden sides and floorings. We visited the rajah several times, who invariably received us with urbanity, and entertained us in a very hospitable manner. Muda Hassein is a man about fifty years of age,--some think more,--of low stature, as are most of the Malays, well made, and with a very prepossessing countenance for a Malay. His brother, Budruden, is a much finer man, very agreeable, and very partial to the English. The Malays profess Mahomedanism; but Budruden in many points followed European customs, both in dress and drinking wine. [Illustration: RIVER SARAWACK AND TOWN OF KUCHIN. (BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] The residence of Mr. Brooke is on the side of the river opposite to the town, as, for the most part, are all the houses of the Europeans. In structure it somewhat resembles a Swiss cottage, and is erected upon a green mound, which slopes down to the river's bank, where there is a landing-place for boats. At the back of the house is a garden, containing almost every tree peculiar to the climate; and it was a novelty to us to see collected together the cotton-tree, the areca, sago, palm, &c., with every variety of the Camellia japonica in a state of most luxurious wildness. [Illustration: MR. BROOKE'S HOUSE.] The establishment consists of six Europeans, and the house contains one large receiving-room, and several smaller ones, appropriated to the residents as sleeping apartments, besides Mr. Brooke's own private rooms. The large room is decorated with rifles, swords, and other instruments of warfare, European and native; and it is in this room that the European rajah gives his audiences: and it is also in this room that every day, at five o'clock, a capital dinner is served up, to which we were made heartily welcome. During our stay, Mr. Brooke, accompanied by several of our officers and some of the residents, made an excursion up the river. We started early in the morning, with a flowing tide; and, rapidly sweeping past the suburbs of the town, which extend some distance up the river, we found ourselves gliding through most interesting scenery. On either side, the river was bounded by gloomy forests, whose trees feathered down to the river's bank, the water reflecting their shadows with peculiar distinctness. Occasionally the scene was diversified by a cleared spot amidst this wilderness, where, perchance, a half-ruined hut, apparently not inhabited for years, the remains of a canoe, together with fragments of household utensils, were to be seen, proving that once it had been the abode of those who had been cut off by some native attack, and probably the heads of its former occupants were now hanging up in some skull-house belonging to another tribe. The trees were literally alive with monkeys and squirrels, which quickly decamped as we approached them. Several times we were startled by the sudden plunge of the alligators into the water, close to the boats, and of whose propinquity we were not aware until they made the plunge. All these rivers are infested with alligators, and I believe they are very often mischievous; at all events, one of our youngsters was continually in a small canoe, paddling about, and the natives cautioned us that if he was not careful he certainly would be taken by one of these animals. Early in the afternoon we disembarked at a Chinese village twenty-five miles from Kuchin. The inhabitants of this village work the gold and antimony mines belonging to Mr. Brooke. We remained there for the night, and the next morning proceeded further up the river, and landed at another village, where we breakfasted, and then proceeded on foot to visit the mines. Our path lay through dense forests of gigantic trees, whose branches met and interlaced overhead, shading us from the burning rays of the sun. At times we would emerge from the wood, and find ourselves passing through cultivated patches of ravines, enclosed on all sides by lofty mountains, covered with foliage. In these spots we found a few natives with their families, who seemed to be contented in their perfect isolation; for in these secluded spots generations may pass away, and know no world beyond their own confines of forest jungle. At times our route was over mountains, whose appearance was so formidable that our hearts almost failed us at the prospect of having to scale them; but we succeeded beyond our expectations, and at length arrived at the antimony village, not a little pleased at our labours being ended. Our spirits, which had been flagging, were revived by a pull at the bottle. From our resting-place we had a good view of the mine, which is a source of great profit to Mr. Brooke. The antimony is obtained from the side of a hill, the whole of which is supposed to be formed of this valuable mineral. The side at which the men are at work shines like silver during the day, and may be seen several miles distant, strangely contrasting with the dark foliage of the adjoining jungles. The ore is conveyed to Kuchin, and is there shipped on board of the Royalist, (Mr. Brooke's schooner yacht,) and taken to Sincapore, where it is eagerly purchased by the merchants, and shipped for England. After partaking of a little refreshment we set off, through woods and over mountains, as before, to visit the gold mine. On our arrival at every village on the road, a certain number of guns were fired by the natives, in honour of the European rajah; and the same ceremony was repeated when we left it. It was late in the afternoon before we arrived at the village attached to the gold mine. It is prettily situated in the depth of a valley, through which runs a small rivulet. On every side mountains soar into the clouds, which must be passed before you can reach the village. Dinner had been prepared for us by the inhabitants of the village, who were a colony of Chinese; and it was served up in a large building dedicated to Joss, whose shrine was brilliantly illuminated with candles and joss-sticks. Some of the officers unthinkingly lighted their cigars at the altar. The Chinese, observing it, requested very civilly that they would do so no more; a request which was, of course, complied with. After dinner we all proceeded to the rivulet, in search of gold; the natives had cleared out the bed of the river; the sand and stones were thrown into an artificial sluice for washing it; and a little gold was found by some of the party. This gold mine, if it may be so called, is worth to Mr. Brooke about 1000l. per annum, after all the expenses are paid. Its real value is much greater; but the Chinese conceal a great quantity, and appropriate it to themselves. But if the particles of gold which are brought down by a small rivulet are of such value, what may be the value of the mines above, in the mountains as yet untrodden by human feet? This, it is to be hoped, enterprise will some day reveal. We remained at the village that night, and at daylight commenced our journey back to the village from which we had started the day before. There we embarked, and proceeded down the river to the first Chinese village, at which we arrived in the course of the afternoon. A short distance inland is a mountain, called Sarambo, which it was proposed to ascend, as, by our telescopes, we could perceive houses near to its summit, and were told it was the residence of some of the mountain Dyaks under Mr. Brooke's sway. From the village this mountain wore the appearance of a huge sugar-loaf, and its sides appeared inaccessible. Mr. Brooke, with his usual kindness, gave his consent, and despatched a messenger to the Dyak village, requesting the chief to send a party down by daylight the next morning, to convey our luggage up the mountain. At day-dawn we were awakened by a confused noise outside of the house, and, looking out, we perceived that more than a score of these mountain Dyaks had arrived. Most of them had nothing on but the usual strip of cotton; some few had on red baize jackets. They all wore a peculiar kind of _kris_, and many had spears, sampitans, and shields. They were fine-limbed men, with muscles strongly developed. Their hair fell down their backs, and nearly reached their middle: it was prevented from falling over the face by a fillet of grass, which was ornamented with mountain flowers. After a hurried breakfast we set off for the foot of the mountain, our party amounting to about eighty people. The guides led the way, followed by the Europeans; and the Dyaks, with the luggage, brought up the rear. In this order we commenced the ascent. Each person was provided with a bamboo, which was found indispensable; and thus, like a party of pilgrims, we proceeded on our way; and before we had gone very far, we discovered that we were subjected to severe penance. The mountain was nearly perpendicular. In some places we had to ascend by a single piece of wood, with rough notches for the feet, resting against a rock twenty or thirty feet above our heads; and on either side was a precipice, so that a false step must have been certain death. In other places a single piece of bamboo was thrown over a frightful chasm, by way of bridge. This, with a slight bamboo rail for the hand, was all that we had to trust to. The careful manner in which we passed these dangers was a source of great laughter and amusement to the Dyaks who followed us. Accustomed from infancy to tread these dangerous paths, although heavily laden, they scorned to support themselves. Some of our party were nearly exhausted, and a long way in the rear before we came to the village. We had to wait for their coming up, and threw ourselves under the shade of some huge trees, that we might contemplate the bird's-eye view beneath. It was a sight which must be seen to be appreciated. Almost as far as the eye could reach was one immense wooded plain, bounded by lofty mountains in the far distance, whose tops pierced the clouds. The rivers appeared like silver threads, running through the jungles; now breaking off, and then regained. At our feet lay the village we had started from, the houses of which appeared like mere points. Shakspeare Cliff was as nothing to it, and his beautiful lines would have fallen very short of the mark; and while we gazed, suddenly a cloud below us would pass between us and the view, and all would be hidden from the sight. Thus we were far above the clouds, and then the clouds would break, and open, and pass and repass over each other, until, like the dissolving views, all was clear again, although the landscape was not changed. It was towards noon before we saw the first mountain village, which we did not immediately enter, as we waited the arrival of the laggards: we stopped, therefore, at a spring of cold water, and enjoyed a refreshing wash. Here we fell in with some pretty Dyak girls, very scantily clothed, who were throwing water at each other in sport. We soon came in for a plentiful share, which we returned with interest; and in this amusing combat we passed half an hour, until all had joined the party. We then entered the village, which was situated in a grove of trees. The houses were built upon posts, as those down by the river side. They were immensely large, with a bamboo platform running the whole length of the building, and divided into many compartments, in each of which a Dyak family resides. We were escorted, through a crowd of wondering Dyaks, to a house in the centre of the village, which was very different in construction from the others. It was perfectly round, and well ventilated by numerous port-holes in the roof, which was pointed. We ascended to the room above by means of a rough ladder, and when we entered we were rather taken aback at finding that we were in the Head House, as it is termed, and that the beams were lined with human heads, all hanging by a small line passed through the top of the skull. They were painted in the most fantastic and hideous manner; pieces of wood, painted to imitate the eyes, were inserted into the sockets, and added not a little to their ghastly grinning appearance. The strangest part of the story, and which added very much to the effect of the scene, was, that these skulls were perpetually moving to and fro, and knocking against, each other. This, I presume, was occasioned by the different currents of air blowing in at the port-holes cut in the roof; but what with their continual motion, their nodding their chins when they hit each other, and their grinning teeth, they really appeared to be endowed with new life, and were a very merry set of fellows. However, whatever might be the first impression occasioned by this very unusual sight, it very soon wore off, and we amused ourselves with those motions which were "not life," as Byron says; and, in the course of the day, succeeded in making a very excellent dinner in company with these gentlemen, although we were none of us sufficiently Don Giovannis to invite our friends above to supper. We visited three villages on the Sarambo mountain. Each of these villages was governed by a chief of its own, but they were subordinate to the great chief, residing in the first village. [Illustration: DYAK HEAD.] In the evening the major portion of the population came to the Head House, to exhibit to us their national dances. The music was composed of two gongs and two large bamboo drums. The men stood up first, in war costume, brandishing their spears and shields, and throwing themselves into the most extraordinary attitudes, as they cut with their knives at some imaginary enemy; at the same time uttering the most unearthly yells, in which the Dyak spectators joined, apparently highly delighted with the exhibition. The women then came forward, and went through a very unmeaning kind of dance, keeping time with their hands and feet; but still it was rather a relief after the noise and yelling from which we had just suffered. The chief, Macuta, expressing a wish to see a specimen of our dancing, not to let them suppose we were not as warlike as themselves, two of the gig's boat's crew stood up, and went through the evolutions of the broad-sword exercise in a very creditable manner. After this performance one of the seamen danced the sailor's hornpipe, which brought forth a torrent of yells instead of bravos, but they certainly meant the same thing. By this time, the heat from a large fire, with the smell of humanity in so crowded a room, became so overpowering, that I was glad to leave the Head House to get a little fresh air, and my ears relieved from the dinning of the drums and gongs. It was a beautiful starry night, and, strolling through the village, I soon made acquaintance with a native Dyak, who requested me to enter his house. He introduced me to his family, consisting of several fine girls and a young lad. The former were naked from the shoulders to below the breasts, where a pair of stays, composed of several circles of whalebone, with brass fastenings, were secured round their waists; and to the stays was attached a cotton petticoat, reaching to below their knees. This was the whole of their attire. They were much shorter than European women, but well made; very interesting in their appearance, and affable and friendly in their manners. Their eyes were dark and piercing, and I may say there was something wicked in their furtive glances; their noses were but slightly flattened; the mouth rather large; but when I beheld the magnificent teeth which required all its size to display, I thought this rather an advantage. Their hair was superlatively beautiful, and would have been envied by many a courtly dame. It was jet black, and of the finest texture, and hung in graceful masses down the back, nearly reaching to the ground. A mountain Dyak girl, if not a beauty, has many most beautiful points; and, at all events, is very interesting and, I may say, pretty. They have good eyes, good teeth, and good hair;--more than good: I may say splendid;--and they have good manners, and know how to make use of their eyes. I shall, therefore, leave my readers to form their own estimates by my description. Expecting to meet some natives in my ramble, I had filled my pockets with ship's biscuit, and which I now distributed among the ladies, who appeared very grateful, as they rewarded me, while they munched it, by darting wicked glances from their laughing eyes. Observing that the lad wore a necklace of human teeth round his neck, his father explained to me, in pantomime, that they were the teeth of an enemy whom he slew in battle, and whose head was now in the Head House. As it was getting late I bade my new friends farewell, by shaking hands all round. The girls laughed immoderately at this way of bidding good-bye, which, of course, was to them quite novel. I regretted afterwards that I had not attempted the more agreeable way of bidding ladies farewell, which, I presume, they would have understood better; as I believe kissing is an universal language, perfectly understood from the equator to the pole. At daylight the next morning we descended the mountain, and, embarking in the boats, arrived at the ship late in the afternoon. While at Sarawak we witnessed a very strange ceremony. Hearing a great noise in a house, we entered, and found ourselves in a large room crowded to excess by a numerous assemblage, singing in any thing but harmony. They proved to be natives of Java, assembled for the purpose of celebrating one of their festivals. On our entrance into the house, we were literally covered by the inmates with perfumes of the most delightful fragrance. Some of these odours were in a liquid state, and were poured down our backs, or upon our heads; others were in a state of powder, with which we were plentifully besprinkled. We were then escorted into the centre of the room, where we found a circle of elderly men, who were reading portions of their sacred books, and their voices were accompanied by music from instruments of native manufacture. We were treated with great attention, being permitted to enter the circle of the elders, who ordered the attendants to hand us refreshments, which consisted of cakes made of rice and cocoa-nut oil, and Sam-schoo. Some of our party, having become slightly elevated, volunteered a song, which proposition was opposed by the more reasonable. The Javanese were appealed to by the former, and they gave their votes in favour of the song. It was accordingly sung by our whole party, much to the delight of our kind entertainers, who, no doubt, considered that we felt and appreciated their rites. At length we took our leave, well pleased with our novel entertainment. So well did we succeed in making ourselves agreeable, that we received an invitation for the following night. July 10th.--In the evening a display of fireworks took place, notice of which had been given to the rajah, and, indeed, to the whole population of Kuchin, who had all assembled near to the ship, to witness what they considered a most wonderful sight. Seamen were stationed at all the yard-arms, flying jib, and driver booms, with blue-lights, which were fired simultaneously with the discharge of a dozen rockets, and the great gun of a royal salute. The echoes reverberated for at least a minute after the last gun of the salute had been fired; and, judging by the yells of the natives, the display must have created a strong sensation. Immediately after the salute, the anchor was weighed, and we commenced dropping down the river with the ebb tide; but we soon grounded on the mud, and we remained all night with the bowsprit in the bushes which grow on the banks of the river. The ship floated the next morning; the anchor was weighed, and with the assistance of the ebb tide, we dropped down the river at the rate of five miles per hour. As we were nearing a cluster of dangerous rocks, about a mile below Kuchin, we found that the ship was at the mercy of the rapid tide; and, notwithstanding all our endeavours, the ship struck on the rocks. Anchors were immediately laid out, but to no effect: the water rapidly shallowed, and we gave up all thoughts of getting off until the next flood tide. As the water left the ship, she fell over to starboard, and, an hour after she had grounded, she listed to starboard 25 degrees. Our position was now becoming critical: the main deck ports had been shipped some time previous, but this precaution did not prevent the water from gaining entrance on the main and lower decks. As she still continued to heel over to starboard, a hawser was taken on shore, and, by purchases, set taut to the mast head; but before this could be accomplished she had filled so much that it proved useless. A boat was now despatched to Kuchin, to acquaint Mr. Brooke with our disaster, and to request the assistance of the native boats. During the absence of the boats, the top-gallant-masts had been sent down, and topmasts lowered; but the ship was now careening over 46 degrees, and full of water. All hopes of getting her off were therefore, for the present, abandoned; and we commenced removing every thing that could be taken out of her in the boats. The surveying instruments and other valuables, were sent up to Kuchin in the gig; and afterwards every thing that could be obtained from the ship was brought up in the native boats, as well as the whole crew of the Samarang. Mr. Brooke insisted upon all the officers making a temporary abode at his house, and prepared a shed for the crew. An excellent dinner was laid before the officers, while a substantial mess of fowls and rice was served out to the crew. In fact, the kindness of Mr. Brooke was beyond all bounds. The gentlemen who resided with him, as well as himself, provided us with clothes from their own wardrobes, and during our protracted stay did all in their power to make us comfortable; indeed, I may safely say, that we were so happy and comfortable, that there were but very few of the officers and crew of the Samarang that ever wished to see her afloat again. But I must return to my narrative. The morning after our disaster we went down to the ship, and commenced recovering provisions and stores, sending down masts and yards, and every other article deemed necessary; and this was continued for several days: during which the midshipmen, petty officers, and seamen were removed to the opposite shore, where two houses had been, by Mr. Brooke, prepared for their reception. Our house, (the midshipmen's) we christened Cockpit Hall; it was very romantically situate in the middle of a plantation of cocoa nut, palm, banana, and plantain trees. It was separated from the house in which the seamen were barracked by a small kind of jungle, not more than 300 yards in extent, but so intricate that we constantly lost our way in it, and had to shout and receive an answer, or go back and take a fresh departure. Our garden, in which there was a delightful spring of cold water, extended on a gentle slope about a hundred yards in front of the house, where its base was watered by a branch of the Sarawak; in which we refreshed ourselves by bathing morning and evening, in spite of the numerous alligators and water snakes with which the river abounds. But our incautious gambols received a check. Two of our party agreed to proceed to the mouth of the branch I have mentioned, to determine which could return with the greatest speed. They had commenced their swimming race, when we, who stood ashore as umpires, observed an enormous water snake, with head erect, making for the two swimmers. We cried out to them to hasten on shore, which they did; while we kept up a rapid discharge of stones at the head of the brute, who was at last driven off in another direction. This incident induced us to be more cautious, and to keep within safe boundary for the future. Our repose at Cockpit Hall was, however, much disturbed by the nightly visits of wild hogs, porcupines, wild cats, guanos, and various other animals, some of which made dreadful noises. When they paid us their visits, we all turned out, and, armed with muskets, commenced an assault upon them, which soon caused them to evacuate our domain; but similar success did not attend our endeavours to dislodge the swarms of musquitos, scorpions, lizards, and centipedes from our habitations. They secreted themselves in the thatch, and the sides of the house during the day, and failed not to disturb with their onslaughts during the whole of the night. July 22d.--Mr. Hooper, the purser, was despatched in the Royalist to Sincapore, to purchase provisions and obtain assistance from any of the men-of-war who might be lying in the roads. It is not necessary to enter into a minute detail of the service which we were now employed upon. It certainly was not a service of love, as we had to raise a ship which we hoped would remain where she was. To enter into particulars, technical terms must be resorted to, which would only puzzle the reader. The position of the Samarang was simply this: she lay on a rock, and had filled by careening over; as long as she was on her side, the water rose and fell in her with the flood and ebb of the tide; but if once we could get her on an even keel, as soon as the water left her with the ebb of the tide, all we had to do was to pump her out, and then she would float again. To effect this, we had to lighten her as much as possible, by taking out of her her guns and stores of every description; then to get purchases on her from the shore, and assist the purchases with rafts under her bilge, so as to raise her again upon an even keel. On the second day after she filled, when the tide had run out, we removed all our chests from the lower deck; most of them were broken, and a large proportion of the contents missing. On the 27th May every thing had been prepared, and the attempt to get the vessel on an even keel was made, and it proved successful, as it well might with the variety of purchases, and the force of men we had at our disposition. When we repaired to the ship with 100 Malays to man the purchase-falls, the tide was ebbing fast, and the pumps were immediately set to work; so that at midnight, when the tide commenced flowing, the ship was nearly free of water. The purchases were then manned, and with the assistance of the rafts the ship gradually righted. The following day, about half-past two in the morning, the ship was free of water, and had risen to a careen of 30°; at 3 o'clock she floated into deep water, and was then anchored. During the forenoon of the same day the ship was towed to her former anchoring ground off Kuchin. The same night the Harlequin and Royalist arrived in the river, and a day or two afterwards a brig and schooner came over with the intention of bidding for the remains of the ship, and of stocking the officers with clothes and necessaries. This was a losing speculation, as may be imagined, arising from a report having been circulated that it was impossible to raise the ship, whereas, as the reader will perceive, there was very little difficulty in so doing, nothing but sufficient strength being required. Our ship, as may be supposed, was in a most filthy state after the late immersion. Plunging into a river does not clean a vessel, although it does a man. The decks were literally coated with mud and slime, which emitted the most foetid odour. Silver spoons, watches, and valuables of every description, were everywhere strewed about, few of which ever reached their rightful owners; for the Malays who were employed to clean the ship had an eye to business, and secreted every thing which was portable. By dint of great exertion, the ship was in a few days ready to receive her tanks, guns, and stores, which were embarked by the Harlequin's boats and boats' crews. She was soon in a forward state, and an expedition was formed to survey a part of the coast during the completion of her refitting. The gig and one of the barges were fitted out for this service, and on August the 13th, at daylight, we left Kuchin, well armed, and provisioned for ten days. At 10 A. M. we dropped anchor under the Peak of Santabong, from which the branch of the Sarawak we were then in derives its name. Here we remained a short time to refresh the men, who had not ceased tugging at the oar from the time that we started. The foot of the Santabong mountain is about a quarter of a mile from the river. It then ascends almost perpendicularly to a great height, towering far above the neighbouring mountains. Afterwards it runs seaward for a mile or two, and terminates in a remarkable peak, which forms the eastern horn of the extensive bay between it and Tanjon Datu. Here we were about a week, during which time we had extended our survey to the last-mentioned cape, which is about forty miles to the westward of Santabong. While in the vicinity of Datu, a strict watch was kept, that we might have timely notice of the approach of any prahus. A short distance from the cape is a delightful bay studded with small islets, which is known by the appellation of Pirate's Bay, so called from its being a favourite resort of the Illanoan pirates. It was in this bay that the Dido's boats were anchored when they were surprised by several piratical prahus, the look-out men in the European boats, exhausted by the heat and long pulling at the oar, having fallen asleep. They had scarcely time to cut the cables and grasp their weapons ere they were assailed on all sides by the pirates, who felt confident of success, from having found them napping. But they little knew what people they had to deal with, and if Jack was asleep when they made the attack, they found him wide awake when they came to close quarters. All their endeavours to board in the face of the rapid fire of the boats' guns and small arms proved abortive, and they soon discovered that it would be quite sufficient for their purpose if, instead of capturing the boats, they could make their own escape. One of the prahus, pierced by the well-directed shot, foundered, another was abandoned, and the rest, favoured by darkness, made their escape. For a more detailed account, I must refer the reader to Captain Keppel's work on Borneo. During the survey, we visited the islands of Talen Talen--the Malay word for turtle. These islands are the property of Mr. Brooke. A few Malays lived on the largest of them for the purpose of getting turtle eggs, with which they supply the trading prahus, who continually call here to lay in a stock of these eggs, which are considered a great luxury by the Malays. We landed with Mr. Williamson, the Malay interpreter at Sarawak, belonging to Mr. Brooke's establishment. We were well received by the Malays, who knew Mr. Williamson well, and he informed them that our object was to procure a live turtle. They requested us to take our choice of the numerous turtle then lying on the beach. We selected one of about three cwt.; but although the turtles are never turned on this island, she appeared to be aware that such was our intention, and scuttled off as fast as she could for the water; however, we intercepted her, and with some difficulty secured our prize. From one of the numerous nests on the beach we took 600 turtle eggs. As many thousands could have been as easily procured, but we had sufficient for our wants. The Malays watch during the night, to ascertain where the turtle deposits her eggs, for as soon as she has finished her task, she covers them with her nippers with sand, and immediately retires into the sea. A piece of wood is then set up as a mark for the nest, which is rifled as occasion requires. It is a curious fact that the male turtle never lands. [Illustration: MALAYS OF KUCHIN.] After visiting several villages on the coast, we returned to Kuchin on Saturday the 19th, when we found that death had deprived us of our only musician on board the ship, a loss which was much felt by the crew, as he contributed much to their amusement. One of the supernumerary boys had also fallen a victim to the dysentery; but, although we deplored our loss, we had great reason to be thankful that it had been no greater, as on the day we left Kuchin, we had upwards of seventy men on the sick report. The same day, at noon, the anchor was weighed, and we dropped down the river with the ebb tide. Strange to say, in spite of all our precautions, we struck on the same reef of rocks again; fortunately, however, the ship turned with the tide and grounded in the mud close to the bushes, from whence there was no extricating her till the flood tide had made. In the afternoon, when it was low water, a very large alligator was discovered asleep upon the rocks, which had been properly christened the Samarang Rocks, and which were now, at low ebb, several feet above water. A party of officers and marines pulled towards him, and fired a volley at him. The brute was evidently wounded, as he sprang up several feet in the air, and then disappeared under the water. Shortly after he again made his appearance, having landed on the opposite side of the river; his assailants again gave chase, and again wounded him, but he shuffled into the river and escaped. At three in the afternoon, we were much pleased at the arrival of the Diana, one of the Company's steamers, sent from Sincapore to our assistance. She proved extremely useful, for that night we gained fifteen miles, when we again grounded and remained all night. On the following day, at eleven A. M., a cloud of thick smoke was observed rising above the jungle, which we immediately decided to proceed from a steamer. Shortly afterwards two masts appeared above the trees, and at one of them the Vixen's number was flying: she soon hove in sight. We weighed, and with the Harlequin, were towed down the river at a rapid pace. When we arrived at the entrance we anchored, finding there the Wanderer, and being joined soon afterwards by the Ariel, Royalist, and Diana, we formed a squadron of six vessels. On the 23d August, the Samarang, Harlequin, Ariel, and Royalist, weighed anchor and steered along the coast for Borneo Proper, where we arrived on Tuesday the 29th. On the Thursday following, Mr. Brooke, accompanied by the captains of the three men-of-war and some officers, started in one of the barges for the city of Bruni, which was about eighteen miles from our anchorage. They had an audience with the sultan, but upon what cause I do not exactly know. They were treated with great civility, and returned to the ship about one o'clock on the following morning. My description of Bruni I shall reserve for a future visit. On the 5th of September we made sail for Hong Kong, with the Vixen in company, leaving the Ariel and Royalist to carry Mr. Brooke and the rajah's brother down to Sarawak. The Harlequin sailed for Sincapore. The Vixen having parted company to obtain fuel at Manilla, we continued our course to Hong Kong, where we arrived on the 14th inst., and found there Admirals Parker and Cochrane, in their respective ships the Cornwallis and Agincourt, with others of the squadron. We sailed again on the 2d of November, and after working up the coast of China for a week, we steered to the eastward, and on the 12th sighted the Bashee group. Here our surveying duties commenced in earnest, as we left the ship at four A. M. and did not return till darkness put an end to our labours. The governor of this group of islands sent a letter to our captain requesting the pleasure of seeing the ship in San Domingo Bay, where wood, water, and live stock could be obtained on reasonable terms. This letter was accompanied with a present of fruit and vegetables. A few days afterwards, we worked up to San Domingo Bay (Batan Island), and we were much surprised on our arrival to perceive that the town had a cathedral, of apparently ancient architecture, besides several houses built on the European style. The remainder of the town, which is of some extent, was composed of houses built of bamboo, and thatched with palm leaves. We anchored late in the afternoon, and were boarded by a Spanish military officer, who, to judge by certain signs and peculiarities, had been imbibing something stronger than water. The captain and some of the officers went on shore, to call upon the governor. The governor's house was distinguished by a flag-staff, with the Spanish colours, or, rather, a remnant of the Spanish colours; and around the door stood a group of most indifferently clad Luzonian soldiers, turned out, we presumed, as a guard of honour. The governor was as much in dishabille as his troops, and shortly afterwards the party was joined by two priests and the governor's wife, a very pretty Creole, about twenty years of age. We were regaled with wine and chocolate, and parted late in the evening, on very friendly terms. The governor's house is a miserable abode: it has but one story, and the basement is a barrack for the soldiers. The upper part, inhabited by the governor, was very scantily furnished: a few old chairs, a couple of tables, and the walls whitewashed and decorated with prints of the Virgin Mary and his excellency's patron saint. The house of the priests, which adjoined the cathedral, was in much better repair, and more gaudy in the inside. There are three missions in Batan, each settlement having its cathedral and officiating priests. The natives, who are a distinct race, are well-proportioned, of a copper colour, and medium stature. They are very ugly: their hair is black, and cut short. Their usual dress consists of a piece of cotton, passed round the loins, and a peculiar-looking conical hat, surmounted with a tuft of goat's hair. In rainy weather they wear a cloak of rushes, through which the water cannot penetrate. The sole covering of the women is a piece of cotton, fastened below the bosom, and reaching down to the knee. Almost the whole of the Bashee group of islands are very mountainous. At the back of San Domingo the land rises to a great height, forming a remarkable peak, which can be seen many leagues distant. Bullocks, goats, pigs, and vegetables, can be obtained at a very moderate price; but very little fruit is grown, the natives usually preferring to cultivate yams, cocoas, and sweet potatoes. The sugar-cane is cultivated, and the tobacco grown here is considered, with great justice, far superior to any grown at Luzon. After a week's stay at San Domingo we ran down to Ivana, one of the missions, and made a rough survey of the bay. The mission house at this place was fitted up with every comfort, and we even found luxuries which we looked in vain for at San Domingo. [Illustration: NATIVE OF BATAN.] After completing the survey of this portion of the island, the governor (who had accompanied us from San Domingo) and a party of us set off to return to San Domingo by land. Our path lay over mountains nearly 2000 feet in height, from the summit of which every point and inlet could be discerned, over the whole of the group which lay below, exactly as if they were laid down on a chart. Our walk was very fatiguing, and we were all rejoiced when, from an eminence, we descried the village of San Carlos, the residence of the warm-hearted and hospitable Father Nicholas. We descended into the vale, and were heartily welcomed by the jolly old priest, who regaled us with all that his larder could supply us. It had been arranged that the ship should leave Ivana for San Domingo on the following morning. At the entreaty of the good padre we remained at San Carlos all night, and the following morning returned to San Domingo, the ship anchoring in the bay on the same afternoon. We had now become quite domesticated with the friendly Spaniards. In the evenings we were received by an assemblage of the natives at the governor's house. They were dressed in their best, and went through an unmeaning dance, which was kept up till a late hour. On the 27th November we left Batan, and its kind inhabitants, who exacted a promise that we would return at some future period, and shaped a course for the Madjicosima islands, which are subject to the kingdom of Loo Choo. On the afternoon of the 1st of December land was discovered ahead, and a few hours afterwards we anchored in a narrow passage, surrounded by reefs on every side. We were anchored off the island of Pa-tchu-san, one of the group: it was very mountainous. On the following morning the captain and some of the officers went on shore. They were received by several hundred natives, who saluted them as they passed on their way to a temporary shed, where a levee was held by all the principal mandarins. Our Chinese interpreter, who was a native of Canton, explained the captain's wishes, and the nature of the service that we were employed on. They appeared uneasy at the proposal of our surveying the whole group, and informed the captain that they would refer the question to the viceroy, and give him a final answer on the morrow. This answer was in the affirmative, and a few days afterwards we commenced our survey of the islands. We were attended by the natives, who furnished us with horses, and anticipated our wishes in every thing that could make us comfortable. On the first day, at sunset, we arrived at a temple dedicated to Fo, romantically situated in a grove of trees, which concealed the elevation until you were within a few yards of it. Here it was proposed to take up our quarters for the night, and a more delightful spot could not well be imagined than our resting-place. The temple was built at the foot of a hill, within a few hundred yards of the sea. Lights were displayed as a signal to the stragglers, groups of whom might be seen by the light of the moon, reposing themselves on the ridge behind us. The glare of the torches brought them all down to us, both men and horses anxious for rest after the arduous toil of the day. Just as I was dropping off to sleep, one of my messmates said to another, "I say, Jemmy, I wonder whether your mother has any idea that you are sleeping in the temple of Fo, on the island of Pa-tchu-san?" A loud snore was the only reply, proving that the party addressed was unconscious of the island Pa-tchu-san, the temple of Fo, or of his mother, and the bells ringing for church. Pa-tchu-san, as I have before observed, is very mountainous and exceedingly picturesque. A high ridge covered with trees extends the whole length of the island, north and south. On either side of this ridge are innumerable grassy knolls and mounds from which we looked down upon the extensive plain on either side, which was studded with knolls similar to those that we were standing on. During our survey we passed through all the villages bordering the sea, at the entrance of which we were invariably received by all the principal inhabitants. All their villages or towns are surrounded by the most luxurious groves, which have been apparently planted, for in many parts not a shrub could be seen beyond the confines of the town. The roads through the towns or streets generally meet at right angles, lined on each side with gigantic trees. The houses are built within enclosures raised with huge stones. These houses are strongly built, the frame being composed of four uprights of large timber, to which are attached cross pieces on the top of them, of the same dimensions as their supporters. Openings are left on each side of the house, which, when the owner pleases, can be closed by well-fitted shutters on the sliding principle. The roofs are thatched with paddy stalks. The floor frame is raised about two feet from the ground, and on it are fixed strong slips of bamboo, which are covered over with mats. These afford very comfortable sitting and sleeping apartments. The only inconvenience was, that the fire was made in the corner of the sitting-room, and as there was no vent for the smoke, we were nearly stifled. This nuisance was, however, soon removed by a word to the natives through the medium of the interpreter, and afterwards the fire was lighted, and the victuals cooked, at an adjoining shed. The natives of the Madjicosima islands are rather below the middle stature, but very strong and muscular. Their hair is worn in a very peculiar manner; the crown of the head is shaved, leaving a circle of long hair, which is turned up on the top of the head and tied into a knot of a peculiar shape. Through this knot of hair are passed two brass ornaments by the common people, but the chiefs are distinguished by silver ones. These are evidently intended to keep the knot in its right position. They cultivate the moustache and the beard, the latter being worn pointed. Their dress consists of a long loose robe of blue or cross-barred cotton stuffs, which reaches down nearly to the ancles. This robe is fastened to the waist by a girdle of the same material, and in which they keep their fans, pipes, &c. The sleeves of the robe are very large, widening as they approach the wrists, which are consequently bare. Their shoes or sandals are very ingeniously made of wicker work, and confined to the foot by means of a strap between the larger toes of each foot. [Illustration: NATIVE OF PA-TCHU-SAN.] The inhabitants of these islands certainly deserve to be ranked among the most gentle and amiable of nations: no boisterousness attends their conversation, no violent gestures to give effect to the words; on the contrary, their voices are modulated when they are speaking, and their actions, although decided, are gentle. Their mode of salutation is graceful in the extreme. It consists in a low bending of the head, accompanied with a slight inclination of the body, and the hands closed, being raised at the same time to the forehead. What a change in a few degrees of latitude, in manners, customs, and dispositions, between the savage pirates of Borneo and these amiable islanders! The plains between the mountains are cultivated as paddy fields: the soil appears very good, and there is little doubt but that every kind of fruit would grow if introduced into these islands; and what a fitting present it would be to them, if they were to be sent. They grow radishes, onions, and sweet potatoes, but not more than are sufficient for their own use. They supplied us with bullocks, pigs, goats, and fowls, but they seldom kill them for their own use; their principal diet being composed of shell fish and vegetables made into a sort of stew, which is eaten with rice, worked by the hand into balls. Every man of consequence carries with him a kind of portable larder, which is a box with a shelf in the middle, and a sliding door. In this are put cups of Japan, containing the eatables. This Chow Chow box is carried by a servant, who also takes with him a wicker basket, containing rice and potatoes for his own consumption. These islands have no intercourse with any part of the world except Loo Choo, to which they pay tribute as dependencies, and from whence they annually receive the necessaries they may require, by a junk. They had no idea that the continents of Europe or America existed. They had only heard of China, Loo Choo, and Japan, and they could hardly credit our assertions when we stated that we had lately gained a great victory over China. When we gave them a description of steam vessels, and first-rate men-of-war carrying 120 guns, they evidently disbelieved us. We were the first white men they had ever seen; and ludicrous was the repeated examination of our arms, which they bared and contrasted with their own. After great persuasion a few of the chief mandarins and their suites visited the ship, which was put in holiday attire upon the occasion. It would be impossible to attempt to describe their rapture at the neatness, order, and regularity which reigned on board. The guns were shotted and fired for their amusement: they threw up their hands in astonishment, and gazed on us and on each other with looks of blank amazement. During the whole of our peregrinations over these islands we never saw a female, for on our approach to any village a courier was sent ahead to warn the inhabitants of our arrival, when the women either shut themselves up or retired to an adjacent village until we had passed through. The men assisted us in our labours and attended to our comforts by all the means in their power. Horses were provided every day, houses for us at night, and good substantial repasts. Wherever they enter, the natives invariably eat and drink, more, I believe, from custom than from hunger. On these occasions tea is the general beverage, the kettle being a large shell, which admirably answers the purpose. It may be worthy of remark, that on entering a house, the shoes or sandals are invariably left at the door. Two of the chiefs were deservedly great favourites with our party; they were given the famous names of Chesterfield and Beaufort, the former from his gentlemanly manners, the latter from the profound knowledge he displayed of all rocks, shoals, &c. On the 17th of December, having completed our survey of Pa-tchu-san, we returned to the ship: on the 22d we left our anchorage, which was christened Port Providence, and ran round to Kuchee Bay on the opposite side of the island. This noble bay was called Port Haddington, in honour of the late first lord of the Admiralty. On the 27th the first barge, cutter, and gig left the ship to survey the island Ku-king-san, the nearest port of which was about twenty miles from Kuchee Bay, alias Port Haddington, where we lay at anchor. The boats carried with them provisions for three weeks, by which time it was supposed that the survey would be completed. As the formation of this island is similar to Pa-tchu-san, it would be but repetition to describe it minutely, but it is worthy of remark that it is indented with numerous deep bays, in each of which there is sufficient water for a ship of the line. Many of these bays have natural breakwaters, created by shoals, with a deep water passage on either side of them, and which may be easily distinguished from the shoals by the deep blue colour of the water. On the 15th of January, 1844, the surveying party returned, having been absent twenty days. We were again visited by the mandarins, who came to bid us farewell: they quitted us with many expressions of good will, and expressed a wish that we would return again, and as _individuals_, I had no doubt of their sincerity. On the 18th of January we sailed for Ty-ping-san, which is situated about seventy miles north of Pa-tchu-san. On the following day we sighted the land, and late in the evening anchored off the coast. This island is low, compared with the other islands of the group. The following morning the captain landed and presented a letter of introduction given him by the mandarins of Pa-tchu-san. The letter of introduction had the best effects, for we were immediately visited by the principal mandarins, who informed us that we should be furnished with horses and every thing else that we might require. It was on a reef to the northward of this island that the Providence, of twenty guns, was wrecked about fifty years back. Captain Broughton and the crew arrived safely at Ty-ping-san, but the present inhabitants, when it was mentioned, either did not or would not recollect any thing of the circumstances. As a proof of the morality of these people, and how much crime is held in abhorrence, I have the following little history to narrate. During our survey, we fixed a station upon the extremity of a bleak and desolate point of land running more than a mile into the sea. There, in a cave formed by a reef on a mass of rock, we discovered two skeletons. This would not have so much excited our suspicion, had it not been from the remarkable locality, as in all the graves we fell in with the corpses were invariably uncoffined. We expressed a wish to know why such a spot should have been fixed upon as a last resting-place, as it was many miles from the nearest habitation. It was not until after much entreaty that they at length, very reluctantly, consented to give us the desired explanation, which, as nearly as I can recollect, was as follows:-- A young girl, who was considered as the belle and pride of the nearest town, had formed an attachment to a youth who had been brought up with her, as a playmate, from their earliest years; and it was acknowledged by the inhabitants of the town that a more fitting match could not be made, as the young man was of most graceful mien, and equally well favoured as his mistress; but the father of the girl, who had been all along blind to the natural consequences of their long intimacy, had other views for his daughter, and had selected a husband for her whose chief recommendation was his wealth. So far it is the old story. To oppose her father's commands was not to be thought of, for filial obedience is, with this people, one of the most sacred of duties. The bridal day approached; presents had been exchanged between the parents of the parties; and every thing was in a forward state for the celebration of the nuptials, with all the magnificence befitting the wealthy condition of the bridegroom. The lovers were in a state of phrensy, but solaced themselves with stolen interviews. At length the poor girl, urged by her lover, confessed every thing to her father, and implored his mercy. He was thunderstruck at this intelligence, for till that moment he had imagined that his daughter had not a thought to which he was not privy. The most rigorous discipline was resorted to--the girl was confined to her chamber, and spies placed to watch every motion. Those to whom she thought she could trust were suborned by her father, and to him were conveyed all the letters which she believed to have been safely conveyed to her lover. His notes being also intercepted, at last each considered the other as faithless. The poor girl, imagining that her lover had forsaken her, at last sent to her father, to acquaint him that she had returned to her duty, and was ready to receive the man whom he had selected for her husband. They were married: but she deceived herself; as soon as the ceremony was over, the courage which had supported her gave way, her former feelings returned stronger than ever, and she hated herself for her fickleness. Her heart whispered that it was impossible that one possessing every great and every amiable quality, as did her lover, could ever have proved faithless, or would have abandoned one who loved him so dearly. As she sat in the garden and wept, a slight noise attracted her attention, and she found in her presence her lover, disguised, who had come to take a last farewell. Explanations immediately ensued--they found that they had been tricked--their love and their despair overcame their reason, and they fled. The father and bridegroom pursued the guilty pair, and after a most rigorous search, they were discovered. They knew that their fate was sealed, and they bore up bravely to the last. They were arraigned, found guilty, and condemned to death; after which their bodies were to be removed far from any dwelling-place. The sentence was carried into effect, and their remains were deposited in the cave in which we discovered them. Many parents might draw a lesson from this tragedy, and anybody who feels inclined may write a novel upon it; it must not, however, bear the same title as the Chinese one translated by Governor Davis, which is styled the "Fortunate Union." In ten days we completed the survey of the island, and sailed for Batan, where we arrived on the 7th of February. There we remained a few days, and then sailed for Hong Kong, having but three days' provisions on board. We encountered a heavy gale; but, fortunately, it was in our favour. On the 9th a junk was reported in sight; and in the course of an hour we were sufficiently near to perceive that the people on board of her were making signals of distress, and cutting away her masts. We hove to as near to her as we could venture, for the sea ran high, and lowered a boat, which reached the junk in safety. They found her to be in a sinking state: a hawser was made fast to her, with the intention of towing her into Hong Kong, then not fifty miles distant. We again made sail, towing the junk at a rapid rate; but the strain caused her planks to sever, and consequently increased the rush of water in her hold. The Chinese hailed the ship, and entreated to be rescued from their perilous condition. She was immediately hauled alongside, and twelve of her crew succeeded in getting on board of us; but the hawser gave way, and the junk drifted astern, with five men still remaining on board. Sail was immediately made, and in a short time we ran alongside of her, staving in her bulwarks, for both vessels were rolling heavily. Fortunately her mainmast had gone by the board; had it been still standing, and had become locked in our rigging, we should have been in great peril ourselves. The remaining five men and a dog gained the ship, and the junk again went astern, and in three minutes afterwards went to the bottom. When they saw her sink, the Chinese raised up a cry at their miraculous escape. One poor fellow had his hand shockingly mutilated, it having been crushed between the sides of the two vessels. The wind had now much subsided, and we made sail for Hong Kong, where we arrived on the following day. There we found the Agincourt, Sir Thomas Cochrane, who was now commander-in-chief, Sir William Parker having sailed for England. The cutter and two of the Company's steamers were also here; and the Minden hospital ship, as usual, crowded with the sick and dying. Our first lieutenant, Mr. Wade, took this opportunity of leaving the ship, and Mr. Heard succeeded him. On the 6th we sailed for Macao, which is too well known to require any description here. On the 10th we sailed for Manilla, an account of which I shall reserve for our future visit. On the 1st of April we again sailed, on a surveying cruise, to the southward. After fixing the positions of several small islands in the Mendoro Sea, we steered for Samboangan, a Spanish penal colony, situated at the southern extremity of Mindanao. On the 8th we arrived there, and took up our anchorage close to the town. Samboangan is built on an extensive plain; most of the houses are supported on poles ten or twelve feet from the ground. The roofs are thatched, and the sides covered with palm leaves, ingeniously secured by strips of bamboo. The fort is well built; and although a century old, is in very good preservation. It has a numerous garrison, and is defended by guns of large calibre. There is also an establishment of gun-boats, which scour the coast in search of pirates. On each side, and at the back of the town, are groves of cocoa-nuts, bamboos, plantains, and other fruit trees, through which narrow paths are cut, forming delightful shady walks to a stranger, who gazes with astonishment and pleasure upon the variety of delicious fruits, of whose existence he had no idea. The plain on which the town is built extends about eight miles inland, when it is bounded by a chain of mountains, which divides the Spanish territory from that of the warlike tribes who inhabit the interior. The plain I have spoken of is covered with small villages, pleasantly situated among thick groves of trees; and it is watered by numerous streams. The whole country around Samboangan abounds in scenery of the most picturesque description; and the groups of gaily-dressed and joyous natives in no small degree add to the beauty of the landscape. Horses can be obtained at very moderate charges; but unfortunately no one has ever thought of establishing an hotel, and the want of one was much felt. We were, therefore, thrown upon the hospitality and kindness of the natives, who made us welcome by every demonstration in their power. Fruit, chocolate, and sweet biscuits, were the ordinary refreshments, for which the charges made scarcely repaid the trouble of preparing them. The church, priests' and governor's houses, are the only respectable buildings in the colony; the other houses in the town are very inferior, being inhabited by liberated exiles from Manilla. We remained here five days, and early on the morning of the 13th ran down to a watering-place about fifteen miles from the town, and completed our water. The same night we sailed for Sooloo; and the next day, when performing divine service, it being Sunday, the officer of the watch reported five prahus in sight, full of men, and each armed with a long gun, pulling towards the ship. It was quite calm at the time, and our main deck ports were open. No doubt they perceived the daylight through the ports, and satisfied themselves that we were a man-of-war, for they soon afterwards altered their course, and made for the shore. We presumed that they were pirates from the island of Baselan, who, fancying we were a merchant vessel, had come out with the intention of attacking us. At noon on the 16th of April we made the town of Sooloo, the capital of the island of the same name. It being calm, and the ship at some distance from the anchorage, the gig was sent ahead to board one of the three schooners lying in the bay, and hoist a light, as a guide to the ship; and a rocket was put into the boat to fire in case of being attacked by superior numbers. There were but five men in the gig! After two hours' hard pulling, they arrived alongside the largest of the three vessels. She proved to be the Velocipede, an English vessel, trading to Sooloo for pearl oysters. The owner of the schooner soon came from the shore, having been sent off by the sultan of Sooloo to know the object of our visit. He was accompanied by several Datus or chiefs, who went back to the town perfectly satisfied with the explanation given. But the arrival of a man-of-war appeared to excite the fears of the natives, for gongs were sounding throughout the night, and lights were flitting to and fro, by the aid of which it was perceived that there was a strong assemblage of the natives. The ship anchored on the afternoon of the following day, and the captain, attended by several of his officers, visited the sultan. We were received by the prime minister, who informed us that the sultan was somewhat indisposed, and begged to postpone the interview until the following day. Leaving the palace, we strolled through the town, which is partly built in the water; bridges, formed of interlaced bamboo, were the means of communication between the houses. As these bridges were some hundred yards in length, the walking was somewhat dangerous; a slip would have been the cause of a good ducking and a swim to any unlucky wight, which, I have no doubt, would have given great satisfaction to the townspeople, who, armed with spears, krisses, and shields, were watching our motions; but no such mishap occurred, and we returned on board before sunset. Next day the captain and the same party went again on shore, and were received by the sultan in person. He was dressed in the extreme of Malay fashion. He was an excessively plain young man, and seemed to be ill at ease during the whole of the conference. He appeared to be a mere puppet in the hands of his ferocious chiefs, who had all the conversation, without referring to their royal master at any time. The sultan's dress consisted of a purple satin jacket and green velvet trousers, both trimmed with gold and silver lace; a red sash confined his trousers at the waist; and in the sash he wore a kris of the most costly description. He wore diamond buttons on his jacket, which, being open, exposed his naked chest. But the party who mostly excited our interest was the heir apparent, a child of four years old, who was dressed as an adult, even to his miniature kris. He bids fair to be a handsome man. His laughing face and engaging manner caused him to be caressed by the whole party, a circumstance which evidently gave much pleasure to the sultan. We were regaled with chocolate, sweet cakes, and fruit; and every attention paid to us by the chiefs. At our departure the sultan and ministers shook hands warmly with every one of our party, and we returned on board, accompanied by Mr. Wyndham, of the Velocipede schooner, who, being a perfect master of the tongue, had acted as an interpreter on this occasion. The Samarang was the first English man-of-war that had called at Sooloo since the visit of Dalrymple in 1761, when he reinstated on the throne the sultan (grandfather to the present one), who had been deposed by his rebellious subjects. Great Sooloo is about fifty miles in length, and twenty-five in breadth, being the largest of a group of islands known as the Sooloo Archipelago. This group of islands is inhabited by a fierce and warlike race, bearing in their personal appearance a strong resemblance to the Malays, although the two languages differ materially from each other. Great Sooloo, the residence of the sultan, is very mountainous. Many of the mountains are wooded to the summit, while others are covered with patches of cultivation. These islands are thickly populated; and if the islanders do not practise piracy as a profession, they are always ready to aid, assist, and protect those who do. The town of Sooloo is well known to be the principal rendezvous of pirates, who, whenever they have made a capture, resort there to dispose of their lawless booty. The ministers, and even the sultan himself, are not able to resist the temptation of being able to purchase European goods, and articles of value, for less than half their real value. If not the stealers, they are the receivers, and thus they patronise piracy of every description. Governed by their own prince, and independent of any other power, the people of Sooloo have most extravagant notions of their own prowess, and of the strength of their fortifications; and they ridicule the idea of any one venturing to interfere with or attack them. [Illustration: SOOLOO VILLAGE.] On the 18th of April we sailed from Sooloo, and visited several islands in the Archipelago, on one of which we grounded, but escaped without sustaining any damage. On the 23rd we anchored off Unsang, the eastern province of Borneo, where we remained four days surveying the coast. A shooting and fishing party visited the shore daily: the former killed several wild hogs, and the latter brought every evening a plentiful supply of fish. On the 27th of April sailed from Unsang. This day we first served out our ship-brewed porter, in addition to the usual allowance of spirits. It continued to be served out nightly, but opinions were very different about its merits. For several days after leaving Unsang, we had but little or no wind, and we were borne away by a strong easterly current, till we were carried in sight of Celebes, which is high and mountainous, and covered with dense forests of gigantic trees. On Sunday, the 4th of May, we arrived off Cape Rivers (Celebes), the position of which was determined by astronomical observations. It was the intention of the captain to have passed through the Straits of Macassar, but light wind, and a strong current from the southward, would not permit us to gain a mile per day. After experiencing very disagreeable weather while off the coast, we bore up and made sail for Monado, a Dutch settlement on one of the north-western promontories of this remarkably shaped island. Our passage was any thing but agreeable; scarcely a night passed that we were not visited by strong squalls, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. On Sunday, the 18th, we anchored in forty-eight fathoms off the town of Monado, within two cables' length of the shore, which shelves very suddenly into deep water. A kedge was laid out in-shore of the ship, and kept well taut; a requisite precaution, as otherwise, if the land breeze blew off strong, the ship would have dragged her anchor down the steep beach, and drifted out. The town of Monado is built on a plain surrounded by mountains, the highest of which, Klabat, is 6000 feet above the level of the sea. The houses are well built, and neatly thatched; they are all detached, and enclosed in a yard or garden. The roads are excellent, and reflect great credit upon a Prussian engineer, who undertook the task. The fort, which is at the water's edge, is small, but strongly built, and well adapted to resist the attack of any native force, although I should imagine it could not hold out any time against the well-directed fire of a frigate's broadside. A party of us enjoyed a pleasant ramble through the town and suburbs, which are dotted with neat cottages, where their owners invited us to enter and partake of refreshments. We went into several, and found them scrupulously neat and clean, as Dutch houses usually are. The people who entertained us refused all compensation, and it was with difficulty that we prevailed upon the black-eyed damsels to accept our silk handkerchiefs by way of reminiscences. Very few Europeans reside here, although their half-bred offspring may be seen in every tenth person, and they boast of the European blood which flows in their veins. Monado abounds with poultry, fruit, vegetables, and all the necessaries of life. Cocoa and sugar are cultivated. Stock is easily obtained, and very moderate; and water is procured from a small river which divides the town. Boats should enter the river at last quarter flood, and return first quarter ebb, as the tide falls rapidly; and at low water the bar at the entrance is dry. During our stay we surveyed the major portion of the bay, finding nothing under 150 fathoms of water at one-third of a mile from the shore. We found here a Mr. Hart, who had been left at this place in consequence of his precarious state, from a gun-shot wound he had received on the Coti River (Borneo). Mr. Hart was a volunteer in the ill-fated expedition undertaken by Mr. Murray, who attempted to establish a colony in the Coti River, and who lost his life in an encounter with the natives. The vessels employed--a brig and a schooner--were fitting out at Hong Kong while we were there. We fell in with the schooner (the Young Queen) the day after we left Manilla. The captain of her came on board to give us the intelligence of the failure of the expedition, with the death of its leader. Misfortune appeared to cling to them, for, soon after the schooner left Coti, the crew of her mutinied, and the mutiny was not put down but by the death of the ringleader, who was shot by the commander. He was bound to Hong Kong to deliver himself up for trial for taking the life of the man, and I hardly need observe that he was fully acquitted. This gentleman was a brother of Mr. Hart. On the 26th of May, our observations being completed, we sailed from Monado; Mr. Hart, with the captain's permission, taking advantage of this opportunity of reaching Sincapore. The following day we ran through the Straits of Banca, and steered for Ternate, off which island we arrived on the following Saturday. On Sunday morning, before daylight, we struck heavily on a coral reef, but by dint of great exertion we got off, and floated at six. A boat was despatched to the Dutch governor of the town to state that it was not our intention to anchor. The island of Ternate is, I believe, governed by a sultan, who has sway over several other islands. The Dutch have a settlement here, and have long been on good terms with the ruling powers. It is the most important of the Molucca group, as it produces a vast quantity of cloves, beside every variety of tropical fruits. It was taken by us in 1810, and restored in 1815. This island, as far as I could judge, is perfectly round, and about twenty-five miles in circuit, the land gradually rising to a huge peak in the centre. It is of volcanic formation. It is well wooded, and abounds with game; and on this island the boa constrictor grows to the largest size, being often found upwards of thirty feet in length. The Dutch town is built on the south-east side of the island. The houses appear to be better constructed than those of Monado, and the whole town better arranged. There are several forts, two churches, and apparently about 400 houses. The one occupied by the governor is distinguished from the others by its size, and superiority of architecture and decorations. We obtained quantities of every description of fruit from the boats which crowded round the ship: in addition to shaddocks, pineapples, oranges, bananas, and many other common varieties, we had the delightful treat of the mangosteins, which grow only in these latitudes. It is impossible to describe the peculiarly grateful taste of this cool and refreshing fruit. It is a mixture of the sweet and acid, blended in the most luscious manner. It is in size somewhat smaller than an apple, and the skin, which is very thick and bitter, of a dark plum colour. This when dried is used as a remedy for the dysentery. The inside, which is nearly white, is divided into four parts, resembling in substance a firm jelly; and, in my opinion, gives one more the idea of what nectar was, or ought to be, than any thing else which enters into the mouth of man. We decided that the Peak of Ternate was the true Mount Olympus, and that it was there that the gods were assembled and, in ancient days, ate mangosteins, called nectar by the Greeks. The boat which had been sent on shore to the governor at length returned, and we made sail to the southward, to survey a portion of the coast of Gilolo (another of the Spice Islands), which was supposed to be laid down incorrectly in the charts. On the morning of Monday, the 3rd of June, the ship being off the coast of Gilolo, the gig with the captain, and the barge with several officers, left the ship with four days' provisions to survey a portion of the coast. At 11 A. M. they landed on a reef, running out about a cable's length from a small island. About two in the afternoon a body of natives, armed with spears and krisses, issued with loud yells from the jungle, and advanced towards them. At the same time a prahu pulled round a point, and made towards the barge, which was at anchor about fifty yards from the shore. The captain was at the time on shore taking observations, but as the natives approached he retired to the gig and got the arms in readiness. The natives came within 100 yards of us, and then halted. The captain signed them to go away: they approached nearer; we gave them a volley, and they hastily retreated into the jungle. The barge was now prepared for the expected attack of the prahu, which by this time had approached within point blank range of the barge's gun, which was a brass six-pounder. Observing, it is to be presumed, that the boat was so well-armed, and the men were loading the gun, the prahu ceased pulling, and hoisted Dutch colours. They were ordered to pull for the Gilolo shore, which they did; a rocket fired at them quickening their speed considerably. At 3 P. M. the observations being completed, the astronomical instruments were re-embarked on the barge, and the captain quitted the gig and went into the barge. Both boats were pulled towards the main land. On the in-shore side of the small island I have mentioned, we discovered a village consisting of fifteen or twenty houses. The gig was despatched with two officers to burn the village, which was done; the natives who were in the huts escaping into the jungle. In the mean time, the barge proceeded towards a large village in search of the prahu. On their way they fell in with a large canoe, at anchor in one of the creeks. Taking the canoe in tow, we again took to the oars, and in a short time perceived the natives hauling the prahu into a creek. A round of grape quickly decided the matter; the natives fled, and the prahu was quietly taken possession of by our crew. Having effected our object, we proceeded along the coast with our two prizes in tow. At sunset, after rifling the boats of arms, flags, and gongs, we set them on fire, and made sail to the southward; the gig, which had rejoined us, being in company. About midnight we anchored in a small and lonely bay,--I should say, twenty miles from where the above occurrences took place. We took our meals, but did not attempt to repose till after two in the morning, although we were quite tired after the events of the day before. We then lay down, and composed ourselves to sleep. We had not, however, been recumbent long, ere the sounds of gongs were heard at a distance; and shortly afterwards the man on the look-out reported that three prahus were coming into the bay. A short time sufficed to have every thing in readiness for the expected conflict. The foremost of the prahus approached within ten yards of the barge, lowered her sail, and rounded to. A native, one of the chiefs we presumed, inquired in broken English if we belonged to a ship. The captain would not satisfy him on that point, but desired him to go away. The other two prahus, having been joined by a third (making four in all), had now closed within half pistol shot, and lowered their sails. Seeing that we were completely enclosed, a musket-ball was fired over the largest prahu. The men in the prahus gave their accustomed yell, and the whole force advanced towards us. The six-pounder, loaded with round and grape, was now fired into the largest prahu; the cries and confusion were great; the crew of the prahu leapt into the water, but few arrived on shore,--they sunk under the fire of our muskets. The three other prahus then commenced a spirited fire from their guns and small arms, assisted by a flight of arrows and spears. Pulling within twenty yards of them, we plied them alternately with grape and canister from our six-pounder. The engagement continued with great vigour for some time, when their fire slackened; and shortly afterwards two more of the prahus were deserted by their crews, who made for the shore; the fourth made off. The three prahus were taken possession of, towed into deep water, and anchored. Leaving the gig in charge of them, we went in pursuit of the fourth prahu, and soon came up with her; but her crew escaped by running the boat on shore. Another prahu now hove in sight, pulling, or rather paddling, towards us. Leaving our prize, we faced our new antagonist, saluting her with grape and musquetry, and causing so much havoc, that, shrieking and yelling, they made for the nearest shore without returning a single shot. We followed her, firing into her as fast as possible. On coming up with her we found her aground, with six dead and one mortally wounded; the remainder of the crew had saved themselves by wading to the shore. After getting this prahu afloat, we brought the other prahu, which we had just before captured (No. 4.), alongside. This boat was crowded with dead and dying. Among the latter was a female child, apparently about eight months old, in a state of nudity. The poor little creature's left arm was nearly severed from its body by a grape shot. She was removed into the boat, where the rest of the wounded were placed, with as much care as possible. A low moaning sound escaped from her lips, her eyes were glazed, and she evidently was fast dying: it would have been a mercy to have put an end to her sufferings. The dead were then thrown overboard, and the prahu set on fire; the last prahu, containing the wounded, was left to her fate. It was now daylight, and on looking around we perceived five more prahus off a point between the gig and ourselves in the barge and several others pulling in from seaward. We gave way for the five prahus, which were drawn up in a line ready to receive us. Notwithstanding their fire, assisted by their spears and other missiles, we pulled within fifteen yards of the outermost prahu of the five, and discharged our gun, accompanied by a volley of musquetry. The other prahus now closed and poured in a heavy fire; but, although the barge was struck, not one of our men was injured. The repeated fire from the boats soon caused the people in the prahus to make for the shore through the water, when many of them fell from our musquetry. It was now about six o'clock in the morning, our last charge of canister shot was in the gun, the last rocket in the tube, and nearly all the percussion caps expended. The barge was pulled closer to the nearest prahu to give more effect to the discharge, and the captain was in the stern of the barge with the rocket tube in hand, when one of the prahus on shore fired her swivel; the ball struck the captain, and knocked him overboard. He was hauled in, and we found that he had received a severe wound in the groin, which was dressed by the surgeon. _Lieutenant Baugh_ now took the command, and the gun was discharged with good effect, and all the people on board of the prahus, who were able to escape, made for the shore. One of our marines was wounded in the neck with an arrow, and, with the exception of the captain, no other casualty took place. The fight would have been continued with the round shot still left in the barge, but the assistant surgeon was anxious that the captain should return to the ship and have the ball extracted. The barge therefore pulled for the ship, whose royals were just visible above the horizon. The pirates, finding that we were retreating, returned to their prahus and fired their guns at us, but without effect. We arrived on board about 9 A. M., and the ship's head was put towards the scene of action, while the barge and two cutters were despatched in search of the gig, of whose safety we had great doubts. About 11.30, A.M., the second cutter, being in advance, discovered a sail in shore, and which, by the aid of our telescopes, we made out to be the gig. When we closed with her, and found that all was right we were greatly relieved. We heard from Mr. Hooper, the purser, who was in her, that after waiting in vain for the barge's return, he set fire to the prahus. In one of them he found a woman and child alive, whom he landed at the nearest point. He then pulled in the direction we had gone, being guided by the sound of our guns. On his arrival in the bay we were not in sight, and perceiving several prahus with flags flying and gongs beating, he naturally concluded that we had been overpowered, and he was making the best of his way towards the ship. The boats continued pulling towards the shore, leaving the gig to return to the ship and ease the minds of the ship's company respecting her safety. On our arrival in the bay with the barge and cutters, we found that the prahus had hauled into a creek, on the banks of which was a masked battery, which opened a spirited fire upon us as soon as we came within range. After an hour's cannonading on both sides we were joined by the gig, with orders for us not to land, but to return to the ship at sunset. This order was not received with pleasure, as we hoped to have a chance of punishing the fellows a little more. We pulled a short distance along the coast, and entered another bay, in which we destroyed two prahus; after which we returned to the ship. Calms, and a strong current setting to the northward, detained the ship near the scene of action for several days. We at length passed through the straits of Patientia, but did not get the breeze until we sighted the Isle of Bouro. Passing through the Bonta passage, straits of Salayer, and Java sea, we arrived at Sincapore on the 28th of June. Here we found the Harlequin, which had had a brush with the pirates on the coast of Sumatra. The Harlequin, Wanderer, and Diana were sent to the villages of Micedo and Batta, to demand the murderers of an English captain. On the rajah refusing to deliver them up, the vessels opened their fire and burnt the villages. The Harlequin lost two men killed and five wounded; among the latter was Lieutenant Chads, whose arm was nearly severed by a Malay kris. While here the Superb arrived from Hong Kong on her way to England; the Driver, with Sir Henry Pottinger on board; and the Cambrian, Commodore Chads. Also the Iris from England, and the Dido from Hong Kong, which latter vessel sailed for Sarawak. I may as well here remark, that the Dutch made a formal complaint against our captain for having attacked their prahus, which they asserted were not pirates, but employed by them against the pirates. It is but fair to give the arguments that were used against us, particularly as the authorities at Sincapore appeared to think that we were to blame. They said, you were in boats, and you touched at Gillolo; the natives, accustomed to be taken off by the Illanoan pirates, were naturally jealous and suspicious, seeing no vessel. They came alone, armed, to ascertain who you were. At 100 yards they stopped; you signalled them to go away, and they advanced nearer to you, but they committed no act of hostility. You fired a volley at them, and they retreated. Here the aggression was on your side. At the same time, you say, a war prahu pulled round the point, and approached to within range; when the prahu was close to you she ceased paddling, and hoisted Dutch colours. You desired it to pull for the Gillolo shore, which it did. There was no aggression in this instance, and nothing piratical in the conduct of the prahu. After she had obeyed your order to pull to the Gillolo shore, you wantonly fired a Congreve rocket at her; your conduct in this instance being much more like that of a pirate than hers. In the afternoon you pull along the Gillolo shore, and you discover a village; you send your boat ashore and set fire to it. Why so? You state that you were attacked by Illanoan pirates, who reside at Tampassook, some hundred miles from Gillolo, and you then burn the village of the people of Gillolo, and that without the least aggression on their part. Is it surprising that you should be supposed to be pirates after such wanton outrage? To proceed: you state that you then go in search of the prahu which you ordered away, and that on your way you captured a large canoe, which you take in tow, and afterwards perceive the pirates hauling their vessel into a creek. You attack them, and they run away, leaving the prahu in your possession, and, as usual, after rifling the prahu and canoe, you set them on fire. Up to this point there has been nothing but aggression on your part; and it is not, therefore, surprising that you were supposed to be pirates, and that the communication was made along the coast, and the vessels employed against the pirates were summoned for its protection. Again, the prahus came out and surrounded you; they did not fire at you, but hailed you in English, requesting to know if you belonged to a ship. Now, if any thing could prove that they were not pirate vessels, it was their doing this; and had you replied, they would have explained to you what their employment was: but you think proper to give no answer to this simple question, order them to go away, and then fire a loaded musket into them, which brings on the conflict which you so much desired. That these observations were true, it must be admitted, and the complaint of the Dutch, with the hoisting of the Dutch flag, gave great weight to them: however, pirates or no pirates, the Admiralty Court, on our arrival in England, considered them to have been such; and, as will be seen by the extract from the "Times" below, awarded head money to the amount of about 10,000l. to the captain and crew of the Samarang, and for his wound received, our captain obtained a pension of (I believe) £250 a year.[1] "ADMIRALTY COURT. (_Before Dr. Lushington._) "ILLANOAN PIRATES.--BOUNTY. "In this case a petition was presented by Sir Edward Belcher, the captain, and the rest of the officers and crew of Her Majesty's ship-of-war Samarang, setting forth that on the 3d of June, 1844, the Samarang being then engaged in surveying duties, and near the island of Gillolo, on her passage towards the Straits of Patientia, Sir E. Belcher, with two officers and four men, quitted her in the gig, accompanied by the second barge, armed with a brass six-pounder gun and small arms, and manned with twenty officers and men. While engaged on the extreme side of a reef, extending from a small islet, in taking astronomical observations, they were disturbed by an extraordinary yell proceeding from about forty men of colour, who were advancing from the islet along both sides of the reef, with the evident intention of surrounding Sir E. Belcher and his party, on nearing whom they commenced hurling spears and arrows, though without effect. They were soon repulsed and put to flight by musketry. In the course of the day several large prahus made their appearance, manned by large crews of Malay pirates, and severe conflicts took place between the respective parties, in one of which a ball from the leading prahu struck Sir E. Belcher on the thigh, and knocked him overboard, severely and dangerously wounding him; but, having been lifted out of the water, and dragged into the barge, _he shortly after resumed the command_, and ultimately succeeded in destroying all the prahus. "Dr. Addams applied to the Court to award the bounties specified in the 6th of George IV. c. 49. for the capture and destruction of piratical ships and vessels. He submitted that the affidavits produced clearly showed the character of the persons on board the prahus, and that not less than 1,330 persons were alive on board the several prahus at the beginning of the attack, 350 of whom were killed. "The Queen's Advocate, on behalf of the Crown, admitted that a very meritorious service had been performed, and made no opposition to the application. "The Court pronounced for the usual bounties on the number of pirates stated." [Footnote 1: The account of this transaction is taken from the private log of one of the officers who was present in the barge during the whole time. I was not there myself. In his narrative it will be observed that he makes no mention of the natives who came down upon them having _thrown spears_ at them, although in the extract from the "Times" it is so stated. It would appear also that there was some mistake as to the number of men on board of the prahus and the number killed. A war prahu generally contains from fifty to eighty men. Some are smaller, and occasionally they are larger, but not often. Capt. Keppell states fifty men to be the usual number in his work; and, in his conflict with the pirates, estimates the force accordingly. Now the first day there was one war prahu, which ran up a creek; and, on being fired at, the crew deserted her. On the second day there were five prahus, all captured. On the third day the five prahus engaged were not captured, the boat returning to the ship after the captain was wounded; so that in all it appears that there were nine prahus; and, allowing eighty men to each, the force would only amount to 720 men, or about one half of the number stated, viz. 1330. How the killed, amounting to 350, or about half the number, were arrived at and estimated, it is impossible to say; but in the narrative of the officer, which I have given, the major portion of the crews deserted the prahus and got on shore.] Our captain having now nearly recovered from the wound which he had received, we found that our destination was Borneo; but previous to the ship getting under weigh, the boats were ordered to be manned and armed, to proceed on an excursion to Romania Point, distant about thirty miles from Sincapore. It was expected that we might there fall in with some of the piratical vessels which so completely infest the Indian Archipelago; and if so, we trusted to give them a lesson which might for a time put a check to their nefarious and cruel system of plunder and rapine. I found that my name was down in the list of the party selected for the expedition. Bidding, therefore, a temporary adieu to Sincapore, on the 2d of August we set off on the expedition, with a force consisting of two barges, one cutter, and a gun-boat belonging to the merchants of Sincapore, which had been expressly built to resist any attacks of these bold assailants. Although the real object of the expedition was, as I have above stated, to fall in with the pirates, our ostensible one was to survey the islands off the Point Romania, which is the most unfrequented part of the Malay peninsula. We arrived there late at night, as ignorant whether the pirates were there, as the pirates would have been of our arrival. We had, therefore, nothing to do but to anchor close under the land, and keep a sharp look-out, in case of being the attacked instead of the attacking party. As we were not indifferently provided with the creature comforts which Sincapore afforded, we amused ourselves pretty well; but if we occasionally opened our mouths, we took good care not to shut our eyes, and were constantly on the alert. There is a far from pleasant feeling attached to lying in an open boat, in a night as dark as pitch, expecting a momentary attack from an insidious enemy, and wholly in a state of uncertainty as to from what quarter it may be made, or as to what odds you may be exposed. Under these circumstances, we remained in watching and silence during a night which appeared interminably long; and daylight was gladly welcomed by the whole party; and when it arrived we found ourselves anchored among a crowd of small islands, which were covered from the beach to their summits with the most luxuriant foliage. Within shore of us was a beautiful little sandy bay; while the whole coast, as far as the eye could reach, was one extended jungle, by all accounts extending many hundred miles inland, and infested with tigers and other beasts of prey. As for pirates, we saw nothing of them, or any signs of their having been in that quarter; either they were away on some distant marauding party, or, having received intelligence of our approach and force, had considered us too strong to be opposed, and had kept out of the way. Our warlike expedition, therefore, was soon changed into a sort of pic-nic party--we amused ourselves with bathing, turning of turtle, shooting, and eating the wild pine-apples which grew on all the islands. We remained there for three days, during which nothing occurred worth narrating, unless it is an instance of the thoughtless and reckless conduct of midshipmen. We were pulling leisurely along the coast in one of the boats, when we perceived a very large Bengal tiger taking an evening stroll, and who, by the motion of his tail, was evidently in a state of much self-satisfaction. We winded the boat's head towards him, and were preparing to give him a round of grape from the gun, but before we could get the gun well pointed, he retreated majestically into the jungle, which was in the bight of a small bay, and cut off from the main jungle by some large rocks. Three of our party immediately declared that they would have a tiger-hunt, and bring back his skin as a trophy. They landed, two of them having each a ship's musket, a very uncertain weapon, as they are at present provided, for, whether from damp or careless manufacture, the percussion caps will not often go off; and the third armed with nothing but a knife. On their landing, they took their position on the rocks, and were delighted to find that the tiger could not retreat to the main jungle without passing them. They had not long taken up their position before they heard the crackling of the wood in the jungle, announcing the tiger's approach towards them. They fixed their bayonets and cocked their locks; the young gentleman with the knife was also prepared; but the noise in the jungle ceased. Whether it was that the tiger was afraid to attack three at the same time, or was making a circuit for a more convenient spring upon them, certain it is that our three young gentlemen either became tired of waiting for him, or had thought better of their mad attempt. One proposed returning to the boat, the others assented; and after denouncing the tiger as a coward, and wholly unworthy of the name of a royal tiger, they commenced their retreat as the dark set in; gradually their pace quickened, in two minutes they were in a hard trot; at last the panic took them all, and by the time they arrived at the boats they could not speak from want of breath, so hurried had been their retreat. We sincerely congratulated them upon their arrival safe and sound, and having escaped without loss of life and limb from a very mad adventure. I subsequently related this incident to an old Indian sportsman, who told me that my messmates had had a most fortunate escape, as they would have had little or no chance had the tiger made his spring, which he certainly would have done had they remained much longer, and that one of them at least must have been sacrificed. On the morning of the fourth day, the ship, having made sail from Sincapore, hove in sight, and picked us up. The boats were hoisted in, and we steered for Borneo, to complete some surveys on the north-east coast. The island of Borneo, throughout the whole of the N. E. coast, is, with few exceptions, a low land, covered with jungle; but so beautifully verdant does it appear when viewed from some distance, that you would be led to suppose that it was widely cultivated. This idea is, however, soon dispelled on a near approach, when you discover the rich groups of acacias, palms, pandani, and numerous trees as yet unknown, so luxuriant in themselves, but forming one entangled mass, alike impenetrable to European or native. What, in the distant view, we fancied a verdant meadow, where we might relax from our long confinement, and amuse ourselves with recreation, now proved to be ranges of long damp grass, interspersed with swamps, and infested with venomous snakes. In short, I never yet was on a coast which, on arriving on it, promised so much, and, on landing, caused such a series of disappointments to those who love to ramble about, than the coast of Borneo. To the naturalist, however, confined as he is to the shelving beach, there is ample food for employment and research: the island abounds in novel objects of natural history, both in the animal and vegetable kingdom. Nothing certain is as yet ascertained relative to the interior of this immense island, if island it can with propriety be called. From the accounts of the natives (which, however, must be received with due caution), it consists of a large plain, devoid of jungle, and inhabited by cannibals. Two adventurous Dutchmen have latterly set off from Pontiana, the Dutch settlement, on an excursion into the interior; but it is doubtful if they succeed, where so many others have already failed. [Illustration: KEENEY-BALLO. (OOSOKAN BAY, BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] Borneo has but small elevation for so large an island; in the immediate vicinity of Keeney Ballu the country is hilly, but by far the greatest portion of Borneo is but a few feet above the level of the sea. Keeney Ballu is the highest mountain in the island,--its height is estimated at 14,000 feet or more,--and it can be seen at 150 miles distant on a very clear day. It is very singular that there should be a mountain of so great a height rising from an island of otherwise low land. Near Sarawak there is mountainous country, where live the Dyaks, previously described, and a mountain of the name of Santabong, which has already been made mention of. On the S. E. coast of the island we saw no elevation of land of any consequence. I have given a drawing of the mountain of Keeney Ballu, distant forty miles. At this distance, with the aid of the glass, you may perceive the numerous cascades which fall from its summit in every direction. The Dyaks of Borneo imagine that a lake exists at the top of this mountain, and that it is to be their receptacle after death. As the island is in most parts a flat and marshy jungle, extending about 200 miles inland, and the rivers are not rapid, although numerous, it would be presumed, especially as the dews of the night are very heavy, that the island would be fatal to Europeans. Such, however, proved not to be the case. During our repeated visits to the island (a period of nearly two years), we only lost one man, by a most imprudent exposure to the night air, sleeping in an open boat, without the awning being spread, and exposed to a very heavy dew. Borneo abounds with rivers, some of them very fine, running inland for one or two hundred miles. Most of these rivers have been taken possession of and colonised by the various tribes indigenous to the neighbouring isles and continent, to wit, Arabs, Malays, Illanoans, Bughis, the natives of Celebes, Chinese, &c. The reason for this emigration to Borneo is the protection afforded by these rivers; for as all these tribes live entirely by piracy, they here find a safe retreat for themselves and their vessels. How long ago their settlements may have been first made, or what opposition they may have received from the Dyak aborigines, it is impossible to say; but as most of the head men in Borneo claim to be of Arab descent, it may be presumed that many years must have elapsed since the aboriginal tribes of Dyaks and Dusums were dispossessed of the rivers, and driven into the interior. Of these people I shall speak hereafter; there is no doubt but that they were the original inhabitants of the whole island, and that the various tribes I have mentioned are but colonists for piratical purposes. These piratical hordes generally infest the high lands upon the shores of these rivers, which are difficult of navigation; and, moreover, from their numerous branches, their resorts are not very easily discovered. These towns are fortified with stockades, guns of various calibre, and the passage up the river defended by booms or piles of timber, which admit of but one narrow passage for their prahus. It must be understood that these piratical hordes are not only independent of each other, but often at war, in consequence of their spoliations. Some of their chiefs have taken upon them the titles of princes; and one has assumed, as is well known, that of Sultan of Borneo, another of Sooloo,--how far entitled to such a rank it would be difficult to say; but this is certain, that there must be a beginning to every dynasty; and if we trace back far into history, we shall find, both at home and abroad, that most dynasties have had their origin in freebooting on a grand scale,--even the House of Hapsburg itself is derived from no better an origin; and the Sultan of Borneo, whoever he may be, and if a Sultan does exist, some 800 years hence will, by the antiquity of his title, prove his high descent, as the German emperor now does his own. On the 20th of August we came to an anchor at the mouth of the Sarawak river, where we remained three weeks completing some very important surveys. When our work was done, the captain, accompanied by several officers, went up the river. On our arrival at Kuchin, we found the Dido corvette, commanded by Captain Keppell, lying abreast of the town. We also found that Kuchin was at present nearly deserted, as the Dido's boats, with the Phlegethon steamer, and all the native war prahus which could be mustered, had proceeded with Mr. Brooke to the Sakarron, a neighbouring river, to punish some of the mixed tribes who had lately been detected in an act of flagrant piracy. On the change of the tide we started for the Sakarron, with the hope of gaining the Dido's boats, and rendering them some assistance. Our men exerted themselves to the utmost; but it requires time to pull eighty miles; and I will therefore, _en voyage_, explain more fully the cause and the object of the expedition. The river Sakarron, with its tributaries, the Linga and Serebis, have been for a long while in the possession of a proverbial piratical tribe of Malays, governed by chiefs, who are of Arab descent, and much better acquainted with the art of war than those lawless communions are in general. Their towers and fastnesses on the banks of their rivers they have contrived to fortify in a very superior manner. Living wholly by the proceeds of their piratical excursions, and, aware of the efforts made by the European rajah, Mr. Brooke, to put it down, they resolved to take the first opportunity which might offer to show their hostility and contempt to their new-raised enemy. The occasion soon presented itself. Seven of the Kuchin Malays, having ventured in a canoe up the Sakarron river, were all murdered, and their heads cut off, and kept, as usual, as trophies; and the intelligence of this outrage communicated by them to Mr. Brooke, with defiance. Captain Keppell, of the Dido, had just arrived at Sarawak when this news was brought to Mr. Brooke. Captain Keppell had been sent by Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane to the island on purpose to look out for pirates, and to destroy them and their nests wherever he could find them. He therefore gladly offered his assistance to Mr. Brooke to punish these murderous wretches; and the Phlegethon steamer coming in while they were preparing for the expedition, was, of course, added to the force employed. This fortunate accession of strength, assisted by all the Malay war boats which Mr. Brooke could muster, enabled them to give an effectual check to a band of pirates, so numerous and so warlike as to have become most formidable. To proceed:-- That night we anchored with the last of the flood at the entrance of the Sakarron. We had great fear, from the intelligence we had received from time to time, from boats we fell in with on our passage, that we should arrive too late to be partakers of the affray; and so it proved, for the next morning, while proceeding higher up the river, we perceived a large force of native boats coming down with the ebb, and all of them filled to the gunwale with plunder. The Malay and Dyak canoes are made out of a hollowed tree, or, as they are termed in many ports of India, "dug-outs." They are long and narrow, and are capable of being propelled with great swiftness. Although very easy to capsize, they are constantly loaded till so deep that at the least inclination the water pours over the gunwale, and one man is usually employed baling with a scoop made out of a banana leaf. Custom, however, makes them so used to keep the equilibrium, that you often see the Dyaks, whose canoes are similar to the Malays', standing upright and propelling them with their spears. [Illustration: NATIVE BOAT--BORNEO.] The Malay war-boat, or _prahu_, is built of timber at the lower part, the upper is of bamboo, rattan, and kedgang (the dried leaf of the Nepa palm). Outside the bends, about a foot from the water line, runs a strong gallery, in which the rowers sit cross-legged. At the after-part of the boat is a cabin for the chief who commands, and the whole of the vessel is surmounted by a strong flat roof, upon which they fight, their principal weapons being the kris and spear, both of which, to be used with effect, require elbow-room. The Dyak war-boat is a long built canoe, more substantially constructed than the prahu of the Malays, and sufficiently capacious to hold from seventy to eighty men. This also has a roof to fight from. They are generally painted, and the stern ornamented with feathers. Both descriptions of war-boats are remarkably swift, notwithstanding such apparent top-weight. To proceed:-- [Illustration: DYAK WAR PRAHU.] We hove to, to speak to those on board of the canoes, and were informed by them that the pirates had sustained a severe defeat, and that the European force was about to descend the river on their return to Kuchin. As a proof of the victory having been gained, they produced several heads which had been taken in the fight. We proceeded about six miles further up the river, when we discovered the European boats and crews lying at anchor abreast of the smoking ruins of what had been a Malay town. Here we learnt that the pirates had been completely routed, after a desperate resistance, that four large towns had been burnt, and seventy-five brass guns of the country, called leilas, had been captured. The victory, however, had not been gained without loss on our side, and had the pirates been better prepared, we must have suffered much more. Several of the people of Kuchin had been killed, and of Europeans we had to lament the loss of Mr. Wade, first lieutenant of the Dido, and formerly of the Samarang, and Mr. Stewart, one of the residents at Kuchin; the latter gentleman lost his life by an excess of zeal which quite overcame all prudence. Mr. Wade had landed with his men after an attack and capture of a fort, and when in advance received a bullet in the heart. He fell instantly dead; his body was recovered by his shipmates, and borne to the boat, and during a temporary cessation of hostilities was conveyed to the river. His loss was much deplored by his shipmates in both vessels, by whom he was respected as an officer, and beloved as a friend. Mr. Stewart, pulling in advance in a small canoe, with some of the natives belonging to Kuchin, was suddenly pounced upon by three or four of the enemy's prahus full of men. They ran down the canoe, and thus were Mr. Stewart and his companions at their mercy. Mercy!--a wrong term to use when speaking of those who never show any. They were all krissed, to the number of seventeen, in sight of their companions in the other boats, who were too far behind to arrive in time to render them any assistance, although it hardly need be said that every effort was made. The last that was seen of poor Stewart was his body being carried by one of the Dyaks into the jungle by the side of the river, and the fellow was so anxious to obtain the much-valued trophy of a white man's head, that, as he bore it along, he kept his knife sawing at the head to sever it from the body. Indeed, so much do these people value a white man's head, that they will build a separate room on purpose to contain it. Whilst lying at this place, riding to a strong flood tide, a canoe floated past us, in which we could discern two dead bodies; they were both dressed as Malays, and the garments were good. Over the bows of the canoe there hung a handsomely ornamented kris. We tried to hook the canoe with the boat-hook, but the strength of the tide was so great that we could not succeed in securing it, and it floated away with the stream. We presumed that they were the bodies of some of the Malays killed in the recent conflict, who probably inhabited a higher portion of the river, and that they had been put into the canoe by their friends to be carried home, and had been swept away by the tide from not having been securely fastened, for nothing would have induced the enemy thus to make us a present of _two heads_. "We weighed, in company with the steamer and boats, on the same evening, and returned to Kuchin, where we arrived on the following day. The men-of-war boats having been towed by the steamer, we arrived some time before the native prahus belonging to the river, which had accompanied us. On the following day they arrived, and the scene was novel and interesting. They all rounded the point together, dressed out with flags of all descriptions, beating their gongs and tom-toms, and firing blank cartridges from their "Leilas." Highly elated with their victory, and with the plunder which had accompanied it, they celebrated it by all getting excessively drunk that night upon shamsoo. We remained at Kuchin for three days, enjoying Mr. Brooke's hospitality; and during that time it was proposed and arranged that we should pay a visit to the river Loondoo, the residence of a very remarkable tribe of Dyaks under Mr. Brooke's authority; but not being able to fix the exact period for the visit, on that night we returned to the ship. We had not been much more than twenty-four hours on board, when the captain, who had been away, returned at midnight; and, at this unusual hour, ordered all the boats, manned and armed, to be piped away immediately. We were informed that the river Sakarron was again our destination; and at four o'clock in the morning we started, with fourteen days' provisions, and armed to the teeth, to join the Dido's boats at the mouth of the river Morotabis, from thence to be towed with them by the steamer to our destination. The cause of this new expedition was the intelligence that the Arab chief, Serib Saib, who had escaped during the late conflict, had returned to the Sakarron to collect together and re-organize his piratical subjects. We soon arrived at the same spot which we had before visited when the town had been burnt down; but the expedition proved to be one of little interest. Notwithstanding his threats, Serib Saib's confidence gave way at the approach of our force, and he made a precipitate retreat up the river, accompanied by four or five hundred of his warriors. Nevertheless, we continued to force our way up the river, with the expectation that, when fairly at bay, he would make a stand. Our advance was made known to the enemy by fires lighted on the different hills abreast of the boats. This speedy mode of communication is adopted by all the natives in this part of the world. Determined not to abandon the pursuit while a chance remained, we followed the redoubtable Serib Saib for eighty miles up the river, which in some parts was too narrow for our boats' crews to make use of their oars; but all obstacles were overcome in the ardour of the chase. To impede our progress, large trees had been felled so as to fall across the river where it was narrow; but these were removed, and we forced our way on. At last the river, as we approached the source, became little wider than a ditch, the barges grounded, and could proceed no farther; the gigs only could float, and we continued, till, after forty-eight hours of severe labour, we found ourselves at the head of the river; and we also discovered that Serib Saib had escaped, having with his whole force landed, and made his way through the jungle into the interior, leaving at our disposal the forty war canoes which had carried him and his men. To follow him was impossible; so we were obliged to content ourselves with the capture of the war canoes, which were all that we had to show for our exertions. Disappointed, and hungry withal, we were not sorry to find ourselves once more with our heads down the river. I must not omit, however, to narrate a little trick played upon our gallant captain. I have stated that the river was so narrow near its source that we could not use the oars, and the gigs, which continued the pursuit, had to be hauled through the bushes by the boat-hooks. Returning to where the larger boats had been left aground, our bow-man, who was employed shooting the gig along by such aid as the branches of the trees, or the tendrils which hung to them, afforded him, stuck his boat-hook into what appeared to be a suspended ball of moss; but he soon discovered that it was something more, as it was a nest of hornets, which sallied out in great numbers, and resented the insult to their domicile by attacking the bowman first, as the principal aggressor, and us afterwards, as parties concerned. Now the sting of a hornet is no joke; we covered our faces with our handkerchiefs, or any thing we could find, and made a hasty retreat from the spot, pushing the gig down the stream, till we were clear of their attacks. In the hurry of our escape we left the boat-hook hanging in the hornet's nest, and not feeling at all inclined to go back for it, we hailed the captain's gig, which was following us, and requested very humbly that they would be pleased to recover our boat-hook for us, as we could not well re-ascend the stream from the want of it. As we did not mention that it was so peculiarly situated, the captain saw no objection, and as they came to where it hung, his bow-man caught hold of the staff, and wrested it from its position; but this time such force was used that the tendril gave way, and the nest itself fell down into the boat, and the irritated insects poured out their whole force to revenge this second aggression. The insects after all appeared to have a knowledge of the service, for they served out their stings in the same proportion as the prize-money is divided: the captain came in for his full share. Returning rather in a bad humour at having had so long a pull for nothing, we anchored off a fortified Malay town, which went by the name of Bintang, and which had been brought to terms by Captain Keppell on a previous expedition up the river. The people had consequently remained neutral, although it was well known that they were not to be trusted, and that, had we been defeated above and beaten back, they would, in all probability, have attacked us in the rear. As the evening closed in, by way of astonishing the natives, and giving them some idea of our perfect equipment, the boats were directed to give a _feu-de-joie_. Some fifteen guns, with rockets, port-fires, blue lights, supported by a well-sustained roulade of musketry, had a very warlike effect; and, no doubt, gave the natives an impression of our superiority in the use of fire-arms. At the conclusion, Captain Keppell, who was always ready for fun, gave out the order that all hands were to join in "God save the Queen," taking the time from him. A dead silence was immediately produced, waiting for him to lead off, which he did; but, to our great amusement, he, by mistake, commenced with "Rule Britannia;" and this, being more to the seamen's taste, certainly, as far as lungs were concerned, was done most ample justice to. The saying is, "No song no supper;" of course it must be presumed that a song deserves a supper. It proved so in this instance; for just as the chorus was hushed, the Sultan of Bintang, as he styles himself, sent off to the head boat (the one I happened to be in) a superb supper for seven people, consisting of seven bronze trays, each tray containing about a dozen small plates, in which were many varieties of flesh and fowl cooked in a very superior manner. To each tray was a spoon, made of the yellow leaf of some tree unknown; but, as specimens of primitive elegance and utility combined, they were matchless. We had some doubts, from our knowledge of the treachery of the Malays, whether we should fall to upon these appetising viands, as there was no saying but that they might be poisoned. Mr. Brooke, however, who, although not the commandant, was the mentor of the party, explained that he invariably observed one rule when treating and dealing with these people,--which was, never to exhibit any unworthy suspicion of them, as, by so doing, they became convinced of our own integrity and honour. That this confidence might have, in many instances, proved dangerous, unless adopted with great caution, must be admitted; but in our relations with the people on the rivers of Borneo it was of great service. The Malays are so very suspicious themselves, that nothing but confidence on your part will remove the feeling; and, in treating with Malays, this is the first object to be obtained. The remarks of Mr. Brooke, which were not a little assisted by the tempting nature of the viands, and no small degree of hunger, had the effect, and the trays were all cleared out in consequence. While I was in this river I was capsized by a _bore_. This, I must explain to my non-nautical readers, is a huge rolling wave, which is as upright as a wall, and travels almost as fast as a locomotive. It is occasioned by the flood tide pouring in and overcoming the feeders to the river, forcing them back to their source. On this occasion I was pulling down the river in a small gig, following the other boats, which had turned up another branch of it, when I perceived it rapidly advancing, and making a noise not unlike the animal of the same name, only a great deal louder. Had I been steering a straight course down the river I should have faced it, and probably have got off with the boat half full of water; but I calculated upon reaching the point and entering the branch of the river before its arrival. But I had not calculated upon its speed, and a strong eddy current at the point was wicked enough to draw our boat broadside to the middle of the stream. The wall of water rushed on us, turned us over and over; but fortunately by its force it also threw us all, with the gig, upon the point. It did not, however, throw us our oars, which were performing a _pas de quatre_ in a whirlpool close to us. This was a narrow escape, as, had we remained in the agitated waters, the alligators would soon have dragged us under. For two minutes the river was in a state of ebullition, but gradually subsided. We then launched the boat, regained our oars, and proceeded to join our comrades. Thankful as we were for our lives having been preserved, still as we were wet through and had lost all our provisions and necessaries, we were compelled to admit that it was a very great bore. Shortly after our leaving this river a fatal accident happened to one of our best men. The wind was blowing a heavy gale from the westward, accompanied by thunder and lightning, such as is only to be seen and heard on the coast of Borneo. The carpenters were on shore felling trees for masts and yards, and as we were anchored some distance from the shore a tent was pitched for their accommodation. They had not been in the tent long when a large iron-wood tree was struck by lightning, and fell, burying one of the carpenters, Miller by name, in the sand underneath it. He was extricated with great difficulty; but before any surgical assistance could be rendered him he was a corpse. On examination most of his bones were found to be crushed. Soon after our return from the Sakarron the expedition to Loondoo was arranged, and we started in the barge and gig, accompanied by Captain Keppell in his own boat, and Mr. Brooke and Hentig in one of the native boats, called a Tam-bang. The distance was about forty miles, and we should have arrived at four o'clock in the afternoon, but, owing to the narrowness of the channel, and a want of knowledge of the river, we grounded on the flats, where we lay high and dry for the space of four hours. Floating with the following tide, we discovered the proper channel, and found our way up the river, although the night was dark as pitch: when near the town, we anchored for daylight. I may as well here give a slight description of the scenery on the Borneo rivers, all of which, that we have visited, with the exception of the Bruni, bear a close resemblance to each other. They are far from picturesque or beautiful, for the banks are generally low, and the jungle invariably extends to the water's edge. For the first fifteen or twenty miles the banks are lined with the nepa-palms, which then gradually disappear, leaving the mangrove alone to clothe the sides of the stream. When you enter these rivers, it is rare to see any thing like a human habitation for many miles; reach after reach, the same double line of rich foliage is presented, varying only in the description of trees and bushes as the water becomes more fresh; now and then a small canoe may be seen rounding a point, or you may pass the stakes which denote that formerly there had been a fishing station. At last a hut appears on the bank, probably flanked with one or two Banana trees. You turn into the next reach and suddenly find yourself close to one or more populous and fortified towns. As you ascend higher the scenery becomes much more interesting and varied from the mangroves disappearing. Few of the rivers of Borneo are more than eighty miles in extent. The two rivers of Bruni and Coran are supposed to meet in the centre of the island, although for many miles near their source they are not much wider than a common ditch. Before day-light of the following morning our slumbers were disturbed by the crowing of a whole army of cocks, which assured us of the proximity of the town we were in search of. We got under weigh, and, rounding the point, Loondoo hove in sight, a fine town, built in a grove of cocoa-nut trees, and by no means despicably fortified. We found our progress arrested by a boom composed of huge trees fastened together by coir cables, and extending the whole width of the river. Had our intentions been hostile, it would have taken some time to have cut the fastenings of this boom, and we should, during the operation, have been exposed to a double line of fire from two forts raised on each side of the river. The Chief of Loondoo had, however, been duly advised of our intended visit, and as soon as our boats were seen from the town, a head-man was sent out in a canoe to usher us in. After a little delay we got the barge within the boom. When within, we found that we had further reason to congratulate ourselves that we came as friends, as the raking fire from the forts would have been most effectual, for we discovered that we had to pass an inner boom equally well secured as the first. The town was surrounded by a strong stockade made of the trunks of the knee-bone palm, a wood superior in durability to any known. This stockade had but one opening of any dimensions. A few strokes of the oars brought us abreast of it, and we let go our anchors. The eldest son of the Chief came to us immediately in a canoe. He was a splendidly formed young man, about twenty-five years old. He wore his hair long and flowing, his countenance was open and ingenuous, his eyes black and knowing. His dress was a light blue velvet jacket without sleeves, and a many-coloured sash wound round his waist. His arms and legs, which were symmetrical to admiration, were naked, but encircled with a profusion of heavy brass rings. He brought a present of fowls, cocoa-nuts, and bananas to Mr. Brooke from his father, and an invitation for us to pay him a visit at his house whenever we should feel inclined. [Illustration: DYAK WOMEN IN CANOE.] Preparatory to landing, we began performing our ablutions in the boat, much to the amusement and delight of the naked groups of Dyaks who were assembled at the landing place, and who eyed us in mute astonishment. The application of a hair brush was the signal for a general burst of laughter, but cleaning the teeth with a tooth brush caused a scream of wonder, a perfect yell, I presume at our barbarous customs. There were many women among the groups; they appeared to be well made, and more than tolerably good looking. I need not enter into a very minute description of their attire, for, truth to say, they had advanced very little beyond the costume of our common mother Eve. We were soon in closer contact with them, for one of our party throwing out of the boat a common black bottle, half a dozen of the women plunged into the stream to gain possession of it. They swam to the side of our boat without any reserve, and then a struggle ensued as to who should be the fortunate owner of the prize. It was gained by a fine young girl of about seventeen years of age, and who had a splendid pair of black eyes. She swam like a frog, and with her long hair streaming in the water behind her, came pretty well up to our ideas of a mermaid. As we had contrived to empty a considerable number of these bottles during our expedition, they were now thrown overboard in every direction. This occasioned a great increase of the floating party, it being joined by all the other women on the beach, and for more than half an hour we amused ourselves with the exertions and contentions of our charming naiads, to obtain what they appeared to prize so much; at last all our empty bottles were gone, and the women swam on shore with them, as much delighted with their spoil as we had been amused with their eagerness and activity. About 10 o'clock we landed, and proceeded to pay our visit to the Chief. We were ushered into a spacious house, built of wood and thatched with leaves, capable of containing at least 400 people. The Chief was sitting on a mat with his three sons by his side, and attended by all his warriors. The remainder of the space within was occupied by as many of the natives as could find room; those who could not, remained in the court-yard outside. The Chief, who was a fine looking grey-bearded man of about sixty years of age, was dressed in velvet, and wore on his head a turban of embroidered silk. The three sons were dressed in the way I have already described the one to have been who came to us in the canoe. Without exception, those three young men were the most symmetrical in form I have ever seen. The unrestrained state of nature in which these Dyaks live, gives to them a natural grace and an easiness of posture, which is their chief characteristic. After the usual greetings and salutations had been passed through, we all sat down on mats and cushions which had been arranged for us; a short conversation with Mr. Brooke, who speaks the language fluently, then took place between him and the Chief, after which refreshments were set before us. These consisted of various eatables and sweetmeats made of rice, honey, sugar, flour, and oil; and although very simple as a confectionery, they were very palatable. We remained with the Chief about an hour, and before we went away he requested our company in the evening, promising to treat us with a Dyak war dance. We took our leave for the present, and amused ourselves with strolling about the town. I will take this opportunity of making known some information I have at this and at different times obtained relative to this people. The villages of the Dyaks are always built high up, near the source of the rivers, or, should the river below be occupied by the piratical tribes, on the hills adjoining to the source. Their houses are very large, capable of containing two hundred people, and are built of palm leaves. A village or town may consist of fifteen or twenty houses. Several families reside in one house, divided from each other by only a slight partition of mats. Here they take their meals, and employ themselves, without interfering with each other. Their furniture and property are very simple, consisting of a few cooking utensils, the paddles of their canoes, their arms, and a few mats. In all the Dyak villages every precaution is taken to guard against surprise. I have already described the strength and fortifications of Loondoo, and a similar principle is every where adopted. The town being built on the banks of the river, the boom I have described is invariably laid across the stream to prevent the ascent of boats. Commanding the barriers, one or more forts are built on an eminence, mounting within them five or six of the native guns, called leilas. The forts are surrounded by a strong stockade, which is surmounted by a cheveaux-de-frise of split bamboos. These stockaded forts are, with the houses and cocoa nuts adjoining, again surrounded by a strong stockade, which effectually secures them from any night attack. Great respect is paid to the laws and to the mandates of their Chiefs, although it but too often happens that, stimulated by revenge, or other passions, they take the law into their own hands; but if crimes are committed, they are not committed without punishment following them, and some of their punishments are very barbarous and cruel: I have seen a woman with both her hands half-severed at the wrists, and a man with both his ears cut off. The religious ideas of the Dyaks resemble those of the North American Indians: they acknowledge a Supreme Being, or "Great Spirit;" they have also some conception of an hereafter. Many of the tribes imagine that the great mountain Keney Balloo is a place of punishment for guilty departed souls. They are very scrupulous regarding their cemeteries, paying the greatest respect to the graves of their ancestors. When a tribe quits one place to reside at another, they exhume the bones of their relations, and take them with them. I could not discover if they had any marriage ceremony, but they are very jealous of their wives, and visit with great severity any indiscretion on their parts. The Dyaks live principally upon rice, fish, and fruit, and they are very moderate in their living. They extract shamshoo from the palm, but seldom drink it Their principal luxury consists in the chewing the betel-nut and chunam; a habit in which, like all the other inhabitants of these regions, from Arracan down to the island of New Guinea, they indulge to excess. This habit is any thing but becoming, as it renders the teeth quite black, and the lips of a high vermilion, neither of which alterations is any improvement to a copper-coloured face. They both chew and smoke tobacco, but they do not use pipes for smoking; they roll up the tobacco in a strip of dried leaf, take three or four whiffs, emitting the smoke through their nostrils, and then they extinguish it. They are fond of placing a small roll of tobacco between the upper lip and gums, and allow it to remain there for hours. Opium is never used by them, and I doubt if they are acquainted with its properties. They seldom cultivate more land than is requisite for the rice, yams, and sago for their own consumption, their time being chiefly employed in hunting and fishing. They appear to me to be far from an industrious race of people, and I have often observed hundreds of fine-looking fellows lolling and sauntering about, seeming to have no cares beyond the present. Some tribes that I visited preferred obtaining their rice in exchange from others, to the labour of planting it themselves. They are, in fact, not agriculturally inclined, but always ready for barter. They are middle-sized, averaging five feet five inches, but very strong-built and well-conditioned, and with limbs beautifully proportioned. In features they differ very much from the piratical inhabitants of these rivers. The head is finely formed, the hair, slightly shaven in front, is all thrown to the back of the head; their cheek-bones are high, eyes small, black and piercing, nose not exactly flat--indeed in some cases I have seen it rather aquiline; the mouth is large, and lips rather thick, and there is a total absence of hair on the face and eyebrows. Now the above description is not very much unlike that of an African; and yet they are very unlike, arising, I believe, from the very pleasing and frank expression of their countenances, which is their only beauty. This description, however, must not be considered as applicable to the whole of these tribes,--those on the S. E. coast of the island being by no means so well-favoured. [Illustration: SEREBIS DYAK. (N. W. COAST OF BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] The different tribes are more distinguishable by their costumes than by their manners. The Dyaks of Loondoo are quite naked, and cover the arms and legs with brass rings. Those of Serebis and Linga are remarkable for wearing as many as ten to fifteen large rings in their ears. The Dusums, a tribe of Dyaks on the north coast, wear immense rings of solid tin or copper round their hips and shoulders, while the Saghai Dyaks of the S. E. are dressed in tigers' skins and rich cloth, with splendid head-dresses, made out of monkeys' skins and the feathers of the Argus pheasant. [Illustration: TEETH OF DYAKS.] The invariable custom of filing the teeth sharp, combined with the use of the betel-nut turning them quite black, gives their profile a very strange appearance. Sometimes they render their teeth concave by filing. [Illustration: COSTUMES OF DYAK WOMEN.] [Illustration: SUM-PI-TAN--BLOW-PIPE WITH POISONED ARROWS.] Their arms consist of the blow-pipe (sum-pi-tan), from which they eject small arrows, poisoned with the juice of the upas; a long sharp knife, termed pa-rang; a spear, and a shield. They are seldom without their arms, for the spear is used in hunting, the knife for cutting leaves, and the sum-pi-tan for shooting small birds. Their warfare is carried on more by treachery and stratagem than open fighting--they are all warriors, and seldom at peace. The powerful tribes which reside on the banks of the river generally possess several war prahus, capable of holding from twenty to thirty men, and mounting a brass gun (leila) on her bows, carrying a ball of one to two pounds weight. These prahus, when an expedition is to be made against a neighbouring tribe, are manned by the warriors, one or two of the most consequential men being stationed in each prahu. Before they start upon an expedition, like the North American Indians, they perform their war dance. [Illustration: SAGHAI DYAK. (S. E. COAST OF BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] Should their enemies have gained intelligence of the meditated attack, they take the precaution of sending away their women, children, and furniture, into the jungle, and place men in ambush on the banks of the river, who attack the assailants as they advance. The Dyaks are all very brave, and fight desperately, yelling during the combat like the American Indians. The great object in their combats is to obtain as many of the heads of the party opposed as possible; and if they succeed in their surprise of the town or village, the heads of the women and children are equally carried off as trophies. But there is great difficulty in obtaining a head, for the moment that a man falls every effort is made by his own party to carry off the body, and prevent the enemy from obtaining such a trophy. If the attacking party are completely victorious, they finish their work of destruction by setting fire to all the houses, and cutting down all the cocoa-nut trees; after which they return home in triumph with their spoil. As soon as they arrive another war dance is performed; and after making very merry, they deposit the heads which they have obtained in the head-house. Now, putting scalps for heads, the reader will perceive that their customs are nearly those of the American Indians. Every Dyak village has its head-house: it is generally the hall of audience as well. The interior is decorated with heads piled up in pyramids to the roof: of course the greater the number of heads the more celebrated they are as warriors. [Illustration: DYAK VILLAGE.] The women of the north-east coast are by no means bad-looking, but very inferior to the mountain Dyaks before described. I have seen one or two faces which might be considered as pretty. With the exception of a cloth, which is secured above the hips with a hoop of rattan, and descends down to the knees, they expose every other portion of their bodies. Their hair, which is fine and black, generally falls down behind. Their feet are bare. Like the American squaws, they do all the drudgery, carry the water, and paddle the canoes. They generally fled at our approach, if we came unexpectedly. The best looking I ever saw was one we captured on the river Sakarron. She was in a dreadful fright, expecting every moment to be killed, probably taking it for granted that we had our head-houses to decorate as well as their husbands. While lying off the town of Baloongan, expecting hostilities to ensue, we observed that the women who came down to fill their bamboos with water were all armed. And now to resume the narrative of our proceedings:-- I stated that after our interview with the old chief, and promising to return in the evening to witness a war dance, we proceeded on a stroll, accompanied by the chiefs eldest son, who acted as our guide, and followed by a large party of the natives. We first examined the forts: these were in a tolerable state of efficiency, but their gunpowder was coarse and bad. We next went over the naval arsenal, for being then at peace with every body, their prahus were hauled up under cover of sheds. One of them was a fine boat, about forty feet long, mounting a gun, and capable of containing forty or fifty men. She was very gaily decorated with paint and feathers, and had done good service on the Sakarron river in a late war. These war prahus have a flat strong roof, from which they fight, although they are wholly exposed to the spears and arrows of the enemy. We then invaded their domestic privacy, by entering the houses, and proceeded to an inspection of the blacksmith's shop, where we found the chiefs youngest son, with his velvet jacket thrown aside, working away at a piece of iron, which he was fashioning into a pa-rang, or Dyak knife. The Dyak pa-rang has been confounded with the Malay kris, but they differ materially. The Dyaks, I believe, seldom use the kris, and the Malays never use the knife; and I observed, when we visited the south coast of Borneo, that the knife and other arms of the tribes inhabiting this portion, were precisely similar to those of the Dyaks on the northern coast. Customs so universal and so strictly adhered to proves not only individuality, but antiquity. Having examined every thing and every body, we were pretty well tired, and were not sorry that the hour had now arrived at which we were again to repair to the house of the rajah. On our arrival we found the rajah where we left him, and all the chief men and warriors assembled. Refreshments had been prepared for us, and we again swallowed various mysterious confections, which, as I before observed, would have been very good if we had been hungry. As soon as the eatables had been despatched, we lighted our cheroots, and having, by a dexterous and unperceived application out of a brandy bottle, succeeded in changing the rajah's lemonade into excellent punch, we smoked and drank until the rajah requested to know if we were ready to witness the promised war dance. Having expressed our wishes in the affirmative, the music struck up; it consisted of gongs and tom-toms. The Malay gong, which the Dyaks also make use of, is like the Javanese, thick with a broad rim, and very different from the gong of the Chinese. Instead of the clanging noise of the latter, it gives out a muffled sound of a deep tone. The gong and tom-tom are used by the Dyaks and Malays in war, and for signals at night, and the Dyaks procure them from the Malays. I said that the music struck up, for, rude as the instruments were, they modulate the sound, and keep time so admirably, that it was any thing but inharmonious. A space was now cleared in the centre of the house, and two of the oldest warriors stepped into it. They were dressed in turbans, long loose jackets, sashes round their waists descending to their feet, and small bells were attached to their ankles. They commenced by first shaking hands with the rajah, and then with all the Europeans present, thereby giving us to understand, as was explained to us, that the dance was to be considered only as a spectacle, and not to be taken in its literal sense, as preparatory to an attack upon us, a view of the case in which we fully coincided with them. [Illustration: WAR DANCE OF THE DYAKS. F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS] This ceremony being over, they rushed into the centre and gave a most unearthly scream, then poising themselves on one foot they described a circle with the other, at the same time extending their arms like the wings of a bird, and then meeting their hands, clapping them and keeping time with the music. After a little while the music became louder, and suddenly our ears were pierced with the whole of the natives present joining in the hideous war cry. Then the motions and the screams of the dancers became more violent, and every thing was working up to a state of excitement by which even we were influenced. Suddenly a very unpleasant odour pervaded the room, already too warm from the numbers it contained. Involuntarily we held our noses, wondering what might be the cause, when we perceived that one of the warriors had stepped into the centre and suspended round the shoulders of each dancer a human head in a wide meshed basket of rattan. These heads had been taken in the late Sakarron business, and were therefore but a fortnight old. They were encased in a wide net work of rattan, and were ornamented with beads. Their stench was intolerable, although, as we discovered upon after examination, when they were suspended against the wall, they had been partially baked and were quite black. The teeth and hair were quite perfect, the features somewhat shrunk, and they were altogether very fair specimens of pickled heads; but our worthy friends required a lesson from the New Zealanders in the art of preserving. The appearance of the heads was the signal for the music to play louder, for the war cry of the natives to be more energetic, and for the screams of the dancers to be more piercing. Their motions now became more rapid, and the excitement in proportion. Their eyes glistened with unwonted brightness. The perspiration dropped down their faces, and thus did yelling, dancing, gongs, and tom-toms become more rapid and more violent every minute, till the dancing warriors were ready to drop. A farewell yell, with emphasis, was given by the surrounding warriors; immediately the music ceased, the dancers disappeared, and the tumultuous excitement and noise was succeeded by a dead silence. Such was the excitement communicated, that when it was all over we ourselves remained for some time panting to recover our breath. Again we lighted our cheroots and smoked for a while the pipe of peace. A quarter of an hour elapsed and the preparations were made for another martial dance. This was performed by two of the rajah's sons, the same young men I have previously made mention of. They came forward each having on his arm one of the large Dyak shields, and in the centre of the cleared space were two long swords lying on the floor. The ceremony of shaking hands, as described preparatory to the former dance, was first gone through; the music then struck up and they entered the arena. At first they confined themselves to evolutions of defence, springing from one side to the other with wonderful quickness, keeping their shields in front of them, falling on one knee and performing various feats of agility. After a short time, they each seized a sword, and then the display was very remarkable, and proved what ugly customers they must be in single conflict. Blows in every direction, feints of every description, were made by both, but invariably received upon the shields. Cumbrous as these shields were, no opening was ever left, retreating, pursuing, dodging, and striking, the body was never exposed. Occasionally, during this performance, the war cry was given by the surrounding warriors, but the combatants held their peace; in fact they could not afford to open their mouths, lest an opening should be made. It was a most masterly performance, and we were delighted with it. As the evening advanced into night, we had a sort of extemporary drama, reminding us of one of the dances, as they are called, of the American Indians, in which the warriors tell their deeds of prowess. This was performed by two of the principal and oldest warriors, who appeared in long white robes, with long staves in their hands. They paraded up and down the centre, alternately haranguing each other; the subject was the praise of their own rulers, a relation of their own exploits, and an exhortation to the young warriors to emulate their deeds. This performance was most tedious; it lasted for about three hours, and, as we could not understand a word that was said, it was not peculiarly interesting. It, however, had one good effect: it sent us all asleep. I fell asleep before the others, I am told; very possible. I certainly woke up the first, and on waking, found that all the lights were out, and that the rajah and the whole company had disappeared, with the exception of my European friends, who were all lying around me. My cheroot was still in my mouth, so I re-lighted it and smoked it, and then again lay down by the side of my companions. Such was the wind-up of our visit to the rajah, who first excited us by his melodramas, and then sent us to sleep with his recitations. The next morning, at daylight, we repaired to our boats, and when all was ready took leave of the old rajah. The rajah's eldest son had promised to accompany us to the mouth of the river, and show us how the natives hunted the wild pigs, which are very numerous in all the jungles of Borneo. We got under weigh and proceeded down the river accompanied by a large canoe, which was occupied by the rajah's son, six or seven hunters, and a pack of the dogs used in hunting the wild boar on this island. These dogs were small, but very wiry, with muzzles like foxes, and curling tails. Their hair was short, and of a tan colour. Small as they are, they are very bold, and one of them will keep a wild pig at bay till the hunters come up to him. [Illustration: OBTAINING FIRE.] We arrived at the hunting ground at the mouth of the river in good time, before the scent was off, and landed in the _Tam-bang_. Our captain having a survey to make of an island at the mouth of the river, to our great delight took away the barge and gig, leaving Mr. Brooke, Hentig, Captain Keppell, Adams, and myself, to accompany the rajah's son. Having arranged that the native boat should pull along the coast in the direction that we were to walk, and having put on board the little that we had collected for our dinners, we shouldered our guns and followed the hunters and dogs. The natives who accompanied us were naked, and armed only with a spear. They entered the jungle with the dogs, rather too fatiguing an exercise for us, and we contented ourselves with walking along the beach abreast of them, waiting very patiently for the game to be started. In a very few minutes the dogs gave tongue, and as the noise continued we presumed that a boar was on foot; nor were we wrong in our conjecture; the barking of the dogs ceased, and one of the hunters came out of the jungle to us with a fine pig on his back, which he had transfixed with his spear. Nor were we long without our share of the sport, for we suddenly came upon a whole herd which had been driven out of the jungle, and our bullets did execution. We afterwards had more shots, and with what we killed on the beach, and the natives secured in the jungle, as the evening advanced we found ourselves in possession of eight fine grown animals. These the rajah's son and his hunters very politely requested our acceptance of. We now had quite sufficient materials for our dinner, and as we were literally as hungry as hunters, we were most anxious to fall to, and looked upon our pigs with very cannibal eyes. The first thing necessary was to light a fire, and for the first time I had an opportunity of seeing the Dyak way of obtaining it. It differs slightly from the usual manner, and is best explained by a sketch. Captain Keppell, who was always the life and soul of every thing, whether it was a fight or a pic nic, was unanimously elected caterer, and in that capacity he was most brilliant. I must digress a little to bestow upon that officer the meed of universal opinion; for his kindness, mirth, and goodness of heart, have rendered him a favourite wherever he has been known, not only a favourite with the officers, but even more so, if possible, with the men. In the expeditions in which Keppell has been commanding officer, where the men were worn out with continued exertion at the oar, and with the many obstacles to be overcome, Keppell's voice would be heard, and when heard, the men were encouraged and renewed their endeavours. Keppell's stock, when provisions were running short, and with small hopes of a fresh supply, was freely shared among those about him, while our gallant captain, with a boat half filled with his own hampers, would see, and appeared pleased to see, those in his company longing for a mouthful which never would be offered. If any of the youngsters belonging to other ships were, from carelessness or ignorance, in trouble with the commanding officers, it was to Keppell that they applied, and it was Keppell who was the intercessor. In fact, every occasion in which kindness, generosity, or consideration for others could be shown, such an opportunity was never lost by Keppell, who, to sum up, was a beloved friend, a delightful companion, and a respected commander. As soon as our fire was lighted, we set to, under Keppell's directions, and, as may be supposed, as we had little or nothing else, pork was our principal dish. In fact, we had pig at the top, pig at the bottom, pig in the centre, and pig at the sides. A Jew would have made but a sorry repast, but we, emancipated Christians, made a most ravenous one, defying Moses and all his Deuteronomy. We had plenty of wine and segars, and soon found ourselves very comfortably seated on the sand, still warm from the rays of the burning mid-day sun. Towards the end of a long repast we felt a little chilly, and we therefore rose and indulged in the games of leap-frog, fly-the-garter, and other venturous amusements. We certainly had in our party one or two who were as well fitted to grace the senate as to play at leap-frog, but I have always observed that the cleverest men are the most like children when an opportunity is offered for relaxation. I don't know what the natives thought of the European Rajah Brooke playing at leap-frog, but it is certain that the rajah did not care what they thought. I have said little of Mr. Brooke, but I will now say that a more mild, amiable, and celebrated person I never knew. Every one loved him, and he deserved it. After we had warmed ourselves with play, we lighted an enormous fire to keep off the mosquitoes, and made a bowl of grog to keep off the effects of the night air, which is occasionally very pernicious. We smoked and quaffed, and had many a merry song and many a witty remark, and many a laugh about nothing on that night. As it is highly imprudent to sleep in the open air in Borneo, at ten o'clock we broke up and went to repose in the boats under the spread awnings. Just as we were selecting the softest plank we could find for a bed, we had an alarm which might have been attended with fatal consequences. I omitted to mention that when we rose to part and go into the boats, one of the party threw a lighted brand out of the fire at the legs of another; this compliment was returned, and as it was thought very amusing, the object being to leap up and let the brand pass between your legs, by degrees all the party were engaged in it, even the rajah and the natives joined in the sport, and were highly amused with it, although with bare legs they stood a worse chance of being hit than we did. At last the brands were all expended and the fire extinct, and then, as I said, we went away to sleep under the boats' awnings. We were in the act of depositing our loaded rifles by our sides in a place of security, when the unearthly war cry rose in the jungle, and in the stillness of the night these discordant screams sounded like the yelling of a legion of devils. Immediately afterwards a body of natives rushed from the jungle in the direction of the boats, in which we supposed that our European party were all assembled. Always on our guard against treachery, and not knowing but that these people might belong to a hostile band, in an instant our rifles were in our hands and pointed at the naked body of natives, who were now within twenty yards of us. Mr. Hentig was on the point of firing, when loud shouts of laughter from the Dyaks arrested his hand, and we then perceived that Mr. Brooke and others were with the natives, who enjoyed the attempt to intimidate us. It was fortunate that it ended as it did; for had Mr. Hentig been more hasty, blood must have been shed in consequence of this native practical joke. We joined the laugh, however, laid down our rifles, then laid ourselves down, and went fast asleep, having no further disturbance than the still small voice of the mosquito, which, like that of conscience, is one that "murders sleep." The following morning we bade adieu to our friendly hunting party, and I must not here omit to mention a trait of honesty on the part of the Dyaks. I had dropped my pocket handkerchief in the walk of the day before, and in the evening it was brought to me by one of the natives, who had followed a considerable distance to bring it to me. It must be known, that a coloured silk handkerchief is to one of these poor Dyaks, who are very fond of finery, an article of considerable value. He might have retained it without any fear; and his bringing it to me was not certainly with any hope of reward, as I could have given him nothing which he would have prized so much as the handkerchief itself. He was made a present of it for his honesty. We bade farewell to our friends at Kuchin, and continued our survey on the coast. The boats were now continually employed away from the ship, which moved slowly to the westward. At this time exposure and hard work brought the fever into the ship. The barge returned in consequence of four of her men being taken with it, and our sick list increased daily. A few days afterwards the coxswain of the barge died, and was buried along side the same morning. This death, after so short an illness, damped the spirits of the officers and men, particularly of those who were ill. After this burial we sailed for Sincapore. At this time our sick report contained the names of more than thirty men, with every probability of the number being increased; but, thanks to God, from change of air, fresh provisions, and a little relaxation from the constant fatigue, the majority were in a short time convalescent. On the 25th of September we arrived at Sincapore. [Illustration: VIEW OF SINCAPORE.] From the anchorage the town of Sincapore has a very pleasing appearance. Most of the public buildings, as well as some of the principal merchants' houses, face the sea. The church is also close to the beach, I presume to allow the congregation the benefit of the sea breezes. It has no architectural beauty to recommend it, being a plain building with a spiral steeple, surmounted by a cross. The interior is fitted up with more regard to neatness than elegance. It has an organ, and is supplied with a host of young choristers from the academy. Between the beach and Government Hill is a delightful upland, which is generally attended by all the beauty and fashion of Sincapore in the cool of the evening. A canal or small river divides the town into two parts. On the western side of it, stand all the stone houses of the merchants, and it is here that all commercial business is transacted. It is densely populated with Armenian Jews, Chinese, and people from every part of India, each nation residing in its own quarter, in the houses peculiar to and characteristic of their country. Indeed, one of the first things that strikes the stranger in Sincapore is the variety of costume; Chinamen, Malays and Indians, Armenians and Jews, all mingle together in every variety of picturesque costume, giving you an idea of a carnival. The palanquins resemble an omnibus on a small scale, they are drawn on four wheels, have a door on either side, and seats for four people. They are very high, and drawn by one horse. The conductors, however, are not perched up on high, but run by the side of the horse, as do all the syces in India. There are two hotels, the proprietors of which are of course rivals. One is kept by an Englishman, the other by a Frenchman; both are equally attentive, but the Frenchman's house has the preference, in consequence of its superior locality, facing the esplanade, and looking upon the sea. The governor's house is situated on the summit of a hill, about a quarter of a mile from the beach. From it you have a bird's eye view of the whole town, and also of the country in the interior for some distance. From this eminence the town has a very picturesque appearance; the houses on the east side of the river (the May fair of Sincapore), are built apart and surrounded by pretty gardens and lawns; beyond this you have the roads and the sea studded with every variety of vessels; and the island of Binting rises from sea in the distance. The interior is not without beauty: the eye ranges over a vast expanse of grove and forest, interspersed with plantations of nutmegs, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar canes, and from which a most delightful perfume is brought by the breeze, while here and there white houses may be perceived, looking like mere specks in the dark foliage by which they are surrounded. It is surprising, when we reflect how short a space of time has passed since this settlement was first made, how such a mass of building and such a concourse of people can have been collected. It certainly does appear strange, but it is no less true, that no nation can colonise like the English, and I have often made that remark in my wanderings and visitings of the various parts of the globe. England fills the world and civilises the world with her redundant population, and all her colonies flourish, and remind you of a swarm of bees which have just left the old hive and are busy in providing for themselves. The Dutch colonies are not what you can call thriving; they have not the bustle, the enterprise, and activity which our colonies possess. The Dutch have never conciliated the natives, and obtained their goodwill; they have invariably resorted to violence, and to a disregard of justice. One would have thought that the French, from their _bonhomie_, would have been one of the very best nations to civilise, and certain to have succeeded; but such is not the case. What can be the cause of this, if it be not that, instead of raising the character of the native population by good example and strict justice, they demoralise by introducing vices hitherto unknown to them, and alienate them by injustice? There was an outcry raised at the French taking possession of Taheite, as if any attempt on their part to colonise was an infringement on our right as Englishmen of universal colonisation. I think if we were wise, we should raise no objection to their colonising as much as they please. The whole expence of founding the colony, raising the fortifications, and building the towns, and, if I may use the phrase, of settling every thing, may safely be left to them. If a war breaks out, they will have done a great deal of expensive work for our benefit, as we are certain then to take possession. Algiers has cost an enormous sum to France, and will cost still more, and yet it can hardly be considered as a colony. It is a military possession, an African barrack, no more; and what will be the result in case of the breaking out of hostilities? Their possession of Algiers will be most advantageous to England, for defend it they will with all their power. We, with Gibraltar as a rendezvous, shall of course have a most favourable position for assailing it, and the consequence will be, that the whole focus of the war will be drawn away from our own coasts, and the Mediterranean will be the arena of all the fighting. The struggle must be before the Pillars of Hercules. The more we increase our fleets, the larger must her force be, and she will have no squadron to spare to send out to annoy our trade and colonial possessions. But as this is a digression, and has nothing to do with my narrative, I beg pardon and go on. We found that the Dido had anchored there before us, and had received her orders to proceed to England. Oh! how we envied her good fortune; and surely if envy is a base passion, in this instance it becomes ennobled by the feelings of home and country which excite it. The Dido left on the 10th, and we regretted the loss of Captain Keppell most deeply. Many merchant vessels had been lately wrecked on the north coast of Borneo, and their crews made prisoners by the pirate hordes. Some of the vessels had had females on board, who had not been heard of since. A letter from a master of a merchant vessel was received by the authorities at Sincapore, wherein it was stated on oath, that, having lately put into the port of Ambong, in Borneo, an European woman had been seen near one of the huts of the village; but that on their approach, she disappeared. This account was corroborated by the evidence of some Lascar seamen, who formed a portion of the crew of the vessel. The contents of this letter being forwarded by the authorities to our gallant captain, he determined upon proceeding to Ambong, accompanied by our old ally, the Phlegethon steamer. Fortunately the town lay in our track, as we were about to proceed to Labuan, and from thence to Manilla. We again weighed anchor for Sarawak, whither the steamer had already proceeded. On our arrival at the mouth of the river we anchored, and the captain went up in his gig. The following day, to our great surprise, we received an intimation that we might make a party of pleasure (a party quite unknown in the Samarang), and go up to Kuchin. We hurried away before the captain had time to repent his indulgence, and set off, some seven or eight of us, in the cutter, and pulled away as fast as we could, till we were first out of hail, and then out of sight, when we considered that we were safe. I have already stated that the native houses are built on the left side of the Sarawak river, and those of the Europeans on the right. These latter are pretty commodious little bungalows, built of cedar and pine wood. At present there are but three, belonging to Mr. Brooke, Mr. Williamson the interpreter, and Hentig, a merchant who has lately settled there. Ruppell, Mr. Brooke's superintendent, and Treecher, the surgeon, live in a large house on the native side of the river. Each of these European houses has its chatty bath adjoining to it, and this luxury is indulged in at all hours of the day. At nine o'clock a gong summons all the Europeans to the breakfast table of Mr. Brooke. When breakfast is over, they all separate, either to follow business or pleasure, and seldom meet again till six in the evening, when dinner is served, and the time is passed away till all retire to bed. Let me describe the view from the front of Mr. Brooke's house:--The schooner lying half way across the river is the Julia, belonging to Mr. Brooke: she sails every month for Sincapore, laden with antimony ore; and thus, at the same time, she forms a mail-packet between Sincapore and Kuchin. The large open building, with a wharf, leading down to the river, is the store in which the antimony is sifted, smelted, and weighed. On the point near the bend of the river is the fort. It is a strong building of large timbers, and mounts eight 24-lb. iron guns, in very excellent condition. This is a very necessary defence, as the European rajah has many enemies. The building whose top just appears above the trees is the Chinese joss-house, or temple; for there are many Chinese settlers at Kuchin, who are very useful in their capacities of carpenters, blacksmiths, and agriculturists. Sweeping with the eye a range of dwelling houses built on stakes, you stop at one of tolerable proportions, which has a platform in front of it, on which are mounted about twenty small guns, and there is a flag-staff, on which is hoisted a red and yellow flag: that is the palace of Rajah Muda Hassan. Take a canoe, and cross over to it. You will find Muda sitting cross-legged in the centre of it: he shakes hands with you, and offers you cigars and tea. You will also meet his brother, Bud-ruddeen. You take your leave of the rajah, and amuse yourself with a walk round the town, during which you examine the natives and their wives, their customs, their houses, and their gardens. With the exception of the more civilised tribes in the vicinity of the Sarawak, the Malays who inhabit the coast of Borneo are a cruel, treacherous, and disgusting race of men, with scarcely one good quality to recommend them. The numerous tribes of these people are separately governed, either by a rajah or petty sultan. Their laws are much more respected than would be supposed in a country where every man is armed, and is a robber by profession. The dress of the Malay is very uniform, consisting of a loose jacket, a sash, and trousers: in some parts a cloth is worn round the head; in others, a hat, made of leaves or rattan. Their arms are the kris and spear; occasionally they carry the sum-pi-tan, and poisoned arrows. Their houses are built upon stakes, probably for the sake of cleanliness; as the flooring consists of a kind of grating made of rattan, all dirt falls through. The houses are small, and contain but one family, and, like those of the Dyaks, are built of the lightest materials. The Malays pretend to Mahomedanism, and there is generally a large empty building in every town which is dignified with the name of a mosque: on the outside are hung drums or tom-toms, of huge dimensions, which are used as gentle reminders of the hours of prayer. I have already stated that these Malay tribes live almost wholly by piracy, to carry on which each town possesses several large prahus, which they man, and send out to intercept any unfortunate junk or other vessel incapable of much resistance, which fate or the currents may have driven too near their coast. When the vessels are captured the cargoes are deposited in their warehouses, the vessels are broken up, and the crews are retained as slaves, to dig yams or pound paddy. Unless they are irritated by a desperate resistance, or they attack an inimical tribe, they do not shed blood, as has generally been supposed; restrained, however, by no other feeling than that of avarice, for the slaves are too valuable to be destroyed. In their physiognomy these Malays are inferior to the Dyaks: they have a strong resemblance to the monkey in face, with an air of low cunning and rascality most unprepossessing. In stature they are very low, and generally bandy-legged. Their hair and eyes are invariably black, but the face is, in most cases, devoid of hair; when it does grow, it is only at the extreme point of the chin. The Borneo Malay women are as plain as the men, although at Sincapore, Mauritius, and the Sooloos, they are well favoured; and they wind their serang, or robe, so tight round their bodies, that they walk in a very constrained and ungainly fashion. Many of these tribes are intermixed with the natives of the Celebes, such as the inhabitants of Sooloo. [Illustration: MALAY WOMAN.] The Malays deal with criminals in a very summary manner, the knowledge of which prevents many crimes among this semi-barbarous people. Robbers, for the first offence, lose their right hand; for the second they undergo the penalty of death. When we were at Kuchin a Chinaman was convicted of selling sam-schoo without permission: his goods were confiscated for a time, to be redeemed only by his good behaviour. I am not acquainted with their punishments for minor offences, except in the above instance; but I believe it is generally by fine. Every rajah holds despotic sway over the inhabitants of his province, and punishes as he thinks proper, without reference to any tribunal, even in cases where the sentence is death. The method of executing criminals with the kris is as follows:--He is made to sit down in a chair, with his arms extended horizontally, and held in that position by two men. The executioner, who stands behind him, inserts his kris above the collar-bone, in a perpendicular manner, which causes instant death, as the weapon enters the heart. [Illustration: MALAY CHIEF. (SOOLOO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] The following anecdote, related to me by some of the Roche people, may amuse the reader:--A celebrated Malay pirate, whose sanguinary deeds had filled the Archipelago with terror, became violently enamoured with one of the slaves of a rajah living on the river Sarawak. After vainly endeavouring to obtain her from her master by offers of money and entreaties, he lay in wait for her, and ran away with her into the jungle. He had hardly passed his honeymoon before the rajah discovered his retreat, and he sent to the Malay to inform him, that, if he would make his appearance at the audience upon a certain day, he should have justice done him. The Malay chief, who was a man of undaunted courage, and who felt confident that the reputation he had acquired by his piratical exploits was alone sufficient to awe his enemies, consented to appear, hoping that arrangements might be made which would permit him to leave the jungle, and allow him to enjoy his new bride in quiet. On the day appointed he appeared before the council, armed, and accompanied by his brother, both resting their hands upon the handles of their krisses, a movement which among the Malays proclaims no feelings of amity. In this attitude of preparation they walked into the audience room, which was crowded with a host of enemies. The council decided, that if on a certain day he would produce a specified sum of money the girl should be his, and he should return unmolested. The sum named was exorbitant, but the Malay chief agreed to the payment, and was permitted to depart. When the day of payment arrived, the council sat as before, and the Malay chief again made his appearance; but this time he came alone, his brother being absent on a piratical expedition. He had, in consequence of his violent affection for the girl, made every attempt to raise the stipulated sum, but could not succeed. He brought all that he could collect, but it fell far short of the sum which had been agreed upon, and he requested time to procure the remainder. The council consulted a while, and then stipulated, that the chief, not having brought the sum agreed upon, should leave his kris as a pledge till the rest should be forthcoming. The kris that the chief wore was itself of great value, very handsomely ornamented with precious stones. It had belonged to his ancestors, and was, as they always are, highly prized, and they knew that it would, if possible, be reclaimed. The chief was most reluctant to part with it, but his love for his mistress overcame his scruples, and also his prudence, for it left him unarmed amidst his implacable enemies. He pulled out his kris, and laid it on the table upon the money, and was busy disengaging the sheath to add to it, when, by a signal from the rajah, he was seized from behind. He started up, but it was too late; his trusty weapon, which had so often stood by him in his need, was no longer within his reach, and he was in a moment transfixed with a dozen blades, falling a victim to his love of the girl and the treachery of his foes. After passing two very pleasant days at Kuchin, we prepared to descend the river. I have omitted to say that Mr. Treecher, the surgeon, was fond of natural history, and possessed a very tolerable collection of birds, and other animals indigenous to the country. I was shown several skeletons of the orang outang, some of which were of great size. There is no want of these animals in the jungle, but a living specimen is not easy to procure; I saw but one, an adult female, belonging to Mr. Brooke. It was very gentle in its manners, and, when standing upright, might have measured three feet six inches. [Illustration: PROBOSCIS MONKEY.] On board of the Phlegethon there were two specimens of the wa-wa, or long-armed ape, which had been presented to Mr. Brooke by one of the neighbouring rajahs, and they are by the natives considered very valuable. Their affection when domesticated is remarkable; their first act when they meet one they know is to leap upon your breast and embrace you with their arms, just like a child will its mother, and they will remain, if permitted, in this position for hours, and complain if removed. Their cry is very plaintive, and, heard at night in the jungle, sounds like that of a female in distress. I was given to understand that in the presents made by chiefs, a scarce variety of monkey is often the principal gift, and most esteemed. The scarcest monkey in Borneo is the proboscis, or long-nosed. I saw but two specimens of this animal, one a female, with the nose very long, and pendulous at the extremity; the other a male, very young, and with the nose more or less prominent, and giving its face a more actual resemblance to that of a man's than I had ever before seen. This monkey has never, I believe, been brought to England alive. The British Museum has a stuffed specimen. It is not so mischievous in its habits as the tribe in general. As Rajah Muda Hassan has been so frequently mentioned, it may be as well to give a succinct outline of his history. At the death of the late sultan, Muda Hassan was the heir-apparent to the throne, but he resigned in favour of his nephew, retaining the office of prime minister, which office he had held during the former reign, not only to the satisfaction of the sultan, but also of the people, with whom he was deservedly a great favourite. His influence, being even greater than that of the sultan, occasioned a jealous feeling, and a contention of party, which induced Muda Hassan to retire to Sarawak with his wives and personal attendants. He was succeeded in his office of prime minister by an Arab, Pangeran Usop, a man of unbounded ambition, who by his harsh and tyrannical conduct soon became hated by the Brunese, who longed for the return of Muda Hassan, under whose sway they had been quiet and happy. Pangeran Usop, aware of the popular feeling, now considered Muda Hassan as his enemy, and took every opportunity of vilifying and creating suspicion of Muda Hassan on the mind of the sultan, who was little better than an idiot. He asserted that Muda Hassan and his brother Bud-ruddeen were leagued with the English, and were their only supporters in their pretensions to the isle of Labuan, and that they would assist the English in taking possession of Borneo. These reports, although at first treated with disdain, continually repeated had their effect, not only upon the sultan, but upon the people; and Muda Hassan, who was informed of what had been going on, and had not deigned to notice it, now considered that it was advisable to repair to Borneo, and refute the charges brought against him. When Mr. Brooke purchased the rajahship and mines of Sarawak, he agreed to compensate Muda with a life annuity of two or three hundred per annum, and give him a passage to his native city, Bruni, whenever he should feel disposed to leave Kuchin. Some time had now elapsed since the signing of the contract, during which Muda had remained at his palace at Kuchin, enjoying his income, and living on the very best terms with the Europeans. He now, however, expressed a wish to return to Bruni, and as it was Mr. Brooke's intention to proceed to that port in the Samarang, it was proposed that the Phlegethon steamer should embark Muda and his suite, and that on our arrival at Bruni we should see this rajah and his brother Bud-ruddeen installed in their positions which by their birth they were entitled to. Another object was in view, and expected to be gained by this step. Up to the present, no efforts had been made by the Bornean government to discountenance piracy; on the contrary, the plunder of the pirates was brought in and openly disposed of at Bruni, which is the royal residence. Muda and his brother Bud-ruddeen were stanch friends to the English, and it was anticipated that by their being appointed to offices of power, and forcing the sultan to a treaty to put down piracy, and pay respect to the English flag, a very important advance would be made towards the extermination of these marauders, and commerce, once rendered secure, and property respected, Borneo would soon be brought to a state of comparative civilisation. As soon as the two rajahs, with all their wives and suite, &c., could be got on board of the Phlegethon, Mr. Brooke, and Mr. Williamson the interpreter, came on board the Samarang, and we sailed. On our arrival at the island of Labuan, we anchored the ship, and despatched the steamer, with her cargo, up to Bruni. The captain of the Samarang and one or two officers proceeded up to Bruni in the barge on the following day; and I was the midshipman in charge of the boat. We did not arrive at the city till 8 o'clock in the evening; and it was too dark to distinguish the houses. With some difficulty, we discovered the steamer, which was anchored on the main street. We pulled alongside, and landing the captain and Kuchinians, Adams, the surgeon of the party, and I, found ourselves in undisturbed possession of the barge. [Illustration: BRUNI. (BORNEO PROPER.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] Bruni is called by Crawfurd the Venice of the East; and he is so far correct, that it is built in the same peculiar way, and is a most extraordinary town. It is built almost entirely on the water. It is of great size, containing from thirty to forty thousand inhabitants, most of whom are Malays, but who, from having so long intermixed with the tribes on the coast, now style themselves Brunese, after the town. This town, which is situated where the river forms a wide and shallow estuary, is built with little regard to regularity. There are, however, two large main streets, intersecting each other in the form of an irregular cross. These divide the town into four parts, one of which is partly built upon terra firma, while the other three portions are composed of massive wooden houses, built on piles, and just sufficiently separated here and there to admit of the passage of a canoe. On the portion which is on dry land is built the sultan's palace, a church or mosque, and most of the more prominent buildings. It was in the main street (if such a term may be used), and as near as possible in the centre of the town, that the steamer was anchored. When we awoke and roused up it was broad daylight, and the scene was most novel: surrounding the steamer and the barge, and extending many yards from them, lay hundreds of canoes, filled with natives of every tribe to be found on the coast, and dressed in every variety of costume. From the wild Dusum to the civilised Arab and Malay rajah, natives in every posture, and decked in every colour, impelled by curiosity, were crowded around us. Here was a chief, dressed in an embroidered jacket, sitting cross-legged, and shading himself with a yellow silk umbrella. There were some wild-looking Dyaks, with scarcely as much covering as decency demanded, standing up on their narrow canoes, one hand resting on the handle of their knives, the other on their hips, eying us from under their long matted hair with glances that told of no good feeling towards us. In another quarter were women, in a covered boat, whose jealous lattices only permitted us a glimpse of sparkling eyes, and of the yellow array which proclaimed them as some of the royal favourites. As far as you could see on all sides there was a confused mass, composed of embroidered chiefs, black-eyed women, grey-bearded Arabs, spears, shields, paddles and umbrellas. Taking out my sketch-book, I amused myself with drawing the various costumes--no very easy task, as the canoes were continually on the move; and before I could well catch the head and shoulders of a native, when I raised my eyes from the paper he had often disappeared in the crowd, and I found another party and another costume in his place. [Illustration: NATIVES OF BRUNI.] Rajah Muda Hassan had already landed, and 10 o'clock had been fixed upon as the hour for a full-dress visit to the sultan. As the time approached, Mr. Brooke, with our captain and the officers composing the party, came into the barge, and were pulled up to the sultan's audience chamber. This was a large three-sided building, facing the water, with a platform in front, on which were mounted five or six leilas, or native guns. The roof was slightly carved, and the gables ornamented with large wooden rams' horns. The red and yellow flag of Borneo waved above it. We were received at the platform by a numerous party of chiefs, handsomely dressed in silks, satins, and gold embroidery. They ushered us into the audience chamber, the walls of which were lined with a sort of cloth, and ornamented with shields. The floor was matted. The chamber was filled with natives, all well dressed and armed. They sat cross-legged, preserving a respectful silence. A vacant aisle was preserved between them leading to the throne, which was at the upper end of the chamber. The throne was a frame of painted wood, gilt and carved, and bearing a very suspicious resemblance to a Chinese bedstead. On this, sitting cross-legged, was the sultan of Borneo, to whom we were all separately presented as English warriors, &c. &c. Chairs were then placed in a half circle in front of the sultan, and we seated ourselves. The sultan, a man of about sixty years of age, is said to be very imbecile, and under the control of his ministers, who do with him as they please. He was dressed in a loose jacket and trousers of purple satin, richly embroidered with gold, a close-fitting vest of gold cloth, and a light cloth turban on his head. In his sash he wore a gold-headed kris of exquisite workmanship. His head was bald, and his features wore a continual air of suspicion, mixed with simplicity. The first is not to be wondered at, as he lives in the happy expectation of being poisoned every day. He has two thumbs on the right hand, and makes the supernumerary one useful by employing it in charging his mouth with the beetle-nut and chunan, in which luxury he indulges to excess. Immediately below him were his two body attendants, who have charge of his beetle-nut box and his weapons. In front of the throne, and inside the half aisle formed by the Europeans, Seraib Yussef, the prime minister, Muda Hassan, and Bud-ruddeen, were seated on their hams. On each side and below the throne were hundreds of attendants or guards; those in the front row sitting cross-legged, with drawn krisses; those behind them standing with long spears, tipped with bunches of red horsehair, in their hands. The remainder of the chamber was occupied by chiefs, all of them armed. [Illustration: COURT OF THE SULTAN OF BORNEO. (SIGNING THE TREATY WITH ENGLAND.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] The communications and demands we had to make were carried on through Mr. Williamson, the interpreter. The speakers were Mr. Brooke, our captain, the sultan's prime minister, Muda and Bud-ruddeen, the sultan occasionally nodding his head in approval of replies made by his prime minister. The whole of the conversation was carried on in so low a tone as not to be heard except by those sitting nearest to the throne. The subject of it was, however, no secret; and it was as follows:-- Near to the mouth of the river, is an island called Pulo Cheremon, on which the sultan has built some forts. On our entering the river, one of our boats had been fired at from one of these forts, although the English flag was hoisted at the time. The demands made in this conference were, that the proper respect should be paid to the English flag, that the forts upon Pulo Cheremon should be dismantled, and that the sultan should reinstate Muda and Bud-ruddeen in offices becoming their rank. Now, that the first demand was reasonable must be admitted; but what right we had to insist upon the forts being destroyed, and the sultan's uncles put into office, I really cannot pretend to say. Seraib Yussef, who was inimical to the English, expressed his disapprobation of their demands in very strong terms: as for the sultan, he had very little to say. As it appeared that there was no chance of our demands being complied with without coercion, the conference was broken up by our principals pointing to the steamer, which lay within pistol-shot of the palace, and reminding the sultan and the ministers that a few broadsides would destroy the town. Having made this observation, we all rose to take our departure, stating that we would wait for an answer to our demands upon the following day. Our situation was rather critical, only eight Europeans among hundreds of armed natives taking their sultan in this manner by the beard, when, at a signal from him, we might have all been despatched in a moment. More than one chief had his hand upon his kris as we stalked through a passage left for us out of the audience chamber; but whatever may have been their wishes, they did not venture further without authority. On reaching the platform outside, a very strange sight presented itself. With the exception of a lane left for our passage to the boat, the whole space was covered with naked savages. These were the Maruts, a tribe of Dyaks who live in the mountains. The word marut signifies brave. These naked gentlemen, who are very partial to the sultan, had come down from the mountains to render assistance in case of hostility on our part. They were splendidly framed men, but very plain in person, with the long matted hair falling over their shoulders. They were armed with long knives and shields, which they brandished in a very warlike manner, occasionally giving a loud yell. They certainly appeared very anxious to begin work; and I fully expected we should have had to draw and defend ourselves. I was not sorry, therefore, when I found myself once more in the stern sheets of the barge, with our brass six-pounder loaded with grape, pointed towards them. The poor fellows little knew the effect of a shower of grape-shot, or they would not have been so anxious for a "turn-up." The sultan had offered a house for the accommodation of the Europeans during our stay at Bruni. It was a small wooden building over the water and resting upon piles. It communicated by a platform with the Mahomedan mosque, which was built of brick and of tolerable dimensions. The interior of this mosque had no other furniture in it except a sort of pulpit painted, which stood in the centre. Outside on a raised platform was a very large tom-tom or drum, upon which a native played from morning to night, much to our annoyance, as it was so close to us. Religious worship appears at a very low ebb at Bruni, for during the whole time that we remained there I did not see one person enter the mosque. At the back of the mosque there was a piece of green sward, which separated us from the royal buildings. Passing through the mosque we strolled over this piece of pasture, when, close to the water's edge, we discovered several fine old brass 32-pounders, dismounted and half-buried in the swamp. On inspection we found them to be Spanish, bearing the inscription of Carolus Tertius, Rex Hispaniorum, with the arms of Castile above. How they came into the sultan's possession we could not find out. He was said to value them exceedingly; if so, he did not show it by the neglect paid to them. Bruni on a calm day presents a novel and pretty appearance. The masses of houses appear to float on the water, and the uniformity is broken by gay flags and banners, which indicate the rank and the office of them who hoist them. The large square sails of the prahus, the variety of boats and canoes, the floating bazaar, and the numerous costumes continually in moving panorama before you, all combine to form a very admirable picture. Add to this the chiming and beating of gongs and tom-toms in every cadence, and from every quarter, and you are somewhat reminded of an Asiatic Bartholomew fair. The right-hand side of the river, which is opposite to the town, consists of a series of small hills, which are partially cleared, but present little appearance of cultivation. Here we were shown a specimen of the upas tree: it was growing close to a small stone fountain in the vicinity of some straggling huts. It was a solitary tree, tall and red-stemmed, with the foliage branching out in a canopy at the top. So much has been said for and against this tree, usually supposed to be fabulous, that we looked upon it with great curiosity; and although aware that its noxious qualities have been much exaggerated, we were anxious to test its powers, if we could. We procured a ladder, which we raised against the tree, and one of our party ascended to the uppermost branches without experiencing the fainting sensation ascribed to be produced by close contact with its foliage. We then tapped the tree at the bottom, and there issued from it a white viscous fluid, which the natives asserted to be a virulent poison, and used by them for dipping the points of their arrows. We carried off a bottle of this poison, and having drunk from the fountain beneath the tree, without fear and without injury, we went away. This was the only specimen of the upas tree that I saw in Borneo. The lower orders at Bruni, in addition to a jacket and trousers, wear an immense straw hat of a conical shape, with a brim as wide as an umbrella. This hat, unless thrown back on the shoulders, entirely conceals the face. At times, when the river is crowded with canoes, nothing is to be seen but a mass of these straw hats, which present a very strange appearance. But the greatest novelty at Bruni is the floating bazaar. There are no shops in the city, and the market is held every day in canoes. These come in at sunrise every morning from every part of the river, laden with fresh fruit, tobacco, pepper, and every other article which is produced in the vicinity; a few European productions, such as handkerchiefs, check-cotton prints, &c., also make their appearance. Congregated in the main street the canoes are tacked together, forming lanes through which the purchasers, in their own canoes, paddle, selecting and bargaining for their goods with as much convenience as if the whole was transacted on terra firma. Iron is here so valuable that it is used as money. One hundred flat pieces an inch square are valued at a dollar, and among the lower classes these iron pieces form the sole coin. They are unstamped, so that every person appears to be at liberty to cut his own iron into money; but whether such is really the case I cannot vouch. We remained at Bruni for a week, during which time a great deal of diplomatic duty was got through by the seniors of the party, leaving the juniors to amuse themselves with discovering fresh objects of interest, and illustrating every thing worthy of notice. Our whole party met every evening at the small house which had been appropriated for our use by the sultan. It staggered fearfully upon its wooden legs under our accumulated weight, and we constantly expected that we should be let down into the water. Here we dined and passed the evening in conversation, with our arms all ready at hand, guns and pistols loaded, and the boats anchored close along side of us, in case of any treachery. Every day an interview was had with the sultan, but no definite answer had been obtained to our demands. On the 6th, however, it was resolved by our diplomatists that no more time should be wasted in useless discussion, but that the sultan must be at once brought to terms; indeed, our own safety demanded it, for the popular feeling was so much excited, and the people were so indignant at our attempt to coerce their sultan, that we were in hourly expectation of an attack. At seven in the evening the party repaired to the audience chamber, leaving their arms behind them, for they felt that any effort from five Europeans to defend themselves against so many hundreds, would be unavailing, and that more would be gained by a show of indifference. They landed at the platform, and the barge, in which were Lieutenant Baugh (since dead) and myself, was ordered to lie on her oars abreast of the audience chamber, and to keep her 6-pounder, in which there was a fearful dose of grape and canister, pointed at the sultan himself during the whole of the interview. It was an anxious time: the audience chamber was filled with hundreds of armed men, in the midst of whom were five Europeans dictating to their sultan. The platform outside was crowded with the wild and fearless Maruts: not a native in the city but was armed to the teeth, and anxious for the fray. We, on our parts, were well prepared for fearful vengeance; the barge was so placed that the assassination of Mr. Brooke and the Europeans would have been revenged on the first discharge of our gun by the slaughter of hundreds; and in the main street lay the steamer, with a spring on her cable, her half ports up, and guns loaded to the muzzle, awaiting, as by instruction, for the discharge of the gun from the barge, to follow up the work of death. The platform admitted one of the steamer's guns to look into the audience chamber, the muzzle was pointed direct at the sultan, a man held the lighted tow in his hand. Every European on board had his musket ready loaded, and matters assumed a serious appearance. From where I was on the barge, all appeared hushed in the audience room. I could see the prime minister, Muda, and Bud-ruddeen, as they rose in turns to speak. I could perceive by the motion of their lips that they were talking, but not a sound came to our ears. This state of things lasted about half an hour, and then there was a slight stir, and Mr. Brooke and his party marched towards us through the crowd of warriors. By dint of threats he had gained his point. The sultan had signed a treaty by which he bound himself to respect the British flag, to make over to us the island of Labuan, to destroy the forts on Pulo-Cheremon, to discountenance piracy, and to instal Muda and Bud-ruddeen into offices becoming their birth and high rank. I have since heard Mr. Brooke remark, that considering the natives were well aware that our guns were directed against them, the self-possession and coolness shared by every one of them were worthy of admiration. They never showed the slightest emotion, their speeches were free from gesticulation, and even their threats were conveyed in a quiet subdued tone; and every thing was carried on with all the calmness and deliberation that might be expected at a cabinet council at St. James's. Whilst at Bruni, we picked up several specimens of coal, and asking one of the chiefs if much could be procured, he showed us a few sacks. Ignorant of its value, he was still cunning enough to perceive how much interest Ave felt in the discovery, and immediately asked a most tremendous price for his stock. One would really have thought that we were bargaining for precious stones; at all events he must have had an intuitive idea that we considered them as "black diamonds." On the other hand, an old Arab at Bruni, who had supplied us with one or two live bullocks, when he saw the Samarang at anchor at the mouth of the river, had the modesty to offer our captain 400 dollars for her, less than 100l. sterling. Sell dear and buy cheap is the way to get rich, and proves how fit for commerce are all the people of the archipelago. While we were lying at Bruni in the barge, one day, when Adams the assistant-surgeon and myself were sole occupants, we were surprised at the appearance of a handsomely dressed Malay youth, who stepped into the boat, greeting us, although strangers, _sans cérémonie_. Always wishing to study native character, we amused him as well as we could, and on his departure gave him to understand that he might come whenever he pleased. About dark we were surprised by a canoe coming under our stern, and the occupant throwing into the barge several fine fowls and a large basket of fruit. We could not imagine to whom we were indebted for this civility, but suspected our Malay friend, and when he came again we taxed him with it, and he acknowledged it. On this visit he sat in the boat for some time, appearing to take a great interest in every thing connected with us, and observed that we were bargaining with the natives in the canoes alongside of us for the various arms of the country, which they are content to sell provided they obtain a most exorbitant price. Our Malay friend went off in his canoe, and in the course of an hour returned with a large collection of shields, spears, krisses, and mats, which he begged our acceptance of. Every day did he bring us presents of some description or another, refusing to take any thing in return, except perhaps an English pocket handkerchief or something of very trifling value. Suddenly his visits were discontinued, and we saw no more of him. One day, dining at the house lent us by the sultan, Mr. Brooke was talking with some of our party of a young Malay chief, who, being mad, had attempted to kill his wife, and had in consequence been placed in durance, but had since been liberated. Mr. Brooke wishing to speak to him, sent for him, and on his appearance this madman proved to be our generous unknown. The day after the signing of the treaty we left Bruni, the steamer taking the barge in tow, and the same afternoon we joined the Samarang at our newly-acquired possession, the isle of Labuan. This island is about thirty miles in circumference, flat, and covered with thick jungle. It has no inhabitants. Its anchorage is good, being protected by the main and two smaller islands. The embouchure of a rivulet forms a small bay, which we dignified with the title of Victoria. We found water plentiful, and several specimens of coal. From Labuan we proceeded to Ambong, a place where it was supposed that an European female had been detained as a slave. Ambong is a pretty little bay, with a Malay village built in the bight of it, and there is a fine view of Keeney Balloo, the great mountain of Borneo, in the back-ground. This mountain, estimated to be 14,000 feet high, is about forty miles from Ambong, and with the aid of a glass we could discern cataracts and ravines innumerable. It is certainly a most splendid affair, on one side rising almost perpendicularly, and in appearance nearly flat at the top. At sunset, from the bay, its appearance was splendid. We found nothing at Ambong to lead us to suppose that European females had at any time been made prisoners by the inhabitants: they were apparently a quiet, peaceable people, living entirely by agriculture. Their close neighbours, however, the Moros of Tampassook, are a notorious tribe of the Illanoan pirates, who are the terror of the Asiatic seas. It was not improbable that these people might have many European prisoners as their slaves, but from what we knew of their character, we felt assured that if they possessed white female prisoners, they would never consent to their being ransomed. After making a survey of Ambong, we only waited to take in a supply of fresh beef, and then started the Phlegethon on her return to Sarawak with Mr. Brooke and Mr. Williamson, while we shaped our course in an opposite direction on our way to Manilla. I may here remark that the bullocks at Ambong were remarkably fine and the price of them ridiculously cheap. Two of the largest were to be purchased for about twenty-five shillings worth of calico or any other European manufacture. Wherever we went on this island, and I may say over the Indian archipelago generally, the spirit of trade and barter appeared to be universal; and if the inhabitants of Borneo were inclined to look into the riches of their island, and with them procure English manufactures, which when piracy is abolished they will do, the commercial opening to this country will be great indeed. The scenery in the bay of Ambong varies from that of the Borneo coast in general. The bay is backed by a series of small hills, cleared away and partially cultivated, instead of the low jungle which is elsewhere so universal. On our way to Manilla we touched at the entrance of a river up which is situated the town of Tampassook. Bodies of armed men came down in haste to oppose our landing, which we did with a view of taking sights to verify the chronometers. We came to a parley before we came to blows, and the captain drew a line close to the beach, telling the Illanoans that his men would remain inside of it, on condition that they would remain outside. This arrangement was agreed to, and the observations were taken between four or five hundred armed warriors on one side, and four boats with the guns ready to fire on the other. The pirates were all very well dressed in stuffs and cloths: they carried shields so large as to cover the whole body, and long heavy swords with the handles ornamented with balls and human hair. Many were on horseback, and formed a very respectable irregular cavalry, wearing a light loose dress, and armed with long spears and short round shields. One costume was quite novel, being a coat of armour made of buffalo leather scaled with oyster shells. Both parties adhered to the agreement, and all therefore passed off quietly; the observations were completed, and we returned to the ship. Tampassook, it is asserted, would be a grand place for booty if it was stormed, as the inhabitants possess a great deal of money and diamonds. They are, however, a very brave people, and would not part with their riches without a terrible resistance. While off this river we had notice given us that there was a fleet of 100 piratical prahus lying off the island of Balabac. We shaped our course thither, hoping to surprise them, but we were disappointed: the birds had flown, and the bay of Balabac was untenanted. We cruised for a week among the islands in search of them, but could not discover their retreat; so we shaped our course for Manilla, taking the passage to the eastward of Palawan, which was considered the best at this season of the year. While off the north-east coast of Palawan, our boats left to survey discovered an Illanoan prahu at anchor off one of the small islands that surround the coast. The boats gave chase, and the pirates used every exertion to get away. The gig soon headed the other boats, but gained very slowly on the pirate, and her muskets caused no apparent execution, but one of the cutters with the grape from her gun killed several of their fighting men, who stood on the roof brandishing their krisses, and fearlessly exposing themselves to the fire. On turning a point the prahu kept before the wind, and walked away from us so fast that we gave up the chase. In about a fortnight afterwards, the Corregidor, a small island at the mouth of Manilla Bay, hove in sight. On our arriving abreast of it, a gun-boat came out to board us, and inquire after our bill of health; but as we had a spanking breeze, and men-of-war do not heave-to to be boarded, the gun-boat returned to the island as wise as she came out. Manilla Bay is of immense size, being thirty miles deep, and twenty wide. Near the mouth of the Bay the land is high, but at the head, where the city of Manilla is built, it is remarkably low and flat. As we had the wind in our teeth, and Manilla was twenty-five miles distant, we did not arrive there till sunset. After shaving the sterns of several merchant ships, who would have been better pleased if we had given them a wider berth, we at last dropped anchor about two miles from the town. Manilla, from the anchorage, has not an inviting appearance. I have said that the land upon which it is built is very low, and as the town is strongly fortified, nothing is to be seen from the shipping but a long line of sea wall, with the roofs of the largest buildings, and a mass of brick, which we were told was the cathedral, overtopping it. At one end of this sea wall is the canal, or river, flanked on one side by a mole, and on the other by a light-house. Manilla is, however, a very delightful place; and to us, who had been so many months among savages, it appeared a Paradise. The canal I have alluded to divides the fortified city from the suburban towns of San Fernando, San Gabriel, and others, in which are situated all the commercial houses, stores, godowns, dock-yards, and saw mills. All the Chinese and lower orders also reside in these suburbs, and I may add that all the amusements, feasts, &c., are carried on in this quarter. The city of Manilla within the fortifications is a very quiet, clean, and well-regulated town, inhabited entirely by the higher orders: the streets are well laid out, the houses regular, and built of white freestone. In the centre of the city is the Plaza, on one side of which is the cathedral, and opposite it the governor's palace; both very insignificant buildings. The cathedral, which is very ancient, is devoid of all attempt at architecture, and resembles a huge barn; while the governor's palace, in appearance, reminds you of a stable. [Illustration: CITY OF MANILLA.] During the day the streets of Manilla are perfectly quiet and deserted. At dusk the people begin to move, and show signs of life. The sallyport gates are closed at eleven o'clock at night, after which hour there is neither ingress or egress, and on this point they are most absurdly particular. The natives of Luzon are much below the middle size. The men are slightly made, weak, and inoffensive; the women, on the contrary, are remarkable for their pretty faces, feet, and figures, set off by a dress of the most picturesque description: a short petticoat, of gaily-coloured silk or cotton, and a boddice of similar material, of sufficient height to cover the bosom, is their usual costume. Their long jet black hair is allowed to fall in tresses down their backs. Many have a kerchief tastefully thrown over their heads; and they wear little velvet slippers, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Their appearance is extremely captivating to foreigners, who do not in a hurry forget their graceful mien and the arch glances from their brilliant eyes. Manilla supports a considerable body of infantry and cavalry, the whole composed of natives of the island. Their horses are small, as well as the men, and are not well trained; but the object of the Spaniards is to make a show to intimidate the Indians, who, having no discipline whatever, are, of course, inferior even to these very moderate troops. Not long ago, one of the strongest forts was taken possession of by a party of rebels, assisted by some soldiers who had revolted: the fort was recaptured, and, as an example, a dreadful slaughter ensued. The parade ground, outside the citadel, was the scene of carnage. A large pit was dug, at the brink of which the victims were placed; they were then shot, and thrown into this grave. Eighty-two were thus butchered, and buried in the pit, over which a mound has been raised, to commemorate their execution. Outside the town, and half encircling it, there is a splendid esplanade, between an avenue of trees. This leads to the water, when the road runs parallel with it for nearly a mile, terminating at one of the piers of the canal. This is known by the, I presume, correct name of Scandal Point. A number of carriages, filled with all the _élite_ of Manilla, turn out on this drive a little before sunset, and the scene is very gay and exciting. I leave the reader to conceive upwards of 200 carriages passing and repassing, besides equestrians and pedestrians. The reader may say that it must be like the ring at Hyde Park; but it is more brilliant, although not in such good taste; and then it is the beauty of the climate--the contrast between the foliage and the blue ocean--which gives the effect. No buttoning up to an east wind, nor running away from a shower; but ever gay, and fresh, and exhilarating. Here you meet the old Don, enjoying his quiet stroll and cigar, all alone. Soldier officers, in plain dress and long mustachoes, doffing their hats to every señora. The English merchant, in his unassuming undress of a white jacket; the British naval officers, with their gay uniforms and careless manners, prying, with a sailor's curiosity, into every pretty face; and now and then a saucy mid, mounted on a hack, dashing between the line of carriages at a full gallop, disturbing their propriety, and checking the cavalcade, to the great consternation, real or assumed, of the ladies. All was gaiety and gladness; on every side was to be heard the merry laugh and hail of recognition. To add to the excitement, the bands of the several regiments played the most popular airs on a parade adjoining to the esplanade. While the carriages were driving up and down, the vesper bell tolled from the cathedral. In an instant every carriage stopped--every head was uncovered, and bent in an attitude of devotion. Horses, women, men--all as if transfixed: every tongue silent--nothing heard but the bell of the cathedral, and the light breeze which bore away its vibrations. The bell at last ceased, and in a moment every thing was in full activity as before. Twice a week a military band plays at the public almeda from nine till ten in the evening; and on one of these nights we started in a carriage to the spot. The almeda is situated close to the gates of the city, and joins to the esplanade. It is an open square, bordered with a row of trees, to which are suspended lamps; while in the spaces between the trees there are seats for the accommodation of the public. In the middle of the almeda is a stand erected for the musicians. On our arrival there we found it well lighted up; the place was surrounded by carriages, which were empty, their occupants having joined the parade. Following the example, we mixed with the throng, which was numerous. The women were mostly collected in groups, and the men were smoking their cheroots and beating time to the music, which was excellent. Lighting our cigars, we strolled lazily along, and, by dint of lamp-light and impudence, managed to form a very tolerable idea of the beauty of the senoras. At ten o'clock, the band struck up a lively polka, which was the signal for a general dispersion. This is considered one of the principal and most favourite recreations at Manilla. The inhabitants of Manilla are composed of the pure Spaniard, and the Mustichas, or mixed breed. The former are very proud and inhospitable; the latter are, on the contrary, very friendly, and, for any little civility, request that you will make their house your home. The women of the latter are by far the most preferable: the former are said to be very deficient in good-breeding and education; like the Indians, they sleep half the day, and are scarcely alive till sun-down, when they dress for the almeda or esplanade. There are very good subscription rooms in the city. Every month they give a ball, concert, or amateur performance. Strangers are presented with tickets for these amusements--no thanks to the Spaniards--but from the kindness of the English merchants, who are nearly all members. I went to one of these balls: there were plenty of women--more than could get partners; the music was good, the women well dressed, and they waltzed exquisitely. Adjoining the ball-room was a billiard-room, in which those who preferred smoking cigars in a cool room to dancing, with the thermometer at 90°, had retreated. Nothing can be done at Manilla without the cigar: they smoke for an appetite, they smoke for digestion, they smoke when they are too hot, they smoke when it is chilly. As the hands of the time-piece approached the hour of eleven, every one who lived outside the city was obliged to be off. We, among others, took our departure; but when we sought for our carriage, it had disappeared. We set off at a hard trot, to reach the gates before eleven, but in our haste we missed the road, and came to a cul-de-sac. We retraced our steps, but when we reached the gates they were closed. A request to the officer of the guard we knew to be useless, so we turned back, and prepared to pass the night in the streets, in our uniforms and swords. After wandering half an hour up and down without seeing a light or meeting a soul, I heard a violent hammering at a door at a little distance. I found it was one of our party, who hammered away, and called out for "Soda water" between each hammering. "All's right!" said he; "look here!" And sure enough there was a board outside, with "Soda Water" painted in large letters in English. This repeated hammering and demand for soda water at last produced the desired effect. A person in a dressing-gown and slippers came out into the balcony, and demanded our business. We explained our extreme thirst and benighted condition; and as the gentleman hesitated, we again applied to the door, intimating that if we had no admission, at all events he should have no repose. At last he sent down to have the door opened. We found that he was a German chemist, who fabricated soda water, among other articles, and, knowing the partiality of the English for the beverage, had advertised it in our language over the door. We passed the night with him very comfortably at his house, breakfasted with him the next morning, and, promising to bring the whole of our shipmates to drink soda water for his benefit till we were blown out like balloons, we wished him good-bye, and returned to the ship. Gambling is carried to a great extent in Manilla: the game played is Monté. We visited one of their gambling houses. Winding our way down a dark and narrow street, we arrived at a porte-cochère. The requisite signal was given, the door opened cautiously, and after some scrutiny we were ushered up a flight of stairs, and entered a room, in the centre of which was a table, round which were a group, composed of every class. An Indian squaw was sitting by the side of a military officer, the one staking her annas, the other his doubloons. I stood by the side of an old Chinaman, who staked his doubloon and lost every time. The strictest silence was observed, and nothing was heard but the chinking of the dollars, and the occasional _à quien_ of the banker, who inquired the owner of the stakes. Every thing was conducted with the greatest order; when one man had lost all his money he would retire, and make room for another. The authorities of Manilla have made every effort to put a check to this demoralising practice, but without much success. It is universal, from the highest to the lowest, from the civilised to the most barbarous, over the whole of the Indian Archipelago. The Indians of the Phillippines are among the best favoured of the Asiatic islanders, but they are not reckoned so brave as the Malays. They are a quiet inoffensive race, clean and well shaped, and are all converted to the Catholic faith. Their principal amusement is cock-fighting, which, indeed, is carried to a great extent in all the islands. Every man in the streets has his fighting cock under his arm, and groups may be seen at all hours of the day, pitting their cocks and betting on the issue. The country about Manilla is very pretty, well cultivated, and studded with thriving villages. The Spanish possessions in this part of Luzon are confined to about twenty miles in every direction; the interior of the island being peopled with a race of savages who occasionally make incursions into the country, carrying away cattle or any thing else that they can lay their hands upon. I could obtain no particulars of these aborigines, except that they go nearly if not altogether naked. On the 1st of December, our old acquaintance, the Velocipede schooner, arrived from Sooloo, having on board six Lascars, who had been ransomed from the sultan of Sooloo by Mr. Wyndham. They had formed a portion of the crew of the Premier, an English merchant vessel, which had been wrecked on a reef off the eastern coast of Borneo. The crew, consisting of Europeans and Lascars, had been divided between the sultans of Sooloo, Gonong Tabor, and Balungan. One of the Lascars was the bearer of a letter from the captain of the Premier, stating that he and his crew were still captives, and trusting that a vessel would be sent to rescue them, as they were strictly guarded by the natives, and had no hopes of escape. The Samarang being the only man-of-war at Manilla, the English consul requested our captain to proceed again to Borneo to obtain these people, calling at Sooloo in order to obtain information and a pilot. On the 10th of December we sailed for Sooloo, where we arrived on the 15th. We found the natives preparing for an attack, which they anticipated from the French, and suspicious that our intentions were also hostile. Having already described Sooloo, I shall confine myself to events. The captain, with his officers, went on shore, and had an audience with the sultan; and having brought an interpreter with us from Manilla, the conversation was carried on without difficulty. Refreshments, as lemonade, &c. were handed round as before, and, as before, the room of audience was crowded to suffocation. The prime minister, who was a little corpulent man with an aquiline nose, wore such an expression of low cunning, and eyed us with such ill-concealed hatred, that we christened him Daniel Quilp, and he was ever afterwards spoken of by that soubriquet. Our object being made known, and the sultan's assistance demanded to obtain the remainder of the prisoners, every obstacle that Quilp could throw in our way was resorted to; and thus the audience became very tiresome, and I paid little or no attention to what was said, amusing myself by using my eyes, instead of tormenting my ears. A heavy red curtain was hung up, dividing the room into two compartments. Observing that this moved once or twice, I endeavoured to find out the cause, when several pairs of black eyes, half hidden in the folds and rents, explained the mystery; and whilst they were loudly disputing, I was winking and making faces at the sultan's wives, who, stimulated by curiosity to behold the white men, were thus transgressing the rules of the harem. But old Quilp looked very hard at me, and for the ladies' sakes I was obliged to desist. Behind the sultan stood a young man very handsomely dressed in crimson silk, who held in his hands an English finger-glass. We were very much at a loss to know what his office might be, and also what might be the office of the finger-glass; but our curiosity was soon gratified; the sultan beckoned the youth to approach, and as the latter presented the finger-glass, his highness blew his nose in it. Indeed, the misappropriation of English utensils in this part of the world is very absurd, although it is not surprising that an article coming into their hands, the use of which they have no idea of, should be appropriated to that use which they consider it best adapted to. On the occasion of a dinner given to us by the sultan of Bruni, the whole party were seized with a fit of very indecorous and immoderate laughter, by finding the centre dish, which was a curry, served up in a capacious vessel, which in Europe is only to be found under a bed. The curry, nevertheless, was excellent; and what matter did it make? "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."--But to return. We remained eight days at Sooloo, during which time there was much altercation and excitement. At last the sultan of Sooloo agreed to send a prahu with us to pilot us up the river, to the town where the crew of the Premier were in durance. During the time that we were at Sooloo, we had evidence sufficient of the vindictive feeling held by the rabble against Europeans, and at the same time the various ways they resorted to, to give us an idea of their superiority. They drew our attention to some old cannon mounted on rotten gun-carriages; they pointed out the strength of their fort, the sharpness of their krisses and spears; and we could not but smile at the false estimate of their and our capabilities. They expressed curiosity to see our swords, which are always made of finely tempered steel, although not sharp edged, as they are required more for thrusting and parrying. Of our mode of self-defence they are ignorant, as they invariably cut with their krisses; their first attention was, therefore, drawn to the edge of the sword; passing the thumb along it, and finding it blunt, they expressed the greatest contempt for the weapon. It was useless to show them the thrust and parry movements, or to prove the well-tempered steel by bending the blade till the hilt and point were almost meeting. A sharp iron hoop in their ideas was preferable to all the best English workmanship. The Sooloo knives are larger than they usually are in the Archipelago, and of superior manufacture. By rubbing them with limes and exposing them to the sun, they stain them in a manner quite peculiar to the place. Partly to the machinations of our friend Quilp and the irritable and proud disposition of the people, who considered that the sultan was humiliated by listening to reason and remonstrance, we were more than once very near coming to blows. At last every thing was arranged amicably; and just before starting, the prime minister, Quilp, and a large party of chiefs, condescended to pay a visit to the ship. To guard against treachery, for Quilp was equal to any thing, the marines were kept under arms, and supplied with ball cartridges. The ship was soon crowded with chiefs, armed to the teeth, and accompanied by men with muskets, spears, and shields. It certainly did not look like a very amicable visit on their part, or a very friendly reception on ours; but the ship wore a very gay appearance. The guns, nettings, and booms were covered with the chiefs and attendants dressed in very gay colours. Groups of them sat down on the decks, and made their remarks upon what they beheld; while numbers prowled about up and down, examining, peeping, and wondering. We amused them with firing congreve rockets, guns, &c., which gave them some idea of our value, and we therefore combined instruction with amusement. They departed highly pleased and astonished, and it was evident that we were some degrees higher in the estimation of Quilp himself. The prahu ordered to pilot us having come alongside, we hoisted her up abaft, and took the people on board, and then made sail for the hitherto unknown territory of Panti river. We anchored off the main land on the 25th December, that we might discover the mouth of the river, which was unknown to us. Our Christmas-day was not a very happy one; we did nothing but drink to the hopes of a better one the ensuing year. On the following day we weighed, and moved some distance up the river, and then anchored, waiting the return of the prahu, which had been despatched up to the town the night before. We had, by the means of warping and towing, gained about fifteen miles up the river, when we found that it divided into two branches, and, not knowing which branch to take, we had anchored, waiting the return of the prahu. As she, however, did not make her appearance, although she had had quite sufficient time allowed her, the boats were therefore manned and armed, and we started in search of the town Gonong Tabor. As bad luck would have it, we chose the left branch of the river, and, after two days' unsuccessful search, came back just as we went, but not quite so fresh as when we started. The prahu had not yet returned, so, taking a new departure, we proceeded up the right branch. This proved a fine broad river; one portion of it, studded with small islands, was very picturesque. We soon hove in sight of what appeared to be a town, although there were no signs of life visible. It was built on the left side of the river on two small hills, but we heard no gongs or tomtoms sounding, the usual alarm of all the Malay settlements on the approach of strangers. When we arrived off it, we found that the town was deserted. It had evidently but a short time back been a populous and flourishing place, but it had been destroyed by the enemy, as, although the houses were standing, the cocoa-nut and other trees had been all cut down. On the brow of the hill were many graves; one, which was stockaded and thatched, and the remnants of several flags fluttering in the wind, denoted the resting-place of a rajah. He little thought when he was alive that his head would be transported to a head house some 20,000 miles distant, but such was his fate: science required it, and he was packed up to add to the craniological specimens in the College of Surgeons, the gentlemen presiding over which are as fond of heads as the Dyaks themselves. We moved up the river till nightfall, and then anchored. We were satisfied from appearances that we were not far from a town, and, loading our arms, we kept a very strict look-out. At daylight the next morning we weighed anchor, and, having passed two reaches of the river, we came in sight of the towns of Gonong Tabor and Gonong Satang. We pulled towards them, with a flag of truce, and were immediately boarded by a canoe, which contained the prime minister, who made every profession of good-will on the part of his master, the sultan of Gonong Tabor. We observed with surprise that he hoisted a Dutch flag, which he requested that we would salute. The captain replied, that they must first salute the English flag, and, if they did so, he promised to return the salute. This was complied with; the English flag was saluted with twenty-one guns, and an equal number returned. The boats were then anchored off the town. Immediately after we had returned the salute, we heard an attempt at music, and this was soon explained by the appearance of a procession filing through the gates of the town towards the boats. It was headed by a Malay, bearing the standard of Gonong Tabor,--red, with a white border; he was followed by another carrying a large canopy of silk, highly ornamented, and fringed with lace. After this personage came the prime minister; then two musicians, one playing the drum, and the other a flageolet of rude construction. These musicians were dressed in red bordered with yellow, with cowls over their heads. The rear was composed of a body-guard of Malays, well armed. The whole advanced towards the landing-place, having been sent by the sultan to escort the captain to the palace. The captain and officers landed, and, escorted by the natives, proceeded to the palace, the red silk canopy being carried over the head of the captain as a mark of honour. The sultan, a corpulent but fine-looking man, received us very courteously. He informed the captain that all the white people belonging to the Premier had been ransomed by the Dutch, whose trading vessels were in the habit of visiting Gonong Tabor. The captain of the Premier had refused to acknowledge the Lascars as British subjects, and, in consequence, the poor fellows had been retained as slaves. They were not, however, at Gonong Tabor, but at Baloongan, a town of some importance up a neighbouring river. He added, that four of the Lascars had fallen victims to the climate, and that there were twelve still remaining at the above-mentioned town. It appeared that, from some misunderstanding between the sultans of Gonong Tabor and Gonong Satang relative to the disposal of the English prisoners, they had come to blows, and were at this time at open warfare, the two towns being within gunshot of each other. Gonong Satang was built on a hill on the opposite side of the river, and was strongly stockaded as well as Gonong Tabor. [Illustration: PROCESSION OF THE SULTAN OF GONONG TABOR.] The sultan expressed his desire to enter into an amicable treaty with the English, and offered our captain his assistance in procuring the release of the Lascars at Baloongan. This offer was accepted, and, when we left, a prahu accompanied us to that town. In the course of the evening the sultan's prime minister and suite visited the barge, which was moored within a few yards of the landing-place. We surprised them very much with our quick firing, but their astonishment was unbounded at the firing of a congreve rocket, which they perceived carried destruction to every thing in its flight. The grand vizier was in ecstasies, and begged very hard that the captain would go up to Gonong Satang, and just fire one or two at their adversaries in that town. This, of course, was refused. [Illustration: EARS OF DYAKS AT GONONG TABOR.] We here fell in with a most remarkable tribe of Dyaks: they wore immense rings in their ears, made of tin or copper, the weight of which elongated the ear to a most extraordinary extent. On their heads they wore a mass of feathers of the Argus pheasant. They wore on their shoulders skins of the leopard and wild cat, and neck-laces of beads and teeth. They were armed with the usual parang, blowpipe, and shield. They were a much larger race of men than the Dyaks of the north coast, but not so well favoured. We remained here five days, and on the 1st of January, 1845, went down the river to the ship, accompanied by the prahu which was to be our guide to Baloongan. The following day we sailed for Baloongan, and on the 3rd we anchored off the bank where the Premier was cast away. Her ribs and timbers were left, but the natives had carried away every thing of value, except a small anchor, which they had not ingenuity enough to recover. Leaving the ship at anchor here, we again manned the boats, and, accompanied by the pilot prahu, proceeded up the Saghai river: the next day we arrived in sight of Baloongan. Heaving to, to load our guns, and get our fire-arms in readiness (for we expected a hostile reception), we then hoisted a flag of truce and pulled up to the town. What first occupied our attention was a green plot in front of the town, on which were mounted from fifteen to twenty guns, which were continually pointed so as to bear upon us as we pulled up, and which were backed by some thousands, I should think, of Malays and savages, all well armed with spears and knives. This looked like business, but we pulled on, with the white flag still flying. A canoe came off, containing, as at Gonong Tabor, the prime minister. He waved with his hand, ordering us to anchor, and pointing to the guns, which the natives still continued to train after us. The captain refused to anchor, and pulled on; we were then almost abreast and within thirty yards of the battery. As we passed it within ten yards, the natives kept the muzzles pointed at our boats, and we expected them every moment to fire. Had they done so, we might have received considerable damage; but what would their loss have been when we had opened with round, grape, and canister, and congreve rockets, upon such an exposed and densely crowded multitude? They contented themselves, however, with yelling, which does not kill, and, passing the battery, we dropped our anchor close to the gate of the stockade by which the town was surrounded. In passing the battery, and refusing to anchor, the captain adopted the most prudent and safe course; for we had long before discovered that decision is absolutely necessary with these people. The least hesitation on our part would have fortified their courage to attack; but they are so much awed by our superior arms, and I may safely add the superior courage of our men, that they never will, however much they may threaten, be the first to come to blows, provided there is no vacillation or unsteadiness on our parts. This the captain knew, and acted accordingly. After returning their salute of twenty-one guns, the captain, with some of the officers and a party of small-armed men passed through a line of Dyaks to the hall of audience, which, as usual, was crowded to excess with armed Malays. The sultan, who was a stout athletic man, received us very cordially, but his confused manners and restless eyes showed that he was not at his ease. His dress consisted of a yellow satin jacket, over which he wore another of purple silk, worked and hemmed with lace. His trousers and turban were made of similar materials. Shoes and stockings he had none, and wearing both jackets open, his chest was exposed. The sultan acknowledged that the Lascars were still in his territory, but, as two of them were at some distance in the interior, it would require a few days to bring them in. He appeared very glad that the business was settling so easily, for he no doubt expected an inquiry and a demand for all the ship's stores, the major portion of which had found their way to Baloongan. The chain cables must have been invaluable to the natives, and I detected several links which had been partly converted into spear-heads. There was nothing worthy of remark in the town of Baloongan. We were very much interested in the Dyak tribes, who were the same as those described at Gonong Tabor, and in greater numbers. They were equally tall, and appeared to be the very perfection of savage warriors. They invited us several times to pay them a visit on the hills, where they resided. These Dyaks appeared very friendly to us, and one of them, an intelligent fellow, of the name of Meta, volunteered to take a letter overland to Mr. Brooke: his mode of travelling was by pulling up the Saghai river to its source in his canoe, till he came close to the source of the Coran, and by his account the two rivers nearly meet. He took the letter, binding it round his head with a piece of linen; but I do not know if ever it was delivered. One observation I made relative to these Saghai Dyaks, which was, that much as they must have been astonished at our arms and equipments, like the North American Indians, they never allowed the least sign of it to be perceived. At the end of a week the prisoners returned in a very miserable condition. They had been at work, pounding paddy and digging yams; and they stated that they had not sufficient allowed to eat to support existence, besides being beat about the legs with bamboos. Two of the twelve died evidently from ill treatment and exhaustion. Their gratitude at being delivered from their slavery was beyond bounds; and it certainly is not very creditable to the master of the Premier to have abandoned them in the way he did, when a word from him would have procured their liberty. We returned to the ship, and the next day ran down to the Premier Reef; the captain then went again to the Panti river, in the boats, to conclude the treaty with the sultan of Gonong Tabor. This was soon accomplished; and giving him an union jack to hoist, at which he was much pleased, we bade him farewell. We finished the survey of the Premier Shoal, as it is now named, and then steered for the island of Maratua, which the sultan of Gonong Tabor had by his treaty made over to the English, representing it as having an excellent harbour and good water; but on our arrival we were much disappointed to find an island surrounded by reefs, with only one intricate passage through them and sufficiently wide only for boats. Probably the sultan knew no better. As we were very short of water, we now made sail for Sooloo, and fell in with the Sooloo prahu, which had been sent to us as a pilot, and which we had never seen since she went up the river Panti before us. She had been waiting for us outside, and the people were very much pleased at finding us, as they feared being taken by the pirates of Tawee-Tawee. After having been nearly wrecked on a reef, and having grounded on another, we anchored off the Lugutan islands, and despatched the two cutters in search of water. One of them attacked and burnt a prahu, because she looked suspicious; the other did better, she discovered a stream of water, off which we anchored the same evening. Having completed wood and water, we sailed for Sooloo, where we arrived on the Sunday. We were surprised to find a French squadron anchored in the bay. It consisted of the Cleopatra, 50-gun frigate, Rear Admiral Cecile, with an ambassador on board, the Victorieuse, 22, and the Alchimede war steamer. They were treating with the sultan of Sooloo for the island of Basilan, the natives of which had beat off their boats, with the loss of a lieutenant and four men killed and many wounded. The island of Basilan is subject to Sooloo, although the natives have refused to pay tribute for many years. The French, aware of this, and wishing to establish a colony in the East, offered the sultan 20,000 dollars if he would make over the island to them; but this was not acceded to, the chiefs being divided on the question. The people of Sooloo have a great dislike to all Europeans, but particularly to the French. Treacherous as we and the French knew them to be, we little thought to have it proved in so fearful a manner. About a mile to the right of the town is a spring, where all the ships watered. One day some peculiar looking berries were found in the pool, which, on examination, proved to be deadly poison, the natives having thrown them in with the intention of poisoning us _en masse_. The water was of course started overboard, and intelligence sent to Admiral Cecile, who was highly incensed. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MAHOMED PULLULU, SULTAN OF SOOLOO.] It was singular by what means this discovery was made. One of the seamen of the Samarang complained of a stinging sensation in his feet from having wetted them in the pool. Our assistant surgeon happening to be on shore at the time, caused the watering to be stopped, and the pool to be examined. Buried in the sand, at the bottom of the pool, and secured in wicker baskets, were found those poisonous berries, which the natives had concealed there. As soon as Admiral Cecile received the information, all the water was thrown overboard, and the boats of the whole squadron, manned and armed, landed the French admiral, the ambassador, and our captain. They repaired to the palace of the sultan, who not only expressed his abhorrence of the attempt, but promised to put to death the parties if they could be discovered. The attempt did not, however, stop here. In addition to fruit, the boats at Sooloo brought off rice cakes, which were eagerly bought by the seamen. Some of the chiefs issued an order for a large number of poisoned cakes, which they intended for our consumption; but fortunately the order was so extensive that it got wind, and we were warned of what was intended by a native of Manilla, who had been captured by pirates and sold at Sooloo. In reward for this intelligence, we gave him, and others of the same place, a passage to Manilla, taking care, however, that they should be smuggled on board. Sailed for Manilla, staid there a few days, and then went to Batan, from thence to Hong Kong, where we arrived on the 1st of April, and found the Iris and Castor in the harbour. [Illustration: TANKA BOATS--HONG KONG,] There never was, perhaps, so rapid a rise in any settlement made by the English as that of Hong Kong, considering the very short time that it has been in our possession. Where, two years back, there existed but a few huts, you now behold a well-built and improving town, with churches, hotels, stores, wharves, and godowns. The capacious harbour which, but a short time ago, was only visited by some Chinese junks or English opium clippers, is now swarming with men-of-war and merchant ships. The town extends along the base of the mountain. Every day some improvement takes place in this fast-growing colony, but, from the scarcity of building ground, house rent is very dear, and every thing has risen in proportion. The town which, from the irregularity of the ground, has but one street of importance, lies under the highest part of a rock, which is called Possession Peak. It is built on a kind of ledge, but this is so steep that the basements of the back houses can be seen over the roofs of those in the front, although the houses are no further apart than is necessary for the streets. Above the town the rock rises almost perpendicularly; but every spot which can be built upon is appropriated, and scattered buildings may be seen half way up the rock, only accessible by tortuous and narrow paths. The houses are built of white freestone; many of them are handsome erections, and on a fine day the town of Victoria has an imposing appearance. The island is now intersected by roads, in some parts necessarily precipitous, but equestrians can make the circuit of Hong Kong without any other risk but from the marauding Chinese, who, in spite of the police, still find means of exercising their vocation. To the left of the town of Victoria is a very pretty valley, but in the middle of it is a swamp, which renders the place so unhealthy that no one can reside there: some who did, died there; and there are one or two neat little villas on it, now untenanted and falling into ruins. Strange to say, it still bears the name of Happy Valley. The harbour is completely land locked, and has two entrances. One side of it is formed by Hong Kong, the other by Kow-loon, which is part of the mainland. [Illustration: WEST POINT. HONG KONG. F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] But all this has its reverse. The unhealthiness of the climate is very great, and this is impressed upon the stranger while at anchor in the roads; for the first object that meets his eye is the Minden hospital ship, with her flag continually half mast high, announcing that another poor sailor had gone to his long home. When you land you will certainly meet a funeral; and watching the countenances of the passers by, their sallow complexions, and their debilitated frames, with the total unconcern with which they view the mournful processions, you may assure yourself that they must be of daily and hourly occurrence. And such is the fact. I was sorry to find that murders and robberies were most frequent at Hong Kong, although the police force has been augmented from London, and is under the charge of an experienced officer. While on shore, I observed the body of a Chinaman rise to the surface, disfigured in a horrible manner, and although notice was sent immediately to the authorities, it was allowed to remain beating against the wharf till late in the afternoon, when it was towed out and sunk in the middle of the harbour. I once witnessed the punishment of a Chinese robber at the market gate; he had been apprehended on the preceding night. His tail, which was false, and filled with blades of knives, needles, &c., came off in the officer's hands. However, he was secured, and received a daily allowance of fifty lashes, which was continued as long as he was capable of bearing the punishment, and then he was sent to work on the roads. I left H. M. S. Samarang at this port, and joined the Iris, commanded by Captain Mundy, whose high character as an officer and a gentleman I well knew; unfortunately I was only lent to the Iris, and the consequence was, as will be seen, I had ultimately to return to the Samarang. I found that the Iris was to sail for the north coast of China, and I was delighted at the idea of visiting those parts, which there was little chance of if I had remained in the Samarang. [Illustration: CHINESE FISHERMEN.] One object of the Iris proceeding to the coast of China was to carry General D'Aguilar and suite on a visit to the most interesting of the hostage ports. We sailed on the 6th of April, and after a week's beating arrived at Chapel Island, at the mouth of Amoy bay. This bay is very spacious, being nearly thirty miles deep. To the left of the entrance is a high peak, on the summit of which is built a splendid pagoda, serving as a landmark to vessels coming from seaward. The town of Amoy is built at the bottom of the bay. Close to it, and forming an inner harbour, is the island of Ku-lang-so, near to which we dropped our anchor. Ku-lang-so is a pretty island, about a mile in diameter. Up to the evacuation of Amoy it had been occupied by our troops; and the remains of a race course and a theatre prove that the gallant 18th had contrived to amuse themselves. At the present time it is all but deserted, the only European residents being Mr. Sullivan, the Vice Consul; the Chinese, who had been driven from it at the capture of the city, not having as yet returned. The houses on it are prettily disposed, and some rich foliage and green pasture give an English character to the scenery, and are very refreshing, after continually looking at the everlasting paddy fields, which constitute the principal features of the sea coast of China. It is to this circumstance that I ascribe the exaggerated accounts we have of the beauty of the island of Ku-lang-so. It forms, however, a very pleasant promenade, and may be enjoyed without interruption from the inhabitants. The city of Amoy is built on a low neck of land. The houses are of a dusky tint, and from the anchorage are indistinguishable through forests of junks' masts, which surround the town. To the right of the town, and extending to some distance, is a fortified wall, which gave some trouble at the capture. I landed with a party to walk through the city. The streets are narrow and dirty, the open shops on either side reminding you very much of Constantinople. The population is immense, the streets are always crowded. We soon found that we were objects of attention, and were followed by a mob. It was with difficulty that we could force our way; and, moreover, the town having been lately evacuated by our troops, the Chinese thought themselves secure in venting their animosity, by pushing, jostling, and throwing stones at us. In this, however, they were mistaken, for being a tolerably strong party, and knowing that they had a very wholesome fear of us, we were not slow in resorting to blows when intreaties proved in vain; and, before we were in the middle of the town, more than one celestial head had come in contact with the pavement. One had the impudence to bellow in my face; for which impertinence he received a facer, which gave him something to bellow for. Those, however, who "were at a distance had the means of annoying with impunity, and we were glad to take refuge in a pastry cook's shop, which happened most opportunely to present itself. [Illustration: COOK'S SHOP.] On our entering, we were each presented with a pair of chop sticks, and a large tray was placed before us, filled with sweetmeats of every description. There were nutmegs and other spices, ginger, sugar cane, bamboo, and the knee-bone palm, preserved in the most exquisite manner. Every thing was so novel, chop sticks not excepted, that it was quite fearful the extent to which we indulged in the sweetmeats; however, as we had no maiden aunts ready with their doses, as in our infancy, we ate and spared not. Cakes of the most recherche description, and pastry, the lightness of which would have shamed Gunter, were each and all in their turn discussed; and what was our astonishment to find that, on calling for the bill, the charge amounted to about sixpence. We visited as much of the town as the mob would permit, but I shall reserve my description of a genuine Chinese town until our arrival to the northward. The joss-houses at Amoy are not remarkable, and one description of these buildings will suffice for all. We lay at Amoy for about a week, during which the Mandarins paid us a full dress visit. They were extremely cautious, and remained on board for a couple of hours. At their departure we gave them the economical Chinese salute of three guns. During our stay here I amused myself principally on the island of Ku-lang-so, and I was not sorry when we weighed anchor, and, with a fair wind, made sail for Chusan. Chusan is the largest of a closely packed group of islands, near to the main land of China, and about 500 miles to the northward of Amoy. These islands, many of them very diminutive, are so close to each other, that on threading them to approach the town of Chusan, the channel wears the appearance of a small river branching out into every direction. If the leading marks were removed it would be a complete marine labyrinth, and a boat might pull and pull in and out for the whole day, without arriving at its destination. Narrow, however, as is the passage, with a due precaution, and the necessary amount of backing and filling, there is sufficient water for ships of the largest size. At sunset we anchored off the town of Chusan. Here the islands form a beautiful little harbour, sufficiently capacious. The island being covered with tea plants, the panorama is pretty and refreshing. From the anchorage little can be seen of the town, as it is built on a flat, and hidden by a parapet and bank of mud, which runs along the bottom of the harbour. This temporary fortification is called a bund, and was erected by the Chinese previous to the capture of the place. Behind this bund is an esplanade, parallel with which are houses, which serve as barracks for the troops, and the residences of the civil and military functionaries. The country is hilly, and several commanding forts are visible from the anchorage. On landing, we directed our steps to the town by a causeway which leads from the landing-place to the gates between the fields of paddy, which are, as usual, swamped with water. The sides of this causeway are lined with shops; and the island being occupied by the English, soon stared you in the face, in the shape of boards in front of each shop, bearing such inscriptions as "Snip, from Pekin," "Stultz, from Ningpo," and others equally ludicrous, in good English letters. There were "Buckmasters" and "Hobys" innumerable; Licensed Victuallers and "Dealers in Grocery." Passing a tolerably well constructed gate, guarded by an English sentry, we entered the town. The streets are cleaner than those of Amoy, and not so narrow; but what gave us most satisfaction was, that our appearance excited no attention; and we enjoyed our walk, and made our observations uninterruptedly. Our first visit was to a toy-shop: a great many articles were exposed for sale, and many very beautiful carvings; they were, however, far too delicate for a midshipman's chest, and the price did not exactly suit a midshipman's pocket. A silk warehouse next occupied our attention: here we were shown some beautiful embroidery, some of which was purchased. After walking over the whole town, we proceeded to the principal joss-house: this was very handsome; but I was sorry that it had been selected as a barrack, and was occupied by a company of sepoys. The altar was converted into a stand for arms, and the god Fo was accoutred with a sheath and cross belt. To complete the absurdity, a green demon before the altar was grinning maliciously from under the weight of a frieze coat. At the entrance of the joss-house is a covered porch, under which are two figures sitting, and in this posture nearly twenty feet high. The interior of the house is handsomely ornamented and gilt; and behind the altar there is a row of some fifteen figures, in a sitting posture, all gilt from head to foot, and forming a very goodly assembly: they represented old men wrapped in togas, with faces expressive of instruction, revelation, and wisdom. There was nothing Chinese in their features; the heads were shaved, and it is to be presumed that they represented the prophets and holy writers who flourished antecedent to the great Fo. The expression on their countenances was admirable; and surprised us the more, from a knowledge how fond the Chinese are of filling their temples with unnatural and unmeaning devils. We then visited a smaller god-house: this the 8th regiment had converted into a theatre. Very little traces of a holy temple were discernible; and the great Fo occupied a corner of the green-room. The scenes were painted in fresco, and the whole affair was very tolerably arranged. Most part of the scenery had been painted by my brother during his stay at this port in the Cambrian. The Chinamen consider this no sacrilege, as they always use the temples as theatres themselves. During the winter months Chusan is very cold, and the snow lies on the ground. The country there abounds with game--deer, swans, partridges, pheasants, and wild fowl of every description: the prices are very moderate; a fine buck may be purchased for a dollar, and a brace of pheasants for a rupee. It was now the month of May, and the swans and geese had departed, and game was becoming scarce as the weather became fine; still, however, there was a duck or so to be picked up, so I joined a party bent on trying their luck, and we prepared for a hard day's work. No one who has not tried it can have an idea of the fatigue of a day's shooting at Chusan. Having a Chinese covered boat, we loaded her with quite sufficient to support nature for twenty-four hours; and pulling about four miles through the channels intersecting the islands, we landed about daylight. Before us was a vast paddy field, into which we plunged up to our knees in mud and water. As we approached one of the dykes which convey the water for the irrigation, caution was observed, not a word was uttered by one of the party, and our good behaviour was rewarded by a brace of fine birds, which were deposited in the bag, carried by a celestial under-keeper. Crossing the dyke, we continued to wade through the paddy fields, shooting some plover and a red-legged partridge, until we arrived at a Chinese village. We passed through it, and fell in with a herd of water buffaloes, as they term them. One of them charged furiously, but the contents of one of our barrels in his eyes made him start in mid career; and having had quite enough into his head, he turned to us his tail. These animals show a great antipathy to Europeans, probably from not having been accustomed to their dress. Red, of course, makes them furious, and, thanks to his jacket, a drummer of one of the regiments was killed by these animals. Towards evening we felt it quite impossible to wade any further; and although nightfall is considered the best time for shooting ducks, we thought it was the best time to return to the boat, which we did not regain, fatigued, hungry, and covered with mud, till ten o'clock at night. [Illustration: VIEW ON THE ISLAND OF POO-TOO. (NEAR CHUSAN.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] One day, strolling in the country about four miles from Chusan, we fell in with a very pretty little house surrounded with trees. The courtesy usually shown to the English at Chusan induced us to enter it, that we might inspect the premises. Its owner, a mandarin, was absent, but his major-domo took us over the whole house. The round doors and oyster-shell windows amused us greatly. The garden was ornamented with artificial rocks, studded with flowering shrubs, with great taste. There were two or three grottoes, in one of which was a joss; and an arbour of lilacs and laburnums, in full bloom, gave a charming appearance to the whole. Thanking the Chinaman for his civility, we went away, much pleased with the mandarin's country retreat. During our stay at Chusan we had made a party to go to the island of Poo-too, but we were hurried away sooner than we expected, and our design was frustrated. I will, however, give a description of the island of Poo-too, as described to me. This island is about forty miles from Chusan, and is inhabited solely by priests. These being condemned to a life of celibacy, no woman resides on the island, which is covered with temples of all descriptions, many of them very handsome, but one in particular, which was built by the emperor. The island is not large, and is laid out like a vast garden, with squares and walks, bridges, &c. We left Chusan, and soon afterwards anchored off the mouth of the Ningpo River, which is only thirty miles to northward and westward of the Chusan isles. The first object of interest before us was the famous joss-house fort, which gave us so much trouble at the capture. General D'Aguilar and Captain Mundy being about to visit the city of Ningpo, a party of us obtained a week's leave of absence for the same purpose. We landed in a ship's boat at Chinghae, a small but tolerably fortified town, which, however, needs no description. There we obtained a covered Chinese boat, in which we put our beds and blankets, intending to live on board her during our stay at Ningpo. Starting with a fair wind and tide, by noon we were within five miles of the city, which is built about forty miles up the river. The banks of the river appeared to be highly cultivated, and the river was crowded with boats of all descriptions, some going up with the tide, others at anchor, waiting for the tide to change, to go in an opposite direction. The first that we saw of Ningpo was a low wall, from the middle of which rose a tall pagoda. This, with innumerable masts of the vessels lying off the town, was all that was visible: nor could we discern much more on a nearer approach. Threading the crowd of vessels which filled the river, on our left we could only see the wall and battlements of the town, the before-mentioned pagoda soaring above every thing. To the right, on the side of the river opposite to the town, were several detached houses, surrounded with low shrubberies; behind these was the Chinese country, and then the eye wandered over countless paddy fields, until it at last rested upon some faint blue mountains in the distance. Among the houses on the right was that of the vice-consul, Mr. Thorn. Anchoring our boat as near to his landing-place as possible, we made arrangements for the night, it being then too late to pay him the accustomed visit. We had, however, scarcely spread our mattresses, and put some supper on the fire, when we were hailed by a Chinese boy, and requested to come on shore. Ignorant from whence the invitation might come, but nothing loath, we hauled our boat to the jetty, and, landing, followed young pigtail, who ushered us through a court-yard into a house of tolerable dimensions, agreeably arranged according to English ideas of comfort. In five minutes more we were introduced to Mr. Mackenzie, an English merchant, who, having been informed of our arrival, had sent for us to request that, during our stay at Ningpo, we would make his house our home. We would not tax his hospitality so far as to sleep at his house, having already made our own arrangements; but we willingly accepted his kind offer of being his guests during the day, and proved our sincerity by immediately sitting down to an excellent dinner, and in the evening we retreated to our boat. The next morning we breakfasted with our host, and then crossed the river, to inspect the city. Having landed at one of the gates, we hired a sort of sedan chairs, which were carried by two athletic Tartars, and proceeded to examine a very remarkable building called the Ruined Pagoda. I shall give Dr. Milne's description of it, taken out of the Chinese repository, as I think it will be better than my own:-- "We bent our steps to the Tien-fung, called by foreigners the Ruined Pagoda. Foreigners make for it as soon as they enter the east gate. After shaping their course in a south-east direction through numberless streets, it abruptly bursts upon the view, rising 160 feet above their heads, and towering high above the surrounding houses. The pagoda is hexagonal, and counts seven stories and twenty-eight windows. Above every window is a lantern, and when the pagoda is illuminated, the effect is very brilliant. This building is in much need of repair, and is daily becoming more dilapidated. It has already deviated many feet from the perpendicular, and might not unaptly be described as the Leaning Tower of Ningpo." Dr. Milne thus describes the view from the summit:-- "The entire city and suburbs lay beneath us; the valley of Ningpo, with its hamlets and villages, hills and rivers, on every side; and away in the distance, on the one hand chains of lofty mountains, the sea, with all its islands, on the other." Dr. Milne asserts that Ningpo is 10,000 years old, and that the pagoda was raised antecedent to the city being built. He concludes by explaining the object of the Chinese in raising these monuments. [Illustration: PAGODA--NINGPO.] The view from the summit is remarkably fine, and the ruinous condition of the pagoda almost warrants the supposition of its being nearly as ancient as Dr. Milne asserts. I made a drawing of it, and we then proceeded to the joss-house, which is considered as the handsomest in the Celestial empire. No part of the building was visible from the street, and we stopped at an unpretending door where we dismounted from our vehicles. A Bhuddist priest, clothed in grey and his head shaved, ushered us through a long gallery into the court-yard of the temple. To describe this building accurately would be impossible. It was gilt and carved from floor to ceiling. The porch was supported by pillars of stone beautifully carved with figures of griffins and snakes. In the court-yard were two lions carved out of a purple marble, and in the middle of the yard was an immense brazen ram highly ornamented with hieroglyphics and allegorical designs. As for the temple itself, it was so vast, so intricate, and so various in its designs and gildings, that I can only say picture to yourself a building composed entirely of carving, coloured porcelain, and gilding, and then you may have a faint idea of it. I attempted to make a drawing of it, but before I had obtained much more than the outline, it was time to recross the river. We dined and passed the evening with Mr. Mackenzie as before. The next morning I walked to the Chinese cemetery with my gun in my hand, and shot a few snipe and wood pigeons, and after breakfast we crossed the river to pay a visit to the shops of Ningpo. The streets of the city are narrow, but superior to any that we had yet seen. The principal streets are ornamented with stone arches, and the huge painted boards used by the Chinese for advertisements give them a very gay appearance. We first entered into a furniture warehouse, some 300 yards in length, and filled with Chinese bedsteads carved and gilt in a very splendid manner. These bedsteads consist of moveable frames about twelve feet square, and within them are disposed couches, chairs, tables, and the requisites for the toilet, besides a writing desk, so that a bedstead in China contains all the furniture of the room. Some of these were valued at five and six hundred dollars, but were very highly ornamented and of exquisite workmanship. A hat shop was the next visited. Its interior would have been considered splendid even in Regent Street. A long highly polished counter with a top of cane-work, was loaded with the hats and caps of Mandarins of every class, and the display was very tempting to those who wanted them. We then passed five minutes in a porcelain warehouse; from the warehouse we went to a toy-shop, and being by this time pretty well encumbered with mandarins' hats and caps, gongs, and a variety of other articles which we did not want, at the same time making the discovery that our purses were not encumbered with dollars as they were when we set forth, we thought it advisable to leave off shopping for the day. The next day we visited the Hall of Confucius, which was not worth seeing, nor could we discover to what use it was dedicated, so we turned from it and went off to see a Chinese play. As we proceeded to the theatre we were surprised to hear a lad singing "Jim along Josey," we turned round and found it was a real pig tail who was singing, and we inquired where he learnt the air. We found that he had served on board one of our vessels during the Chinese war, so we hired the young traitor as a cicerone during our stay at Ningpo, and ordered him to follow us to the theatre, which as usual was a temple or joss-house. [Illustration: CHINESE JOSS HOUSE AT NINGPO. F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] We found it crowded with Chinese, and the actors were performing on a raised platform. Our entrance caused a great sensation, and for a short time the performance was unnoticed by the audience. Our beaver hats quite puzzled them, for we were in plain clothes; even the actors indulged in a stare, and for a short time we were "better than a play." The Chinese acting has been often described: all I can say is, that so far it was like real life that all the actors were speaking at one time, and it was impossible to hear what they said, even if the gongs had not kept up a continual hammering, which effectually drowned the voices. At all events they were well off in the property line, being all very showily dressed. Fireworks were at intervals exploded, and occasionally a tumbler would perform some feat, but I felt little interest in the performance, and kept my eyes on the gallery containing the ladies, among whom I saw one or two very pretty faces. The wall round Ningpo is built wide enough for a carriage drive. It has embrasures, but no guns were mounted. By ascending some steps near to the town gate we found ourselves on the top of the wall, and walked half round the town on the parapet. It was very extensive, and, as far as the eye could reach, the plain was studded with country houses of a slate colour. I forgot to mention that while here we visited a sect of Chinese nuns or female devotees. They were assembled in a large room, at one end of which was an image of the god Fo. Each nun was seated at a small table on which was a reading stand and a book of prayers. They were all reading, and at the same time beating a hollow painted piece of wood: the latter duty was, we were informed, to keep up the attention of the god. What with them all gabbling at once, and the tapping noise made with the wood, god Fo appeared more likely to have his attention distracted than otherwise. However, it was of no consequence, as Fo was one of that description of gods mentioned in the Bible, among whose attributes we find, "Ears have they, but they hear not." We remained here a week, and I was much interested with what I saw; but so much has already been written about the Chinese, that I wish to confine myself to what may be considered unbroken ground. As the time fixed for our departure approached, we determined to go to Chinghae overland, in chairs. Taking a farewell of our kind and hospitable host, Mr. Mackenzie, we each took a chair, and took our departure. The road was interesting, being at one time through tea plantations, and at another through paddy fields. Our bearers were strong muscular fellows, and thought little of carrying us twenty-five miles. We passed crowds of Chinamen irrigating the land, and working in the paddy fields. In some instances they favoured us with a salute of yells and stones; and as we approached Chinghae, the unwashed vented their feelings in some very unpleasant ways. In the town we were followed by a mob; and by the time we had reached the quay, and procured a boat to take us off to the ship, the whole town had turned out. Tapping one or two of the most officious with the bamboo oars, we managed to shove the boat off, and pulled on board. We sailed for Chusan the same evening, but this time I unfortunately was attacked by one of the prevailing diseases of the country, and was confined to my hammock. We revisited Amoy, and then shaped our course for Hong Kong. On our arrival, we found no ship there but the Castor, the admiral and fleet being employed on the coast of Borneo, subduing the pirates in Maludu Bay. The ship being again about to start for the northward, I was considered too unwell to remain in her, and was sent on board the Minden hospital ship, to live or to die, as it might please God. The Minden hospital ship is a fine 74; and as all the guns, masts, and stores, had been landed at the time that she was selected for the duty, there was great accommodation on board of her; but great as it was, unfortunately there was not sufficient to meet the demands upon it in this unhealthy climate. A description of her internal arrangement may not be uninteresting. The quarter-deck and poop was set apart for the convalescents; but the heat of the sun was so overpowering, that it was not until late in the afternoon that they could breathe the purer atmosphere. Long confinement below had left them pale and wan, and their unsteady gait proved how much they had suffered in their constitution, and how narrowly they had escaped the grave. To some this escape had been beneficial, as their constant perusal of the Bible established; others, if they even had during their illness alarms about their future state, had already dismissed them from their thoughts, and were impatiently awaiting their return to health to return to past folly and vice. The main deck was allotted to the medical and other officers belonging to the ship, the seamen who composed the ship's company, and also on this deck were located the seamen who had been discharged cured, and who then waited for the arrival of their ships, which were absent from Hong Kong. On this deck, abaft all, was the inspector's cabin, and adjoining it the mess-room of the assistant-surgeons, who, like all their class, rendered callous by time and habit to their dangerous and painful duty, thought only of driving away the memory of the daily mortality to which they were witnesses by jovial living and mirth. Indeed nothing could be a more harassing scene than that of the lower deck, where the patients were located. Under any circumstances an hospital is a depressing and afflicting sight, even with all the advantages of clean well-regulated wards, attentive nurses, and pure ventilation. Imagine then the feelings of a sick wretch, stretched on a canvass cot, who is first hoisted up the ship's side, and then lowered down a dark hatchway (filled with anxiety and forebodings as to his ever leaving the vessel alive) to the scene of misery which I am about to describe--the lower deck of the Minden hospital ship. This lower deck has on each side of it three rows of iron bedsteads, for the most part filled with the dead and dying; an intolerable stench, arising from putrefaction, which it is impossible by any means to get rid of, salutes his descent; and to this is added the groans of lingering sufferers. He may chance, God help him, to be lowered down at the very hour of the inspecting surgeon's visits. The latter is seated by a bed, having probably just performed, or in the act of performing, an operation. The goodly array of instruments meets his eye, and he wonders, as they are displayed, what these several instruments of torture can be applied to; the groans of the patient fall upon his ear, and his nerves are so shattered and debilitated by disease, that the blood curdles to his heart. The inspector writes the particulars of the case on a printed form, while the dressers are passing bandages round the fainting patient. As soon as he is out of the cot which lowered him down, the new arrival is washed, and clothed in hospital linen, ready to be put into a bed. Not unfrequently he has to wait till room can be made for him, by removing the corpse of the last occupant, just deceased. He is then placed on it, a coarse sheet is thrown over him, and he is left to await the inspector's visit, which, as that officer has all his former patients first to prescribe for, may perhaps be not for an hour or two, or more. At last he is visited, prescribed for, a can of rice-water is placed at the head of his bed, and he is left to his own thoughts, if the groans of those around him, and the horror that he feels at his situation, will permit him to reach them. If he can do so, they must be any thing but agreeable; and a clever medical man told me that this admission into the hospital, and the scene which the patient was introduced to, was quite sufficient, acting upon a mind unnerved by disease, to produce fever. Excepting that the hospital was too crowded, which indeed could not be prevented, there was, however, every arrangement for the comfort of the patients which could be made under such a climate. No one was to blame--the hospital for the military was building, and until it was ready for the reception of the patients, the men of both services were received on board of the Minden. But if the day is so trying, who can describe the horrors of the night? The atmosphere becomes still more foul and pestilential, from the partially closed port-holes, and from the indifference of the nurses to the necessary cleanliness required. The whole becomes alive with cockroaches and other vermin, creeping over the patients; and the mosquitoes prey upon the unfortunate sufferer, or drive him mad with their unceasing humming preparatory to their attacks. Add these new trials to the groans of the dying, which, during my residence on board, never ceased, and at night were more awful and painfully distinct. The nurses were all men, obtained from the scum of the sea-ports, for no others would volunteer for the duty--a set of brutes indifferent to the sufferings of others. As long as they were, during the day, superintended and watched by the officers, they did their duty, but at night the neglect was most shameful. In fact, these wretches composed themselves to sleep instead of watching. Patients may in vain call, in a feeble voice, for water--the only answer is a snore. On one occasion, having listened to the call of a poor fellow for more than an hour, and each time in a weaker voice, for drink, I was obliged to get up myself to wake the nurse, that the man might not die of thirst.[2] [Footnote 2: These rascally nurses have all been discharged. When enlisted as nurses in England, they signed for three years' service. When their time was expired, they applied to Admiral Cochrane for their discharge. After some demur their request was complied with; but their conduct had been so disgraceful, that, as it was not in the agreement, they were refused a passage home in a man-of-war. I met some of them ashore at Hong Kong, looking in vain for employment, and at a distance of 20,000 miles from their own country. The retribution was just.] My cabin, for all the officers were separated from the men, commanded the whole view of the lower deck, and I was compelled to be witness of scenes of the most frightful description. An English sailor had been hung for murder, in consequence of his accomplice, who was by far the most criminal of the two, having turned queen's evidence. This latter soon afterwards was brought on board the Minden, having been attacked with the fever, and never was there such an evidence of the racking of a bad conscience. In his ravings he shrieked for mercy, and then would blaspheme in the most awful manner. At one moment the spectre of his dead comrade would be invoked by him, requesting it to depart, or desiring those around him to take it away. At others, the murdered man was standing at his bed-side, and he would attempt to run, that he might flee from the vision. Thus was he haunted, and thus did he disturb all around him till his very last hour, when he died in an extreme of agony, physical and mental. What a relief it was when this poor wretch was at last silent! Almost every day there was to be seen a Roman Catholic priest administering the last unction to some disciple of his faith, some Irish soldier or sailor, whose hour was come. On these occasions the amputation table was his altar, and a brass flat candlestick the only ornament. He never failed to be at his post every day, and was a good old man. At the same time that the old priest was officiating by the side of one bed, the chaplain of the ship would be attending the last moments of some other victim. On these occasions all would be silent on the deck, even the groans were stifled and checked for the time, and nothing would be heard but the muttered prayer of the Catholic priest, or the last, and often futile, attempts of the clergyman of our own creed to extract some sign of faith and hope from the fast-sinking and almost senseless patient. "He dies, and makes no sign! O God, forgive him!" At times the uproar on the deck would be appalling. Some powerful man in the strength of delirium would rise from his bed, and, bursting from some half-dozen of the nurses, would rush through the tiers of beds roaring like a bull, and dealing blows right and left upon the unfortunate sick men who fell in his way. Then there would be general chase after him, until, overpowered by additional help, he was brought back to his bed and confined by force. An hour or two afterwards, the nurses who watched him would quit the side of the pallet; a sheet would be thrown over it; no other communication was necessary to tell me that the storm had been succeeded by a calm, and that life's fitful fever was over. At the forepart of the hospital deck is a bath room; adjoining to that is a small dark cabin, with no other furniture than a long white-washed board, laid upon two tressels, with hooks fixed to the carlines of the deck. Above these the dead bodies are removed: immediately after their decease a _post mortem_ examination is made by the assistant surgeon, a report of which is sent into the inspector. A port-hole has a wooden shoot or slide fixed to it, by which the bodies are ejected into the boat waiting to convey them for interment. The church service is read every morning on the hospital deck, and during the performance the strictest attention was paid by the patients. When convalescent I enjoyed the privilege of walking on the poop with the others who had been spared, and truly grateful was I for my recovery. Such scenes as I have described could not but have the effect upon me: I hope that I left the hospital a wiser and a better man. At last the time came when I was pronounced by the doctors to be quite cured, and at liberty to leave the ship. I hardly need say that I did so with alacrity. I had always before this considered Hong Kong as a most disgusting place; but now that I had been so long cooped up with disease and death, it appeared to me as a paradise. I had made one or two acquaintances during my former visits, and now found their kind offers too welcome to refuse them. Having nothing to do, and not being even obliged to present myself on board of the Mind en, I enjoyed myself excessively in journeys and excursions to the other side of the island. My acquaintances were the officers of the 42d regiment, who were remarkably kind and intelligent men, and during my stay I was a great deal in their society. We one day made up a party to visit Pirate's Bay, a spot on the Chinese main, about twelve miles from Hong Kong. Starting early, we took our guns and the requisites for a pic-nic. When we arrived at the spot, we hired the only respectable house in the place, left a native to make the necessary arrangements for our dinner, and then started on a cruise to view the country. We shot at any thing that came in our way, and by noon our game-bag contained a curious medley of ducks, paroquets, swallows, and water rats. By this time the sun became so overpowering that we returned to the house which had been hired for our accommodation. Here we dined, and returned to Hong Kong well pleased with our trip. The roads at Hong Kong, though not particularly good, have been made at great expence. Large rocks have been cut through to afford communication, and the quantity of rivulets running down from the mountains, have rendered it necessary to build innumerable bridges. There were but few good horses on the island; but I managed to procure a tolerable one, and in the evening would ride out by "Happy Valley," and return by dark, the only exercise which the heat of the climate would permit, and which was necessary to restore me to health. Society is in a queer state here, as may be imagined when I state, that the shipowner won't associate with the small merchant, and the latter will not deign to acknowledge a man who keeps a store. Under these circumstances, the army and navy keep aloof, and associate with no class. There were very few ladies at Hong Kong at this time, and of what class they were composed of may be imagined, when I state that a shopkeeper's sister was the belle of the place, and received all the homage of the marriageable men of Hong Kong. Hospitality to strangers is as yet unknown, and a letter of introduction is only good for one tiffin, or more rarely one dinner. I made several excursions in the country, but did not find any thing worth narrating, or describing with the pencil. [Illustration: TANKA BOAT WOMEN.] It is here worthy of remark, that there is every prospect of all the enormous expense which has been bestowed upon this island being totally thrown away, and that those who have speculated will lose all their money; in fact, that in a few years Hong Kong will be totally deserted, and all the money expended upon it will be lost. To explain this I must mention a few facts, not probably known to my readers. When, many years ago, the trade with foreigners was first permitted by the Chinese government, Canton was selected as the port from which it should be carried on. The Chinese government had two reasons for making this selection: their first was, their dislike and jealousy of foreigners induced them to select a port at the very confines of the empire where the communication with them should take place, so that by no chance the foreigners should obtain any thing like a footing in or knowledge of their country; the second reason was, that by so doing they obtained, at the expence of the foreigners, a very considerable inland revenue from the tea trade. Canton is situated at least 500 miles from those provinces in which the tea is grown, and the transit to Canton is over a very mountainous range, at the passes of which tolls are levied by the government, which are now said to amount annually to seven millions. The assertion, therefore, of the Chinese government that they do not care about the trade is very false, for they have derived a great revenue from it. The opening of the more northern ports, which was obtained by the war with China, has already made a great difference, and every year will make a greater. Shang-hai, one of the ports opened, and the farthest to the northward, is situated on the confines of the great tea country, and vessels going there to take in their cargoes avoid all the duties of transit, and procure the tea in a much better condition. The merchants of Canton, moreover, who traffic in tea, are all of them for the most part people of the province of Shang-hai, who resort to Canton to look after their interests, but now that the port of Shang-hai is opened, their merchants are returning to their own country, the English merchants are settling at Shang-hai, and the vessels are going there to load with tea direct. Already a large portion of the traffic has left Canton and gone to Shang-hai, and it is but natural to suppose, that in a few years the tea trade will be carried on altogether from that port, as the expence of transit over the mountains and the duties levied will be avoided, as well as the advantage gained of having the tea in a much better condition when shipped on board. How the Chinese government will act when it finds that it loses the great revenue arising from the trade being carried on at Canton remains to be seen, but it will, probably, succumb to another war, if such is considered necessary. It will be a curious subject of interest to watch the fall of Hong Kong, of Macao, and also of Canton itself, with its turbulent population, which must, when the trade is withdrawn, fall into insignificance. The great error of the last war was, our selection of such an unhealthy and barren island as Hong Kong as our _pied-à-terre_ in China, when we might have had Chusan, or, indeed, any other place which we might have insisted upon. We thought that Chusan was unhealthy because we barracked our soldiers in the swamps, and consequently lost many of the men, when, as it is a most healthy and delightful climate, had the barracks been built on the hills, we probably should not have lost a man. Even now it is not too late. The Chinese dislike our propinquity to their coast at Hong Kong, and the last expedition will have the effect of increasing this dislike. I think, with very little difficulty, the Chinese government would now exchange Chusan for Hong Kong, if it were only to keep such unpleasant barbarians, as the English have proved to be, at a more respectable distance. If we had possession of Chusan, the trade would come to our ports. The Chinese junks would come to us loaded with tea, and take our goods in return. The trade would then be really thrown open, which at present it is not. [Illustration: MAN-OF-WAR JUNK.] Murders and robberies were of daily, or, rather, nightly occurrence at Hong Kong, the offenders being Chinese, who are the most daring robbers perhaps in the world. [Illustration: TRADING JUNKS.] I must now detail the events of a cruise of the Samarang during the time that I was in the Iris, and I avail myself of the private journal of one of my friends. May 9th, sailed from Hong Kong to Batan, to complete the survey of the Bashee group. On the 20th we left Batan to run to Ibyat, about twenty miles from the former island, and although a high table land, it is low when compared with Batan. I never saw an island less inviting in appearance than Ibyat. We landed at the foot of a precipice, nearly perpendicular, and ascended to the summit by means of rough ladders, placed upright against large masses of rock; on either side of which were gaping chasms, the very sight of which were sufficient to unnerve us. This plan was not only the best for landing on this strange island, but, as the natives informed us, was almost the only one where a landing could be effected without great danger. It was near sunset when we landed; the boats returned to the ship, leaving us to partake of the hospitality of the padres from Batan, who had taken a passage in the ship, as they had some spiritual business to transact on this island. About 8 P. M., we arrived at the village of San Raphael, where we slept in a house set apart for the use of the padres. This village is situated in the centre of the island, built in a valley and on eminences which surround it. The most commanding position is occupied by the church and mission house, both of which are much larger, although built of the same materials, and on the same plan, as the houses of the natives. There was but one room in the mission house, which was scantily furnished with some heavy wooden chairs, and some cane settees for bed places; however, thanks to the kindness of the padres, we contrived to make ourselves very comfortable. There are four villages in the island, San Raphael, Santa Maria, Santa Lucia, and Santa Rosa; each consisting of about forty houses, containing about 300 people; so that the population may be taken, at a rough guess, at about 1200. The natives profess the Roman Catholic religion, and appear to be very sincere in their devotion. Divine service is performed morning and evening, at which time the boys and girls of the village walk to the church in two lines, chanting a hymn to the Virgin Mary. Each line is headed by the youngest of either sex, bearing a cross. The boys wore nothing but the middle cloth, and the girls were almost as scantily clothed; the only garment being a skirt or petticoat, not larger than a moderate sized pocket-handkerchief. During two days our friends, the padres, were fully occupied with the important ceremonies of marriage and baptism. Many of the parties joined in matrimony were mere children. They all had, on this important occasion, some addition to their general costume. The bridegroom, for instance, wore a shirt; some of them had actually a pair of trousers. The bride had an additional and large petticoat, and an embroidered handkerchief. They were not at all bashful--there was no blushing--no tears, and, on the contrary, marriage appeared to be considered as an excellent joke, and the laughing and flirtation were carried on to the church door. The padres appeared to be almost worshipped by the poor natives, who, on their arrival and departure, respectfully saluted their hands. But their great affection was shown in a more satisfactory and substantial manner, by the continual supply of goats, pigs, fowls, vegetables, and fruit, which were liberally supplied during our stay. I forgot to say that the marriage certificates were of a very primitive kind; they consisted of a laurel leaf, in which were rudely inscribed the names of the bride and bridegroom. At length, having finished our survey, we bid farewell to our hospitable entertainers, and on the 27th made sail for St. Domingo. We remained two days at St. Domingo, and then weighed and steered to the northward. On the 3d of June we landed on the island of Samazana, near the south point of Formosa. The inhabitants of Samazana are Chinese, although they pay no tribute to the emperor. This island was first inhabited, about twenty years since, by a party of Chinese sailors, who were thrown on shore in a tempest. They afterwards returned to Amoy, where, having persuaded several families to join them, they returned to Samazana, and colonised it. The fertility of this island has richly repaid them for their labour. The village contains about 100 people, who are located in about ten or fifteen houses. Paddy, sugar-cane, and yams are grown in abundance, and ground nuts cover nearly one third of the island. These Chinese settlers keep up a trade with Amoy, from whence they obtain what they require, in exchange for the productions of their island. We found these people very civil and obliging, but excessively dirty in their persons and apparel. About seven o'clock in the evening, while we were dining on the beach, an earthquake shook the island, the glasses jingled together, and all our party were in involuntary see-saw motion, like the Chinese figures. This lasted about ten seconds. Several of us, who had never before experienced the sensation, were much relieved when the shock was over, as it created a suffocating sensation. During the evening there were several other shocks, but none of them equal to the first in violence. We remained all night on the island, to ascertain the latitude by the stars. On the following morning we returned on board, when we were informed that the ship had struck on a reef on the preceding evening, at 7 P. M. The lead was thrown overboard, but no soundings were obtained, proving, beyond doubt, that the concussion had been communicated to the vessel. She was about four miles off the land at the time, and many would not then be convinced that it was an earthquake; although I believe it has been satisfactorily proved that the shock has been felt by a vessel which has been out of sight of any land. On the 6th of June sighted one of the Madjicosima islands. The master in the second cutter left the ship, with a week's provisions, to survey the island, while we made sail for our former anchorage at Pa-tchu-san, to obtain water. On the 8th of June we arrived at Pa-tchu-san, where we were received by our friends, the chiefs, who appeared delighted to see us again. We learnt through our interpreter that a French frigate had left Loo-choo for Corea two months before--twenty-seven of their countrymen, chiefly missionaries, having been murdered by the Coreans. It would appear that the French missionaries, exceeding their vocation, had wished to make some alterations in the Corean form of government, but their attempts not meeting the approbation of those in power, they fell a sacrifice to their good intentions. On the 9th we sailed for Sabangyat to pick up the two cutters. We arrived there the next day, and were joined by the master. We received every attention from the hospitable and inoffensive natives, who supplied us with pigs, fowls, and vegetables, refusing to accept any thing in return. We returned to Pa-tchu-san to rate our chronometers, and sailed on the same day. The next morning we landed on Hoa-pen, an island, but the cloudy weather prevented us from obtaining the latitude. We landed during the day, and remained on shore the whole night to obtain our objects, and, I may add, were most cruelly bitten by the mosquitoes as a reward for our zeal. When we were returning to the ship on the following morning, a large albatross alighted on the water close to the boat. As we passed it, it made several futile attempts to rise again on the wing. It is well known that this bird cannot fly while under the influence of fear, and so it appeared in this instance, for, while we were passing it, a shark thrust its head out of the water and took the unfortunate bird down with him. On the 16th we landed at Tea-qua-san, where we captured great numbers of albatrosses, ferns, and boobies. They actually refused to move at our approach. This island is very small and uninhabited, but it was evident that people had landed on it lately, for in a cave we discovered several grass beds, remains of game, and remnants of cooking. The weather prevented us from making any observations, but it did not prevent us from collecting several hundreds of eggs, which we took on board with us. The next day we saw a large rock, marked doubtful on the charts. A heavy squall, which forced us to run before it for several hours, prevented us from ascertaining its position. June 19. We found ourselves close to the southern extremity of Loo-choo, the land of which is low. About noon we anchored in the harbour of Napa-kiang, and were boarded by several mandarins, one of whom the captain recognised as the interpreter of the Blossom, whose interesting cruise has been published by Captain Beechey. The natives of Loo-choo are so similar to those of the Madjicosima group that it would be useless describing their manners and customs, the more so as we have already the works of Captain Hall and Captain Beechey, in which they are described most accurately. A great many junks were anchored in the inner harbour, their enormous masts towering far above the highest buildings. The burial ground is a large tract of land to the left of the town; the tombs are large, and in shape resemble the last letter in the Greek alphabet ([Greek: Omega]). Strange that it should be the last letter. Most of them are painted white, and they have from the anchorage a very picturesque appearance. It was the captain's intention to have sailed on the day after our arrival, but the weather proving unfavourable for astronomical observations, our departure was postponed for another day, when, having obtained sights, some live stock, and vegetables, we sailed for Guilpat, a large island off the southern extremity of Corea. Previous to our sailing, a French missionary called on the captain. He had been left at Loo-choo by the Alcimene frigate, with a view of introducing Christianity into the island, but the chiefs did not appear to relish his sojourn there, and were anxious to get rid of him. He offered to accompany us to Corea and Japan; at the latter place he would have been of great service, as he was acquainted with the Japanese language. June 24. Sighted the Goth island, a portion of the Japanese empire. The next morning the wind had increased to a heavy gale, and we were compelled to reduce our canvass to a close-reefed main topsail, staysail, and trysail. We rounded Cape Goth within a quarter of a mile, and lay to under the lee of the island, where the sea was comparatively smooth. Towards the evening the wind subsided, and we again made sail. Saw the island of Guilpat, and the next morning anchored off the north-east side of it, in a channel between Guilpat and a small island. We landed on the small island, where we were received by about sixty natives, who did not appear well pleased at our intrusion, but knew that resistance to us would be useless. In the course of the day several thousand natives had assembled on the opposite shore. By the aid of good telescopes we could discern forts and flags. The natives informed us that Guilpat had a standing army, well supplied with matchlocks, swords, and bows and arrows. They added that guns are not wanted to defend the island in case of need. This assertion we afterwards found, making allowance for a little exaggeration, to be quite correct. The island of Guilpat is subject to the kingdom of Corea, and is the largest in that archipelago, being about thirty miles in length and fifteen in breadth. It is composed of innumerable hills in every variety of form, such as cones, saddles, and tables. Most of these hills have forts built on their summits. From these, lights were displayed every evening, and it was astonishing the rapidity with which these signals were answered. I have seen the whole coast illuminated in less than five minutes, each hill appearing like a little volcano, suddenly bursting out. As soon as the boats had surveyed this part of the island, we shifted the ship to where the survey was being carried on; and this we continued to do during the whole time that we were employed in the survey, the boats returning on board every night. Good anchorage is to be obtained all round the island. Innumerable forts and batteries are built along the coast; every rising ground being surmounted with one, although the major portion of them were not supplied with guns. We found as we coasted along that all the forts were manned, the people being armed with matchlocks, spears, and arrows. On several occasions they fired their matchlocks, and the salute was returned by the 6-pounders in the barges, which never failed of putting them to flight. In the centre of the island the land runs to an enormous height, and terminates in a sharp peak, which, in consequence of its always having been enveloped with clouds, we did not see till several days after our arrival. At last we arrived at the principal town, which is situated on the western side of the island. The town was inclosed with thick walls, higher than we had observed before as we coasted along. These walls form a square, each side of which is about half a mile in length, and has batteries, parapets, and embrasures. In some of the latter there were guns, which were occasionally fired. The whole ground before the town, for the distance of a mile and a half, was crowded with people; but if they waited for our landing they were disappointed, as the captain would not land. They gave us two bullocks, which were put into the barge, as the ship was then ten or twelve miles off. The mandarins used every argument to persuade the captain to come on shore and visit the chiefs of the island; but, as we had but twenty men in the boats, he refused to trust himself among eight or ten thousand whose intentions were any thing but satisfactory. However, he promised that he would come on shore on the following day, but that at present he was obliged to visit a point of the bay to obtain observations before sunset. We now prepared to move in the barge, but found ourselves encompassed by twelve or fourteen large boats, fastened to each other by strong ropes. We desired them to make a passage, but they either did not, or would not, understand us. This looked very much like treachery, and decided measures were become requisite: the nearest boats were boarded, and the crews made to cut their ropes. Some of them appeared inclined to resist, but a smart stroke of the cutlass put their courage to flight. This affair took place within twenty yards of the beach, and in sight of 10,000 people on the shore. We now being clear, pulled for the point and secured our station. A great crowd collected around us while we were observing; the chiefs expressed a wish, in a peremptory sort of way, that the officers should partake of some refreshment at a short distance from the beach. This the captain, who suspected treachery, refused, and as we were going near to our boats, some of the natives laid violent hands upon our men, but having received from them a few specimens of our method of boxing, they soon quitted their hold. The Chinese interpreter was now missing; our men in consequence procured their arms, and landing, a strict search was made for him. He was found some little distance on land, having been enticed away by one of the chiefs, who was plying him with sam-schoo. On his way to return they forcibly detained him, and were in the act of conveying him away, when the appearance of the armed party from the boat surprised them, and they hastened to convey their own persons out of reach of our bayonets. It was not, however, our intention, or our policy, to commence hostilities, only to show them that we would not be trifled with. We returned from the point to the beach before the town, when the boat's guns were loaded with round and grape, and pointed at the crowd assembled, in case of any further treachery. The captain then landed with the small armed party, all ready for resistance. Music was now heard in the distance, and soon afterwards one of the principal chiefs arrived, walking beneath a silken canopy. He was attended by two young lads and a band of spearmen, who prevented the mob from approaching too close to his highness's person. The multitude shouted, and bowed their heads to the ground as the chief passed them; the latter took no notice of their acclamations, but advanced in a very stately dignified manner towards the captain, apparently keeping time to the music, which was played by a band of men, dressed in a very fantastic manner, on cymbals and instruments resembling our clarionets. The negotiations were now opened: the captain expressed his surprise and disgust at the treatment he had experienced at the point, where he had been taking observations. The chief inquired of the captain, in reply, why he did not shoot the offenders? and assured him that, if the next time he was annoyed by the rabble he would shoot a few of them, it would have a very salutary effect upon the remainder. In the course of conversation, the captain informed the mandarin that England possessed ships carrying 120 guns of larger caliber than those on board of the vessel he commanded; and that altogether, including large and small, the Queen of England had 800 vessels. This account was evidently discredited, as it always was when such an assertion was made in those seas, for looking round him and explaining the nature of the communication to his followers, they all laughed. Asang, the interpreter, then gave them a history of the Chinese war, on which he dwelt upon our immense resources, the size and number of our vessels, and the fire ships (steamers) which we had employed; but it was evident that the Quelpartians did not believe one word of his assertions. Before the conference was over, rice, cakes, and sam-schoo were handed round, and the captain promised that he would visit the chief mandarin on the following day. By this time, the ship had come to an anchor in the bay, and we returned on board. The next morning we got the ship under weigh, and brought her nearer to the town, so that her guns could be brought to bear in case of need; but when within 100 yards of the shore, and in the act of going about, the ship struck with great violence against a rock. Hawsers were laid out, and with our usual good fortune, we again got into deep water, and in half an hour anchored off the town in a favourable position for cannonading it. We then landed our force, consisting of all the marines, with the drummer and fiddler, besides a party of small-arm men from the blue jackets, all armed with muskets, bayonets, and cutlasses. The officers, in addition to their swords, carried pistols in their belts. A feu-de-joie was now fired, for the double purpose of creating an awe among the crowd, and ascertaining that all the muskets were in good order; for the mandarin resided some miles from the beach, and in case of attack we must have fought hard to regain our boats and the protection of the ship's guns. All being ready, the drummer and fiddler struck up a lively air, and we commenced our march towards the mandarin's house, the officers being accommodated with horses. After passing over a morass, the waters of which ran sluggishly through the arches of a bridge, connecting the suburbs with the city, we ascended a rocky eminence, from the summit of which we had a bird's eye view of the city, and some portion of the interior. We observed that the ramparts of the city were lined with people. Our train was nearly a mile in length, although the natives were walking ten or twelve abreast. Immediately after our party came the band of the natives, dressed in russet-coloured cloth, with shawls of the same material; after them the mandarin, followed by above 200 soldiers, a dense mob bringing up the rear, with flags and banners displayed. On the inland side of us was an immense plain, bounded in the distance by high mountains, whose tops were enveloped in clouds. This plain was mostly cultivated; that portion of it which was barren had been appropriated to burial grounds, several of which we passed through. At the head of the graves were stone figures intending to represent human beings, but Chantry had not been employed. At length, having walked round two-thirds of the walls, we entered a defile, leading to one of the gates of the city, but to our surprise, when we arrived at the gate, we found that it was locked, and when the cause was demanded, we were informed that the mandarin refused to allow the soldiers to enter, but that the officers would be admitted alone. This communication greatly irritated the captain, and our position caused us some uneasiness. We were inclosed within two high walls in a narrow lane, our advance prevented by the locked up gate, and our retreat must be through thousands who had formed the cavalcade, and were now in our rear. Our only passage was through this multitude, and I hardly need say that we were convinced of the treachery of the people. However, there was no time to be lost: the word was given, the marines formed a front line, cocked their muskets, and then brought them to the charge bayonets; and in this way, the crowd retreating before us, we forced our way back, until we were again clear of the high walls which had flanked us; but our position even then was not pleasant. We had to pass the fort and several encampments before we could arrive at the beach, which was at least four miles distant. However, we put a good face on the matter, and forcibly detaining one of the mandarins upon the pretence that he must show us the way back, with the threat, that upon the slightest molestation on the part of his countrymen, we would blow his brains out, we commenced our march back to the beach, our two musicians playing with great energy, "Go to the devil and shake yourselves," which tune, struck up upon their own suggestion, was the occasion of great laughter among our party. At last we reached the beach without opposition, and the mandarin, who was terribly alarmed, was released. When we arrived, the chiefs attempted to throw all the blame upon the head mandarin, but the captain would no longer stand their humbug. He replied to them, that if any of their principal men had visited the ship they would have been treated with respect and kindness, and that the number of their armed retainers would have made no difference in their reception; that he considered them as faithless in all their protestations of good-will, and from thenceforth he should place no reliance on any thing that they said; that for the future he would act as he thought proper without consulting them, and that he would shoot any one who attempted to interfere with him. We then got into the boats and returned on board, where we heard that the cutter's crew had been compelled to kill or wound some of the natives, who had come down in a body and attacked one of the men with fire-brands. The cutter was at anchor a short distance from the shore; on the natives approaching they seized their muskets, but did not fire until their shipmate was in danger of his life. Two of the natives had fallen and had been carried off by their comrades. [Illustration: QUELPARTIANS. F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] The Quelpartians cultivate paddy (from which they distil their sam-schoo), sweet potatoes, and radishes, which, with shell-fish, form the principal articles of food with the lower classes. Pigs, bullocks, and fowls appeared to be plentiful, although we obtained but few. All their towns are enclosed with a stone wall; the houses are also built of stone, and mostly tiled with a species of red slate; but we had few opportunities of inspecting them, as the natives kept so strict a watch upon us, and so outnumbered us. These Coreans presented a strong contrast to the Loo Chooans, who are so polite in their manner and kind in their demeanour. These Quelpartians, on the contrary, are very unprepossessing in their appearance, rude and boisterous in their manner, and of very gross habits. They insisted upon feeling and inspecting every article of our clothing, even baring our breasts to ascertain their colour, and in many other respects proving themselves very annoying. This was submitted to at first, with the hope of securing their good-will, but afterwards very decided measures were taken to repulse these dirty wretches, whose clothes smelt most offensively. They have the high cheek bone and elongated eye of the Tartar, or northern Chinese, from whom I am inclined to think they are descended. The crown of the head is closely shaved, leaving a circle of long hair, which is tied in a knot on the top of the skull (similar to the people of Loo Choo), but without any ornament. Round the forehead is fastened a bandanna, about four inches in width, resembling fine net-work in texture, but it is made with horsehair. This is used to keep the hair in its proper position. But the most singular part of their costume is the hat, which is made of the same materials as the fillets: the brim is about four feet in width, and this gives to the wearer a very grotesque appearance. The crown in shape resembles a sugar-loaf with the top cut off, and is very small in diameter. It admits the top-knot of hair, and nothing more. [Illustration: MANDARIN OF QUELPART. (COREA.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] The lower orders generally wear a felt hat, but of the same dimensions and shape. The hats of the mandarins are secured on their heads by strings of amber beads and large ivory balls, and then passed under the chin. Rank is denoted by the peacock's feather in the hat. The army are distinguished by a tuft of red horsehair stuck in the crown. The respectable part of the inhabitants have several garments; the outer ones are of various colours, but the cut of them extends to all ranks. I can liken it to nothing but a long pinbefore, slit up in front, behind, and at the two sides. Under this they wear other garments, the texture and quality of which, as well as quantity, depend upon the wealth of the wearer. The sleeves of their dresses are wide and long. In spite of their thick mustachios and long flowing beards, they have the appearance of a very effeminate people. One evening we saw a large turtle asleep as we pulled along the coast. A Sandwich Islander, belonging to the gig's crew, went in the water and turned him, holding him in this position till a rope was made fast to him, and he was secured. At night we landed on a small island, and we cooked our prize for our supper. I mention it as a proof of the man's dexterity. Completed our survey of the Quelpart, and stood to the N. E. The next morning we found ourselves close to a labyrinth of islands, not laid down on any chart. The captain named the group after the ship; and, having in three days completed the survey of them, we stood further to the northward and eastward. It would be tedious to detail our surveying operations. We saw the main land of Corea, but did not go on shore; and our provisions getting low, we bore all for the southward. After calling again at Quelpart, where we remained a few days, we made sail for Nangasaki, a seaport town in the empire of Japan. We were some distance in the offing in sight of the town of Nangasaki, when several boats, gaily decorated with flags of various shades and colours, came out to meet the ship and accompany us to the anchorage. One of them brought a letter, written in mingled Dutch and French, inquiring from whence and why we came. The bearer, who was a great man in authority, desired the captain to anchor immediately; but this the captain refused, telling him that he should anchor his ship when and where he pleased. We afterwards discovered that these were all government boats, and that they were always placed as a guard upon any ship which visited Nangasaki. [Illustration: JAPANESE BOAT.] The crews were all dressed alike, in chequered blue and white cotton dresses; the boats are propelled with sculls used as oars, the men keeping time to a monotonous song. Forts, or rather the ghosts of forts, appeared as if raised by magic; they were easily distinguished to be formed out of immense screens of coloured cotton, and they were surrounded by flags and pennons. Although not effective, their effect was good at a distance. [Illustration: JAPANESE. F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] In the evening, a large assembly of the principal men visited the ship; they wore very loose jackets and trowsers. The jackets reached no lower than the hips, where they were confined by a silk or silver girdle, containing two swords, one somewhat larger than the other. The handles and sheaths of their swords were beautifully inlaid with copper, and japanned in a very peculiar manner. They were very curious to know the name and use of every article which excited their attention, and we were much surprised at their display of so much theoretical knowledge. They particularly admired the touch-hole of our guns, which are fired with the detonating tube. The properties of the elevating screws were minutely examined; and we were inclined to believe that many of our visitors were artificers, sent on board to examine and make notes of every thing new. The Samarang was the first British man-of-war which had visited Nagasaki since the Phaeton, in 1808. The day after our arrival the chiefs sent off a present of pigs, fowls, and vegetables, but would receive nothing in return. I accompanied the master to a small island, to make observations. Several of the great men desired us to return to the ship, but we refused. They appeared greatly annoyed, and drew their hands across their throats, intimating that their heads would be forfeited for their breach of duty. However, seeing that we were determined to remain, they made a virtue of necessity, and consoled themselves by examining our instruments. A laughable occurrence took place while we were on shore. The cutter was at anchor about ten yards from the beach. Two of the crew having an argument, one of them drew his bayonet, and made a lunge at the other in jest. Observing the natives looking on with amazement, and fancying that the men were engaged in deadly fray, it drew our attention to the scene. They no doubt came to the conclusion that we must be a desperate set of fellows, and killed one another upon the slightest provocation. At all events, this little incident appeared to have a very good effect, as the natives, who had continually been interfering with our observations, now left us, not wishing to be so near to people who were so prone to mischief. During the whole night we were surrounded by a squadron of boats, which, with lanterns lighted, and drums beating, continually moved round the ship, to intercept any boat leaving it. The captain, finding that the suspicious character of the Japanese would prevent any thing like correct surveying, which was the principal object of his visit to Nagasaki, determined upon leaving this inhospitable shore of Japan as soon as possible. On Sunday the 6th, we weighed, and although the weather was unfavourable, contrived to work out of soundings until 3 P. M., when we made sail for Loo-Choo. At daylight we found ourselves abreast of a burning volcano. Dense clouds of smoke were issuing from a peaked island, about three miles distant. We soon afterwards landed upon an adjacent island, which, to our surprise, also began to smoke. The day was sultry, and without a breath of air, so that in a short time, the atmosphere we were in became overpowering; at last a fresh breeze sprang up, and the disagreeable sensation wore off. The whole of the islands between Loo-Choo and Japan appear to be volcanic, and at certain seasons of the year they break out in a similar manner to those which we saw. At noon the smoke from the large volcano became lurid; but whether this was the breaking out into flame, or from the rays of the sun pouring down upon the smoke, it was impossible to say, as we were then several miles off. During the whole of the following night we were becalmed, and during that time impelled, by a strong current, towards the volcanic island. Strange noises were heard, and large columns of smoke ascended from the crater, which, from there not being a breath of air, soon enveloped it from our sight. On the following day we again landed upon an island, some little distance to the southward of the volcano, which now vomited flames, ashes, and smoke, during the whole day. The master landed on another of these volcanic islands, but the showers of ashes and suffocating atmosphere soon drove him away. The captain had finished his observations on the first island where we landed, and we prepared to return on board. Since the morning the swell had got up considerably, causing the surf to break heavily on the rocks. However, the instruments were safely embarked in the boat; but while the captain was waiting for an opportunity to get in, a surf drove the boat on a shelving rock, and suddenly receding, her stern was dropped so low, while her bow remained fast, that she capsized. Although the officer and men in the boat had to swim for their lives, and were much bruised by being dashed against the rocks by the succeeding surf, fortunately no lives were lost; but all the instruments, to the value of about 150l., went to the bottom, and, no doubt, have since the accident very much puzzled the sharks as to their use, as they often had done the natives of those seas. A signal was hoisted on the summit of the island for the ship to send boats to assist, and, on their arrival, the gig was baled out, and by sunset we were again on board. August 18th.--Exchanged numbers with her Majesty's ship Royalist, which was anchored in Napa Kiang harbour (Loo-Choo). At 3 P. M., we anchored alongside of her, impatiently expecting letters by her, and we were not a little depressed at being disappointed. Still we had one comfort, which was that, instead of having brought us, as we expected, three months' provisions, to enable us to continue our survey, she had only fourteen days' provisions for us, which was not more than sufficient to carry us back to Hong Kong. Many and various were the surmises that this recall and alteration of our planned employment gave us; the most prevailing one was that our orders from England were at Hong Kong. Others supposed that the ship would be hove down, and subsequently condemned; but the rejoicing was universal at the idea that there would be some speedy end to our hardships and vexations. A day or two after our arrival the captain and senior officers landed, to partake of a dinner given by one of the principal mandarins. They were well plied with soup, fish, fowls, and sam-schoo, being attended on by minor mandarins. After dinner they were escorted through the town, accompanied by a large concourse of natives, who were kept by the police at a respectful distance. One of the multitude forced his way to join the captain's party, but was forcibly ejected, and preparations made to bamboo him, when, to the captain's surprise, he discovered that the unfortunate culprit was our greatest friend and ally during our visit to the Madjicosima islands. He had been christened Beaufort by our officers, in consequence of his accurate knowledge of all the shoals, bays, deeps, &c. A word from the captain released him, and to the astonishment of the mob, the captain and officers shook him cordially by the hand, and made him walk in their company during the remainder of the day. We did not find out why Beaufort left Pa-tchsu-san, where he appeared to be one of the principal chiefs; while at Loo-Choo he appeared to have no rank whatever. August 21st.--Sailed for Loo-Choo, the Royalist in Company. After looking in at Pa-tschu-san, we made all sail for Hong Kong; but arriving off the island of Botel Tobago, we were annoyed with light airs and calms, varied with squalls and heavy rain. For several days we were at the mercy of the current, until, at length, we sighted Batan, and steered towards it. The wind still continuing light, the captain went in the gig, which was my boat, on board of the Royalist; and we soon left the Samarang far behind. We landed about three o'clock, and were received by the padre, the governor and his lady being at San Carlos. The commander of the Royalist and two of his officers landed with us, and were much pleased with the hospitality of the old priest. In the course of the evening the governor and his lady returned from San Carlos; we adjourned to his house, where we passed the evening. Several dances were performed by the native women; but we did not admire them--they shuffled with their feet, and threw their bodies into anything but graceful postures. At midnight we sat down to an excellent supper, and then returned on board of the Royalist. The following morning the ship was about three miles from the anchorage. Bidding adieu to our hosts, we pulled on board, and made sail for Hong Kong. September 8th.--It being calm, the ship's company were permitted to bathe. In a minute all those who could swim were in the water, playing about in every direction round the ship, and enjoying the luxury. While this continued, the man at the mast-head reported a shark close at hand. The word to come in quickly was given by the first lieutenant and all the officers. It required no second call--every one knew why, and swam to the ropes, which were thrown out in every direction. It was touch and go, as the saying is--one of the marines, who was last, was actually touched by the shark, who made at him; but before he could turn to bite, the fellow had jerked himself up out of his reach. It was very fortunate that the man at the mast-head kept so good a look-out, for generally they are more occupied with the gambols of the bathers than looking out for sharks. As it was, many of the swimmers were so unnerved that it was with difficulty they could get out of the danger. After the men were on board again, the great object was to have revenge upon the animal who had thus put an end to the enjoyment. The shark-hook was baited with a piece of bull's hide, and the animal, who was still working up and down alongside the ship, hoping that he would still pick up a marine I presume, took the bait greedily, and was hauled on board. The axe was immediately at work at his tail, which was dismembered, and a score of knives plunged into his body, ripping him up in all directions. His eyes were picked out with fish-hooks and knives, and every indignity offered to him. He was then cut to pieces, and the quivering flesh thrown into the frying-pans, and eaten with a savage pleasure which we can imagine only to be felt by cannibals when devouring the flesh of their enemies. Certainly, if the cannibal nations have the same feeling towards their enemies which sailors have against sharks, I do not wonder at their adhering to this custom, for there was a savage delight in the eyes of every seaman in the ship as they assisted to cut to pieces and then devour the brute who would have devoured them. It was the madness of retaliation--an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. September 14th.--Arrived at Hong Kong, where we found the Castor, Vixen, and Espiègle. The next day the Agincourt, Dædalus, Vestal, and Wolverine, arrived from Borneo, having been engaged with the pirates of Maludu Bay. The squadron had suffered a loss of one officer and eighteen men killed, and about double the number wounded. This heavy loss was occasioned by their having to cut through a large boom which the pirates had thrown across the creek within half pistol shot of their forts. But the official reports of Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane have already been published, and I need not, therefore, enter into further particulars. One incident is, perhaps, worthy of notice, as it shows the respect invariably paid by the British officers and seamen to a brave enemy, although a pirate. The colours from the pirates' fort had been twice shot away, when, to the surprise of the boat squadron, a native was seen to ascend, without regard to our fire, and nail the colours to the flagstaff. Instead of taking aim at him, he was enthusiastically cheered by the seamen; and, as if with one consent, the muskets were all dropped, and the firing discontinued until he had again got down under cover, and was safe. The boom being at length severed, the fort in a few minutes was in our possession. Our late first lieutenant, Mr. Heard, who had left our ship, in consequence of the treatment he received from the captain, was wounded in this attack. Mr. Wade was the first lieutenant who sailed from England in the Samarang, and who also left us, not being able to put up with the treatment he received. It is singular that poor Mr. Wade should be killed so soon after he left the ship, and that his successor, Mr. Heard, as soon as he also left us, should have been wounded. But these were not the only officers who had quitted the ship: Lieutenant Inglefield, who joined the ship as assistant-surveyor, was, like most of the other officers, soon under an arrest; and after having had a report spread against him that he was mad, he determined to leave the ship, and obtained his Admiralty discharge. The second master, appointed by the Admiralty as one of the assistant-surveyors, also left the ship, but was compelled to join again. A court-martial was now held on board of the Castor, to inquire into the conduct of Lieutenant Heard (our late first lieutenant), during the time that he served under Sir Edward Belcher. The court-martial had been demanded by Lieutenant Heard, in consequence of Sir Edward Belcher having written a private letter to Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, accusing Mr. Heard of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The whole of the officers of the Samarang were subpoenaed, and there is no doubt what the result of the court-martial would have been; but the court was broken up on the plea that the charges were not _sufficiently specific_, as neither date nor circumstances were specified. Before the court broke up, however, they did so far justice to Lieutenant Heard, as to return his sword, and state that there was not the slightest stain upon his character, and that he was honourably acquitted. The reader may perhaps ask, why the court was dissolved? It was to save the honour of the cloth, that the court, composed of captains, came to that decision. Had the court-martial proceeded, what would it have proved?--that a superior officer had been guilty of slander, and had attempted by this means to ruin a most excellent officer. The court declared that the charges were not sufficiently specific. Surely, they were plain enough. Lieutenant Heard was charged with conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman--a charge sufficient to dismiss him the service, if it could have been proved. But let us reverse this case: suppose that Lieutenant Heard had thus slandered Sir Edward Belcher. Would the court of captains then have discovered that the charges were not sufficiently specific? Most certainly not. The trial would have proceeded, and the lieutenant, for making such false charges in a private letter, would have been dismissed with ignominy from the service. November 1st.--Sailed from Hong Kong, after a detention of some days, in consequence of a row between Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane and our gallant captain; the admiral, as we understood, refusing to allow the Samarang to leave the port until Sir Edward Belcher had apologised for his insubordination towards him. After a detention of a few days, the apology was forced from Sir Edward Belcher, and we were permitted to get under weigh. Of course, I cannot exactly vouch for the correctness of this statement, but such was the _on dit_ of the day. On the second we experienced a heavy gale, and the Royalist, who was with us as a tender, parted company. After a weary beat of nineteen days, we arrived at Batan, the capital of the Bashee islands; but I have already described this place. We remained here eight days, anxiously expecting the Royalist, but she did not make her appearance, and we concluded that she must have received some injury in the gale, and had borne up for Manilla. We sailed for that place, and arrived there on the 2d of December. Our conjectures relative to the Royalist were correct: she was here at anchor, having crippled her foremast in the gale, so as to render it necessary for her to bear up for this port. [Illustration: SALT SMUGGLERS.] We had always enjoyed ourselves at this place. During our repeated visits we had made many acquaintances and friends, and it was with no small pleasure that we found that we were to remain here till the first day of the new year. It is the custom at Manilla for the inhabitants to throw most of their houses open on that day: any one may enter, and be sure of a hearty welcome from the hospitable Spaniards. We anticipated great pleasure,-and we did nothing but talk about it, as our last Christmas Day had been a most dreary one, and we were delighted at the idea of passing this one among hospitable and civilised people. The reader may therefore imagine our disgust and vexation when, on the 23d, without our having the least notice of his intention, the captain gave orders for the anchor to be weighed, and ran the ship down to Caviti, a town about seven miles distant. Caviti was deserted; all the inhabitants had gone to Manilla to enjoy the holidays; not a soul remained to welcome us; but if they had, it would have been of no good to us, as, on Christmas morning, about two o'clock, we were almost all of us sent on shore to take a set of magnetic observations, which were not completed until the same hour on the following day. At the same time, to make "assurance doubly sure" that we should have no pleasure on that day, leave was stopped to all those remaining on board of the ship. I will not enter further into this affair. All I shall say is, that Christmas Day, the day of rejoicing, the day of good-will, was turned into one in which the worst passions were roused, and in which "curses not loud but deep" were levelled at the head of the man who, "dressed in a little brief authority," took this opportunity of exercising the power entrusted to him. After completing the observations, we moved further down the Bay, and surveyed the shoals of St. Nicholas; after which we returned to Manilla, where all gaiety had ceased. Caviti was once a place of great importance, having been the capital of Luzon, from whence the galleons conveyed the treasure to Spain. The arsenal still remains, but in a very dilapidated state: we found the artificers busily employed completing some gun-boats and small schooners, which were intended to accompany the Esperanza, Spanish frigate, in an expedition to an island off Borneo, where the Esperanza had latterly sustained a defeat from the pirates who inhabited the island. At Caviti lie the remains of an old Spanish galleon, one of the few which had the good fortune to escape Commodore Anson. The whole of one side of the vessel is gone, and she is now fast falling to pieces, but the Spaniards look upon her with great reverence. She is a relic of their former grandeur; and I was informed by a Spanish gentleman that she never would be broken up. I looked upon her, if not with reverence, at least with sympathy; and as I made a sketch of her my thoughts naturally turned to the rise and fall of empires, and I communed with myself as to what would be the date in which England would be in the same position as modern Spain, and fall back upon her former glories by way of consolation for her actual decay. [Illustration: SPANISH GALLEON.] On our arrival at Manilla, whether it was that the captain thought that we might too readily console ourselves for our Christmas disappointment, or that he had heard (which I doubt not was the case) the expressions of disgust which had been so universal, we found that all leave was stopped. A few of us, not relishing this confinement without just cause, made our appearance on shore in plain clothes; for we had become reckless. We could but be turned out of the ship and out of the service: we longed for the first most especially, and were not alarmed at the prospect of the second. But although the captain was very willing to oblige us with the latter as soon as he had done with us, upon the paying off of the ship, he was not at all inclined to enter into our views as to the former; for he knew that he never would get another officer to join him. He therefore took all the work he could out of us for the present, bottling up his indignation for a future opportunity. We visited the cigar manufactory. About three thousand women are daily employed in making and packing up the cigars. One party selects, cleans, and moistens the leaf; a second cuts; a third rolls; another packs them; and thus they are passed through a variety of hands before they are completed. The best cheroots made here are sent to the royal family, and are called Finas. No. 3. are the next best: of these there are two kinds--one for consumption, another for exportation. The cheroots sold in England under the name of Government Manillas are of inferior quality. In consequence of the failure in the preceding tobacco crop, cheroots were very scarce during the time we were at Manilla. There is a fine lace sold at Manilla, called Pina-work. It is made by the women of an island bearing that name, which is close to Luzon. Although not so fine as some of the European manufactures, it fetches very high prices in this country. There is not sufficient made for exportation. The night on which we went on shore contrary to orders proved to be a festival, and the city was illuminated. There is a variety in illuminations all over the world, as those who have been to various countries well know. The lower classes of Manilla construct animals of all sorts, ships, &c. out of coloured paper--very good imitations of the reality--and these they illuminate by putting candles within them. We had amused ourselves with looking at the variety of objects exhibited by the various whims of the illuminating parties, when, on passing through a street, we observed a large illuminated pig--such a beauty! He was standing at the door of a shop, and the owner was quite proud of our unqualified admiration. We examined him very carefully, and at last we unfortunately discovered that he was fixed on a board with four wheels. Wheels naturally reminded us that they were vehicles of locomotion; the pig could move--that was certain--and we decided that, if possible, pig must go on board of the Samarang. This was agreed to, _nem. con._, by all parties, with the exception of the owner, who was not summoned to the consultation, which, I grant, was an omission. A ball of twine, some fifty fathoms long, was purchased, and stretched along the street, so as to give us a good start in case of a rescue. We manned it with all hands except one, who was appointed to make it fast to the pig, which he effected with great dexterity, and without being perceived. As soon as he rejoined us, off we set, followed by pig, who galloped and capered down the streets in capital style, preserving his equilibrium in a most astonishing manner. But the owner of the pig soon discovered his loss, and gave the signal for the chase. As we passed the gates, the soldiers joined in the pursuit, and a large mob followed; but pig beat them all, and arrived safely at the hotel where we resided. Of course, the owner soon came in to claim his property; but he was so nobly remunerated for his animal, which became ours by purchase, that he went away jingling the money, and agreeing with us that it was an excellent joke. We placed our pig in the centre of the table, and passed our last night at Manilla in a most agreeable manner. [Illustration: NATIVES OF LUZON. F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS] We then sailed again for Caviti, which was now again inhabited. The society is confined to the families of the civil and military officers who are stationed there. Some of the villages in the vicinity of Caviti are very picturesque: the bamboos planted on each side of the road meet over head, and form shady lanes. The women at these villages were handsomer than any I had seen at Luzon, and were dressed very tastefully. A petticoat, reaching from the hips to between the knees and ankles, a not too jealous boddice of light muslin, their long hair flowing down their backs, and a neat straw hat, composed as graceful a costume as I have ever witnessed. See two of these girls, both riding one pony, taking eggs to Caviti, as they pass through the shady lanes, and you cannot desire a more agreeable picture. [Illustration: WATER CARRIERS--MANILLA.] January 3rd.--From this day till the 20th of February we were surveying various portions of the Phillippine group; but as there is nothing to interest the reader, I shall pass over a dry catalogue of mostly uninhabited islands. One of the islands was covered with cocoa-nut trees. We found on it some Malays, who had come there on an annual visit, and were loading their boats with the nuts. They were the rudest of the Malay tribe we had yet seen. Every article in our possession excited their cupidity, and they expressed their wonder and admiration by clacking their tongues against the roofs of their mouths, and emitting a very strange sound. A needle was valued by them at ten cocoa-nuts, a button at five. For the value of a few shillings we filled the ship with those highly esteemed fruit. On the 21st of February we proceeded to Samboangan, a Spanish penal settlement at the south extremity of Mindanao. The town, which is insignificant, is built on a plain. Most of the houses are constructed of leaves and bamboo, supported by stakes. The governor, however, and some of the most respectable of the inhabitants, occupy neat little white-washed cottages. There is a fine fort, in good condition, and mounting several guns, which is garrisoned by about 400 Manilla troops. The town is surrounded nearly by groves of cocoa-nut trees and bananas, and the roads cut through them form pleasant shady walks. The plain on which the town is built is well cultivated, and watered by a fine river. It is bounded by a range of mountains, which separate the Spanish possessions from the country inhabited by the warlike natives of the interior. The people appear well-conditioned and industrious, and are remarkably neat in their dress and persons. There are several gun boats stationed here, which are employed to scour the coast of the pirates, who are very numerous and formidable. Horses can be obtained here in any quantity, but saddles and bridles are scarce. Unfortunately, there is nothing so civilised here as an hotel, so few vessels visiting the port. The little commerce that exists is carried on by small schooners which run between this island and Manilla. [Illustration: VIEW IN SAMBOANGAN. (MINDANAO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS] I have mentioned that this is the penal settlement of the Spanish colonies. The prisoners are confined within the fort, and there is none of that awe of restraint and doubtful position which you find in a place where half the population consists of liberated convicts. It is a flourishing and happy little colony. Many officers of an inferior grade reside here, holding appointments either in the fort, gaol, or the gun boats. These people and their wives are Mestichas (or half-breed), and it is among them and their families that some of the prettiest women in the Asiatic archipelago may be found. Our first object after we were on shore was to procure horses, that we might have a view of the country, as far as prudence would admit. We were surprised at starting to find such fine roads, lined with gardens and cottages, embowered in groves of cocoa-nut, bananas, and bamboos. Where the road was not shaded, arches of wood were raised to protect passengers from the heat of the sun. The whole country was alive with natives, dressed in every variety of colour, and sledges drawn by water buffaloes, carrying fruit, vegetables, and Indian corn. We put our horses to a swift canter, and passed through many villages, all in appearance as populous, as thriving, and as happy as Samboangan. At last we arrived at an open plain, covered with cattle, and bounded by the mountains in the distance. We remained some time admiring and sketching; the inhabitants showed us every kindness, and were more courteous in their demeanour than might be expected from their isolation from the rest of the world. On our return, we stopped at a little shop by the road side, close to the town. It contained fruit, grain, and tobacco; but ascertaining that coffee and chocolate could be had here, we ordered some of the latter, which proved to be excellent, and moderate in price. This little shop, for want of an hotel, became our principal rendezvous during our stay here. About nightfall, as we were strolling through the town, we were attracted by the sounds of music in an adjoining street. We altered our course accordingly, and on arrival at a large thatched house, perceived through the open windows that it was filled with musicians and dancers. We were immediately observed, and the owner of the house, in the most courteous manner, and in tolerable English, requested us to enter, which request we immediately complied with. We imagined that it was a ball, perhaps a wedding; but what was our surprise on entering to see a table in the middle of the room, on which was placed a dead child! It was neatly dressed, and ornamented with flowers, looking more like a wax doll than a corpse. The ball, we were informed, was given in honour of its funeral. The dancing had not yet commenced, so we were in excellent time. The master of the house was extremely polite, and requested that we would consider ourselves at home. We took his advice, and immediately separated, and paid our addresses to the ladies which most interested us by their appearance. A great many of them were exceedingly pretty, and they were dressed enchantingly. Their hair was drawn back, and collected in a knot behind, their bosoms covered by a light muslin jacket with short sleeves. A petticoat of many colours was sufficiently short to disclose their naked feet, on which was a slipper of velvet, embroidered with gold or silver lace. Two or three great gold ornaments completed their costume. Add to this their sparkling black eyes, regular features, and an air of naiveté--inseparable from Spanish girls, and you have some idea of the witchery of the belles of Samboangan. We were very soon on excellent terms, and the table with the dead child being removed to a corner, the father and mother of the deceased opened the ball with a slow waltz. This being concluded, we selected our partners, and a livelier air being struck up, off we all went at a splendid pace. The women waltzed well. The music was excellent. In the first round all the ladies lost their slippers, which were without heels; and in the second the pace became fearful, and the old house shook under the active bounds and springs of some twenty or thirty couples. Spanish quadrilles succeeded the waltz, and then we had the country dance. This latter is complicated, but very pretty, and, with the assistance of our partners, in a short time we were quite _au fait_ to its mysteries. The music, which consisted of violins and guitars, bore up indefatigably. About twelve o'clock we ceased dancing, and preparations were made for supper. This was laid on the floor, clean grass mats serving as table cloths. The contents of the dishes were of the most novel description, and rice was the only article which I could recognise as unmixed. The repast spread, the host requested us to place ourselves. I followed my pretty partner's example, and came to an anchor on the floor alongside of her. I was most assiduous in helping her to whatever she pointed out; and, as nearly as I can recollect, the plate contained a curious medley of rice, prawns, fowls' legs, apples, besides other articles unknown, at least to me. I had observed a total want of knives, forks, and spoons, but this was explained when I saw that all ate with their fingers. Seeing no objection to this primitive plan, I was about getting a plate for myself, when I was informed by my partner, in the most insinuating way, that I was to consider her plate as my own. I fully appreciated the compliment, and at once commenced, assisting her to demolish the pile that I had collected, as I thought, for her use alone. On looking round I found that we were not singular, and that every couple were, like us, dipping into one dish. Never was there a more merry and delightful supper. As soon as it was over, which was not very soon, for I could have gone on eating a long while for the very pleasure of meeting the pretty little fingers in the plate, we rose, the mats and dishes were cleared away, and we resumed the dancing, and it was at a late hour that we made our _buenas nochas_ to the fair girls of Samboangan. We remained in this delightful little place for two days. Many of us were inclined to remain there for life, if we could have escaped. We made several excursions into the interior, and the more we saw the more we were convinced that no place was so pretty as Samboangan. March 3d.--Anchored in a port at Baselan, where the Spaniards had very lately founded a colony. We found them very busy felling trees, clearing backwood, and completing the stockade or fort. The natives of Baselan are a courageous race, and were continually attacking the Spaniards, occasionally with success. Two gun boats were lying off the town, but the Spanish force is not sufficient to meet the attacks of the natives, who continually surprise their outposts and decapitate their prisoners. On our arrival a discharge of guns and fire-arms was kept up during the whole night, fully proving the trouble which the Spaniards would have in establishing and retaining their settlement here. It was a few miles from this that the French were beaten off by the Malays or pirates, for the terms are at Baselan synonymous. March 5th.--Having completed the survey of this port, we made sail for Balam-bangan. On our route we stopped at Cagayan Sooloo, where we fell in with two piratical prahus. For reasons, not explained, these vessels were not interfered with, although there was not the least doubt of their occupation. March 9.--The ship struck several times while threading her way through a line of dangerous shoals to the eastward of Bangay; and on the same evening we arrived at Balam-bangan. The Royalist had been despatched about a month before to Sincapore, to obtain provisions to enable us to survey the coast of Borneo. Balam-bangan was the rendezvous appointed, and we expected to have found her anchored there; but in this we were disappointed. The survey of Balam-bangan was now commenced, and during our survey we discovered the remains of the old English settlement. It may be as well here to concisely narrate the history of its rise and fall. About the year 1766, four ships, filled with troops and every thing requisite for the formation of a colony, arrived at Balam-bangan, which was formally taken possession of in the name of his Britannic Majesty. But unexpected difficulties arose one after the other. The natives of Bangay, about three miles distant, were hostile, and made repeated attacks upon them. The soil was discovered not to be of that fertile nature which had been represented; and unfortunately two of the ships were thrown on shore in a gale, and every soul on board perished. These several disasters damped their energies, and created a feeling of distrust among the settlers, but still the original intention was not abandoned. The forts were completed, a few houses rose, and as their comfort and security increased, so did their hopes arise, and they worked with renewed vigour. But their prosperous state excited the jealousy of the people of Sooloo, which island is the emporium of the commerce between Borneo and the other islands. The ruling powers of Sooloo considered that this commerce must fall off if the English established themselves on an island so well adapted for it in every respect as Balam-bangan, and they resolved to attack the colony in its infant state. Perhaps they had another reason, which was that they anticipated a rich booty, if successful, and no doubt they were not disappointed. The attack was made with an overwhelming force, and the English, although they bore themselves bravely, could not resist it. Most of the colonists were butchered, some few gained the ships in the harbour and sailed away to the port from which the expedition was fitted out. Since that time no further attempt to colonise this island has been made, nor, indeed, is it likely that there will be, as Labuan is much more advantageously situated in every respect. The Royalist at last arrived: she had but few letters, but, valuable and dear to us as letters always were, she brought intelligence that made every heart, except one, beat with delight. Was it possible? Yes, it was true--true! We were _ordered home_. Oh, the delight, the frantic joy, which was diffused through the whole ship. To have witnessed the scene we should have been considered as mad. Every one embracing one another, shaking hands, animosities reconciled at once, all heart-burnings forgotten: we could have hugged every thing we met--dogs, monkeys, pigs--except the captain. All our sufferings and privations were forgotten in the general ecstasy, and, although thousands of leagues were still to be run before we could arrive at the desired goal, and months must pass away, time and space were for the time annihilated, and, in our rapture, we fancied and we spoke as if we were within reach of our kindred and our homes. Could it be the Samarang that we were on board of?--the same ship that we were in not one hour ago?--the silent, melancholy vessel, now all hands laughing, screaming, huzzaing, dancing, and polkaing up and down the deck like maniacs? And then when the excitement was a little over, and we became more rational, Why were we ordered home? was the first surmise. We had been sent out on a seven years' expedition, and we had not yet been out four. The surveys were not half finished. Was it the row that the captain had had with the admiral, and the reports of many officers who had quitted the ship? We made up our minds at last that it must have been upon the representations of the admiral to the Admiralty that we had been ordered home. There could be no other reason. We drank his health in nine times nine. [Illustration: ILLANOAN PIRATE. (TAMPASSOOK, BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] On the 24th of March we sailed from Balam-bangan, with the intention of making a flying survey of the coast of Borneo, as far as the island of Labuan and the country at Sarawak, to make the best of our way to Sincapore, at which place we hoped to arrive about the 1st of May, there to receive our final orders and start for England. It would be tedious, and it is not necessary, to give a description of the survey which we afterwards made. We went over the same ground as before, and we surveyed with a musket in one hand and a sextant in the other, for the natives were not to be trusted. Our warlike friends at Tampassook did not much relish our re-appearance on their coast. A Spanish slave made his escape from them and came on board, begging a passage to any where. He had been taken prisoner, with six or seven others, in an engagement between the Manilla gun boats and the Illanoan pirates, and had been very cruelly treated. We learnt from this man that the pirates of Tampassook are very rich, and possessed a large number of fine prahus. They had also plenty of fire-arms, but were afraid of them, preferring their own weapons. It was here that we heard the news of the murder of our old friends Rajah Muda and Bud-ruddeen. It appeared that they had been accused of being privy to the attack of the English on Maludu, and supporting our claims to the island of Labuan. Bud-ruddeen died as he had lived, a brave man, and worthy of a better fate. On the approach of his enemies he retired to his house with his sister and favourite wife, both of whom insisted upon sharing his destiny. For some time he fought like a lion against a superior force, until his servants one by one fell dead. He then retired dangerously wounded to an inner chamber, with his wife and sister, and, allowing his enemies to follow him till the house was filled with them, he fired his pistol into a barrel of gunpowder, which had been placed in readiness, and at once destroyed himself, his friends, and his enemies. But this barbarous murder on the part of the sultan of Borneo and his advisers was not left unpunished. Sir Thomas Cochrane went to Bruni with his squadron, and reduced the sultan to submission and a proper respect for the English, and those who were friendly with them. As we approached Labuan we found it necessary to be on the _qui vive_, as all the natives were hostile to us, and would have cut off our surveying parties if they had had a chance. In the bay of Gaya, we met a brother of Bud-ruddeen. He was the Rajah of the small province of Kalabutan. Both he and his followers burned to revenge the death of a man so universally beloved as Rajah Muda, and offered to accompany us with their whole force to attack the city of Bruni. They came on board of us with fowls, eggs, and fruits. They placed little value on dollars, preferring white linen, handkerchiefs, and bottles, to any other article in the way of traffic. We, therefore, as we were so soon going to England, made no ceremony of parting with our old clothes in exchange for stock; and the next vessel that visits the river will be surprised at the quantity of midshipmen's jackets, sailors' hats, and marines' boots, which will be worn by the inhabitants, in addition to their own costume. Mr. Adams, the assistant surgeon, had obtained permission to accept the Rajah's invitation to visit the town, which was some five or six miles up the river. He saw nothing worthy of remark except some of a tribe of aborigines (Dusums). Their only covering consisted of large metal rings worn round the neck and hips. [Illustration: NATIVES OF N. E. COAST OF BORNEO.] While a party were observing on shore, a short distance to the northward of Kalabutan, they were fired at by a party of natives concealed in the jungle. The only person who was wounded was the Spaniard, whom we had rescued at Tampassook, who was standing by the captain. The ball passed through his arm, and grazed his body. The arms were handed out of the gig, which was close at hand, and the enemy retreated into the wood. The cutter then joined, and having a three-pounder on her bows, opened fire upon the natives, who had re-assembled.. The first two or three shots passed over their heads, and encouraged by no injury being done to them, they came forward dancing, yelling, drawing their knives and spears in defiance. But a shot passing through the body of the chief set them all off. They bore him away on their shoulders, and did not afterwards make their appearance. After cannonading the village for an hour, and doing them all the mischief that we could, by destroying their fortifications, burning one and carrying off another prahu, we returned on board, and then made sail for the island of Labuan, where we arrived on the 25th of April, 1846. Here our surveying was completed, and we made the best of our way to Sarawak, where we arrived on the 30th of April. We learnt all the news of the little colony from Dr. Treecher, who came to visit us. [Illustration: DUSUM. (N. COAST OF BORNEO.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] We found that Mr. Brooke had been recognised by Government, and that Captain Bethune had been testing the capability of making Labuan a coal dépot. Poor Williamson, the interpreter, and a great friend of ours, had been drowned some months previous, while crossing the river at night in a small canoe, and no doubt fell a prey to the alligators. He was not only a very amiable, but a very clever fellow, and his loss was deeply felt by every body. Mr. Brooke was absent from Kuchin on an expedition to the Sakarran river, in the Phlegethon steamer, to inquire into the particulars, and punish, if necessary, an attack upon his Dyak allies by the natives of Sakarran. Two Sakarran chiefs, accompanied by a great many war prahus, had paid a visit to Mr. Brooke, and had been entertained by him in his usual hospitable manner. At their departure he loaded the chiefs with presents, for which they appeared to be extremely grateful. As a return for this kindness, and to prove their sincerity as allies, the principal chief left his son, a boy of twelve years of age, with Mr. Brooke. But notwithstanding that this boy was as a hostage, they could not resist an opportunity of plunder, and that very evening they ascended one of the tributary streams of the Sarawak, attacked a village, and brought off with them twenty-seven heads of the unfortunate Dyaks. When the news arrived, Mr. Brooke was so much enraged at their treachery, that he almost determined upon sacrificing the boy chief, as the natives expected; but not wishing to visit the sins of the father upon the lad, who was innocent, and fearful that his own people would not be so forbearing, he returned the boy to his parents. We all felt annoyed that we had not an opportunity of bidding farewell to Mr. Brooke, and thanking him for his kindness to us whenever he had an opportunity of showing it. He was, indeed, beloved by every body who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Sailed for Sincapore. The next night we communicated with the Julia (Mr. Brooke's vessel). She had on board Captain Elliott, and twenty-five sepoys[3], who were to be stationed as a garrison at Kuchin. We were much pleased to find that Government had taken up this cause so warmly, and that Mr. Brooke was likely to be recognised by it, after all his individual exertions. Our passage to Sincapore proved very tedious, all hands upon short allowance, and no grog. We touched at Barren Island, and obtained a large quantity of sea birds' eggs, but they were mostly rotten; but this did not prevent our making omelets of them, for we were now with only three days' provisions on board at half allowance, and the calm still continued. Three days we were in sight of the island, the sails flapped idly against the masts, and not a breath disturbed the surface of the ocean wave. We thought of the tale of the Ancient Mariner, and there were not wanting those on board who declared that this continued calm was a judgment upon us, not for shooting an albatross, but for robbing the nests of the eggs. [Footnote 3: These sepoys were raised and _paid_ by Mr. Brooke.] Our barges were sent to Sincapore for provisions, for famine was staring us in the face, but that same night a breeze sprang up, and on the 20th of May we dropped our anchor in the roads. At Sincapore we found the Hazard, 18, whose crew suffered so much at New Zealand; and here also we found, to our inexpressible delight, our orders for England, of which we had begun to have some doubts. On the 14th of June arrived the Admiral, in H. M. S. Agincourt, towed by the Spitfire steamer. As soon as he was joined by the rest of the squadron, it was the intention of Sir T. Cochrane to make sail for Bruni, and punish the six-fingered sultan and his piratical advisers. Sincapore, like all new settlements, is composed of so mixed a community, that there is but little hospitality, and less gaiety. Every one is waiting to ascertain what is to be his position in society, and till then is afraid of committing himself by friendly intercourse; moreover, every body is too busy making money. The consequence is, but few parties are given, and a ball is so rare that it becomes the subject of conversation for months. There are some good-looking girls at Sincapore, but it is only at church or on parade that a stranger obtains a glimpse of them. Prudery is at present the order of the day, and this is carried to such an extent from non-intercourse, that at a farewell ball given to the Cambrians, the women would only polka and waltz with each other. The country immediately outside the town of Sincapore is spotted with little bungaloes, the retreat of the merchants from the monotonous business-life which they are compelled to lead. The plantations of nutmegs and beetle-nut which surround these country residences are very luxuriant; and at this time the fruit was on the trees, and the odour quite delightful. One male tree is planted for every ten females. Very little cloves or cinnamon are grown at this settlement, but I saw some specimens. A nutmeg tree is valued, when it once arrives to full bearing, at a guinea a year. The Areca-palm is a very beautiful tree, and requires but little attention: these and cocoa-nut are valued at a dollar per year. Large quantities of sugar-cane are now grown here, and some fine sugar-mills are built in the vicinity of the town. The roads are kept in good repair by the convicts, and are now really very respectable. The Chinese joss-house here is considered very fine, and I made a drawing of it. It has some good stone carving and figures, but is very inferior to that of Ningpo. During the time that I was drawing it was filled with Chinese, who were very inquisitive and troublesome: the only method I could devise for keeping them off was by filling a bowl full of vermilion, and when their curiosity overcame their prudence, and they came rubbing up against me, daubing their faces with the colour--this plan, accompanied with a kick, proved effectual. [Illustration: CONVICT.] Sincapore being the penal settlement of India, there are a large number of convicts here, who are chained, and work at the roads and bridges. One night I visited the gaol, and was taken over it by an overseer. We first visited the Chinese department. Two long benches ran along the room, on which were stretched some thirty men. As the overseer passed he struck each man with his rattan, and in a moment they were all sitting up, rubbing their eyes, and looking as innocent as possible. They were all confined for murder, and were a most rascally-looking set. From this room we proceeded to another, fitted in the same manner, and filled with Indians. Many of them were branded on the forehead with "Doomga," which signifies murder; and in some cases the brand was both in Hindostanee and English. Leaving them, we entered a small room close to the gates of the gaol, and guarded by a sentry. In this room were confined the most reckless characters. They were but eight in number. Parallel to the bench ran a long iron rod, and to this they were shackled, both hands and feet. The first man among them pointed out to me by the overseer was a fine-looking grey-bearded Indian, of great stature, and with the eyes of a tiger. He had been formerly a rich shipowner at Bombay; but having been convicted of insuring his vessels to a large amount, and then setting fire to them, his property was confiscated by the government, and he was sentenced to work for life in chains. It is said that he has offered a million rupees to any man who will knock off his irons. His son carries on the business at Bombay, and it was reported that a vessel was always lying at Sincapore ready to receive him in case he should effect his escape; but of this there does not appear to be the slightest chance, as he is particularly watched and guarded. [Illustration: KLING WOMAN.] The next culprits pointed out to us were two of the heads of the secret society of India. So much has already been said of this extraordinary association, that I need not discuss it here. There is, however, a society in Sincapore of a similar nature, composed of all the lower orders of the Chinese. It is said to amount to 15,000; and the police is much too weak to prevent the robberies, although some check is put to them by the presence of the military. It must not be supposed that because there are 15,000 in the society, that there are that quantity of robbers: such is not the case. Of course it is difficult to arrive at the regulations of any secret society, but as far as can be collected, they are as follows. A certain portion of the society are regular thieves, and these in a body compel those who are inoffensive to join the society, by threats of destruction of property, &c. If the party joins the society, all that is expected of him is, that he will aid and assist to prevent the capture, and give an asylum to any one of the society who may be in danger. The richest Chinese merchants have been compelled to join, and lend their countenance to this society, upon pain of destruction of their property, and even assassination, if they refuse; and as they have more than once put their threats into execution, the merchants have not the courage to resist. Shortly after our arrival at Sincapore, the burial of one of the chiefs of the society took place; and such was the concourse assembled to witness the funeral, that it was thought advisable to call out the troops, as a skirmish was expected to take place. However, every thing passed off quietly. The richest Chinaman at Sincapore is Whampoa: he supplies the navy with stores, and has a thriving business. His country house is a favourite resort of the naval officers, and he gives excellent dinners, and very agreeable parties. His champagne is particularly approved of. There is little or no amusement at Sincapore. During the afternoon every body is asleep. In the cool of the evening half a dozen palanquins, and perhaps a few gigs, may be seen driving on the parade: these proceed at a steady pace round the grass-plot for about an hour; and this is the only exercise taken. Fashion is very drowsy here, and only wakes up occasionally, that she may sleep the longer afterwards. From the want of hospitality, the evenings are passed by strangers at the hotels, playing billiards, smoking, and drinking. The hotels are very good, in consequence of the steamers from Bombay to Hong Kong touching here; they are fitted up with an unusual degree of comfort; and the charges are, of course, not very moderate. The markets are well supplied with fruit, vegetables, and stock of all kinds. Among the fruits must be mentioned the mangostein, which is brought from Malacca; and the pine-apples from the island of St. John's. The opposite side of the island upon which Sincapore is built is well wooded. A great many tigers swim over from the main, and pits are dug for their destruction, 100 dollars being given by government for every tiger killed. On the 18th we received our final orders, and took our farewell of Eastern India; but it must not be supposed that we made the best of our passage to England. On the contrary, the captain was as anxious to remain out as we were to get home; and we were six months and twelve days from the time that we left Sincapore till our arrival at Portsmouth. The fact was, that the pay and emoluments of a surveying captain are such, that our captain felt no inclination to be paid off; and as he never spent any money, he was laying up a nice provision for his retirement; besides which he hoped that, upon his representations to the Admiralty, the order for his recall would be cancelled, and that he would find a letter to that effect at the Cape of Good Hope. His object, therefore, was to spin out the time as much as possible, so as to allow the answer of the Admiralty to arrive at the Cape before we did. We were ordered to survey some shoals, the Cagardos Carahos, on our passage home; but I believe nothing more. On Sunday, the 22d, we anchored off a small island near to the isle of Billaton. At two A. M. we weighed, and ten minutes afterwards the ship struck on a shoal. All our exertions to get her off proved abortive, and in this uncomfortable position we remained till the following Thursday, when she again floated, after throwing overboard the guns, and landing such stores as we could on the island. This accident and light winds lengthened our passage to Anger (the Dutch settlement in Java) to twenty-one days; and there we remained five days, to ascertain the rate of our chronometers. This Dutch settlement at Anger, although slightly fortified, might be made a place of great consequence: both outward and homeward bound vessels touch here for water and stock; and were it properly supported and improved by the Dutch, as it should be, it would command a great deal of trade, and during war be of great consequence. It is governed by a Dutch military officer, and is garrisoned with about fifty soldiers. The country is remarkably fine here, the plains richly cultivated and covered with cattle. The farmers complain bitterly of the taxes imposed upon them by the Dutch, taxes so onerous that no native has a chance of realising any profits of consequence; but this is Dutch policy, and very unwise policy it is. We now thought that we were about to proceed to the isle of France direct, but we were mistaken: we weighed anchor, and proceeded to the Cocoa islands. This is a low group of islands literally covered with cocoa-nut trees. These islands are possessed by a Mr. Ross, formerly mate of a merchant vessel. His family consisted of two sons and two daughters, and are the only Europeans who reside there. We could not help thinking that the Misses Ross had very little chance of getting husbands. The remainder of the population, amounting to about 120 souls, are all black. They extract the oil from the cocoa-nut, and trade with it to Java, from whence they procure the necessary supplies. Whalers occasionally call here to obtain fresh provisions; but the visit of a man-of-war was quite an event. From the Cocoas we steered for the Cagardos Carahos shoals, where we remained for more than a fortnight, surveying. There are several islands close to these shoals, which are in the shape of a crescent. They are very dangerous, being in the direct track of ships from China and the Indies. Indeed, we had ocular proof of their dangerous position, for there were seven or eight wrecks upon them, and the small islands of sand were crowded with masts, spars, chests, interspersed with human bones bleaching in the powerful sun. On one of the islands we discovered the remains of the British ship Letitia, which was wrecked in September, 1845. At a short distance from the beach was the grave of the captain, who was drowned in attempting to reach the shore with a bag of dollars. Had he not held on so tight to the bag, he would in all probability have been saved, as were all the rest on board of her. It certainly would be very advisable to build a lighthouse upon these shoals; the expense would be nothing compared to the loss of property and life which they occasion every year. From the Cagardos Carahos we proceeded to the Mauritius. Here we found the President, bearing the flag of Admiral Dacres, and the Snake brig just arrived from England. Port Louis has been too often described to be mentioned here. Behind it rose a range of mountains, the highest of which are about 1400 feet above the level of the sea, and completely shelter the town from the S. E. gales, which at this period of the year blow with great violence. Among these mountains is the famous Peter-Botte, and we looked upon it with great interest, in consequence of the daring and successful attempt made a few years since by some Englishmen to attain the summit of it. Even now, although we know that it has been done, it appears to be impossible. One of the leaders of this expedition was Lieutenant Thomas Keppel, the brother of our favourite Captain Henry Keppel, and this circumstance gave it more interest to us; but T. Keppel has since left the service, and is now a Reverend, moored in a snug _Creek_, and has quite given over climbing up Peter-Bottes. During the short time that we remained at this delightful island, we received every kindness and attention from the governor and his lady, and the officers of the two regiments stationed there. [Illustration: PORT LOUIS. (MAURITIUS.) F. M. DELT. M. N. HANHART LITH. PRINTERS LONDON; LONGMAN & CO. 1848] From the Mauritius we proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope. On the morning of the 24th of September we hove in sight of the Table Mountain, but it was not until the 26th that we cast anchor in Simon's Bay. Here we remained for a month, waiting for the arrival of the mail from England. At last it arrived, but not bringing us, as our captain hoped, the order for his return to India, on the 24th of October we made sail for England, and, calling at St. Helena and Ascension _en route_, on the last day of the year we dropped our anchor at Spithead. We were not, however, emancipated till the 18th day of January, on which day the ship was paid off, for which, and all other mercies, may the Lord be praised! OBSERVATIONS UPON THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO. It is with diffidence that I take up my pen to offer a few remarks upon the prospects afforded to our commerce and manufactures by the opening of the Eastern Archipelago. Hitherto I have done little more than narrate what I have seen, and have seldom made any attempt to express what I have thought. However, as my thoughts have been generated from what I have observed, whether I am correct or not in my opinions, I shall venture to lay them before my readers. How it is that until lately we have never taken any notice of this immense archipelago it is difficult to say, unless we are to suppose that, up to the present, the other portions of the inhabited globe have been found sufficient to consume our manufactures as fast as they could be produced. It does appear strange that an assemblage of islands, which, large and small, amounting to about 12,000 in number, equal in territory to any continent, and so populous, for the inhabitants, including the more northern islands, are estimated at fifty millions, should have hitherto been unnoticed, and, at all events, have not attracted the attention of our government. Moreover, there are such facilities of communication, not being compelled, as with the Chinese, to confine ourselves to five or six ports, at which the whole trade is centred in the hands of a monopoly, taxed with the expences of land-carriage, port duties, and other exactions. Here, on the contrary, from the division of the territory into so many portions, we possess all the advantages of inland navigation, if I may use such a term, for the straits and channels between them serve as large rivers do on the continents to render the communication with the interior easy and accessible. And yet, although we have had possession of the East Indies for so many years, this archipelago has been wholly neglected. At all events, the discovery of it, for it is really such, has come in good time, and will give a stimulus to our manufactures, most opportune, now that we have so much increased them, that we are in want of customers. Still we have, almost unknown to ourselves, been advancing towards it step by step. The taking possession of the island of Sincapore was the first and greatest stride towards it. Had it not been that we had founded that settlement, we probably should not have been nearer to Borneo now, than we were fifty years ago. Sir T. Raffles conferred a great boon upon this country, and is entitled to its gratitude for pointing out the advantages which would accrue from this possession. Till we had made a settlement there, we knew no more of the eastern archipelago, than what had been obtained by our circumnavigators, or of the produce of it, further than that Borneo was the country from which could be obtained the orang-outang. Latterly we have been at some trouble and expence in forcing our trade with China, little aware that almost in the route to China we had an opening for commerce, which, in a few years, judiciously managed, will become by far the most lucrative of the two, and what perhaps is still more important, may be the means of a most extended trade with China, as we can drive the Chinese from the archipelago, and supply China from them ourselves; but of that hereafter. One cause, perhaps, which has prevented us from turning our attention in this direction has been, an unwillingness to interfere with the Dutch, who have been supposed to have been in possession of all the valuable islands in the archipelago, and from long-standing to have a prior right to this portion of the East; but, although the Dutch have not been idle, and are gradually adding to their possessions, there is little chance of our interfering with them, as there is room, and more, for the Dutch, ourselves, and every other nation which may feel inclined to compete with us. The possessions of the Dutch are but a mere strip in this immense field; and, although it is true that they have settlements on the Spice Islands, so named, yet we now know that every one of these islands may be made spice islands, if the inhabitants are stimulated by commerce to produce these articles of trade. It was the settlement at Sincapore which first gave us a notion of the trade which might be carried on with this archipelago. Every year large fleets of prahus have come up to Sincapore laden with commodities for barter, and have taken in exchange European goods to a certain extent; but their chief object has been to obtain gunpowder and shot, to carry on their piratical expeditions. In fact, they are traders when they can only obtain what they want by exchange; but when they can obtain it by force, they then change their character, and become pirates. But our possession of Labuan has brought us about eight hundred miles nearer to these people, and enables us to take more effectual steps towards the suppression of piracy than we have hitherto done; for this we may lay down as an axiom, that we never shall reap the advantages promised to us by commerce in this archipelago till we have most effectually put an end to the piracy which has existed in these quarters for centuries. Before I go on, I cannot help here observing how much this country is indebted to Mr. Brooke for his unwearied exertions in the cause of humanity, and his skilful arrangements. It is to be hoped, that our gratitude to him will be in proportion, and that Her Majesty's ministers will, in their distribution of honour and emoluments among those who have served them, not forget to bestow some upon one who has so well served his country. The largest, and perhaps the most important of the islands in this archipelago, although at present the most barbarous, and the most hostile to us, is that of Papua, or New Guinea. The inhabitants are as well inclined to commerce as the other natives of the archipelago, and do at present carry on a considerable trade with the Chinese, who repair there every year in their junks, which they fill with valuable cargoes adapted for the Chinese market. The Chinese have found the trade with New Guinea so lucrative, that they are doing all that they can to secure the monopoly of it, and with this view take every occasion, and do all that they possibly can, to blacken the character of the Europeans in the minds of the inhabitants. It is to this cause that the Papuan's hostility to Europeans, and especially to the English, is to be ascribed; and before we have any chance of commerce with this people, it is necessary that the Chinese should be driven away from the island, that they may no longer injure us by their malicious fabrications. This will be but a just retribution for the falsehoods and lies which they have circulated to our disadvantage. And there is another reason why we should be little scrupulous in taking this measure, which is, that one of their principal articles of commerce with the Papuans consists in slaves, which are taken on board by the Chinese, and sold at Borneo, and the adjacent islands of the archipelago, at a great profit. To obtain these slaves, the Chinese stimulate the Papuan tribes to war with each other, as is done for the same purpose in Africa. As this traffic is very considerable, and we are as much bound to put down the slave trade in the east as in the west, we have full warrant for driving their junks away, and, by so doing, there is little doubt but that in a few years we shall secure all the valuable trade of this island to ourselves. Borneo is, however, the island (or continent) to which our first attention will be particularly devoted. Up to the present we know little of it except its coasts and a portion of its rivers; but it is here that our principal attention must be given, as in its rivers and the island of Sooloo the chief piratical hordes exist. We have already had some sharp conflicts with them, and have given them some severe lessons; but although we have given them a momentary check, and some idea of our immense superiority, we must not imagine that two or three successful conflicts are sufficient to put an end to a system which has been carried on for centuries, and which is so universal, that the whole of the present generation may be said to have been "born pirates." In fact, we shall be compelled to subdue them wholly, to destroy them in all their fastnesses, to leave them without a prahu in their possession, to depose or confine their chiefs, to destroy their forts, and to carry on a war of extermination for some years, before we shall put down the piratical system which at present exists. It is not quite so easy a task as may be imagined to reform so many millions of people: for it must be remembered that it is not only at Borneo that we shall have to act, but that we must destroy the power of the sultan of Sooloo, and other tribes who frequent other islands, and who follow the same profession. It must not be forgotten that one of the principal objects of these piratical excursions is to procure slaves for sale at other ports; and perhaps this is by far the most profitable part of the speculation. As long as there is no security for the person, commerce must languish, and be proportionably checked. In putting down these marauders, we are, therefore, putting down the slave trade as with the Chinese at New Guinea. The sooner that this is effected the better; and to do it effectually we should have a large force at Labuan, ready to act with decision. Let it be remembered that, with people so crafty and so cruel as the Malays and descendants of the Arabs, lenity is misplaced, and is ascribed to cowardice. No half measures will succeed with them. Indeed, I have my doubts whether it will not be necessary to destroy almost every prahu in the archipelago, and compel the natives to remain on their territory, to cultivate or collect articles for barter, before we shall effect our purpose; for the prahu that sails as a trader is changed into a pirate as soon as temptation rises on her way. Indeed, if Labuan becomes, as it will probably be, an emporium and dépôt for European commerce, without such stringent measures a great stimulus would be given to piracy. The peaceable trading parties, on their return, would be laid in wait for by the piratical prahus, and the English manufactures on board would be so tempting, and such a source of wealth, that they would be irresistible. Neither should we be able to afford any protection to the traders, as they would be laid in wait for at the mouths or up the rivers, and would be captured without our knowledge; with this difference, perhaps, that the fear of detection would induce them to murder all the prisoners, instead of selling them as slaves, as they do at present. Unless, therefore, the most stringent measures are resorted to on our parts, an increase of commerce with this archipelago would only occasion in a reciprocal ratio an increase of piracy. The occupation of Labuan and Sarawak will, I should imagine, prove hardly sufficient to effect the important change to be desired, _i. e._ that of the total suppression of piracy. Stations, with forts, must be established at the mouths of the principal rivers, that we may have a constant watch upon the movements of the occupants. In so doing we should be only encroaching upon those who have encroached upon others: these rivers have been taken forcible possession of by the Malays and Arabs, who have driven away the proprietors of the soil, which are the Dyaks, the aborigines of the island; and they have no more right to the possessions which they hold, than their chiefs have to the high-sounding titles which they have assumed. That in taking this step we shall interfere with no vested rights is certain: we shall merely be dispossessing these piratical marauders of their strongholds; and the cause of humanity will sufficiently warrant such interference on our parts. In our first attempts to establish, a peaceful and secure commerce with this archipelago, it appears to me that it would be advisable for the Government to take some share in the venture. Ten or twelve schooners, well manned, confided to intelligent officers, and armed with one heavy gun, and swivels in the gunwales, should sail for Labuan, with assorted cargoes, with the view of both trading and checking piracy. Much depends upon the way in which the barter is first commenced, and it would be as well that it should not be left in the hands of adventurers, whose mercenary feelings might induce them to excite doubt or irritation in the minds of the natives, and, by such means, do great mischief, and impede the trade. The constant appearance of these vessels in the archipelago, the knowledge that they were sent, not only to barter, but also to protect the well-disposed against violence and rapine, would soon produce most beneficial effects, and would impose confidence. Merchant vessels which entered the trade should be empowered, by letters of marque, to put down piracy, and should be armed in a similar way. Although there is little doubt but that in a short time vessels would sail from Labuan with full cargoes for Europe, still it is more than probable that the most important part of the trade, and which would employ most vessels, would be the colonial trade, or rather, country trade, to the several marts in the Indus and China. There are many productions of the archipelago which are only valued in the East, such as bêche-de-mer, or trepang; edible birds' nests, &c. This trade we might very soon monopolise to ourselves, and a most lucrative one it would prove. The following are the articles to be found in more or less quantities over the whole of the Indian archipelago:--Antimony, tin, gold, diamonds, pearls, sapphires, ivory, gums, camphor, sago, pepper, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl, skins, wax, honey, cocoa-nut oil, coffee, rice, and coal, edible birds' nests and trepang; all the varieties of spices, as cinnamon, cloves, nutmegs, can be grown as soon as there is a market for them; the cotton tree nourishes; and, although not yet worked, it is proved that there is abundance of copper and lead. An archipelago containing such rich productions, and which we may, with some little trouble, receive in exchange for our manufactures, becomes a national concern, and it is the paramount duty of the Government to take every measure to facilitate the communication with it. The expedition of Mr. Murray to the river Coti, on the south side of Borneo, although, from imprudence, it ended not only unsuccessfully but tragically, fully establishes that an opening for commerce is to be established. In this expedition Mr. Murray, by his imprudence and unguarded conduct, brought upon himself the attack of the natives, in which he lost his own life, and the vessels with great difficulty escaped. Since that failure, no English vessels have attempted to trade to the south of Borneo; but we discovered that the Macassar boats paid the coast an occasional visit, under Dutch colours, exchanging beads and other trumpery for rich cargoes of ivory and skins. We also discovered that commercial negotiations with this country would not be attended with any risk, provided that the vessels employed were well armed, and the arrangements were so made as not to excite the jealousy and suspicion of the natives. European manufactures would be eagerly purchased by the natives, and would be paid for in ivory, rough ores, or dollars. Mr. Wyndham, who has settled at Sooloo, has already sent a vessel to trade on the south-east side of the island, near Gonong Tabor. So much for the southern portion of this immense archipelago. We have still to examine the more northern. Indeed, when we look upon the map, and see the quantity of territory with which we may eventually find the means of trading,--the millions who, but for the jealousy of the governments, would be glad to receive our manufactures,--we are lost in conjecture as to what extent it might eventually be driven. In the north we should certainly have more difficulties to contend with; and it will require that the whole of the naval force in India should be, for a time, devoted to this object. I believe it is as much from their utter ignorance of our power, as from any other cause, that we have hitherto been so unsuccessful at Japan; but the object we have in view may be effected, provided that a certain degree of the _fortiter in re_ be combined with the _suaviter in modo_. The Japanese now carry on a large trade with China, and also a confined trade with the Dutch, to whom they have allowed a factory upon a small island; but they treat the Dutch with the greatest indignity, and the Dutch submit to it, and, in so doing, have rendered the Europeans vile in the estimation of the Japanese. This is the error which must be destroyed by some means or other, even if it should be necessary to pick a quarrel with them, as we have already done with the Chinese. At the same time that I admit the expediency of so doing, I by no means assert that we shall be altogether justified. There is another point worthy of consideration, which is, that a whale fishery dépôt might be made with great success in this archipelago, any where to the southward and eastward; and we might recover a large portion of that lucrative employment, which, by the means of British seamen employed in American vessels, has been wrested from us; for although, at the commencement, the whale fishery from the States was carried on by Americans only, since it has so enormously increased, at least two-thirds of the people employed in the vessels are English seamen, who have become expert in the profession. It is much to be lamented that the laudable exertions of Mr. Enderby and others to revive this lucrative employment for our vessels and seamen has hitherto failed, and that some part of our surplus capital has not been devoted to an object so important to us as a maritime country. I shall conclude with a reflection which I made while I was on the coast, leaving the reader to agree with me or not, as he may be disposed. How is it, as I have already observed, that all the colonies founded by other nations, either languish or have been swept away,--not all, perhaps, as yet, but the major portion of them; while every colony founded by our little island appears to flourish, till it becomes so powerful as not only no longer to require the nursing of the mother country, but to throw off its dependence, and become a nation of itself? How is it that it can so truly be said that the sun never sets upon the English flag? It cannot be from any want of energy, or activity, or intelligence, or judgment in other nations; for surely in these qualifications we are not superior to the French or to the Dutch, although we may be to the present race of Spaniards and Portuguese. Our colonies have not been more carefully fostered than theirs: on the contrary, they have been neglected, and, if not neglected, they have been but too often oppressed. Why, then, should this be? Can religion have any thing to do with this? Can it be that Providence has imperceptibly interfered, and has decided that England shall perform the high mission; that she has been selected, as a chosen country, to fill the whole world with the true faith, with the pure worship of the Almighty? Has it been for this object that we have been supported in our maritime superiority? Has it been with this view that we have been permitted to discomfit the navies of the whole world? May it not be that when our naval commanders, with a due regard to propriety, have commenced their despatches with "It has pleased the Almighty to grant us a splendid victory," at the same time that they were trusting to the arms of flesh and blood which have so well supported their endeavours, and in their hearts ascribed their successes to the prowess of man,--may it not be, I say, that the Almighty has, for his own good reasons, fought on our side, and has given us victory upon victory, until we have swept the seas, and made the name of England known to the uttermost corners of the globe? Has this been granted us, and have we really been selected as a favoured nation to spread the pure light of the gospel over the universe? Who can say? "His ways are not our ways;" but if so, it is a high destiny, which we must act up to at every sacrifice and at every expence. THE END. London: Spottiswoode and Shaw, New-street-Square. Transcriber's Notes: The author's original (and inconsistent) spelling of place and person names has been preserved, although in some cases, the modern equivalents are substantially different. In the original text, most illustration captions had terminating punctuation but a few did not. In this transcription, terminating punctuation has been added to those captions which did not have them in order to remain consistent with the style most commonly seen in the text. Lithographs facing pages 85, 142, 199 and 201 were missing a line specifying the publisher "Longman & Co" which is present in the other lithographs. It is possible that the pages used for this transcription had been physically truncated. The original appearance of the physical page has been preserved and the publisher line, if missing, has not been added. Inconsistencies in hyphenation of words preserved. (orang outang, orang-outang; blowpipe, blow-pipe; bow-man, bowman; daylight, day-light; flagstaff, flag-staff; goodwill, good-will; gunshot, gun-shot; lighthouse, light-house; parang, pa-rang; pineapples, pine-apples; tomtoms, tom-toms; whitewashed, white-washed; pic nic, pic-nic; Nepa palm, nepa-palms) In the original text, the characters in abbreviations were separated by either a half-space or a full-space. This has been standardized to a full-space in all cases for this transcription. Pg. 19, unusual or archaic spelling of "musquitos" retained. (musquitos, scorpions, lizards, and centipedes) Pg. 20, there is a reference to date 27th May. Context suggests it should probably be 27th July. The original text has been preserved. (On the 27th May every thing had been prepared) Pg. 21, "wth" changed to "with". (delightful bay studded with small) Pg. 35, unusual or archaic spelling of "phrensy" retained. (The lovers were in a state of phrensy) Pg. 90, unusual or archaic spelling of "segars" retained. (We had plenty of wine and segars) Pg. 206, word after comma begins with uppercase, most probably it represents the start of an unspoken thought in the author's mind. Original text retained. (and we became more rational, Why were we ordered home?) Pg. 211, "dépot". On Pgs. 227 and 230, it is spelled "dépôt". Original spelling preserved in all cases. 
23371	----	Blown to Bits, A tale of the Krakatoa Volcanic Explosion, by R.M. Ballantyne. ________________________________________________________________________ This book is a most enjoyable read. We can, however, detect that Ballantyne had been reading up various works by W.H.G. Kingston and by G. Manville Fenn. It's just the knowledge of forest life in Java and Sumatra that makes us think that. But that knowledge is good, for it makes those parts of the book that take place in these forests ring all the more true. As so often with Victorian authors writing for teenagers there is a delightful coloured auxiliary hero. But there is another even more important auxiliary hero, van der Kemp, and it is this man and his doings that form the real interest of this story. He had made himself a home in an island of the Krakatoa group, and a very interesting home it is, too. He travels about, mostly, in a three-seater canoe of the Rob Roy type, that seems able to travel great distances over the sea, sailing some of the way, and to withstand heavy weather, in a most surprising manner. There is a good description of the eruption, or rather explosion, of Krakatoa. This was one of the major geological events of the century, and might well have been taken for granted, with the author assuming that his youthful readers knew all about it, but, thank Goodness, he does not. ________________________________________________________________________ BLOWN TO BITS, A TALE OF THE KRAKATOA VOLCANIC EXPLOSION, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE. CHAPTER ONE. THE PLAY COMMENCES. Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so "microscopically" small that--but let us not anticipate. About the darkest hour of a very dark night, in the year 1883, a large brig lay becalmed on the Indian Ocean, not far from that region of the Eastern world which is associated in some minds with spices, volcanoes, coffee, and piratical junks, namely, the Malay Archipelago. Two men slowly paced the brig's quarterdeck for some time in silence, as if the elemental quietude which prevailed above and below had infected them. Both men were broad, and apparently strong. One of them was tall; the other short. More than this the feeble light of the binnacle-lamp failed to reveal. "Father," said the tall man to the short one, "I do like to hear the gentle pattering of the reef-points on the sails; it is so suggestive of peace and rest. Doesn't it strike you so?" "Can't say it does, lad," replied the short man, in a voice which, naturally mellow and hearty, had been rendered nautically harsh and gruff by years of persistent roaring in the teeth of wind and weather. "More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way." The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with the scene and hour. "Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had almost risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant influences of nature." "Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you gets up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce knows how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an' has no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the man in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions as fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty as first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar than myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry." The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn. "Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all." "What was it, then?" "It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't object to poetry in _her_." "Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother _is_ poetry, an' she can _do_ it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything that Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name-- ever put pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up, rounded off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you needn't go an' shelter yourself under _her_ wings, wi' your inflated, up in the clouds, reef-point patterin', balloon-like nonsense." "Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again. Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned." "What other matter?" demanded the sire. "My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a sailor. After all your trouble, and my own efforts during this long voyage round the Cape, I'm no better than an amateur. I told you that a youth taken fresh from college, without any previous experience of the sea except in boats, could not be licked into shape in so short a time. It is absurd to call me first mate of the _Sunshine_. That is in reality Mr Moor's position--" "No, it isn't, Nigel, my son," interrupted the captain, firmly. "Mr Moor is _second_ mate. _I_ say so, an' if I, the skipper and owner o' this brig, don't know it, I'd like to know who does! Now, look here, lad. You've always had a bad habit of underratin' yourself an' contradictin' your father. I'm an old salt, you know, an' I tell 'ee that for the time you've bin at sea, an' the opportunities you've had, you're a sort o' walkin' miracle. You're no more an ammytoor than I am, and another voyage or two will make you quite fit to work your way all over the ocean, an' finally to take command o' this here brig, an' let your old father stay at home wi'--wi'--" "With the Poetess," suggested Nigel. "Just so--wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now it seems to me--. How's 'er head?" The captain suddenly changed the subject here. Nigel, who chanced to be standing next the binnacle, stooped to examine the compass, and the flood of light from its lamp revealed a smooth but manly and handsome face which seemed quite to harmonise with the cheery voice that belonged to it. "Nor'-east-and-by-east," he said. "Are 'ee sure, lad?" "Your doubting me, father, does not correspond with your lately expressed opinion of my seamanship; does it?" "Let me see," returned the captain, taking no notice of the remark, and stooping to look at the compass with a critical eye. The flood of light, in this case, revealed a visage in which good-nature had evidently struggled for years against the virulent opposition of wind and weather, and had come off victorious, though not without evidences of the conflict. At the same time it revealed features similar to those of the son, though somewhat rugged and red, besides being smothered in hair. "Vulcan must be concoctin' a new brew," he muttered, as he gazed inquiringly over the bow, "or he's stirring up an old one." "What d'you mean, father?" "I mean that there's somethin' goin' on there-away--in the neighbourhood o' Sunda Straits," answered the Captain, directing attention to that point of the compass towards which the ship's head was turned. "Darkness like this don't happen without a cause. I've had some experience o' them seas before now, an' depend upon it that Vulcan is stirring up some o' the fires that are always blazin' away, more or less, around the Straits Settlements." "By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the Malay Archipelago has become active," said Nigel; "but are we not some five or six hundred miles to the sou'-west of Sunda? Surely the influence of volcanic action could scarcely reach so far." "So far!" repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to indicate mild contempt; "that shows how little you know, with all your book-learnin', about volcanoes." "I don't profess to know much, father," retorted Nigel in a tone of cheery defiance. "Why, boy," continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck, "explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay _hundreds_, of miles. I thought I heard one just now, but no doubt the unusual darkness works up my imagination and makes me suspicious, for it's wonderful what fools the imag--. Hallo! D'ee feel _that_?" He went smartly towards the binnacle-light, as he spoke, and, holding an arm close to it, found that his sleeve was sprinkled with a thin coating of fine dust. "Didn't I say so?" he exclaimed in some excitement, as he ran to the cabin skylight and glanced earnestly at the barometer. That glance caused him to shout a sudden order to take in all sail. At the same moment a sigh of wind swept over the sleeping sea as if the storm-fiend were expressing regret at having been so promptly discovered and met. Seamen are well used to sudden danger--especially in equatorial seas-- and to prompt, unquestioning action. Not many minutes elapsed before the _Sunshine_ was under the smallest amount of sail she could carry. Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was tearing up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale soon raised into raging billows. The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged. Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the backstays of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain thus thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted, and the foretop-mast, snapping short off with a report like a cannon-shot, went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and all its gear along with it. CHAPTER TWO. THE HAVEN IN THE CORAL RING. It seemed as if the storm-fiend were satisfied with the mischief he had accomplished, for immediately after the disaster just described, the gale began to moderate, and when the sun rose it had been reduced to a stiff but steady breeze. From the moment of the accident onward, the whole crew had been exerting themselves to the utmost with axe and knife to cut and clear away the wreck of the masts, and repair damages. Not the least energetic among them was our amateur first mate, Nigel Roy. When all had been made comparatively snug, he went aft to where his father stood beside the steersman, with his legs nautically wide apart, his sou'-wester pulled well down over his frowning brows, and his hands in their native pockets. "This is a bad ending to a prosperous voyage," said the youth, sadly; "but you don't seem to take it much to heart, father!" "How much or little I take it to heart you know nothin' whatever about, my boy, seein' that I don't wear my heart on my coat-sleeve, nor yet on the point of my nose, for the inspection of all and sundry. Besides, you can't tell whether it's a bad or a good endin', for it has not ended yet one way or another. Moreover, what appears bad is often found to be good, an' what seems good is pretty often uncommon bad." "You are a walking dictionary of truisms, father! I suppose you mean to take a philosophical view of the misfortune and make the best of it," said Nigel, with what we may style one of his twinkling smiles, for on nearly all occasions that young man's dark, brown eyes twinkled, in spite of him, as vigorously as any "little star" that was ever told in prose or song to do so--and much more expressively, too, because of the eyebrows of which little stars appear to be destitute. "No, lad," retorted the captain; "I take a common-sense view--not a philosophical one; an' when you've bin as long at sea as I have, you'll call nothin' a misfortune until it's proved to be such. The only misfortune I have at present is a son who cannot see things in the same light as his father sees 'em." "Well, then, according to your own principle that is the reverse of a misfortune, for if I saw everything in the same light that you do, you'd have no pleasure in talking to me, you'd have no occasion to reason me out of error, or convince me of truth. Take the subject of poetry, now--" "Luff;" said Captain Roy, sternly, to the man at the wheel. When the man at the wheel had gone through the nautical evolution involved in "luff," the captain turned to his son and said abruptly--"We'll run for the Cocos-Keelin' Islands, Nigel, an' refit." "Are the Keeling Islands far off?" "Lift up your head and look straight along the bridge of your nose, lad, and you'll see them. They're an interesting group, are the Keelin' Islands. Volcanic, they are, with a coral top-dressin', so to speak. Sit down here an' I'll tell 'ee about 'em." Nigel shut up the telescope through which he had been examining the thin, blue line on the horizon that indicated the islands in question, and sat down on the cabin skylight beside his father. "They've got a romantic history too, though a short one, an' are set like a gem on the bosom of the deep blue sea." "Come, father, you're drifting out of your true course--that's poetical!" "I know it, lad, but I'm only quotin' your mother. Well, you must know that the Keelin' Islands--we call them Keelin' for short--were uninhabited between fifty and sixty years ago, when a Scotsman named Ross, thinking them well situated as a port of call for the repair and provisioning of vessels on their way to Australia and China, set his heart on them and quietly took possession in the name of England. Then he went home to fetch his wife and family of six children, intendin' to settle on the islands for good. Returning in 1827 with the family and fourteen adventurers, twelve of whom were English, one a Portugee and one a Javanee, he found to his disgust that an Englishman named Hare had stepped in before him and taken possession. This Hare was a very bad fellow; a rich man who wanted to live like a Rajah, with lots o' native wives and retainers, an' be a sort of independent prince. Of course he was on bad terms at once with Ross, who, finding that things were going badly, felt that it would be unfair to hold his people to the agreement which was made when he thought the whole group was his own, so he offered to release them. They all, except two men and one woman, accepted the release and went off in a gun-boat that chanced to touch there at the time. For a good while Hare and his rival lived there--the one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government to claim possession. Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but the English did it at long last--in 1878--and annexed the islands to the Government of Ceylon. "Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the `King of the Cocos Islands' as he came to be called. In a few years--chiefly through the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement. Its ships traded in cocoa-nuts, (the chief produce of the islands), throughout all the Straits Settlements, and boatbuildin' became one of their most important industries. But there was one thing that prevented it from bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of Batavia. As these men were fit for anything--from pitch-and-toss to murder--and soon outnumbered the colonists, the place was kept in constant alarm and watchfulness. For, as I dare say you know, the Malays are sometimes liable to have the spirit of _amok_ on them, which leads them to care for and fear nothin', and to go in for a fight-to-death, from which we get our sayin'--_run amuck_. An' when a strong fellow is goin' about loose in this state o' mind, it's about as bad as havin' a tiger prowlin' in one's garden. "Well, sometimes two or three o' these coolies would mutiny and bide in the woods o' one o' the smaller uninhabited islands. An' the colonists would have no rest till they hunted them down. So, to keep matters right, they had to be uncommon strict. It was made law that no one should spend the night on any but what was called the Home Island without permission. Every man was bound to report himself at the guard-house at a fixed hour; every fire to be out at sunset, and every boat was numbered and had to be in its place before that time. So they went on till the year 1862, when a disaster befell them that made a considerable change--at first for the worse, but for the better in the long-run. Provin' the truth, my lad, of what I was--well, no--I was goin' to draw a moral here, but I won't! "It was a cyclone that did the business. Cyclones have got a free-an'-easy way of makin' a clean sweep of the work of years in a few hours. This cyclone completely wrecked the homes of the Keelin' Islanders, and Ross--that's the second Ross, the son of the first one-- sent home for _his_ son, who was then a student of engineering in Glasgow, to come out and help him to put things to rights. Ross the third obeyed the call, like a good son,--observe that, Nigel." "All right, father, fire away!" "Like a good son," repeated the captain, "an' he turned out to be a first-rate man, which was lucky, for his poor father died soon after, leavin' him to do the work alone. An' well able was the young engineer to do it. He got rid o' the chain-gang men altogether, and hired none but men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills, circular saws, lathes, etcetera, and established a system of general education with a younger brother as head-master--an' tail-master too, for I believe there was only one. He also taught the men to work in brass, iron, and wood, and his wife--a Cocos girl that he married after comin' out--taught all the women and girls to sew, cook, and manage the house. In short, everything went on in full swing of prosperity, till the year 1876, when the island-born inhabitants were about 500, as contented and happy as could be. "In January of that year another cyclone paid them a visit. The barometer gave them warning, and, remembering the visit of fourteen years before, they made ready to receive the new visitor. All the boats were hauled up to places of safety, and every other preparation was made. Down it came, on the afternoon o' the 28th--worse than they had expected. Many of the storehouses and mills had been lately renewed or built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were cleared among the palm-trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away, leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a permanent spiral screw. I was in these regions about the time, and had the account from a native who had gone through it all and couldn't speak of it except with glaring eyeballs and gasping breath. "About midnight of the 28th the gale was at its worst. Darkness that could be felt between the flashes of lightning. Thunder that was nearly drowned by the roaring of the wind an' the crashing of everything all round. To save their lives the people had to fling themselves into ditches and hollows of the ground. Mr Ross and some of his people were lying in the shelter of a wall near his house. There had been a schooner lying not far off. When Mr Ross raised his head cautiously above the wall to have a look to wind'ard he saw the schooner comin' straight for him on the top of a big wave. `Hold on!' he shouted, fell flat down, and laid hold o' the nearest bush. Next moment the wave burst right over the wall, roared on up to the garden, 150 yards above high-water mark, and swept his house clean away! By good fortune the wall stood the shock, and the schooner stuck fast just before reachin' it, but so near that the end of the jib-boom passed right over the place where the household lay holdin' on for dear life and half drowned. It was a tremendous night," concluded the captain, "an' nearly everything on the islands was wrecked, but they've survived it, as you'll see. Though it's seven years since that cyclone swep' over them, they're all right and goin' ahead again, full swing, as if nothin' had happened." "And is Ross the Third still king?" asked Nigel with much interest. "Ay--at least he was king a few years ago when I passed this way and had occasion to land to replace a tops'l yard that had been carried away." "Then you won't arrive as a stranger?" "I should think not," returned the captain, getting up and gazing steadily at the _atoll_ or group of islets enclosed within a coral ring which they were gradually approaching. Night had descended, however, and the gale had decreased almost to a calm, ere they steered through the narrow channel--or what we may call a broken part of the ring--which led to the calm lagoon inside. Nigel Roy leaned over the bow, watching with profound attention the numerous phosphorescent fish and eel-like creatures which darted hither and thither like streaks of silver from beneath their advancing keel. He had enough of the naturalist in him to arouse in his mind keen interest in the habits and action of the animal life around him, and these denizens of the coral-groves were as new to him as their appearance was unexpected. "You'll find 'em very kind and hospitable, lad," said the captain to his son. "What, the fish?" "No, the inhabitants. Port--port--steady!" "Steady it is!" responded the man at the wheel. "Let go!" shouted the captain. A heavy plunge, followed by the rattling of chains and swinging round of the brig, told that they had come to an anchor in the lagoon of the Cocos-Keeling Islands. CHAPTER THREE. INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS KINDS. By the first blush of dawn Nigel Roy hastened on deck, eager to see the place in regard to which his father's narrative had awakened in him considerable interest. It not only surpassed but differed from all his preconceived ideas. The brig floated on the bosom of a perfectly calm lake of several miles in width, the bottom of which, with its bright sand and brilliant coral-beds, could be distinctly seen through the pellucid water. This lake was encompassed by a reef of coral which swelled here and there into tree-clad islets, and against which the breakers of the Indian Ocean were dashed into snowy foam in their vain but ceaseless efforts to invade the calm serenity of the lagoon. Smaller islands, rich with vegetation, were scattered here and there within the charmed circle, through which several channels of various depths and sizes connected the lagoon with the ocean. "We shall soon have the king himself off to welcome us," said Captain Roy as he came on deck and gave a sailor-like glance all round the horizon and then up at the sky from the mere force of habit. "Visitors are not numerous here. A few scientific men have landed now and again; Darwin the great naturalist among others in 1836, and Forbes in 1878. No doubt they'll be very glad to welcome Nigel Roy in this year of grace 1883." "But I'm not a naturalist, father, more's the pity." "No matter, lad; you're an ammytoor first mate, an' pr'aps a poet may count for somethin' here. They lead poetical lives and are fond o' poetry." "Perhaps that accounts for the fondness you say they have for you, father." "Just so, lad. See!--there's a boat puttin' off already: the king, no doubt." He was right. Mr Ross, the appointed governor, and "King of the Cocos Islands," was soon on deck, heartily shaking hands with and welcoming Captain Roy as an old friend. He carried him and his son off at once to breakfast in his island-home; introduced Nigel to his family, and then showed them round the settlement, assuring them at the same time that all its resources were at their disposal for the repair of the _Sunshine_. "Thank 'ee kindly," said the captain in reply, "but I'll only ask for a stick to rig up a fore-topmast to carry us to Batavia, where we'll give the old craft a regular overhaul--for it's just possible she may have received some damage below the water-line, wi' bumpin' on the mast and yards." The house of the "King" was a commodious, comfortable building in the midst of a garden, in which there were roses in great profusion, as well as fruit-trees and flowering shrubs. Each Keeling family possessed a neat well-furnished plank cottage enclosed in a little garden, besides a boat-house at the water-edge on the inner or lagoon side of the reef, and numerous boats were lying about on the white sand. The islanders, being almost born sailors, were naturally very skilful in everything connected with the sea. There was about them a good deal of that kindly innocence which one somehow expects to find associated with a mild paternal government and a limited intercourse with the surrounding world, and Nigel was powerfully attracted by them from the first. After an extensive ramble, during which Mr Ross plied the captain with eager questions as to the latest news from the busy centres of civilisation--especially with reference to new inventions connected with engineering--the island king left them to their own resources till dinner-time, saying that he had duties to attend to connected with the kingdom! "Now, boy," said the captain when their host had gone, "what'll 'ee do? Take a boat and have a pull over the lagoon, or go with me to visit a family I'm particularly fond of, an' who are uncommon fond of _me_!" "Visit the family, of course," said Nigel. "I can have a pull any day." "Come along then." He led the way to one of the neatest of the plank cottages, which stood on the highest ridge of the island, so that from the front windows it commanded a view of the great blue ocean with its breakers that fringed the reef as with a ring of snow, while, on the opposite side, lay the peaceful waters and islets of the lagoon. A shout of joyful surprise was uttered by several boys and girls at sight of the captain, for during his former visit he had won their hearts by telling them wild stories of the sea, one-half of each story being founded on fact and personal experience, the other half on a vivid imagination! "We are rejoiced to see you," said the mother of the juveniles, a stout woman of mixed nationality--that of Dutch apparently predominating. She spoke English, however, remarkably well, as did many of the Cocos people, though Malay is the language of most of them. The boys and girls soon hauled the captain down on a seat and began to urge him to tell them stories, using a style of English that was by no means equal to that of the mother. "Stop, stop, let me see sister Kathy first. I can't begin without her. Where is she?" "Somewhere, I s'pose," said the eldest boy. "No doubt of that. Go--fetch her," returned the captain. At that moment a back-door opened, and a girl of about seventeen years of age entered. She was pleasant-looking rather than pretty--tall, graceful, and with magnificent black eyes. "Here she comes," cried the captain, rising and kissing her. "Why, Kathy, how you've grown since I saw you last! Quite a woman, I declare!" Kathy was not too much of a woman, however, to join her brothers and sisters in forcing the captain into a seat and demanding a story on the spot. "Stop, stop!" cried the captain, grasping round their waists a small boy and girl who had already clambered on his knees. "Let me inquire about my old friends first--and let me introduce my son to you--you've taken no notice of _him_ yet! That's not hospitable." All eyes were turned at once on Nigel, some boldly, others with a shy inquiring look, as though to say, "Can _you_ tell stories?" "Come, now," said Nigel, advancing, "Since you are all so fond of my father, I must shake hands with you all round." The hearty way in which this was done at once put the children at their ease. They admitted him, as it were, into their circle, and then turning again to the captain continued their clamour for a story. "No, no--about old friends first. How--how's old mother Morris?" "Quite well," they shouted. "Fatterer than ever," added an urchin, who in England would have been styled cheeky. "Yes," lisped a very little girl; "one of 'e doors in 'e house too small for she." "Why, Gerchin, you've learned to speak English like the rest," said the captain. "Yes, father make every one learn." "Well, now," continued the captain, "what about Black Sam?" "Gone to Batavia," chorused the children. "And--and--what's-'is-name?--the man wi' the nose--" A burst of laughter and, "We's _all_ got noses here!" was the reply. "Yes, but you know who I mean--the short man wi' the--" "Oh! with the turned _up_ nose. _I_ know," cried the cheeky boy; "you means Johnson? He hoed away nobody know whar'." "And little Kelly Drew, what of her?" A sudden silence fell on the group, and solemn eyes were turned on sister Kathy, who was evidently expected to answer. "Not dead?" said the captain earnestly. "No, but very _very_ ill," replied the girl. "Dear Kelly have never git over the loss of her brother, who--." At this point they were interrupted by another group of the captain's little admirers, who, having heard of his arrival, ran forward to give him a noisy welcome. Before stories could be commenced, however, the visitors were summoned to Mr Ross's house to dinner, and then the captain had got into such an eager talk with the king that evening was upon them before they knew where they were, as Nigel expressed it, and the stories had to be postponed until the following day. Of course beds were offered, and accepted by Captain Roy and Nigel. Just before retiring to them, father and son went out to have a stroll on the margin of the lagoon. "Ain't it a nice place, Nigel?" asked the former, whose kindly spirit had been stirred up to quite a jovial pitch by the gushing welcome he had received alike from old and young. "It's charming, father. Quite different from what you had led me to expect." "My boy," returned the captain, with that solemn deliberation which he was wont to assume when about to deliver a palpable truism. "W'en you've come to live as long as me you'll find that everything turns out different from what people have bin led to expect. Leastways that's _my_ experience." "Well, in the meantime, till I have come to your time of life, I'll take your word for that, and I do hope you intend to stay a long time here." "No, my son, I don't. Why do ye ask?" "Because I like the place and the people so much that I would like to study it and them, and to sketch the scenery." "Business before pleasure, my lad," said the captain with a grave shake of the head. "You know we've bin blown out of our course, and have no business here at all. I'll only wait till the carpenter completes his repairs, and then be off for Batavia. Duty first; everything else afterwards." "But you being owner as well as commander, there is no one to insist on duty being done," objected Nigel. "Pardon me," returned the captain, "there is a certain owner named Captain David Roy, a very stern disciplinarian, who insists on the commander o' this here brig performin' his duty to the letter. You may depend upon it that if a man ain't true to himself he's not likely to be true to any one else. But it's likely that we may be here for a couple of days, so I release _you_ from duty that you may make the most o' your time and enjoy yourself. By the way, it will save you wastin' time if you ask that little girl, Kathy Holbein, to show you the best places to sketch, for she's a born genius with her pencil and brush." "No, thank you, father," returned Nigel. "I want no little girl to bother me while I'm sketching--even though she be a born genius--for I think I possess genius enough myself to select the best points for sketching, and to get along fairly well without help. At least I'll try what I can do." "Please yourself, lad. Nevertheless, I think you wouldn't find poor Kathy a bother; she's too modest for that--moreover, she could manage a boat and pull a good oar when I was here last, and no doubt she has improved since." "Nevertheless, I'd rather be alone," persisted Nigel. "But why do you call her _poor_ Kathy? She seems to be quite as strong and as jolly as the rest of her brothers and sisters." "Ah, poor thing, these are not her brothers and sisters," returned the captain in a gentler tone. "Kathy is only an adopted child, and an orphan. Her name, Kathleen, is not a Dutch one. She came to these islands in a somewhat curious way. Sit down here and I'll tell 'ee the little I know about her." Father and son sat down on a mass of coral rock that had been washed up on the beach during some heavy gale, and for a few minutes gazed in silence on the beautiful lagoon, in which not only the islets, but the brilliant moon and even the starry hosts were mirrored faithfully. "About thirteen years ago," said the captain, "two pirate junks in the Sunda Straits attacked a British barque, and, after a fight, captured her. Some o' the crew were killed in action, some were taken on board the junks to be held to ransom, I s'pose, and some, jumping into the sea to escape if possible by swimming, were probably drowned, for they were a considerable distance from land. It was one o' these fellows, however, who took to the water that managed to land on the Java shore, more dead than alive. He gave information about the affair, and was the cause of a gun-boat, that was in these waters at the time, bein' sent off in chase o' the pirate junks. "This man who swam ashore was a Lascar. He said that the chief o' the pirates, who seemed to own both junks, was a big ferocious Malay with only one eye--he might have added with no heart at all, if what he said o' the scoundrel was true, for he behaved with horrible cruelty to the crew o' the barque. After takin' all he wanted out of his prize he scuttled her, and then divided the people that were saved alive between the two junks. There were several passengers in the vessel; among them a young man--a widower--with a little daughter, four year old or so. He was bound for Calcutta. Being a very powerful man he fought like a lion to beat the pirates off, but he was surrounded and at last knocked down by a blow from behind. Then his arms were made fast and he was sent wi' the rest into the biggest junk. "This poor fellow recovered his senses about the time the pirates were dividin' the prisoners among them. He seemed dazed at first, so said the Lascar, but as he must have bin in a considerable funk himself I suspect his observations couldn't have bin very correct. Anyhow, he said he was sittin' near the side o' the junk beside this poor man, whose name he never knew, but who seemed to be an Englishman from his language, when a wild scream was heard in the other junk. It was the little girl who had caught sight of her father and began to understand that she was going to be separated from him. At the sound o' her voice he started up, and, looking round like a wild bull, caught sight o' the little one on the deck o' the other junk, just as they were hoistin' sail to take advantage of a breeze that had sprung up. "Whether it was that they had bound the man with a piece o' bad rope, or that the strength o' Samson had been given to him, the Lascar could not tell, but he saw the Englishman snap the rope as if it had bin a bit o' pack-thread, and jump overboard. He swam for the junk where his little girl was. If he had possessed the strength of a dozen Samsons it would have availed him nothin', for the big sail had caught the breeze and got way on her. At the same time the other junk lay over to the same breeze and the two separated. At first the one-eyed pirate jumped up with an oath and fired a pistol shot at the Englishman, but missed him. Then he seemed to change his mind and shouted in bad English, with a diabolical laugh--`Swim away; swim hard, p'raps you kitch 'im up!' Of course the two junks were soon out of sight o' the poor swimmer--and that was the end of _him_, for, of course, he must have been drowned." "But what of the poor little girl?" asked Nigel, whose feelings were easily touched by the sorrows of children, and who began to have a suspicion of what was coming. "I'm just comin' to that. Well, the gun-boat that went to look for the pirates sighted one o' the junks out in the Indian Ocean after a long search and captured her, but not a single one o' the barque's crew was to be found in her, and it was supposed they had been all murdered and thrown overboard wi' shots tied to their feet to sink them. Enough o' the cargo o' the British barque was found, however, to convict her, and on a more careful search bein' made, the little girl was discovered, hid away in the hold. Bein' only about four year old, the poor little thing was too frightened to understand the questions put to her. All she could say was that she wanted `to go to father,' and that her name was Kathy, probably short for Kathleen, but she could not tell." "Then that is the girl who is now here?" exclaimed Nigel. "The same, lad. The gun-boat ran in here, like as we did, to have some slight repairs done, and Kathy was landed. She seemed to take at once to motherly Mrs Holbein, who offered to adopt her, and as the captain of the gun-boat had no more notion than the man-in-the-moon who the child belonged to, or what to do with her, he gladly handed her over, so here she has been livin' ever since. Of coarse attempts have been made to discover her friends, but without success, and now all hope has been given up. The poor girl herself never speaks on the subject, but old Holbein and his wife tell me she is sure that Kathy has never forgotten her father. It may be so; anyhow, she has forgotten his name--if she ever knew it." Next day Nigel made no objections to being guided to the most picturesque spots among the coral isles by the interesting orphan girl. If she had been older he might even have fallen in love with her, an event which would have necessitated an awkward modification of the ground-work of our tale. As it was, he pitied the poor child sincerely, and not only--recognising her genius--asked her advice a good deal on the subject of art, but--recognising also her extreme youth and ignorance--volunteered a good deal of advice in exchange, quite in a paternal way! CHAPTER FOUR. NIGEL UNDERGOES SOME QUITE NEW AND INTERESTING EXPERIENCES. The arrangements made on the following day turned out to be quite in accordance with the wishes and tastes of the various parties concerned. The ship's carpenter having been duly set to work on the repairs, and being inspected in that serious piece of prosaic business by the second mate, our captain was set free to charm the very souls of the juveniles by wandering for miles along the coral strand inventing, narrating, exaggerating to his heart's content. Pausing now and then to ask questions irrelevant to the story in hand, like a wily actor, for the purpose of intensifying the desire for more, he would mount a block of coral, and thence, sometimes as from a throne, or platform, or pulpit, impress some profound piece of wisdom, or some thrilling point, or some exceedingly obvious moral on his followers open-mouthed and open-eyed. These were by no means idlers, steeped in the too common business of having nothing to do. No, they had regularly sought and obtained a holiday from work or school; for all the activities of social and civilised life were going on full swing--fuller, indeed, than the average swing--in that remote, scarcely known, and beautiful little gem of the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile Nigel and Kathy, with sketch-books under their arms, went down to where the clear waters of the lagoon rippled on the white sand, and, launching a cockleshell of a boat, rowed out toward the islets. "Now, Kathy, you must let me pull," said Nigel, pushing out the sculls, "for although the captain tells me you are very good at rowing, it would never do for a man, you know, to sit lazily down and let himself be rowed by a girl." "Very well," said Kathy, with a quiet and most contented smile, for she had not yet reached the self-conscious age--at least, as ages go in the Cocos-Keeling Islands! Besides, Kathy was gifted with that charming disposition which never _objects_ to anything--anything, of course, that does not involve principle! But it was soon found that, as the cockleshell had no rudder, and the intricacies they had to wind among were numerous, frequent directions and corrections were called for from the girl. "D'you know," said Nigel at last, "as I don't know where you want me to go to, it may be as well, after all, that you should row!" "Very well," said Kathy, with another of her innocent smiles. "I thinked it will be better so at first." Nigel could not help laughing at the way she said this as he handed her the sculls. She soon proved herself to be a splendid boat-woman, and although her delicate and shapely arms were as mere pipe-stems to the great brawny limbs of her companion, yet she had a deft, mysterious way of handling the sculls that sent the cockleshell faster over the lagoon than before. "Now, we go ashore here," said Kathy, turning the boat,--with a prompt backwater of the left scull, and a vigorous pull of the right one,--into a little cove just big enough to hold it. The keel went with such a plump on the sand, that Nigel, who sat on a forward thwart with his back landward, reversed the natural order of things by putting his back on the bottom of the boat and his heels in the air. To this day it is an unsettled question whether this was done on purpose by Kathy. Certain it is that _she_ did not tumble, but burst into a hearty fit of laughter, while her large lustrous eyes half shut themselves up and twinkled. "Why, you don't even apologise, you dreadful creature!" exclaimed Nigel, joining in the laugh, as he picked himself up. "Why should I 'pologise?" asked the girl, in the somewhat broken English acquired from her adopted family. "Why you not look out?" "Right, Kathy, right; I'll keep a sharp lookout next time. Meanwhile I will return good for evil by offering my hand to help you a--hallo!" While he spoke the girl had sprung past him like a grasshopper, and alighted on the sand like a butterfly. A few minutes later and this little jesting fit had vanished, and they were both engaged with pencil and book, eagerly--for both were enthusiastic--sketching one of the most enchanting scenes that can well be imagined. We will not attempt the impossible. Description could not convey it. We can only refer the reader's imagination to the one old, hackneyed but expressive, word--fairyland! One peculiarly interesting point in the scene was, that on the opposite side of the lagoon the captain could be seen holding forth to his juvenile audience. When a pretty long time had elapsed in absolute silence, each sketcher being totally oblivious of the other, Nigel looked up with a long sigh, and said:-- "Well, you _have_ chosen a most exquisite scene for me. The more I work at it, the more I find to admire. May I look now at what you have done?" "Oh yes, but I have done not much. I am slow," said the girl, as Nigel rose and looked over her shoulder. "Why!--what--how beautiful!--but--but--what do you mean?" exclaimed the youth. "I don't understand you," said the girl, looking up in surprise. "Why, Kathy, I had supposed you were drawing that magnificent landscape all this time, and--and you've only been drawing a group of shells. Splendidly done, I admit, but why--" He stopped at that moment, for her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Forgive me, dear child," said Nigel, hurriedly "I did not intend to hurt your feelings. I was only surprised at your preference." "You have not hurt me," returned Kathy in a low voice, as she resumed her work, "but what you say calls back to me--my father was very fond of shells." She stopped, and Nigel, blaming himself for having inadvertently touched some tender chord, hastened, somewhat clumsily, to change the subject. "You draw landscape also, I doubt not?" "Oh yes--plenty. If you come home to me to-night, I will show you some." "I shall be only too happy," returned the youth, sitting down again to his sketch, "and perhaps I may be able to give you a hint or two-- especially in reference to perspective--for I've had regular training, you know, Kathy, and I dare say you have not had that here." "Not what you will think much, perhaps, yet I have study a little in school, and _very_ much from Nature." "Well, you have been under the best of masters," returned Nigel, "if you have studied much from Nature. And who has been your other teacher?" "A brother of Mr Ross. I think he must understand very much. He was an engineer, and has explained to me the rules of perspective, and many other things which were at first very hard to understand. But I do see them now." "Perhaps then, Kathleen," said Nigel, in that drawling, absent tone in which artists are apt to indulge when busy at work--"perhaps you may be already too far advanced to require instruction from me." "Perhaps--but I think no, for you seems to understand a great deal. But why you call me Kathleen just now?" "Because I suppose that is your real name--Kathy being the short for it. Is it not so?" "Well, p'raps it is. I have hear mother Holbein say so once. I like Kathleen best." "Then, may I call you Kathleen?" "If you like." At this point both artists had become so engrossed in their occupation that they ceased to converse, and for a considerable time profound silence reigned--at least on their part, though not as regarded others, for every now and then the faint sound of laughter came floating over the tranquil lagoon from that part of the coral strand where Captain Roy was still tickling the fancies and expanding the imaginations and harrowing or soothing the feelings of the Cocos-Keeling juveniles. Inferior animal life was also in ceaseless activity around the sketchers, filling the air with those indescribably quiet noises which are so suggestive of that general happiness which was originally in terrestrial paradise and is ultimately to be the lot of redeemed creation. Snipe and curlews were wading with jaunty step and absorbed inquiring gaze in the shallow pools. Hermit-crabs of several species and sizes were scuttling about searching for convenient shells in which to deposit their naturally homeless and tender tails. Overhead there was a sort of sea-rookery, the trees being tenanted by numerous gannets, frigate birds, and terns--the first gazing with a stupid yet angry air; the last--one beautiful little snow-white species in particular--hovering only a few feet above the sketchers' heads, while their large black eyes scanned the drawings with the owlish look of wisdom peculiar to connoisseurs. Noddies also were there, and, on the ground, lizards and spiders and innumerable ants engaged in all the varied activities connected with their several domestic arrangements. Altogether it was a scene of bright peaceful felicity, which seemed to permeate Nigel's frame right inward to the spinal marrow, and would have kept him entranced there at his work for several hours longer if the cravings of a healthy appetite had not warned him to desist. "Now, Kathleen," he said, rising and stretching himself as one is apt to do after sitting long in a constrained position, "it seems to me about time to--by the way, we've forgotten to bring something to eat!" His expression as he said this made his companion look up and laugh. "Plenty cocoa-nuts," she said, pointing with her pencil to the overarching trees. "True, but I doubt my ability to climb these long straight stems; besides, I have got only a small clasp-knife, which would be but a poor weapon with which to attack the thick outer husk of the nuts." "But I have got a few without the husks in the boat," said the girl, rising and running to the place where the cockleshell had been left. She returned immediately with several nuts divested of their thick outer covering, and in the condition with which we are familiar in England. Some of them were already broken, so that they had nothing to do but sit down to lunch. "Here is one," said Kathy, handing a nut to Nigel, "that has got no meat yet in it--only milk. Bore a hole in it and drink, but see you bore in the right hole." "The right hole?" echoed the youth, "are some of them wrong ones?" "Oh yes, only one of the three will do. One of our crawbs knows that and has claws that can bore through the husk and shell. We calls him coconut crawb." "Indeed! That is strange; I never heard before of a crab that fed on cocoa-nuts." "This one do. He is very big, and also climbs trees. It goes about most at night. Perhaps you see one before you go away." The crab to which Kathy referred is indeed a somewhat eccentric crustacean, besides being unusually large. It makes deep tunnels in the ground larger than rabbit burrows, which it lines with cocoa-nut fibre. One of its claws is developed into an organ of extraordinary power with which it can break a cocoa-nut shell, and even, it is said, a man's limb! It never takes all the husk off a cocoa-nut--that would be an unnecessary trouble--but only enough off the end where the three eyelets are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched and it has been ascertained that it feeds only on fallen nuts. Possibly it climbs for exercise, or to obtain a more extended view of its charming habitat, or simply "for fun." Why not? All this and a great deal more was told to Nigel by Kathleen, who was a bit of a naturalist in her tendencies--as they sat there under the graceful fronds of the palm-trees admiring the exquisite view, eating and drinking cocoa-nuts. "I suppose you have plenty of other kinds of food besides this?" said Nigel. "Oh yes, plenty. Most of the fish in our lagoon be good for eating, and so also the crawbs, and we have turtle too." "Indeed! How do you catch the turtle? Another nut, please.--Thank you." "The way we gets turtle is by the men diving for them and catching them in the water. We has pigs too--plenty, and the wild birds are some very nice." [See note.] When the artists had finished they proceeded to the shore, and to their surprise and amusement found the cockleshell in possession of a piratical urchin of about four years of age in a charmingly light state of clothing. He was well-known to Kathleen, and it turned out that, having seen the cockle start at too great a distance to be hailed, and having set his heart on joining in the excursion, he had watched their movements, observed their landing on the islet--which was not far from the main circlet of land--and, running round till he came opposite to it, swam off and got into the boat. Being somewhat tired he had lain down to rest and fallen sound asleep. On the way home this urchin's sole delight was to lean over the bow and watch the fish and coral-groves over which they skimmed. In this he was imitated by Nigel who, ungallantly permitting his companion to row, also leaned over the side and gazed down into the clear crystal depths with unwearying delight. For the wonderful colours displayed in those depths must be seen to be believed. Not only is the eye pleased with the ever-varying formations of the coral bowers, but almost dazzled with the glittering fish--blue, emerald, green, scarlet, orange, banded, spotted, and striped--that dart hither and thither among the rich-toned sea-weed and the variegated anemones which spread their tentacles upwards as if inviting the gazer to come down. Among these, crabs could be seen crawling with undecided motion, as if unable to make up their minds, while in out of the way crevices clams of a gigantic size were gaping in deadly quietude ready to close with a snap on any unfortunate creature that should give them the slightest touch. Nigel was sharply awakened from his dream by a sudden splash. Looking up he observed that the small boy was gone. With a bound he stood erect, one foot on the gunwale and hands clasped ready to dive, when a glance revealed the fact that Kathy was smiling broadly! "Don't jump!" she said. "He is only after a fish." Even while she spoke Nigel saw the brown little fellow shooting about like a galvanised tadpole, with a small harpoon in his hand. Next moment he appeared on the surface shouting and spluttering, with a splendid fish on the end of his harpoon! Both were hauled into the boat, and very soon after they drew near to land. In the shallow water Nigel observed some remarkable creatures which resembled hedgehogs, having jaws armed with formidable teeth to enable them to feed, Kathy said, on coral insects. File-fishes also drew his attention particularly. These were magnificently striped and coloured, and apparently very fearless. "What convenient tails they have to lay hold of," remarked our hero, as they slowly glided past one; "I believe I could catch it with my hand!" Stooping swiftly as he spoke, he dipped his arm into the water, and actually did grasp the fish by its tail, but dropped it again instantly--to the shrieking delight of the urchin and Kathy,--for the tail was armed with a series of sharp spines which ran into his hand like lancets. This was an appropriate conclusion to a day that would have been otherwise too enjoyable. Poor Nigel's felicity was further diluted when he met his father. "We'll have to sleep aboard to-night," said the captain, "for there's a fair breeze outside which seems likely to hold, and the mast has been temporarily rigged up, so we'll have to up anchor, and away by break of day to-morrow." Nigel's heart sank. "To-morrow! father?" "Ay, to-morrow. Business first, pleasure afterwards." "Well, I suppose you are right, but it seems almost a shame to leave such a heaven upon earth as this in such a hurry. Besides, is it not unkind to such hospitable people to bolt off after you've got all that you want out of them?" "Can't help that, lad-- "Dooty first, an' fun to follow, That's what beats creation hollow." "Come father, don't say that you quote _that_ from mother!" "No more I do, my boy. It's my own--homemade. I put it together last night when I couldn't sleep for your snorin'." "Don't tell fibs, father. You know I never snore. But--really--are we to start at daylight?" "We are, if the wind holds. But you may stay as late as you choose on shore to-night." Nigel availed himself of the opportunity to see as much of the place and people as was possible in the limited time. Next morning the good though damaged brig was running in the direction of Sunda Straits before a stiff and steady breeze. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. We recommend those who desire more curious information on the fauna and flora of the Keeling Islands to apply to Henry O. Forbes most interesting book, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_, published by Sampson Low. CHAPTER FIVE. CAPTAIN ROY SURPRISES AND GRATIFIES HIS SON, WHO SURPRISES A NEGRO, AND SUDDENLY FORMS AN ASTONISHING RESOLVE. Arrived in Batavia--the low-lying seaport and capital of the Dutch island of Java--Captain Roy had his brig examined, and found that the damage she had sustained was so serious that several months would probably elapse before she would be again ready for sea. "Now, Nigel, my lad," said the old gentleman, on the morning after the examination had been made, "come down below with me; I want to have a confabulation with 'ee." "Why, father," said the youth, when seated at the small cabin table opposite his rugged parent, "you seem to be in an unusually solemn frame of mind this morning. Has anything happened?" "Nothin', boy--nothin'. Leastwise nothin' in particular. You know all about the brig, an' what a deal o' repair she's got to undergo?" "Of course I do. You know I was present when you talked the matter over with that fellow--what's-'is-name--that gave you his report." "Just so. Well now, Nigel, you don't suppose, do you, that I'm goin' to keep you here for some months knockin' about with nothin' to do--eatin' your grub in idleness?" "Certainly not," said the youth, regarding the stern countenance of his parent with an amused look. "I have no intention of acting such an ignoble part, and I'm surprised at you askin' the question, for you know I am not lazy--at least not more so than average active men--and there must be plenty of work for me to do in looking after the cargo, superintending repairs, taking care of the ship and men. I wonder at you, father. You must either have had a shock of dotage, or fallen into a poetical vein. What is a first mate fit for if--" "Nigel," said Captain Roy, interrupting, "I'm the owner an' commander of the _Sunshine_, besides bein' the paternal parent of an impertinent son, and I claim to have the right to do as I please--therefore, hold your tongue and listen to me." "All right, father," replied the young man, with a benignant grin; "proceed, but don't be hard upon me; spare my feelings." "Well now, this is how the land lies," said the old seaman, resting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands before him. "As Mr Moor and I, with the stooard and men, are quite sufficient to manage the affairs o' the brig, and as we shall certainly be here for a considerable time to come, I've made up my mind to give you a holiday. You're young, you see, an' foolish, and your mind needs improvin'. In short, you want a good deal o' the poetry knocked out o' you, for it's not like your mother's poetry by any means, so you needn't flatter yourself--not built on the same lines by a long way. Well--where was I?" "Only got the length of the holiday yet, father." "Only, indeed. You ungrateful dog! It's a considerable length to get, that, isn't it? Well, I also intend to give you some money, to enable you to move about in this curious archipelago--not much, but enough to keep you from starvation if used with economy, so I recommend you to go into the town, make general inquiries about everything and everywhere, an' settle in your mind what you'll do, for I give you a rovin' commission an' don't want to be bothered with you for some time to come." "Are you in earnest, father?" asked Nigel, who had become more interested while the captain unfolded his plan. "Never more in earnest in my life--except, p'raps, when I inquired over twenty years ago whether you was a boy or a girl." "Well, now, that _is_ good of you, father. Of course I need not say that I am charmed at the prospect you open up to me. And--and when may I start?" "At once. Up anchor and away to-night if you choose." "But--where?" "Anywhere--everywhere, Java, Sumatra, Borneo--all Malaysia before you where to choose. Now be off, and think over it, for I've got too much to do to waste time on you at present," said the captain, rising, "and, stay--Nigel." "Well?" said the youth, looking back as he was about to leave the cabin. "Whatever you do, don't grow poetical about it. You know it is said somewhere, that mischief is found for idle hands to do." "All right, father. I'll keep clear of poetry--leave all that sort o' nonsense to _you_. I'll-- "I'll flee Temptation's siren voice, _Throw_ poesy to the _crows_ And let my soul's ethereal fire Gush out in sober prose." It need scarcely be said that our hero was not slow to take advantage of the opportunity thus thrown in his way. He went off immediately through the town, armed with the introduction of his father's well-known name, and made inquiries of all sorts of people as to the nature, the conditions, the facilities, and the prospects of travel in the Malay Archipelago. In this quest he found himself sorely perplexed for the very good reason that "all sorts" of people, having all sorts of ideas and tastes, gave amazingly conflicting accounts of the region and its attractions. Wearied at last with his researches, he sauntered towards afternoon in the direction of the port, and began in a listless sort of way to watch the movements of a man who was busily engaged with a boat, as if he were making preparations to put to sea. Now, whatever philosophers may say to the contrary, we hold strongly to the opinion that likings and dislikings among men and women and children are the result of some profound occult cause which has nothing whatever to do with experience. No doubt experience may afterwards come in to modify or intensify the feelings, but it is not the originating cause. If you say it is, how are we to account for love at first sight? Beauty has nothing necessarily to do with it, for men fall in love at first sight with what the world calls plain women--happily! Character is not the cause, for love assails the human breast, oft-times, before the loved object has uttered a word, or perpetrated a smile, or even fulminated a glance to indicate character. So, in like manner, affection may arise between man and man. It was so on this occasion with Nigel Roy. As he stood abstractedly gazing at the boatman he fell in love with him--at least he took a powerful fancy to him, and this was all the more surprising that the man was a negro,--a woolly-headed, flat-nosed, thick-lipped nigger! We would not for a moment have it supposed that it is unnatural to love such a man. Quite the reverse. But when such a man is a perfect stranger, has never uttered a word in one's presence, or vouchsafed so much as a glance, and is gravely, stolidly engaged in the unsavoury work of greasing some of the tackling of a boat, it does seem unaccountable that he should be unwittingly capable of stirring up in another man's bosom feelings of ardent goodwill, to put it mildly. After watching him for some time, Nigel, under an almost involuntary impulse, shouted "Hullo!" "Hullo!" replied the negro, looking up with a somewhat stern frown and a pout of his thick lips, as much as to say--"Who are _you_?" Nigel smiled, and made that suggestive motion with his forefinger which signifies "Come here." The frown fled and the pout became a smile as the negro approached, wiping his hands on a piece of cotton-waste. "What you want wi' _me_, sar?" he asked. "Well, upon my word," said Nigel, somewhat perplexed, "I can't very well say. I suppose something must have been in my mind, but--anyhow, I felt a desire to have a talk with you; that is, if you can spare the time." The first part of this reply induced a slight recurrence of the frown and pout, but at its conclusion the black brow cleared and the mouth expanded to such a gum-and-teeth-exposing extent that Nigel fairly burst into a laugh. "You's bery good, sar," said the man, "an' I's hab much pleasure to make your acquaintance.--Der an't no grease on 'em now." The last remark had reference to the enormous black paw which he held out. Nigel at once grasped it and shook it heartily. "I's bery fond ob a talk, sar," continued the negro, "so as you wants one, heabe ahead." Thus encouraged, our hero began by remarking that he seemed to be preparing for a trip. "Dat's zackly what I's a-doin', sar." "A long one?" "Well, dat depends on what you call short. Goin' to Sunda Straits, which p'raps you know, sar, is nigh a hundred miles fro' here." "And what may you be going to do there?" asked Nigel. "Goin' home to Krakatoa." "Why, I thought that was an uninhabited island. I passed close to it on my way here, and saw no sign of inhabitants." "Dat's cause I was absint fro' home. An' massa he keeps indoors a good deal." "And pray who is massa?" asked Nigel. "Sar," said the negro, drawing up his square sturdy frame with a look of dignity; "fair-play is eberyt'ing wid me. You've ax me a heap o' questions. Now's my turn. Whar you comes fro'?" "From England," replied Nigel. "An' whar you go to?" "Well, you've posed me now, for I really don't know where I'm going to. In fact that is the very thing I have been trying to find out all day, so if you'll help me I'll be much obliged." Here Nigel explained his position and difficulties, and it was quite obvious, judging from the glittering eyes and mobile mouth, that he poured his tale into peculiarly sympathetic ears. When he had finished, the negro stood for a considerable time gazing in meditative silence at the sky. "Yes," he said at last, as if communing with himself, "I t'ink--I ain't quite sure, but I t'ink--I may ventur'." "Whatever it is you are thinking about," remarked Nigel, "you may venture to say anything you like to _me_." The negro, who, although comparatively short of stature, was Herculean in build, looked at the youth with an amused expression. "You're bery good, sar, but dat's not what I's t'inkin' ob. I's t'inkin' whedder I dar' ventur' to introdoce you to my massa. He's not fond o' company, an' it might make 'im angry, but he came by a heaby loss lately an' p'raps he may cond'send to receibe you. Anyhow you'd be quite safe, for he's sure to be civil to any friend ob mine." "Is he then so fierce?" asked Nigel, becoming interested as well as amused. "Fierce! no, he's gentle as a lamb, but he's awrful when he's roused-- tigers, crokindiles, 'noceroses is nuffin' to him!" "Indeed! what's his name, and what does he do? how does he live?" The negro shook his head. "Da's more'n I dar tell till I ax his leave, sar. I kin only say de peepil around calls 'im the hermit ob Rakata, 'cause he libs by his-self (wid me, ob course, but _I_ counts for nuffin'), close under de ole volcano ob Krakatoa. Dey tink--some ob de foolish peepil--dat he hab sold his-self to de dibil, but I knows better. He's a good man, and you'd hab great fun if you stop wid him. Now, what I's a-gwine to advise you is, come wid me an' see de hermit. If he lets you stop, good. If not, I fetch you ober to de main land-- whar you please--an' you kin come back here or go whar you choose. Its wort' your while to take your chance, anyhow." The negro said this with such an earnest look that Nigel made up his mind on the spot to accept this curious invitation. "I'll go!" he exclaimed with sudden energy. "When do you start?" "To-morrer at daybreak, sar." "Well, I shall have to talk it over first with my father, but I'm sure he won't object, so you may look out for me here at daybreak. Shall I have to fetch any provisions with me for the voyage?" "No, nuffin'. Boat's crammed wi' grub. But you'd better bring a gun o' some sort an' a 'volver, an' a big knife, an' a mortal big appetite, for a man's no good widout dat." "I always carry that about with me," said the youth, "whatever else I may leave behind; and I'll see to the other things.--By the way, what's your name?" "Moses." "Is that all?" "Isn't dat enuff?" returned the negro with a look of dignity. "Quite; but I have the advantage of you there, Moses, for I have two names--Nigel Roy." "Well, I don't see much use ob two, but which does you like to be called by--Nadgel or Roy?" "Whichever you please, Moses; I'll answer to either. So now, good-bye for the present, and look out for me to-morrow at daylight." "Good-bye, Massa Nadgel, till to-morrer." The negro waved his hand and, sauntering slowly back to his boat, remarked in an undertone, "I lub dat young feller!" Saying which, he resumed his greasing operations. Of course Captain Roy made no objection to his son's proposal, though he freely gave his opinion that it was a wild-goose chase. "However, lad, please yourself and you'll please me," he added; "and now, be particular to bear in mind that you've got to write to me every time you get within hail of a post-office or a passing ship or steamer that may chance to be comin' this way, and in each letter be sure to tell me where you're goin' to next, so as I may send a letter there to you in case I want you to return sudden or otherwise. We mustn't lose touch, you see. You needn't write long screeds. I only want to know your whereabouts from time to time. For the rest--you can spin it out in yarns when you come back." CHAPTER SIX. THE HERMIT OF RAKATA INTRODUCED. Nothing worthy of particular note occurred during the boat-voyage along the northern shore of Java to Sunda Straits. A fair, steady breeze wafted them westward, and, on the morning of the third day, they came in sight of the comparatively small uninhabited island of Krakatoa. The boat in which they voyaged, although a little one, had a small portion of the bow decked over, so that our hero and his sable friend could find shelter from the night air when disposed to sleep, and from the fierce rays of the sun at noon. By the advice of his father, Nigel had changed his sailor costume for the "shore-goin' toggery" in which he had landed on the Keeling Islands, as being more suitable to his new character as a traveller, namely, a white cloth cap with a peak in front and a curtain behind to protect his neck, a light-grey tunic belted at the waist, and a pair of strong canvas trousers. He had also purchased an old-fashioned double-barrelled fowling-piece, muzzle-loading and with percussion locks. "For you see, Nigel," the captain had said, "it's all very well to use breech-loaders when you've got towns and railways and suchlike to supply you wi' cartridges, but when you've got to cruise in out-o'-the-way waters, there's nothin' like the old style. It's not difficult to carry a few thousand percussion-caps an' a bullet-mould about wi' you wherever you go. As to powder, why, you'll come across that 'most everywhere, an' lead too; and, for the matter o' that, if your life depended on it you could shove a handful of gravel or a pen-knife or tooth-pick into your gun an' blaze away, but with a breech-loader, if you run out o' cartridges, where are you?" So, as Nigel could not say where he was, the percussion-gun had been purchased. The peak of Rakata--the highest in the island--a little over 2600 feet, came in sight first; gradually the rest of the island rose out of the horizon, and ere long the rich tropical verdure became distinguishable. Krakatoa--destined so soon to play a thrilling part in the world's history; to change the aspect of the heavens everywhere; to attract the wondering gaze of nearly all nations, and to devastate its immediate neighbourhood--is of volcanic origin, and, at the time we write of (1883) was beginning to awaken from a long, deep slumber of two hundred years. Its last explosion occurred in the year 1680. Since that date it had remained quiet. But now the tremendous subterranean forces which had originally called it into being were beginning to reassert their existence and their power. Vulcan was rousing himself again and beginning once more to blow his bellows. So said some of the sailors who were constantly going close past the island and through Sunda Straits, which may be styled the narrows of the world's highway to the China seas. Subterranean forces, however, are so constantly at work more or less violently in those regions that people took little notice of these indications in the comparatively small island of Krakatoa, which was between five and six miles long by four broad. As we have said, it was uninhabited, and lying as it does between Sumatra and Java, about sixteen miles from the former and over twenty miles from the latter, it was occasionally visited by fishermen. The hermit whom Nigel was about to visit might, in some sort, be counted an inhabitant, for he had dwelt there many years, but he lived in a cave which was difficult of access, and held communication with no one. How he spent his time was a mystery, for although his negro servant went to the neighbouring town of Anjer in Java for supplies, and sometimes to Batavia, as we have seen, no piece of inanimate ebony from the forest could have been less communicative than he. Indeed, our hero was the first to unlock the door of his lips, with that key of mysterious sympathy to which reference has already been made. Some of the bolder of the young fishermen of the neighbouring coasts had several times made futile efforts to find out where and how the hermit lived, but the few who got a glimpse of him at a distance brought back such a report that a kind of superstitious fear of him was generated which kept them at a respectful distance. He was ten feet high, some romancers said, with shoulders four feet broad, a chest like a sugar-hogs-head, and a countenance resembling a compound of orang-utan and tiger. Of course our hero knew nothing of these rumours, and as Moses declined to give any information regarding his master beyond that already given, he was left to the full play of his imagination. Moses was quite candid about it. He made no pretence to shroud things in mystery. "You mus' know, Massa Nadgel," he said, as they slowly drew near to the island, "I's 'fraid ob 'im dough I lub 'im." "But why do you love him, Moses?" "'Cause he sabe my life an' set me free." "Indeed? well, that is good reason. And why do you fear him?" "Da's what I don' know, massa," replied the negro with a puzzled look. "Is he harsh, then?" "No." "Passionate?" "No. Gentle as a lamb." "Strong?" "Yes--oh! mighty strong an' big." "Surely you're not afraid of his giving you a licking, Moses?" "Oh no," returned the negro, with a smile of expansive benignity; "I's not 'fraid ob dat. I's bin a slabe once, got used to lickin's. Don't care nuffin' at all for a lickin'!" "Then it must be that you're afraid of hurting his feelings, Moses, for I know of no other kind of fear." "Pr'aps da's it!" said the negro with a bright look, "now I wouldn't wonder if you's right, Massa Nadgel. It neber come into my head in dat light before. I used to be t'ink, t'inkin' ob nights--when I's tired ob countin' my fingers an' toes. But I couldn't make nuffin' ob it. _Now_ I knows! It's 'fraid I am ob hurtin' his feelin's." In the excess of his satisfaction at the solution of this long-standing puzzle, Moses threw back his head, shut his eyes, opened his enormous mouth and chuckled. By the time he had reversed this process they were sufficiently near to Krakatoa to distinguish all its features clearly, and the negro began to point out to Nigel its various localities. There were three prominent peaks on it, he said, named respectively, Perboewatan, about 400 feet high, at the northern end of the island; Danan, near the centre, 1500 feet; and Rakata, at the southern end, over 2600 feet. It was high up on the sides of the last cone that the residence of the hermit was situated. "And you won't tell me your master's name?" said Nigel. Moses shook his woolly head. "No, sar, no. I's 'fraid ob him--he! he! I 'fraid ob hurtin' his feelin's!" "Well, never mind; I'll find it out from himself soon. By the way, what were you telling me about explosions yesterday when that little white gull came to admire your pretty face, and took off our attention?" "Well, I dun know. Not got much to tell, only dar's bin rumblin' an' grumblin's an' heavin's lately in de mountains as didn't use to be, an' cracks like somet'in' bustin' down b'low, an' massa he shook 'is head two or t'ree times an' look solemn. He don't often do dat--shook 'is head, I mean--for he mostly always looks solemn." A few minutes later the boat, running through a narrow opening among the rocks into a small circular harbour not more than fifty yards in diameter, rested its keel gently on a little bed of pure yellow sand. The shore there was so densely covered with bushes that the harbour might easily have been passed without being observed. Jumping ashore, Moses made the painter fast to a tree. "What a quiet, cosy place!" said Nigel, as he sprung on the beach and looked admiringly round. "Yes, an' not easy to find if you don't knows 'im. We will leabe de boat here,--no danger ob bein' tooked away--an' den go up to de cave." "Is it far?" asked Nigel. "A good bit--near de top ob de mountain," answered the negro, who looked at his companion somewhat uneasily. "Why, what's the matter, Moses?" "Nuffin'--oh! nuffin'--but--but when massa axes you who you is, an' what you bin up to, an' whar you're a-gwine to, an' what wages you want, jist you answer 'im in a sorter permiscuous way, an' don't be too partikler." "Wages! man, what d'ye mean?" "Well, you'll 'scuse me, sar," returned the negro with an air of profound humility, "but my massa lost a old sarvint--a nigger like myself--only last munt', an' he wants to go on one ob his usual expeditions jus' now, so he sends me to Batavia to git anoder man--`a good one, you know,' says massa,--an' as you, sar, was good 'nuff to ax me what you should do, an' you looked a pritty smart man, I--" "You scoundrel!" cried Nigel, interrupting him, "do you really mean to tell me that you've brought me here as a hired servant?" "Well, not zackly," returned Moses, with solemn simplicity, "you needn't ax no wages unless you like." "But what if I don't want to take service?" demanded our hero, with a savage frown. "You kin go home agin," answered Moses, humbly. Nigel could contain himself no longer. As he observed the man's deprecatory air, and thought of his own position, he burst into a fit of hearty laughter, whereupon the negro recovered himself and smiled the smile of the guiltless. "Come," said Nigel at last. "Lead on, you rascal! When I see your master I shall know what to say." "All right, Massa Nadgel, but mind what you say, else I won't answer for de consikences. Foller me an' look arter your feet, for de road is roughish." The negro's last remark was unquestionably true, for the road--if a mere footpath merits the name--was rugged in the extreme--here winding round the base of steep cliffs, there traversing portions of luxuriant forest, elsewhere skirting the margin of the sea. Moses walked at such a pace that Nigel, young and active though he was, found it no easy matter to keep up with him. Pride, however, forbade him to show the slightest sign of difficulty, and made him even converse now and then in tones of simulated placidity. At last the path turned abruptly towards the face of a precipice and seemed to terminate in a small shallow cave. Any one following the path out of mere curiosity would have naturally imagined that the cave was the termination of it; and a very poor termination too, seeing that it was a rather uninteresting cave, the whole of the interior of which could be seen at a single glance from its mouth. But this cave served in reality as a blind. Climbing by one or two projecting points, the negro, closely followed by Nigel, reached a narrow ledge and walked along it a short distance. On coming to the end of the ledge he jumped down into a mass of undergrowth, where the track again became visible--winding among great masses of weatherworn lava. Here the ascent became very steep, and Moses put on what sporting men call a spurt, which took him far ahead of Nigel, despite the best efforts of the latter to keep up. Still our hero scorned to run or call out to his guide to wait, and thereby admit himself beaten. He pushed steadily on, and managed to keep the active Moses in view. Presently the negro stepped upon a platform of rock high up on the cliffs, where his form could be distinctly seen against the bright sky. There Nigel observed that he was joined by a man whose tall commanding figure seemed in such a position to be of gigantic proportions. The two stood engaged in earnest conversation while watching Nigel. The latter immediately slackened his pace, in order at once to recover breath and approach with a leisurely aspect. "The wild man of the island, I suppose," he thought as he drew near; but on coming still nearer he saw that he must be mistaken, for the stranger who advanced to meet him with gracious ease and self-possession was obviously a gentleman, and dressed, not unlike himself, in a sort of mixed travelling and shooting costume. "I must apologise, Mr Roy, for the presumption of my man, in bringing you here under something like false pretences," said the stranger, holding out his hand, which Nigel shook heartily. "Moses, I find, has failed to execute my commission, and has partially deceived you; but as you are now here, the least I can do is to bid you welcome, and offer you the hospitality of my roof." There was something so courteous and kindly in the tone and manner of the stranger, and something so winning in his soft gentle tones, which contrasted strangely with his grand towering figure and massive bearded countenance, that Nigel felt drawn to him instantly. Indeed there was a peculiar and mysterious something about him which quite fascinated our hero as he looked up at him, for, bordering on six feet though Nigel was, the stranger stood several inches above him. "You are very kind," said the visitor, "and I don't think that Moses can fairly be charged with deceiving me, although he has been somewhat unwise in his way of going about this business, for I had told him I wanted to see something of these regions, and perhaps it may be to my advantage to travel in your service--that is, if I can be of any use to you; but the time at my disposal may be too limited." "How much time have you to spare?" asked the stranger. "Well, say perhaps three months." "That will do," returned his questioner, looking thoughtfully at the ground. "We will talk of this hereafter." "But--excuse me," said Nigel, "your man spoke of you as a hermit--a sort of--of--forgive me--a wild-man-of-the-island, if I may--" "No, I didn't, Massa Nadgel," said the negro, the edge of whose flat contradiction was taken off by the extreme humility of his look. "Well," returned Nigel, with a laugh; "you at least gave me to understand that other people said something of that sort." "Da's right, Massa Nadgel--kite right. You're k'rect _now_." "People have indeed got some strange ideas about me, I believe," interposed the hermit, with a grave almost sad expression and tone. "But come, let me introduce you to my hermitage and you shall judge for yourself." So saying, this singular being turned and led the way further up the rugged side of the peak of Rakata. After about five minutes' walk in silence, the trio reached a spot where there was a clear view over the tree-tops, revealing the blue waters of the strait, with the Java shores and mountains in the distance. Behind them there yawned, dark and mysterious, a mighty cavern, so black and high that it might well suggest a portal leading to the regions below, where Vulcan is supposed to stir those tremendous fires which have moulded much of the configuration of the world, and which are ever seething--an awful Inferno--under the thin crust of the globe on which we stand. Curiously-formed and large-leaved trees of the tropics, with their pendent parasites, as well as rank grasses, sprouting from below and hanging from above, partially concealed this cavern from Nigel when he first turned towards it, but a few steps further on he could see it in all its rugged grandeur. "My home," said the hermit, with a very slight smile and the air of a prince, as he turned towards his visitor and waved his hand towards it. "A magnificent entrance at all events," said Nigel, returning the smile with something of dubiety, for he was not quite sure that his host was in earnest. "Follow me," said the hermit, leading the way down a narrow well-worn path which seemed to lose itself in profound darkness. After being a few minutes within the cavern, however, Nigel's eyes became accustomed to the dim light, and he perceived that the roof rapidly lowered, while its walls narrowed until they reached a spot which was not much wider than an ordinary corridor. Here, however, it was so dark that it was barely possible to see a small door in the right-hand wall before which they halted. Lifting a latch the hermit threw the door wide open, and a glare of dazzling light almost blinded the visitor. Passing through the entrance, Nigel followed his guide, and the negro let the heavy door shut behind him with a clang that was depressingly suggestive of a prison. "Again I bid you welcome to my home," said the hermit, turning round and extending his hand, which Nigel mechanically took and pressed, but without very well knowing what he did, for he was almost dumfounded by what he saw, and for some minutes gazed in silence around him. And, truly, there was ground for surprise. The visitor found himself in a small but immensely high and brilliantly lighted cavern or natural chamber, the walls of which were adorned with drawings of scenery and trees and specimens of plants, while on various shelves stood innumerable stuffed birds, and shells, and other specimens of natural history. A table and two chairs stood at one end of the cave, and, strangest of all, a small but well-filled book-case ornamented the other end. "Arabian Nights!" thought Nigel. "I _must_ be dreaming." His wandering eyes travelled slowly round the cavern until they rested at last on the door by which they had entered, beside which stood the negro with a broad grin on his sable visage. CHAPTER SEVEN. WONDERS OF THE HERMIT'S CAVE AND ISLAND. The thing that perhaps surprised Nigel most in this strange cavern was the blaze of light with which it was filled, for it came down direct through a funnel-shaped hole in the high roof and bore a marvellous resemblance to natural sunshine. He was well aware that unless the sun were shining absolutely in the zenith, the laws of light forbade the entrance of a _direct_ ray into such a place, yet there were the positive rays, although the sun was not yet high in the heavens, blinding him while he looked at them, and casting the shadows of himself and his new friends on the floor. There was the faintest semblance of a smile on the hermit's face as he quietly observed his visitor, and waited till he should recover self-possession. As for Moses--words are wanting to describe the fields of teeth and gum which he displayed, but no sound was suffered to escape his magnificent lips, which closed like the slide of a dark lantern when the temptation to give way to feeling became too strong. "My cave interests you," said the hermit at last. "It amazes me," returned our hero, recovering himself and looking earnestly at his host, "for you seem not only to have all the necessaries of life around you in your strange abode, but many of the luxuries; among them the cheering presence of sunshine--though how you manage to get it is beyond my powers of conception." "It is simple enough, as you shall see," returned the hermit. "You have heard of the saying, no doubt, that `all things are possible to well-directed labour?'" "Yes, and that `nothing can be achieved without labour.'" "Well, I have proved that to some extent," continued the hermit. "You see, by the various and miscellaneous implements on my shelves, that I am given to dabbling a little in science, and thus have made my lonely home as pleasant as such a home can be--but let us not talk of these matters just now. You must be hungry. Have you had breakfast?" "No, we have not--unless, at least, you count a sea biscuit dipped in salt water a breakfast. After all, that may well be the case, for hermits are noted for the frugality of their fare." "I am not a genuine hermit," remarked his host gravely. "Men do indeed call me the Hermit of Rakata, because I dwell alone here under the shadow of this particular cone of Krakatoa, but I do not ape the austere life of the conventional hermit, as you see, either in my domestic arrangements or food. Come, your breakfast is ready. From my outlook I saw your boat approaching some hours ago, and knew that it was mine, so I made ready for your arrival, though I did not guess that Moses was bringing me a guest instead of a servant!" So saying, he led the way through a short natural passage to an inner cave, the entrance to which, like the outer one, was boarded. On opening a small door, Nigel was again greeted as before with brilliant rays of sunshine, and, in addition, with a gush of odours that were exceedingly grateful to a hungry man. A low "Ho! ho!" behind him told that his black companion was equally gratified. The inner cave or mess-room, as the host styled it, combined dining-room and kitchen, for while in one corner stood a deal table with plates, cups, etcetera, but no tablecloth, in another stood a small stove, heated by an oil-lamp, from which issued puffing and sputtering sounds, and the savoury odours above referred to. Nigel now perceived that although his strange host necessarily spoke a good deal while welcoming him and offering him the hospitalities of his abode, he was by no means communicative. On the contrary, it was evident that he was naturally reserved and reticent, and that although polite and gentle in the extreme, there was a quiet grave dignity about him which discouraged familiarity. It must not be supposed, however, that he was in any degree morosely silent. He was simply quiet and undemonstrative, said little except when asked questions, and spoke, alike to Nigel and Moses, in the soft, low, kindly tones with which one might address very young people. Going to the stove he took a coffee-pot therefrom and set it on the table. At the same time, Moses, without requiring to be told, opened the oven and brought forth fried fish, meat of some kind, and cakes of he knew not what, but cared little, for their excellence was unquestionable. During the meal that followed, Nigel ventured as far as politeness permitted--indeed a little further, if truth must be told--to inquire into the circumstances and motives of his entertainer in taking up his abode in such a strange place, but he soon found that his eccentric friend was not one who could be "pumped." Without a touch of rudeness, and in the sweetest of voices, he simply assumed an absent manner and changed the subject of discourse, when he did not choose to reply, by drawing attention to some irrelevant matter, or by putting a counter question which led away from the subject. Nigel also found that his host never laughed and rarely smiled, though, when he did so, the smile was so slight as merely to indicate a general feeling of urbanity and goodwill, and it was followed instantly by a look of gravity, if not sadness. Altogether the guest was much perplexed about the host at first, and somewhat constrained in consequence, but gradually he began to feel at ease. Another discovery that he soon made was, that the hermit treated Moses not as a servant, but as if he were in all respects an equal and a comrade. After eating for some time in silence, and having tried to draw out his host without success, Nigel changed his tactics and said-- "You were so kind as to speak of me as your guest, Mr--Mr--I beg pardon, may I--" "My name is Van der Kemp," said the hermit quietly. "Well, Mr Van der Kemp, I must tell you that I am quite willing to accept the position for which Moses hired me--" "No, I didn't," contradicted the negro, flatly yet very gently, both in tone and manner, for long residence with the hermit had apparently imbued him with something of his spirit. "Well, then," said Nigel, "the position for which Moses _should have_ hired some one else." ("K'rect _now_," whispered Moses.) "Of course I do not intend to ask for or accept wages, and also, of course, I accept the position on the understanding that you think me fit for the service. May I ask what that service is to be, and where you think of going to?" "The service," returned the hermit slowly and with his eyes fixed on the floor as if pondering his reply, "is to accompany me as my attendant and companion, to take notes as occasion may serve, and to paddle a canoe." At this reply our hero almost laughed, but was prevented from doing so by his host asking abruptly if he understood canoeing. "Well, yes. At least I can manage what in England is known as the Rob Roy canoe, having possessed one in my boyhood." "That will do," returned the hermit gravely. "Can you write shorthand?" "I can. A friend of mine, a reporter on one of the London dailies, once gave me a few lessons, and, becoming fond of the subject, I followed it up." "That is well; you did well. It is of immense advantage to a man, whatever his position in life, that he should be able to write shorthand with facility. Especially useful is it in commerce. I know that, having had some experience of commercial life." At this point in the conversation Nigel was startled by what was to him an absolutely new sensation, namely a shaking or trembling of the whole cavern, accompanied by faint rumbling sounds as if in deeper caverns below him. He glanced quickly at his host and at the negro, but to his surprise these remarkable men seemed not to be aware of the shaking, although it was severe enough to cause some of the furniture to rattle. Observing his look of surprise, Moses remarked, with a benignant though capacious smile, "Mountain's got de mulligrumps pritty bad jist now." "We are pretty well accustomed to that," said the host, observing that Nigel turned to him for an explanation. "No doubt you are aware that this region is celebrated for earthquakes and volcanoes, so much so that the inhabitants pay little attention to them unless they become unusually violent. This island of Krakatoa is itself the fragment of an extinct volcano; but the term `extinct' is scarcely applicable to volcanoes, for it is well-known that many which were for centuries supposed to be extinct have awakened to sudden and violent activity--`quiescent' might be a more appropriate term." "Yes," said Moses, ceasing to masticate for purposes of speech; "dem 'stinkt volcanoes hab got an okard habit ob unstinkin' dereselves hereabouts when you don' 'spect it of 'em. Go on, massa. I ax yer pard'n for 'truptin'." The hermit's peculiar good-natured little smile played for a moment on his massive features, and then faded away as he continued-- "Perhaps you may have heard that this is the very heart of the district that has long been recognised as the greatest focus of volcanic activity on the globe?" "I have heard something of the sort," answered Nigel, "but I confess that my knowledge is limited and my mind hazy on the subject." "I doubt it not," returned his friend, "for geographical and scientific training in primary schools anywhere is not what it might be. The island of Java, with an area about equal to that of England, contains no fewer than forty-nine great volcanic mountains, some of which rise to 12,000 feet above the sea-level. Many of these mountains are at the present time active." ("Yes, much _too_ active," muttered the negro), "and more than half of them have been seen in eruption since Java was occupied by Europeans. Hot springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires. This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in consequence we find a number of these vents--as volcanic mountains may be styled--in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you came along. But there is supposed to be another great crack in the earth's crust--indicated by several volcanic mountains--which crosses the other fissure almost at right angles, and at the exact point where these two lines intersect _stands this island of Krakatoa_. "I emphasise the fact," continued the hermit after a pause, "first, because, although this has been a quiescent volcano since the year 1680, and people have come to regard it as extinct, there are indications now which lead me to believe that its energy is reviving; and, second, because this focus where fissures cross each other--this Krakatoa Island--is in reality part of the crater of an older and much larger volcanic mountain, which must have been literally blown away in prehistoric times, and of which Krakatoa and the neighbouring islets of Varlaten, Polish Hat, Lang Island, and the rest, are but the remnants of the great crater ring. If these rumblings and minor earthquakes, which I have noticed of late--and the latest of which you have just experienced--are the precursors of another explosion, my home here may be rendered untenable." "Hi!" exclaimed Moses, who had been listening with open mouth and eyes to this discourse, which was obviously news to him, "I hope, massa, he ain't a-gwine to 'splode to-day--anyhow, not till arter breakfast!" "You must have studied the subject of volcanoes a good deal, I suppose, from what you say," observed Nigel. "Naturally, living as I do almost on the top of one. My library, which I will show you presently, contains many interesting works on the subject. But come, if you have finished we will ascend the Peak of Rakata and I will introduce you to my sunshine." He rose and led his guest back to the outer cavern, leaving Moses still busy with knife and fork, apparently meditating on the pleasure of breakfasting with the prospect of a possible and immediate explosion. In passing through the first chamber, Nigel observed, in a natural recess, the library just referred to. He also noted that, besides stuffed birds and other specimens and sea-shells, there were chisels, saws, hammers, and other tools, besides something like a forge and carpenter's bench in a side-chamber opening out of the large one, which he had not at first seen--from all which he concluded that the hermit was imbued with mechanical as well as scientific and literary tastes. At the further and darker end of the outer cave there was a staircase, partly natural, and partly improved by art, which led upward into profound darkness. "Let me take your hand here," said the hermit, looking down upon his guest with his slight but winning smile; "it is a rough and dark staircase. You will be apt to stumble." Nigel placed his hand in that of his host with perfect confidence, and with a curious feeling--aroused, probably, by the action--of having returned to the days of childhood. The stair was indeed rugged as well as winding, and so pitchy dark that the youth could not have advanced at all without stumbling, unless his host had held him all the way. At last a glimmer of light was seen in the distance. It seemed to increase suddenly, and in a few moments the two emerged from total darkness into dazzling sunshine. When Nigel looked round him he saw that they had gained a plateau, high up on the very summit of the mountain, which appeared to be absolutely inaccessible by any means save that by which they had reached it. "This is what I call my observatory," said the hermit, turning to his guest. "We have passed right through the peak of Rakata, and reached its northern side, which commands, as you see, a view of all the northern part of the island. I come here often in the night to study the face of the heavens, the moon, and stars, and meditate on their mysterious Maker, whose ways are indeed wonderful and past finding out; but all which must, in the nature of things, be _right_." As this was the first mention that the hermit had made of the Creator, and the reference was one requiring more thought than Nigel had yet bestowed on it, he made no rejoinder. "Have you studied astronomy, Mr Roy?" "No--at least not more of it than was needful for navigation. But pray, sir, do not call me Mr Roy," said the youth, with a somewhat embarrassed air. "If I am to be your assistant and familiar companion for two or three months, I hope that you will agree to call me Nigel. Your man has done so already without asking leave!" "I will, on one condition." "And that is?" "That you also dispense with the `Mr' and `sir,' and call me Van der Kemp." "Agreed," said Nigel, "though it does not seem so appropriate in me as in you, considering the difference of our years." "Look here," said the hermit, turning abruptly to a small wooden shed which had hitherto escaped the youth's observation, so covered was it with overhanging boughs and tropical creeping plants, "these are my astronomical instruments." He pointed to a table in the hut on which stood several telescopes--and microscopes as well--one of the former being a large instrument, certainly not less than six feet long, with a diameter of apparently six or eight inches. "Here, you see, I have the means of investigating the wonders of Nature in her grandest as well as her minutest scales. And there," he added, pointing to a couple of large reflecting mirrors in strong wooden frames, erected on joints in such a way that they could be turned in any direction,--"there you have the secret of my sunshine. One of these mirrors catches the sunshine direct and reflects it on the other, which, as you see, is so arranged that it transmits the rays down the natural funnel or chimney into the cave. By means of chains connected with the mechanism, and extending below, I can change the direction of the mirrors as the sun changes its place in the sky, without requiring to come up here." "Very ingenious!" said Nigel; "but how do you manage when the mountain comes between you and the sun, as I see it cannot fail to do during some part of the day?" "Simply enough," returned the hermit, pointing to a distant projecting cliff or peak. "On yon summit I have fixed four mirrors similar to these. When the sun can no longer be reflected from this pair, the first of the distant mirrors takes it up and shoots a beam of light over here. When the sun passes from that, the second mirror is arranged to catch and transmit it, and so on to the fourth. After that I bid good-bye to the sun, and light my lamp!" Nigel felt an almost irresistible tendency to smile at this, but the grave simplicity of the man forbade such familiarity. "Look yonder," continued the hermit, sweeping one of his long arms towards Sumatra, "in that direction runs the line of volcanic disturbance--the fissure of which I have already spoken. Focus this telescope to suit your sight. Now, do you see the little island away there to the nor'-west?" "Yes." "Well, that is _Varlaten_. I mentioned it when at breakfast. Sweep your glass round to the nor'ard, the little island there is _Polish Hat_, and you see _Lang Island_ in the nor'-east. These, with Krakatoa, are merely the higher parts still remaining above water of the ring or lip of the ancient crater. This will give you some idea what an enormous mountain the original of this old volcano must have been. This island-mountain is estimated to have been twenty-five miles in circumference, and 10,000 to 12,000 feet high. It was blown into the air in 1680, and this island, with the few islets I have pointed out, is all that remains of it. Now, cast your eye down the centre of the island on which we stand; you see several cones of various sizes. These are ancient vents, supposed to be extinct--" "But one of them, the one furthest away," interrupted Nigel, steadying his telescope on the branch of a tree, "seems to be anything but extinct, for I see a thin column of white smoke or steam rising from it." "That is just what I was going to point out. They call that Perboewatan. It is the lowest peak on the island, about 400 feet high, and stands, I should say, in the very centre of the ancient crater, where are the two fissures I have mentioned. For two hundred years Perboewatan has not smoked like that, and, slight though it is at present, I cannot help thinking that it indicates an impending eruption, especially when I consider that earthquakes have become more numerous of late years, and there was one in 1880 which was so violent as to damage seriously the lighthouse on Java's First Point." "Then you have resided here for some time?" said Nigel. "Yes, for many years," replied the hermit, in a low, sad tone. "But is it wise in you to stay if you think an explosion so likely? Don't you needlessly run considerable risk?" "I do not fear to die." Nigel looked at his new friend in surprise, but there was not a shadow of boastfulness or affectation either in his look or tone. "Besides," he continued, "the explosion may be but slight, and Perboewatan is, as you see, about four miles off. People in the neighbourhood of the straits and passing ships are so accustomed to volcanic explosions on a more or less grand scale that they will never notice this little cloud hanging over Krakatoa. Those who, like myself, know the ancient history of the island, regard it in a more serious light, but we may be wrong. Come, now, we will descend again and have a ramble over part of the island. It will interest you. Not many men have penetrated its luxuriant forests or know their secrets. I have wandered through them in all directions, and can guide you. Indeed, Moses could do that as well as I, for he has lived with me many years. Come." Returning to the cavern they found that the active negro had not only finished his breakfast, but had washed the dishes and cleared up the kitchen, so that he was quite ready to shoulder a wallet and a gun when his master bade him prepare for a day in the forest. It is not, however, our intention to follow the trio thither. Matters of greater interest, if not importance, claim our attention at present. Let it suffice to say, therefore, that after a most delightful day, spent in wandering amongst the luxuriant tropical vegetation with which the island was densely covered, visiting one of the extinct craters, bathing in one of the numerous hot springs, and collecting many objects of interest to the hermit, in the shape of botanical and geological specimens, they returned in the evening to their cavern-house not only ready but eager for sustenance and repose. CHAPTER EIGHT. PERBOEWATAN BECOMES MODERATELY VIOLENT. The cave was enshrouded in almost total darkness when they entered it, but this was quickly dispelled, to Nigel's no little surprise, by the rays of a magnificent oil-lamp, which Moses lighted and placed on the table in the larger cave. A smaller one of the same kind already illuminated the kitchen. Not much conversation was indulged in during the progress of the supper that was soon spread upon the rude table. The three men, being uncommonly hungry and powerfully robust, found in food a sufficient occupation for their mouths for some time. After supper they became a little, but not much, more sociable, for, although Nigel's active mind would gladly have found vent in conversation, he experienced some difficulty in making headway against the discouragement of Van der Kemp's very quiet disposition, and the cavernous yawns with which Moses displayed at once his desire for slumber and his magnificent dental arrangements. "We always retire early to rest after a day of this sort," said the hermit at last, turning to his guest. "Do you feel disposed for bed?" "Indeed I do," said Nigel, with a half-suppressed yawn, that was irresistibly dragged out of him by the sight of another earthquake on the negro's face. "Come, then, I will show you your berth; we have no bedrooms here," said the hermit, with a sort of deprecatory smile, as he led the way to the darker end of the cavern, where he pointed to a little recess in which there was a pile of something that smelt fresh and looked like heather, spread on which there was a single blanket. "Sailors are said to be indifferent to sheets. You won't miss them, I daresay?" "Not in the least," returned Nigel, with a laugh. "Good-night," he added, shaking hands with his host and suppressing another yawn, for Moses' face, even in the extreme distance, was irresistibly infectious! Our hero was indifferent not only to sheets, but also, in certain circumstances, to the usual habiliments of night. Indeed, while travelling in out-of-the-way regions he held it to be a duty to undress but partially before turning in, so that he might be ready for emergencies. On lying down he found his mattress, whatever it was, to be a springy, luxurious bed, and was about to resign himself to slumber when he observed that, from the position in which he lay, he could see the cavern in all its extent. Opening his half-closed eyes, therefore, he watched the proceedings of his host, and in doing so, as well as in speculating on his strange character and surroundings, he became somewhat wakeful. He saw that Van der Kemp, returning to the other end of the cave, sat down beside the lamp, the blaze of which fell full on his fine calm countenance. A motion of his head brought Moses to him, who sat down beside him and entered into earnest conversation, to judge from his gestures, for nothing could be heard where Nigel lay save the monotonous murmur of their voices. The hermit did not move. Except for an occasional inclination of the head he appeared to be a grand classic statue, but it was otherwise with the negro. His position in front of the lamp caused him to look if possible even blacker than ever, and the blackness was so uniform that his entire profile became strongly pronounced, thus rendering every motion distinct, and the varied pouting of his huge lips remarkably obvious. The extended left hand, too, with the frequent thrusting of the index finger of the other into the palm, was suggestive of argument, and of much reasoning effort--if not power. After about half-an-hour of conversation, Moses arose, shook his master by the hand, appeared to say "Good-night" very obviously, yawned, and retired to the kitchen, whence, in five minutes or so, there issued sounds which betokened felicitous repose. Meanwhile his master sat motionless for some time, gazing at the floor as if in meditation. Then he rose, went to his book-case and took down a large thick volume, which he proceeded to read. Nigel had by that time dropped into a drowsy condition, yet his interest in the doings of his strange entertainer was so great that he struggled hard to keep awake, and partially succeeded. "I wonder," he muttered, in sleepy tones, "if that's a f-fam-'ly Bible he's reading--or--or--a vol'm o' the En-Encyclopida Brit--" He dropped off at this point, but, feeling that he had given way to some sort of weakness, he struggled back again in to wakefulness, and saw that the hermit was bending over the large book with his massive brow resting on the palms of both hands, and his fingers thrust into his iron-grey hair. It was evident, however, that he was not reading the book at that moment, for on its pages was lying what seemed to be a miniature or photograph case, at which he gazed intently. Nigel roused himself to consider this, and in doing so again dropped off--not yet soundly, however, for curiosity induced one more violent struggle, and he became aware of the fact that the hermit was on his knees with his face buried in his hands. The youth's thoughts must have become inextricably confused at this point, yet their general drift was indicated by the muttered words: "I--I'm glad o' that--a good sign--an'--an' it's _not_ th' Encyclop." Here Morpheus finally conquered, and he sank into dreamless repose. How long this condition lasted he could not tell, but he was awakened violently by sensations and feelings of dread, which were entirely new to him. The bed on which he rested seemed to heave under him, and his ears were filled by sharp rattling sounds, something like--yet very different from--the continuous roll of musketry. Starting up, he sprang into the large cavern where he found Van der Kemp quietly tightening his belt and Moses hastily pulling on his boots. "Sometin's bu'sted an' no mistake!" exclaimed the latter. "An eruption from one of the cones," said the hermit. "I have been for a long time expecting it. Come with us." He went swiftly up the staircase and passages which led to the observatory as he spoke. The scene that met their eyes on reaching the ledge or plateau was sublime in the extreme, as well as terrific. "As I thought," said Van der Kemp, in a low tone. "It is Perboewatan that has broken out." "The cone from which I observed smoke rising?" asked Nigel. "The same. The one over the very centre of the old crater, showing that we were wrong in supposing it to be extinct: it was only slumbering. It is in what vulcanologists term moderate eruption now, and, perhaps, may prove a safety-valve which will prevent a more violent explosion." That the cone of Perboewatan was indeed in a state of considerable activity, worthy of a stronger term than "moderate," was very obvious. Although at a distance, as we have said, of four miles, the glare of its fires on the three figures perched near the top of Rakata was very intense, while explosion after explosion sent molten lava and red-hot rocks, pumice, and dust, high into the thickening air--clouds of smoke and steam being vomited forth at the same time. The wind, of which there was very little, blew it all away from the position occupied by the three observers. "What if the wind were to change and blow it all this way?" asked Nigel, with very pardonable feelings of discomfort. "We could return to the cavern," said the hermit. "But what if Rakata itself should become active?" It was evident from the very solemn expression on the negro's face that he awaited the reply to Nigel's question with some anxiety. "Rakata," answered the hermit thoughtfully, "although the highest cone, is the one most distant from the great centre of activity. It is therefore not likely that the volcanic energy will seek a vent here while there are other cones between us and Perboewatan. But we shall soon see whether the one vent is likely to suffice. There is undoubtedly no diminution in the explosions at present." There certainly was not, for the voice of the speaker was almost drowned by the horrible din caused, apparently, by the hurtling of innumerable fragments of rock and stones in the air, while a succession of fiery flashes, each followed by a loud explosion, lit up the dome-shaped mass of vapour that was mounting upwards and spreading over the sky. Vivid flashes of lightning were also seen playing around the vapour-column. At the same time, there began a fall of fine white dust, resembling snow, which soon covered the foliage and the ground of all the lower part of the island. The sea around was also ere long covered with masses of pumice, which, being very light, floated away into the Indian ocean, and these were afterwards encountered in large quantities by various vessels passing through Sunda Straits. The Scientific Committee, which ultimately wrote on the details of this eruption in Krakatoa, mention this first outburst as being a phase of moderate activity, similar to that which is said to have been exhibited for some months during the years 1680 and 1681, and they added that "the outburst was one of considerable violence, especially at its commencement," that falls of dust were noticed at the distance of three hundred miles, and that "the commander of the German war-vessel _Elizabeth_ estimated the height of the dust-column issuing from the volcano at 11 kilometres (36,000 feet or about 7 miles)." To our hero, however, and to Moses, the outburst seemed anything but "moderate," and that night as they two sat together in the cave after supper, listening with awe-struck faces to the cannonading and wild musketry going on as it seemed under their very feet, the negro solemnly imparted to Nigel in a low whisper that he thought "de end ob de wurld hab come at last!" Returning at that moment from his observatory, to which he had ascended for a few minutes to view the scene through one of his glasses, Van der Kemp relieved their anxieties somewhat by remarking, in his quiet manner, that there was a distinct diminution in the violence of the explosions, and that, from his knowledge and experience of other volcanoes in Java, Sumatra, and elsewhere, he thought it probable they had seen the worst of it at that time, and that none of the other cones would be likely to break out. "I'm glad to hear you say so," observed Nigel, "for although the sight is extremely magnificent and very interesting, both from a scientific and artistic point of view, I cannot help thinking that we should be safer away from this island at present--at least while the volcano is active." The hermit smiled almost pitifully. "I do not apprehend danger," he said, "at least nothing unusual. But it happens that my business requires me to leave in the course of a few days at any rate, so, whether the eruption becomes fiercer or feebler, it will not matter to us. I have preparations to make, however, and I have no doubt you won't object to remain till all is ready for a start?" "Oh, as to that," returned the youth, slightly hurt by the implied doubt as to his courage, "if _you_ are willing to risk going off the earth like a skyrocket, I am quite ready to take my chance of following you!" "An' Moses am de man," said the negro, smiting his broad chest with his fist, "what's ready to serve as a rocket-stick to bof, an' go up along wid you!" The hermit made the nearest approach to a laugh which Nigel had yet seen, as he left the cave to undertake some of the preparations above referred to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. See _The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena_ page 11. (Tribner and Company, London.) CHAPTER NINE. DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES. There is unquestionably a class of men--especially Englishmen--who are deeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our world in particular, has been created with a view to afford them what they call fun. "It would be great fun," said an English commercial man to a friend who sat beside him, "to go and have a look at this eruption. They say it is Krakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as it has been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold on for some time longer. What would you say to charter a steamer and have a grand excursion to the volcano?" The friend said he thought it would indeed be "capital fun!" We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but they must have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, for they at once set to work and organised an excursion. The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia. Although that city was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa, the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of the volcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling of doors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated that the eruption, even in that eruptive region, was of unusual violence. They little imagined to what mighty throes the solid rocks of Krakatoa were yet to be subjected before those volcanic fires could find a vent. Meanwhile, as we have said, there was enough of the unusual in it to warrant our merchants in their anticipation of a considerable amount of fun. A steamer was got ready; a number of sightseeing enthusiasts were collected, and they set forth on the morning of the 26th of May. Among these excursionists was our friend Captain David Roy--not that _he_ was addicted to running about in search of "fun," but, being unavoidably thrown idle at the time, and having a poetical turn of mind--derived from his wife--he thought he could not do better than take a run to the volcano and see how his son was getting along. The party reached the scene of the eruption on the morning of the 27th, having witnessed during the night several tolerably strong explosions, which were accompanied by earthquake shocks. It was found that Krakatoa and all the adjoining islands were covered with a fine white dust, like snow, and that the trees on the northern part of the former island and Varlaten had been to a great extent deprived of their leaves and branches by falling pumice, while those on Lang Island and Polish Hat, as well as those on the Peak of Rakata, had to a great extent escaped-- no doubt owing to the prevailing direction of the wind. It was soon seen that Perboewatan on Krakatoa was the cone in active eruption, and the steamer made for its neighbourhood, landing her party within a short distance of its base. Explosions were occurring at intervals of from five to ten minutes. Each explosion being accompanied by an uncovering of the molten lava in the vent, the overhanging steam-cloud was lighted up with a grand glow for a few seconds. Some of the party, who seemed to be authorities on such matters, estimated that the vapour-column rose to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, and that fragments of pumice were shot upwards to a height of 600 feet. "That's a sign that the violence of the eruption is diminished," remarked the young merchant, who was in search of fun, as he prepared to wade ankle-deep in the loose pumice up the slopes of the cone. "Diminished!" repeated our captain, who had fraternised much with this merchant during their short voyage. "If that's what you call diminishin', I shouldn't like to be here when it's increasin'." "Pooh!" exclaimed the merchant, "that's nothing. I've seen, at other volcanoes, pieces of pumice blown up so high that they've been caught by the upper currents of the atmosphere and carried away in an opposite direction to the wind that was blowing below at the time. Ay, I believe that dust is sometimes blown _miles_ up into the air." As Captain Roy thought that the merchant was drawing the long bow he made no reply, but changed the subject by asking what was the height of Perboewatan. "Three hundred feet or thereabouts," replied his friend. "I hope my son will have the sense to clear out of the island if things look like gittin' worse," muttered the captain, as an unusually violent explosion shook the whole side of the cone. "No fear of him," returned the merchant. "If he is visiting the hermit of Rakata, as you tell me, he'll be safe enough. Although something of a dare-devil, the hermit knows how to take care of himself. I'm afraid, however, that you'll not find it so easy to `look up' your son as you seem to think. Just glance round at these almost impenetrable forests. You don't know what part of the island he may be in just now; and you might as well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as look for him there. He is probably at the other end of Krakatoa--four or five miles off--on the South side of Rakata, where the hermit's cave is supposed to be, for no one seems to be quite sure as to its whereabouts. Besides, you'll have to stick by the excursionists if you wish to return to Batavia." Captain Roy paused for a moment to recover breath, and looking down upon the dense tropical forest that stretched between him and the Peak of Rakata, he shook his head, and admitted that the merchant was right. Turning round he addressed himself once more to the ascent of the cone, on the sides of which the whole excursion party now straggled and struggled, remarking, as he panted along, that hill-climbing among ashes and cinders didn't "come easy to a sea-farin' man." Now, nothing was more natural than that Van der Kemp and his guest should be smitten with the same sort of desire which had brought these excursionists from Batavia. The only thing that we do not pretend to account for is the strange coincidence that they should have been so smitten, and had so arranged their plans, that they arrived at Perboewatan almost at the same time with the excursionists--only about half an hour before them! Their preliminary walk, however, through the tangled, almost impassable, forest had been very slow and toilsome, and having been involved in its shadow from daybreak, they were, of course, quite unaware of the approach of the steamer or the landing of the excursion party. "If the volcano seems quieting down," said Nigel to his host, "shall you start to-morrow?" "Yes; by daybreak. Even if the eruption does _not_ quiet down I must set out, for my business presses." Nigel felt much inclined to ask what his business was, but there was a quiet something in the air of the hermit, when he did not choose to be questioned, which effectually silenced curiosity. Falling behind a little, till the negro came up with him, Nigel tried to obtain information from him, for he felt that he had a sort of right to know at least something about the expedition in which he was about to act a part. "Do you know, Moses, what business your master is going about?" he asked, in a low voice. "No more nor de man ob de moon, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, with an air at once so truthful and so solemn that the young man gave it up with a laugh of resignation. On arriving at Perboewatan, and ascending its sides, they at last became aware of the approach of the excursion steamer. "Strange," muttered the hermit, "vessels don't often touch here." "Perhaps they have run short of water," suggested Nigel. "Even if they had it would not be worth their while to stop here for that," returned the hermit, resuming the ascent of the cone after an intervening clump of trees had shut out the steamer from view. It was with feelings of profound interest and considerable excitement that our hero stood for the first time on the top of a volcanic cone and gazed down into its glowing vent. The crater might be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter. From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides sloped so gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more than half that in diameter. This floor--which was about 150 feet below the upper edge--was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it was the tremendous cavity--between one and two hundred feet in diameter-- from which issued the great steam-cloud. The cloud was mixed with quantities of pumice and fragments of what appeared to be black glass. The roar of this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the reader will reflect on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by a kitchen kettle when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a steamboat's safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he may form some idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the thunderous roar of Krakatoa when it began to boil over. When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions, the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and the bubbling up of molten lava--verily it did not require the imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna! So amazed and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds that he neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until the equally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew his attention to several men who suddenly appeared on the crater-brim not fifty yards off, but who, like themselves, were too much absorbed with the volcano itself to observe the other visitors. Probably they took them for some of their own party who had reached the summit before them. Nigel was yet looking at these visitors in some surprise, when an elderly nautical man suddenly stood not twenty yards off gazing in open-mouthed amazement, past our hero's very nose, at the volcanic fires. "Hallo, Father!" shouted the one. "Zounds! Nigel!" exclaimed the other. Both men glared and were speechless for several seconds. Then Nigel rushed at the captain, and the captain met him halfway, and they shook hands with such hearty goodwill as to arrest in his operations for a few moments a photographer who was hastily setting up his camera! Yes, science has done much to reveal the marvellous and arouse exalted thoughts in the human mind, but it has also done something to crush enthusiasts and shock the romantic. Veracity constrains us to state that there he was, with his tripod, and his eager haste, and his hideous black cloth, preparing to "take" Perboewatan on a "dry plate"! And he "took" it too! And you may see it, if you will, as a marvellous frontispiece to the volume by the "Krakatoa Committee"--a work which is apparently as exhaustive of the subject of Krakatoa as was the great explosion itself of those internal fires which will probably keep that volcano quiet for the next two hundred years. But this was not the Great Eruption of Krakatoa--only a rehearsal, as it were. "What brought you here, my son?" asked the captain, on recovering speech. "My legs, father." "Don't be insolent, boy." "It's not insolence, father. It's only poetical licence, meant to assure you that I did not come by 'bus or rail, though you did by steamer! But let me introduce you to my friend, Mr ---" He stopped short on looking round, for Van der Kemp was not there. "He hoed away wheneber he saw de peepil comin' up de hill," said Moses, who had watched the meeting of father and son with huge delight. "But you kin interdooce _me_ instead," he added, with a crater-like smile. "True, true," exclaimed Nigel, laughing. "This is Moses, father, my host's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easy friend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van der Kemp seems to have left us." "Who's Van der Kemp?" asked the captain. "The hermit of Rakata, father--that's his name. His father was a Dutchman and his mother an English or Irish woman--I forget which. He's a splendid fellow; quite different from what one would expect; no more like a hermit than a hermit-crab, except that he lives in a cave under the Peak of Rakata, at the other end of the island. But you must come with us and pay him a visit. He will be delighted to see you." "What! steer through a green sea of leaves like that?" said the captain, stretching his arm towards the vast forest that lay stretched out below them, "and on my legs, too, that have been used all their lives to a ship's deck? No, my son. I will content myself with this lucky meetin'. But, I say, Nigel, lad," continued the old man, somewhat more seriously, "what if the Peak o' Rakata, what's 'is name, should take to spoutin' like this one, an you, as you say, livin' under it?" "Ha! das 'zackly what _I_ say," interposed Moses. "Das what I oftin says to massa, but he nebber answers. He only smile. Massa's not always so purlite as he might be!" "There is no fear," said Nigel, "not at present, anyhow, for Van der Kemp says that the force of this eruption is diminishing--" "It don't look much like it," muttered the captain, as the volcano at that moment gave vent to a burst which seemed like a sarcastic laugh at the hermit's opinion, and sent the more timid of the excursionists sprawling down the cinder-slope in great alarm. "There's reason in what you say, father," said Nigel, when the diminution of noise rendered speech more easy; "and after all, as we start off on our travels to-morrow, your visit could not have been a long one." "Where do you go first?" asked the captain. "Not sure. Do _you_ know, Moses?" "No; no more'n de man ob de moon. P'r'aps Borneo. He go dar sometimes." At this point another roar from the volcano, and a shout from the leader of the excursionists to return on board, broke up the conference. "Well, lad, I'm glad I've seen you. Don't forget to write your whereabouts. They say there's a lot o' wild places as well as wild men and beasts among them islands, so keep your weather-eye open an' your powder dry. Good-bye, Nigel. Take care of him, Moses, and keep him out o' mischief if ye can--which is more than ever I could. Good-bye, my boy." "Good-bye, father." They shook hands vigorously. In another minute the old seaman was sailing down the cinder-cone at the rate of fourteen knots an hour, while his son, setting off under the guidance of Moses towards a different point of the compass, was soon pushing his way through the tangled forest in the direction of the hermit's cave. CHAPTER TEN. A CURIOUS SEA-GOING CRAFT--THE UNKNOWN VOYAGE BEGUN. It was early next morning when Van der Kemp and his man left their couches and descended to the shore, leaving their visitor enjoying the benefit of that profound slumber which bids defiance to turmoil and noise, however stupendous, and which seems to be the peculiar privilege of healthy infants and youthful seamen. Perboewatan had subsided considerably towards morning, and had taken to that internal rumbling, which in the feline species indicates mitigated indignation. The hermit had therefore come to the conclusion that the outburst was over, and went with Moses to make arrangements for setting forth on his expedition after breakfast. They had scarcely left the cave when Nigel awoke. Feeling indisposed for further repose, he got up and went out in that vague state of mind which is usually defined as "having a look at the weather." Whether or not he gathered much information from the look we cannot tell, but, taking up his short gun, which stood handy at the entrance of the cave, he sauntered down the path which his host had followed a short time before. Arrived at the shore, he observed that a branch path diverged to the left, and appeared to run in the direction of a high precipice. He turned into it, and after proceeding through the bushes for a short way he came quite unexpectedly on a cavern, the mouth of which resembled, but was much higher and wider than that which led to the hermit's home. Just as he approached it there issued from its gloomy depths a strange rumbling sound which induced him to stop and cock his gun. A curious feeling of serio-comic awe crept over him as the idea of a fiery dragon leaped into his mind! At the same time, the fancy that the immense abyss of darkness might be one of the volcanic vents diminished the comic and increased the serious feeling. Ere long the sound assumed the definite tone of footsteps, and the dragon fancy seemed about to become a reality when he beheld a long narrow thing of uncertain form emerging from the darkness. "It must be coming out tail-foremost!" he muttered, with a short laugh at his semi-credulity. Another instant and the hermit emerged into the blazing sunshine, and stood pictured against the intense darkness like a being of supernatural radiance, with the end of a long narrow canoe on his shoulder. As Nigel passed round a bush to reach him he perceived the dark form of Moses emerging from the depths and supporting the body of the canoe. "I see you are active and an early riser," said the hermit, with a nod of approval on seeing our hero. "I almost took you for a Krakatoa monster!" said Nigel, as they came out in front of the cavern and laid the canoe on the ground. "Why, you've got here one of the craft which we in England call a Rob Roy canoe." "It is fashioned on the same pattern," said the hermit, "but with one or two alterations of my own devising, and an improvement--as I think-- founded on what I have myself seen, when travelling with the Eskimos of Greenland." Van der Kemp here pointed out that the canoe was not only somewhat broader than the kind used in England, but was considerably longer, and with three openings or manholes in the deck, so that it was capable of holding three persons. Also, that there was a large rounded mass of wood fixed in front of the three manholes. "These saddles, as I call them," said the hermit, "have been suggested to me by the Eskimos, who, instead of wearying their arms by supporting the double-bladed paddle continuously, rest it on the saddle and let it slide about thereon while being used. Thus they are able to carry a much longer and heavier paddle than that used in the Rob Roy canoe, the weight of which, as it rests on the saddle, is not felt. Moreover it does not require nearly so much dip to put it in the water. I have heard of a sort of upright with a universal joint being applied to the English canoe, but it seems to me a much more clumsy and much less effective, because rigid, contrivance than the Eskimo saddle. Inside, under the deck, as I will show you by and by, I have lighter and shorter paddles for use when in narrow rivers, but I prefer the long heavy paddle when traversing great stretches of ocean." "You don't mean to say you ever go to sea in an eggshell like that!" exclaimed Nigel in surprise. "Indeed we do," returned the hermit, "and we are fitted out for longish voyages and rough weather. Besides, it is not so much of an eggshell as you suppose. I made it myself, and took care that it should be fit for the work required of it. The wood of which it is made, although light, is very tough, and it is lined with a skin of strong canvas which is fixed to the planks with tar. This makes the craft watertight as well as strong. The ribs also are very light and close together, and every sixth rib is larger and longer than the others and made of tougher wood. All these ribs are bound together by longitudinal pieces, or laths, of very tough wood, yet so thin that the whole machine is elastic without being weak. Besides this, there are two strong oiled-canvas partitions, which divide the canoe into three watertight compartments, any two of which will float it if the third should get filled." "Is this then the craft in which you intend to voyage?" asked Nigel. "It is. We shall start in an hour or two. I keep it in this cave because it is near the landing-place. But come, you will understand things better when you see us making our arrangements. Of course you understand how to manage sails of every kind?" "If I did not it would ill become me to call myself a sailor," returned our hero. "That is well, because you will sit in the middle, from which position the sail is partly managed. I usually sit in the bow to have free range for the use of my gun, if need be, and Moses steers." Van der Kemp proceeded down the track as he said this, having, with the negro, again lifted the canoe on his shoulder. A few minutes' walk brought them to the beach at the spot where Nigel had originally landed. Here a quantity of cargo lay on the rocks ready to be placed in the canoe. There were several small bags of pemmican, which Van der Kemp had learned to make while travelling on the prairies of North America among the Red Indians,--for this singular being seemed to have visited most parts of the habitable globe during his not yet very long life. There were five small casks of fresh water, two or three canisters of gunpowder, a small box of tea and another of sugar, besides several bags of biscuits. There were also other bags and boxes which did not by their appearance reveal their contents, and all the articles were of a shape and size which seemed most suitable for passing through the manholes, and being conveniently distributed and stowed in the three compartments of the canoe. There was not very much of anything, however, so that when the canoe was laden and ready for its voyage, the hermit and his man were still able to raise and carry it on their shoulders without the assistance of Nigel. There was one passenger whom we have not yet mentioned, namely, a small monkey which dwelt in the cave with the canoe, and which, although perfectly free to come and go when he pleased, seldom left the cave except for food, but seemed to have constituted himself the guardian of the little craft. Spinkie, as Moses had named him, was an intensely affectionate creature, with a countenance of pathetic melancholy which utterly belied his character, for mischief and fun were the dominating qualities of that monkey. He was seated on a water-cask when Nigel first caught sight of him, holding the end of his long tail in one hand, and apparently wiping his nose with it. "Is that what he is doing?" asked Nigel of the negro. "Oh no, Massa Nadgel," said Moses. "Spinkie nebber ketch cold an' hab no need ob a pocket-hang-kitcher. He only tickles his nose wid 'is tail. But he's bery fond ob doin' dat." Being extremely fond of monkeys, Nigel went forward to fondle him, and Spinkie being equally fond of fondling, resigned himself placidly--after one interrogative gaze of wide-eyed suspicion--into the stranger's hands. A lifelong friendship was cemented then and there. After stowing the cargo the party returned to the upper cavern, leaving the monkey to guard the canoe. "An' he's a good defender ob it," said Moses, "for if man or beast happen to come near it when Spinkie's in charge, dat monkey sets up a skriekin' fit to cause a 'splosion ob Perboewatan!" Breakfast over, the hermit put his cave in order for a pretty long absence, and they again descended to the shore, each man carrying his bed on his shoulder. Each bed, however, was light and simple. It consisted merely of one blanket wrapped up in an oil-cloth sheet. Besides, an old-fashioned powder-flask and shot belt. Van der Kemp and Nigel had slung a bullet-pouch on their shoulders, and carried small hatchets and hunting-knives in their belts. Moses was similarly armed, with this difference, that his _couteau de chasse_ bore stronger resemblance to an ancient Roman sword than a knife, and his axe was of larger size than the hatchets of his companions. Launching the canoe, the hermit and his man held it fast at either end while Nigel was directed to take his place in the central of the three openings or manholes. He did so and found himself seated on a flat board on the bottom of the canoe, which was so shallow that the deck scarcely rose as high as his waist. Round the manhole there was a ledge of thin wood, about three inches high, to which a circular apron of oiled-canvas was attached. "Yes, you'd better understand that thing before we start," said Van der Kemp, observing that Nigel was examining the contrivance with some curiosity. "It's an apron to tie round you in bad weather to keep the water out. In fine weather it is rolled as you see it now round the ledge. Undo the buckle before and behind and you will see how it is to be used." Acting as directed, Nigel unbuckled the roll and found that he was surrounded by a sort of petticoat of oil-skin which could be drawn up and buckled round his chest. In this position it could be kept by a loop attached to a button, or a wooden pin, thrust through the coat. "You see," explained the hermit, "the waves may wash all over our deck and round our bodies without being able to get into the canoe while we have these things on--there are similar protections round the other holes." "I understand," said Nigel. "But how if water gets in through a leak below?" "Do you see that brass thing in front of you?" returned the hermit. "That is a pump which is capable of keeping under a pretty extensive leak. The handle unships, so as to be out of the way when not wanted. I keep it here, under the deck in front of me, along with mast and sails and a good many other things." As he spoke he raised a plank of the deck in front of the foremost hole, and disclosed a sort of narrow box about six feet long by six inches broad. The plank was hinged at one end and fastened with a hook at the other so as to form a lid to the box. The hole thus disclosed was not an opening into the interior of the canoe, but was a veritable watertight box just under the deck, so that even if it were to get filled with water not a drop could enter the canoe itself. But the plank-lid was so beautifully fitted, besides shutting tightly down on india-rubber, that the chance of leakage through that source was very remote. Although very narrow, this box was deep, and contained a variety of useful implements; among them a slender mast and tiny sail, which could be rendered still smaller by means of reef-points. All these things were fitted into their respective places with so keen an eye to economy of space that the arrangement cannot be better described than by the familiar phrase--_multum in parvo_. "We don't use the sails much; we depend chiefly on this," said the hermit, as he seated himself in the front hole and laid the long, heavy, double-bladed paddle on the saddle in front of him. "Moses uses a single-blade, partly because it is handier for steering and partly because he has been accustomed to it in his own land. You are at liberty to use which you prefer." "Thanks, I will follow the lead of Moses, for I also have been accustomed to the single-blade and prefer it--at least while I am one of three. If alone, I should prefer the double-blade." "Now, Moses, are you ready?" asked the hermit. "All ready, massa." "Get in then and shove off. Come along, Spinkie." The monkey, which all this time had been seated on a rock looking on with an expression of inconsolable sorrow, at once accepted the invitation, and with a lively bound alighted on the deck close to the little mast, which had been set up just in front of Nigel, and to which it held on when the motions of the canoe became unsteady. "You need not give yourself any concern about Spinkie," said the hermit, as they glided over the still water of the little cove in which the canoe and boat were harboured. "He is quite able to take care of himself." Rounding the entrance to the cove and shooting out into the ocean under the influence of Van der Kemp's powerful strokes, they were soon clear of the land, and proceeded eastward at a rate which seemed unaccountable to our hero, for he had not sufficiently realised the fact that in addition to the unusual physical strength of Van der Kemp as well as that of Moses, to say nothing of his own, the beautiful fish-like adaptation of the canoe to the water, the great length and leverage of the bow-paddle, and the weight of themselves as well as the cargo, gave this canoe considerable advantage over other craft of the kind. About a quarter of an hour later the sun arose in cloudless splendour on a perfectly tranquil sea, lighted up the shores of Java, glinted over the mountains of Sumatra, and flooded, as with a golden haze, the forests of Krakatoa--emulating the volcanic fires in gilding the volumes of smoke that could be seen rolling amid fitful mutterings from Perboewatan, until the hermit's home sank from view in the western horizon. CHAPTER ELEVEN. CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT--SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT. At first the voyagers paddled over the glassy sea in almost total silence. Nigel was occupied with his own busy thoughts; speculating on the probable end and object of their voyage, and on the character, the mysterious life, and unknown history of the man who sat in front of him wielding so powerfully the great double-bladed paddle. Van der Kemp himself was, as we have said, naturally quiet and silent, save when roused by a subject that interested him. As for Moses, although quite ready at any moment to indulge in friendly intercourse, he seldom initiated a conversation, and Spinkie, grasping the mast and leaning against it with his head down, seemed to be either asleep or brooding over his sorrows. Only a few words were uttered now and then when Nigel asked the name of a point or peak which rose in the distance on either hand. It seemed as if the quiescence of sea and air had fallen like a soft mantle on the party and subdued them into an unusually sluggish frame of mind. They passed through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java--not more at the narrowest part than about thirteen miles wide--and, in course of time, found themselves in the great island-studded archipelago beyond. About noon they all seemed to wake up from their lethargic state. Van der Kemp laid down his paddle, and, looking round, asked Nigel if he felt tired. "Not in the least," he replied, "but I feel uncommonly hungry, and I have just been wondering how you manage to feed when at sea in so small a craft." "Ho! ho!" laughed Moses, in guttural tones, "you soon see dat--I 'spose it time for me to get out de grub, massa?" "Yes, Moses--let's have it." The negro at once laid down his steering paddle and lifted a small square hatch or lid in the deck which was rendered watertight by the same means as the lid in front already described. From the depths thus revealed he extracted a bird of some sort that had been shot and baked the day before. Tearing off a leg he retained it, and handed the remainder to Nigel. "Help you'self, Massa Nadgel, an' pass 'im forward." Without helping himself he passed it on to Van der Kemp, who drew his knife, sliced off a wing with a mass of breast, and returned the rest. "Always help yourself _before_ passing the food in future," said the hermit; "we don't stand on ceremony here." Nigel at once fell in with their custom, tore off the remaining drumstick and began. "Biskit," said Moses, with his mouth full, "an' look out for Spinkie." He handed forward a deep tray of the sailor's familiar food, but Nigel was too slow to profit by the warning given, for Spinkie darted both hands into the tray and had stuffed his mouth and cheeks full almost before a man could wink! The negro would have laughed aloud, but the danger of choking was too great; he therefore laughed internally--an operation which could not be fully understood unless seen. "'Splosions of Perboewatan," may suggest the thing. Sorrow, grief--whatever it was that habitually afflicted that monkey-- disappeared for the time being, while it devoted itself heart and soul to dinner. Feelings of a somewhat similar kind animated Nigel as he sat leaning back with his mouth full, a biscuit in one hand, and a drumstick in the other, and his eyes resting dreamily on the horizon of the still tranquil sea, while the bright sun blazed upon his already bronzed face. To many men the fierce glare of the equatorial sun might have proved trying, but Nigel belonged to the salamander type of humanity and enjoyed the great heat. Van der Kemp seemed to be similarly moulded, and as for Moses, he was in his native element--so was Spinkie. Strange as it may seem, sea-birds appeared to divine what was going on, for several specimens came circling round the canoe with great outstretched and all but motionless wings, and with solemn sidelong glances of hope which Van der Kemp evidently could not resist, for he flung them scraps of his allowance from time to time. "If you have plenty of provisions on board, I should like to do that too," said Nigel. "Do it," returned the hermit. "We have plenty of food for some days, and our guns can at any time replenish the store. I like to feed these creatures," he added, "they give themselves over so thoroughly to the enjoyment of the moment, and _seem_ to be grateful. Whether they are so or not, of course, is matter of dispute. Cynics will tell us that they only come to us and fawn upon us because of the memory of past favours and the hope of more to come. I don't agree with them." "Neither do I," said Nigel, warmly. "Any man who has ever had to do with dogs knows full well that gratitude is a strong element of their nature. And it seems to me that the speaking eyes of Spinkie, to whom I have just given a bit of biscuit, tell of a similar spirit." As he spoke, Nigel was conveying another piece of biscuit to his own mouth, when a small brown hand flashed before him, and the morsel, in the twinkling of an eye, was transferred to the monkey's already swollen cheek--whereat Moses again became suddenly "'splosive" and red, as well as black in the face, for his capacious mouth was inordinately full as usual. Clear water, from one of the casks, and poured into a tin mug, washed down their cold collation, and then, refreshed and reinvigorated, the trio resumed their paddles, which were not again laid down till the sun was descending towards the western horizon. By that time they were not far from a small wooded islet near the coast of Java, on which Van der Kemp resolved to spend the night. During the day they had passed at some distance many boats and _prahus_ and other native vessels, the crews of which ceased to row for a few moments, and gazed with curiosity at the strange craft which glided along so swiftly, and seemed to them little more than a long plank on the water, but these took no further notice of our voyagers. They also passed several ships--part of that constant stream of vessels which pass westward through those straits laden with the valuable teas and rich silks of China and Japan. In some cases a cheer of recognition, as being an exceptional style of craft, was accorded them, to which the hermit replied with a wave of the hand--Moses and Nigel with an answering cheer. There is something very pleasant in the rest which follows a day of hard and healthful toil. Our Maker has so ordained it as well as stated it, for is it not written, "The sleep of the labouring man is sweet"? and our travellers experienced the truth of the statement that night in very romantic circumstances. The small rocky islet, not more than a few hundred yards in diameter, which they now approached, had several sheltered sandy bays on its shore, which were convenient for landing. The centre was clothed with palm-trees and underwood, so that fuel could be procured, and cocoa-nuts. "Sometimes," said the hermit, while he stooped to arrange the fire, after the canoe and cargo had been carried to their camping-place at the edge of the bushes,--"sometimes it is necessary to keep concealed while travelling in these regions, and I carry a little spirit-lamp which enables me to heat a cup of tea or coffee without making a dangerous blaze; but here there is little risk in kindling a fire." "I should not have thought there was any risk at all in these peaceful times," said Nigel, as he unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the ground under an overhanging bush. "There are no peaceful times among pirates," returned the hermit; "and some of the traders in this archipelago are little better than pirates." "Where I puts your bed, massa?" asked Moses, turning his huge eyes on his master. "There--under the bush, beside Nigel." "An' where would _you_ like to sleep, Massa Spinkie?" added the negro, with a low obeisance to the monkey, which sat on the top of what seemed to be its favourite seat--a water-cask. Spinkie treated the question with calm contempt, turned his head languidly to one side, and scratched himself. "Unpurliteness is your k'racter from skin to marrow, you son of a insolent mother!" said Moses, shaking his fist, whereat Spinkie, promptly making an O of his mouth, looked fierce. The sagacious creature remained where he was till after supper, which consisted of another roast fowl--hot this time--and ship's-biscuit washed down with coffee. Of course Spinkie's portion consisted only of the biscuit with a few scraps of cocoa-nut. Having received it he quietly retired to his native wilds, with the intention of sleeping there, according to custom, till morning; but his repose was destined to be broken, as we shall see. After supper, the hermit, stretching himself on his blanket, filled an enormous meerschaum, and began to smoke. The negro, rolling up a little tobacco in tissue paper, sat down, tailor-wise, and followed his master's example, while our hero--who did not smoke--lay between them, and gazed contemplatively over the fire at the calm dark sea beyond, enjoying the aroma of his coffee. "From what you have told me of your former trading expeditions," said Nigel, looking at his friend, "you must have seen a good deal of this archipelago before you took--excuse me--to the hermit life." "Ay--a good deal." "Have you ever travelled in the interior of the larger islands?" asked Nigel, in the hope of drawing from him some account of his experiences with wild beasts or wild men--he did not care which, so long as they were wild! "Yes, in all of them," returned the hermit, curtly, for he was not fond of talking about himself. "I suppose the larger islands are densely wooded?" continued Nigel interrogatively. "They are, very." "But the wood is not of much value, I fancy, in the way of trade," pursued our hero, adopting another line of attack which proved successful, for Van der Kemp turned his eyes on him with a look of surprise that almost forced him to laugh. "Not of much value in the way of trade!" he repeated--"forgive me, if I express surprise that you seem to know so little about us--but, after all, the world is large, and one cannot become deeply versed in everything." Having uttered this truism, the hermit resumed his meerschaum and continued to gaze thoughtfully at the embers of the fire. He remained so long silent that Nigel began to despair, but thought he would try him once again on the same lines. "I suppose," he said in a careless way, "that none of the islands are big enough to contain many of the larger wild animals." "My friend," returned Van der Kemp, with a smile of urbanity, as he refilled his pipe, "it is evident that you do not know much about our archipelago. Borneo, to the woods and wild animals of which I hope ere long to introduce you, is so large that if you were to put your British islands, including Ireland, down on it they would be engulfed and surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea is, perhaps, larger than Borneo. Sumatra is only a little smaller. France is not so large as some of our islands. Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about equal in size to Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on the average, as large as Jamaica, more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight, and the smaller isles and islets are innumerable. In short, our archipelago is comparable with any of the primary divisions of the globe, being full 4000 miles in length from east to west and about 1,300 in breadth from north to south, and would in extent more than cover the whole of Europe." It was evident to Nigel that he had at length succeeded in opening the flood-gates. The hermit paused for a few moments and puffed at the meerschaum, while Moses glared at his master with absorbed interest, and pulled at the cigarette with such oblivious vigour that he drew it into his mouth at last, spat it out, and prepared another. Nigel sat quite silent and waited for more. "As to trade," continued Van der Kemp, resuming his discourse in a lower tone, "why, of gold--the great representative of wealth--we export from Sumatra alone over 26,000 ounces annually, and among other gold regions we have a Mount Ophir in the Malay Peninsula from which there is a considerable annual export." Continuing his discourse, Van der Kemp told a great deal more about the products of these prolific islands with considerable enthusiasm--as one who somewhat resented the underrating of his native land. "Were you born in this region, Van der Kemp?" asked Nigel, during a brief pause. "I was--in Java. My father, as my name tells, was of Dutch descent. My mother was Irish. Both are dead." He stopped. The fire that had been aroused seemed to die down, and he continued to smoke with the sad absent look which was peculiar to him. "And what about large game?" asked Nigel, anxious to stir up his friend's enthusiasm again, but the hermit had sunk back into his usual condition of gentle dreaminess, and made no answer till the question had been repeated. "Pardon me," he said, "I was dreaming of the days that are gone. Ah! Nigel; you are yet too young to understand the feelings of the old--the sad memories of happy years that can never return: of voices that are hushed for ever. No one can _know_ till he has _felt_!" "But you are not old," said Nigel, wishing to turn the hermit's mind from a subject on which it seemed to dwell too constantly. "Not in years," he returned; "but old, _very_ old in experience, and-- stay, what was it that you were asking about? Ah, the big game. Well, we have plenty of that in some of the larger of the islands; we have the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the puma, that great man-monkey the orang-utan, or, as it is called here, the mias, besides wild pigs, deer, and innumerable smaller animals and birds--" The hermit stopped abruptly and sat motionless, with his head bent on one side, like one who listens intently. Such an action is always infectious. Nigel and the negro also listened, but heard nothing. By that time the fire had died down, and, not being required for warmth, had not been replenished. The faint light of the coming moon, which, however, was not yet above the horizon, only seemed to render darkness visible, so that the figure of Moses was quite lost in the shadow of the bush behind him, though the whites of his solemn eyes appeared like two glow-worms. "Do you hear anything?" asked Nigel in a low tone. "Oars," answered the hermit. "I hear 'im, massa," whispered the negro, "but das not su'prisin'-- plenty boats about." "This boat approaches the island, and I can tell by the sound that it is a large _prahu_. If it touches here it will be for the purpose of spending the night, and Malay boatmen are not always agreeable neighbours. However, it is not likely they will ramble far from where they land, so we may escape observation if we keep quiet." As he spoke he emptied the remains of the coffee on the dying fire and effectually put it out. Meanwhile the sound of oars had become quite distinct, and, as had been anticipated, the crew ran their boat into one of the sandy bays and leaped ashore with a good deal of shouting and noise. Fortunately they had landed on the opposite side of the islet, and as the bush on it was very dense there was not much probability of any one crossing over. Our voyagers therefore lay close, resolving to be off in the morning before the unwelcome visitors were stirring. As the three lay there wrapped in their blankets and gazing contemplatively at the now risen moon, voices were heard as if of men approaching. It was soon found that two of the strangers had sauntered round by the beach and were slowly drawing near the encampment. Nigel observed that the hermit had raised himself on one elbow and seemed to be again listening intently. The two men halted on reaching the top of the ridges of rock which formed one side of the little bay, and their voices became audible though too far distant to admit of words being distinguishable. At the same time their forms were clearly defined against the sky. Nigel glanced at Van der Kemp and was startled by the change that had come over him. The moonbeams, which had by that time risen above some intervening shrubs, shone full on him and showed that his usually quiet gentle countenance was deadly pale and transformed by a frown of almost tiger-like ferocity. So strange and unaccountable did this seem to our hero that he lay quite still, as if spell-bound. Nor did his companions move until the strangers, having finished their talk, turned to retrace their steps and finally disappeared. Then Van der Kemp rose with a sigh of relief. The negro and Nigel also sprang up. "What's wrong, massa?" asked Moses, in much anxiety. "Nothing, nothing," said the hermit hurriedly. "I must cross over to see these fellows." "All right, massa. I go wid you." "No, I go alone." "Not widout arms?" exclaimed the negro, laying his hand on his master's shoulder. "Yes, without arms!" As he spoke he drew the long knife that usually hung at his girdle and flung it down. "Now attend, both of you," he added, with sudden and almost threatening earnestness. "Do not on any account follow me. I am quite able to take care of myself." Next moment he glided into the bushes and was gone. "Can you guess what is the matter with him?" asked Nigel, turning to his companion with a perplexed look. "Not more nor de man ob de moon. I nebber saw'd 'im like dat before. I t'ink he's go mad! I tell you what--I'll foller him wid a rifle an' knife and two revolvers." "You'll do nothing of the sort," said Nigel, laying hold of the negro's wrist with a grip of iron; "when a man like Van der Kemp gives an order it's the duty of inferior men like you and me strictly to obey." "Well--p'raps you're right, Nadgel," returned Moses calmly. "If you wasn't, I'd knock you into de middle ob nixt week for takin' a grip o' me like dat." "You'll wish yourself into the middle of next fortnight if you disobey orders," returned our hero, tightening the grip. Moses threw back his head, opened his cavern, and laughed silently; at the same time he twisted his arm free with a sudden wrench. "You's awrful strong, Nadgel, but you don't quite come up to niggers! Howse'ber, you's right. I'll obey orders; neberdeless I'll get ready for action." So saying, the negro extracted from the canoe several revolvers, two of which he handed to Nigel, two he thrust into his own belt, and two he laid handy for "massa" when he should return. "Now, if you're smart at arit'metic, you'll see dat six time six am t'irty-six, and two double guns das forty-forty dead men's more'n enuff--besides de knives." Moses had barely finished these deadly preparations when Van der Kemp returned as quietly as he had gone. His face was still fierce and haggard, and his manner hurried though quite decided. "I have seen him," he said, in a low voice. "Seen who?" asked Nigel. "Him whom I had hoped and prayed never more to see. My enemy! Come, quick, we must leave at once, and without attracting their notice." He gave his comrades no time to put further questions, but laid hold of one end of the canoe; Moses took the other end and it was launched in a few seconds, while Nigel carried down such part of the lading as had been taken out. Five minutes sufficed to put all on board, and that space of time was also sufficient to enable Spinkie to observe from his retreat in the bushes that a departure was about to take place; he therefore made for the shore with all speed and bounded to his accustomed place beside the mast. Taking their places they pushed off so softly that they might well have been taken for phantoms. A cloud conveniently hid the moon at the time. Each man plied his paddle with noiseless but powerful stroke, and long before the cloud uncovered the face of the Queen of Night they were shooting far away over the tranquil sea. CHAPTER TWELVE. WEATHERING A STORM IN THE OPEN SEA. In profound silence they continued to paddle until there was no chance of their being seen by the party on the islet. Then Van der Kemp rested his paddle in front of him and looked slowly round the horizon and up at the sky as if studying the weather. Nigel longed to ask him more about the men they had seen, and of this "enemy" whom he had mentioned, but there was that in the hermit's grave look which forbade questioning, and indeed Nigel now knew from experience that it would be useless to press him to speak on any subject in regard to which he chose to be reticent. "I don't like the look of the sky," he said at last. "We are going to have a squall, I fear." "Had we not better run for the nearest land?" said Nigel, who, although not yet experienced in the signs of the weather in those equatorial regions, had quite enough of knowledge to perceive that bad weather of some sort was probably approaching. "The nearest island is a good way off," returned the hermit, "and we might miss it in the dark, for daylight won't help us yet awhile. No, we will continue our course and accept what God sends." This remark seemed to our hero to savour of unreasoning contempt of danger, for the facing of a tropical squall in such an eggshell appeared to him the height of folly. He ventured to reply, therefore, in a tone of remonstrance-- "God sends us the capacity to appreciate danger, Van der Kemp, and the power to take precautions." "He does, Nigel--therefore I intend to use both the capacity and the power." There was a tone of finality in this speech which effectually sealed Nigel's lips, and, in truth, his ever-increasing trust in the wisdom, power, and resource of his friend indisposed him to further remark. The night had by this time become intensely dark, for a bank of black cloud had crept slowly over the sky and blotted out the moon. This cloud extended itself slowly, obliterating, ere long, most of the stars also, so that it was scarcely possible to distinguish any object more than a yard or two in advance of them. The dead calm, however, continued unbroken, and the few of heaven's lights which still glimmered through the obscurity above were clearly reflected in the great black mirror below. Only the faint gleam of Krakatoa's threatening fires was visible on the horizon, while the occasional boom of its artillery sounded in their ears. It was impossible for any inexperienced man, however courageous, to avoid feelings of awe, almost amounting to dread, in the circumstances, and Nigel--as he tried to penetrate the darkness around him and glanced at the narrow craft in which he sat and over the sides of which he could dip both hands at once into the sea--might be excused for wishing, with all his heart, that he were safely on shore, or on the deck of his father's brig. His feelings were by no means relieved when Van der Kemp said, in a low soliloquising tone-- "The steamers will constitute our chief danger to-night. They come on with such a rush that it is not easy to make out how they are steering, so as to get out of their way in time." "But should we not hear them coming a long way off?" asked Nigel. "Ay. It is not during a calm like this that we run risk, but when the gale begins to blow we cannot hear, and shall not, perhaps, see very well." As he spoke the hermit lifted the covering of the fore-hatch and took out a small sail which he asked Nigel to pass aft to the negro. "Close-reef it, Moses; we shall make use of the wind as long as possible. After that we will lay-to." "All right, massa," said the negro, in the same cheerful free-and-easy tone in which he was wont to express his willingness to obey orders whether trifling or important. "Don' forgit Spinkie, massa." "You may be sure I won't do that," replied the hermit. "Come along, monkey!" Evidently Van der Kemp had trained his dumb companion as thoroughly to prompt obedience as his black follower, for the little creature instantly bounded from its place by the mast on to the shoulder of its master, who bade it go into the place from which he had just extracted the sail. Nigel could not see this--not only because of the darkness, but because of the intervention of the hermit's bulky person, but he understood what had taken place by the remark-- "That's a good little fellow. Keep your head down, now, while I shut you in!" From the same place Van der Kemp had drawn a small triangular foresail, which he proceeded to attach to the bow of the canoe--running its point out by means of tackle laid along the deck--while Moses was busy reefing the mainsail. From the same repository were extracted three waterproof coats, which, when put on by the canoemen, the tails thrust below deck, and the aprons drawn over them and belted round their waists, protected their persons almost completely from water. "Now, Nigel," said the hermit, "unship the mast, reeve the halyard of this foresail through the top and then re-ship it. Moses will give you the mainsail when ready, and you can hook the halyards on to it. The thing is too simple to require explanation to a sailor. I attend to the foresail and Moses manages the mainsheet, but you have to mind the halyards of both, which, as you would see if it were light enough, run down alongside the mast. All I ask you to remember is to be smart in obeying orders, for squalls are sometimes very sudden here--but I doubt not that such a caution is needless." "I'll do my best," said Nigel. By this time a slight puff of air had ruffled the sea, thereby intensifying, if possible, the blackness which already prevailed. The tiny sails caught the puff, causing the canoe to lean slightly over, and glide with a rippling sound through the water, while Moses steered by means of his paddle. "You have put Spinkie down below, I think," said Nigel, who had been struck more than once with the hermit's extreme tenderness and care of the little creature. "Yes, to prevent it from being washed overboard. I nearly lost the poor little thing once or twice, and now when we are likely to be caught in bad weather I put him below." "Is he not apt to be suffocated?" asked Nigel. "With everything made so tight to prevent water getting into the canoe, you necessarily prevent air entering also." "I see you have a mechanical turn of mind," returned the hermit. "You are right. Yet in so large a canoe the air would last a considerable time to satisfy a monkey. Nevertheless, I have made provision for that. There is a short tube alongside the mast, and fixed to it, which runs a little below the deck and rises a foot above it so as to be well above the wash of most waves, and in the deck near the stern there is a small hole with a cap fitted so as to turn the water but admit the air. Thus free circulation of air is established below deck." Suddenly a hissing sound was heard to windward. "Look out, Moses," said Van der Kemp. "There it comes. Let go the sheet. Keep good hold of your paddle, Nigel." The warning was by no means unnecessary, for as the canoe's head was turned to meet the blast, a hissing sheet of white water swept right over the tiny craft, completely submerging it, insomuch that the three men appeared to be sitting more than waist-deep in the water. "Lower the mainsail!" shouted the hermit, for the noise of wind and sea had become deafening. Nigel obeyed and held on to the flapping sheet. The hermit had at the same moment let go the foresail, the flapping of which he controlled by a rope-tackle arranged for the purpose. He then grasped his single-blade paddle and aided Moses in keeping her head to wind and sea. For a few minutes this was all that could be done. Then the first violence of the squall passed off, allowing the deck of the little craft to appear above the tormented water. Soon the waves began to rise. The mere keeping of the canoe's head to wind required all the attention of both master and man, while Nigel sat waiting for orders and looking on with mingled feelings of surprise and curiosity. Of course they were all three wet to the skin, for the water had got up their sleeves and down their necks; but, being warm, that mattered little, and the oiled aprons before mentioned, being securely fastened round their waists, effectually prevented any of it from getting below save the little that passed through the thickness of their own garments. No word was spoken for at least a quarter of an hour, during which time, although they rose buoyantly on the water, the waves washed continually over the low-lying deck. As this deck was flush with the gunwale, or rather, had no gunwale at all, the water ran off it as it does off a whale's back. Then there came a momentary lull. "Now, Moses--'bout ship!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Stand by, Nigel!" "Ay, ay, sir." Although the canoe was long--and therefore unfitted to turn quickly--the powerful strokes of the two paddles in what may be called counteracting-harmony brought the little craft right round with her stern to the waves. "Hoist away, Nigel! We must run right before it now." Up went the mainsail, the tiny foresail bulged out at the same moment, and away they went like the driving foam, appearing almost to leap from wave to wave. All sense of danger was now overwhelmed in Nigel's mind by that feeling of excitement and wild delight which accompanies some kinds of rapid motion. This was, if possible, intensified by the crashing thunder which now burst forth and the vivid lightning which began to play, revealing from time to time the tumultuous turmoil as if in clearest moonlight, only to plunge it again in still blacker night. By degrees the gale increased in fury, and it soon became evident that neither sails nor cordage could long withstand the strain to which they were subjected. "A'most too much, massa," said the negro in a suggestive shout. "Right, Moses," returned his master. "I was just thinking we must risk it." "Risk what? I wonder," thought Nigel. He had not long to wait for an answer to his thought. "Down wi' the mainsail," was quickly followed by the lowering of the foresail until not more than a mere corner was shown, merely to keep the canoe end-on to the seas. Soon even this was lowered, and Van der Kemp used his double-blade paddle to keep them in position, at the same time telling Nigel to unship the mast. "And plug the hole with that," he added, handing him a bit of wood which exactly fitted the hole in the deck. Watching for another lull in the blast, the hermit at last gave the order, and round they came as before, head to wind, but not quite so easily, and Nigel felt that they had narrowly escaped overturning in the operation. "Keep her so, Moses. You can help with your paddle, Nigel, while I get ready our anchor." "Anchor!" exclaimed our hero in amazement--obeying orders, however, at the same moment. The hermit either did not hear the exclamation or did not care to notice it. He quickly collected the mast and sails, with a couple of boat-hooks and all the paddles excepting two single ones. These he bound together by means of the sheets and halyards, attached the whole to a hawser,--one end of which passed through an iron ring at the bow-- and tossed it into the sea--paying out the hawser rapidly at the same time so as to put a few yards between them and their floating anchor--if it may be so called--in the lee of which they prepared to ride out the gale. It was well that they had taken the precaution to put on their waterproofs before the gale began, because, while turned head to wind every breaking wave swept right over their heads, and even now while under the lee of the floating anchor they were for some time almost continually overwhelmed by thick spray. Being, however, set free from the necessity of keeping their tiny craft in position, they all bowed their heads on the deck, sheltered their faces in their hands and awaited the end! Whilst in this attitude--so like to that of prayer--Nigel almost naturally thought of Him who holds the water in the hollow of His hand, and lifted his soul to God; for, amid the roaring of the gale, the flashes of lightning, the appalling thunder, the feeling that he was in reality all but under the waves and the knowledge that the proverbial plank between him and death was of the very thinnest description, a sensation of helplessness and of dependence on the Almighty, such as he had never before experienced, crept over him. What the thoughts of the hermit were he could not tell, for that strange man seldom spoke about himself; but Moses was not so reticent, for he afterwards remarked that he had often been caught by gales while in the canoe, and had been attached for hours to their floating anchor, but that "dat was out ob sight de wust bust ob wedder dey'd had since dey come to lib at Krakatoa, an' he had bery nigh giben up in despair!" The use of the floating breakwater was to meet the full force of the seas and break them just before they reached the canoe. In spite of this some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off the stooping figures like rain from a duck's back. Of course a good deal got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, "was not'ing to speak ob." Thus they lay tossing in the midst of the raging foam for several hours. Now and then each would raise his head a little to see that the rope held fast, but was glad to lower it again. They hardly knew when day broke. It was so slow in coming, and so gloomy and dark when it did come, that the glare of the lightning-flash seemed more cheerful. It may be easily believed that there was no conversation during those hours of elemental strife, though the thoughts of each were busy enough. At last the thunder ceased, or, rather, retired as if in growling defiance of the world which it had failed to destroy. Then the sky began to lighten a little, and although the wind did not materially abate in force it became more steady and equal. Before noon, however, it had subsided so much that Moses suggested the propriety of continuing the voyage. To this Van der Kemp agreed, and the floating anchor was hauled in; the large paddle was resumed by the hermit, and the dangerous process of turning the canoe was successfully accomplished. When the mast was again set up and the close-reefed main and foresails were hoisted, the light craft bounded away once more before the wind like a fleck of foam. Then a gleam of sunshine forced its way through the driving clouds, and painted a spot of emerald green on the heaving sea. Soon after that Van der Kemp opened the lid, or hatch, of the fore-hold, and Spinkie, jumping out with alacrity, took possession of his usual seat beside the mast, to which he clung with affectionate tenacity. Gradually the wind went down. Reef after reef of the two sails was shaken out, and for several hours thereafter our travellers sped merrily on, plunging into the troughs and cutting through the crests of the stormy sea. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. FRIENDS ARE MET WITH, ALSO PIRATES, AND A LIFE-OR-DEATH PADDLE ENSUES. In physics, as in morals, a storm is frequently the precursor of a dead calm. Much to the monkey's joy, to say nothing of the men, the sun ere long asserted its equatorial power, and, clearing away the clouds, allowed the celestial blue to smile on the turmoil below. The first result of that smile was that the wind retired to its secret chambers, leaving the ships of men to flap their idle sails. Then the ocean ceased to fume, though its agitated bosom still continued for some time to heave. Gradually the swell went down and soon the unruffled surface reflected a dimpling smile to the sky. When this happy stage had been reached our voyagers lowered and stowed the canoe-sails, and continued to advance under paddles. "We get along wonderfully fast, Van der Kemp," said Nigel, while resting after a pretty long spell; "but it seems to me, nevertheless, that we shall take a considerable time to reach Borneo at this rate, seeing that it must be over two hundred miles away, and if we have much bad weather or contrary wind, we shan't be able to reach it for weeks--if at all." "I have been thrown somewhat out of my reckoning," returned the hermit, "by having to fly from the party on the islet, where I meant to remain till a steamer, owned by a friend of mine, should pass and pick us up, canoe and all. The steamer is a short-voyage craft, and usually so punctual that I can count on it to a day. But it may have passed us in the gale. If so, I shall take advantage of the first vessel that will agree to lend us a hand." "How!--Do you get them to tow you?" "Nay, that were impossible. A jerk from the tow-rope of a steamer at full speed would tear us asunder. Have you observed these two strong ropes running all round our gunwale, and the bridles across with ring-bolts in them?" "I have, and did not ask their use, as I thought they were merely meant to strengthen the canoe." "So they are," continued the hermit, "but they have other uses besides--" "Massa," cried Moses, at this point. "You'll 'scuse me for 'truptin' you, but it's my opinion dat Spinkie's sufferin' jus' now from a empty stummik!" The hermit smiled and Nigel laughed. Laying down his paddle the former said-- "I understand, Moses. That speech means that you are suffering from the same complaint. Well--get out the biscuit." "Jus' de way ob de wurld," muttered the negro with a bland smile. "If a poor man obsarves an feels for de sorrows ob anoder, he allers gits credit for t'inkin' ob his-self. Neber mind, I's used to it!" Evidently the unjust insinuation did not weigh heavily on the negro's spirit, for he soon began to eat with the appetite of a healthy alligator. While he was thus engaged, he chanced to raise his eyes towards the south-western horizon, and there saw something which caused him to splutter, for his mouth was too full to speak, but his speaking eyes and pointing finger caused his companions to turn their faces quickly to the quarter indicated. "A steamer!" exclaimed the hermit and Nigel in the same breath. The vessel in question was coming straight towards them, and a very short time enabled Van der Kemp to recognise with satisfaction the steamer owned by his friend. "Look here, run that to the mast-head," said Van der Kemp, handing a red flag to Nigel. "We lie so low in the water that they might pass quite close without observing us if we showed no signal." An immediate, though slight, change in the course of the steamer showed that the signal had been seen. Hereupon the hermit and Moses performed an operation on the canoe which still farther aroused Nigel's surprise and curiosity. He resolved to ask no questions, however, but to await the issue of events. From the marvellous hold of the canoe, which seemed to be a magazine for the supply of every human need, Moses drew a short but strong rope or cable, with a ring in the middle of it, and a hook at each end. He passed one end along to his master who hooked it to the bridle-rope at the bow before referred to. The other end was hooked to the bridle in the stern, so that the ring in the centre came close to Nigel's elbow. This arrangement had barely been completed when the steamer was within hail, but no hail was given, for the captain knew what was expected of him. He reduced speed as the vessel approached the canoe, and finally came almost to a stop as he ranged alongside. "What cheer, Van der Kemp? D'ye want a lift to-day?" shouted the skipper, looking over the side. A nod and a wave of the hand was the hermit's reply. "Heave a rope, boys--bow and stern--and lower away the tackle," was the skipper's order. A coil was flung to Van der Kemp, who deftly caught it and held on tight. Another was flung to Moses, who also caught it and held on-- slack. At the same moment, Nigel saw a large block with a hook attached descending towards his head. "Catch it, Nigel, and hook it to the ring at your elbow," said the hermit. Our hero obeyed, still in surprise, though a glimmer of what was to follow began to dawn. "Haul away!" shouted the skipper, and next moment the canoe was swinging in the air, kept in position by the lines in the hands of Van der Kemp and Moses. At the same time another order was given, and the steamer went ahead full speed. It was all so suddenly done, and seemed such a reckless proceeding, that Nigel found himself on the steamer's deck, with the canoe reposing beside him, before he had recovered from his surprise sufficiently to acknowledge in suitable terms the welcome greeting of the hospitable skipper. "You see, Nigel," said Van der Kemp that night, as the two friends paced the deck together after supper, "I have other means, besides paddles and sails, of getting quickly about in the Java seas. Many of the traders and skippers here know me, and give me a lift in this way when I require it." "Very kind of them, and very convenient," returned Nigel. He felt inclined to add: "But why all this moving about?" for it was quite evident that trade was not the hermit's object, but the question, as usual, died on his lips, and he somewhat suddenly changed the subject. "D'ye know, Van der Kemp, that I feel as if I must have seen you somewhere or other before now, for your features seem strangely familiar to me. Have you ever been in England?" "Never. As I have told you, I was born in Java, and was educated in Hong Kong at an English School. But a fancy of this sort is not very uncommon. I myself once met a perfect stranger who bore so strong a resemblance to an old friend, that I spoke to him as such, and only found out from his voice that I was mistaken." The captain of the steamer came on deck at that moment and cut short the conversation. "Are you engaged, Van der Kemp?" he asked. "No--I am at your service." "Come below then, I want to have a talk with you." Thus left alone, and overhearing a loud burst of laughter at the fore part of the steamer, Nigel went forward to see what was going on. He found a group of sailors round his comrade Moses, apparently engaged in good-natured "chaff." "Come, now, blackey," said one; "be a good fellow for once in your life an' tell us what makes your master live on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, an' go about the ocean in a canoe." "Look 'ere now, whitey," returned Moses, "what you take me for?" "A nigger, of course." "Ob course, an' you're right for once, which is such an unusual t'ing dat I 'dvise you go an' ax de cappen to make a note ob it in de log. I's a nigger, an a nigger's so much more 'cute dan a white man dat you shouldn't ought to expect him to blab his massa's secrets." "Right you are, Moses. Come, then, if you won't reveal secrets, give us a song." "Couldn't t'ink ob such a t'ing," said the negro, with a solemn, remonstrant shake of the head. "Why not?" "'Cause I neber sing a song widout a moral, an' I don't like to hurt your feelin's by singin' a moral dat would be sure to waken up _some_ o' your consciences." "Never mind that, darkey. Our consciences are pretty tough. Heave ahead." "But dere's a chorus," said Moses, looking round doubtfully. "What o' that? We'll do our best with it--if it ain't too difficult." "Oh, it's not diffikilt, but if de lazy fellers among you sings de chorus dey'll be singin' lies, an' I don't 'zackly like to help men to tell lies. Howseber, here goes. It begins wid de chorus so's you may know it afore you has to sing it." So saying, Moses struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right pitch, began in a really fine manly voice to chant the following ditty:-- "Go to Work." Oh when de sun am shinin' bright, and eberyt'ing am fair, Clap on de steam an' go to work, an' take your proper share. De wurld hab got to go ahead, an' dem what's young and strong Mus' do deir best, wid all de rest, to roll de wurld along. De lazy man does all he can to stop its whirlin' round. If he was king he'd loaf an' sing--and guzzle, I'll be bound, He always shirk de hardest work, an' t'ink he's awful clebbar, But boder his head to earn his bread, Oh! no, he'll nebber, nebber. _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etcetera. De selfish man would rader dan put out his hand to work, Let women toil, an' sweat and moil--as wicked as de Turk. De cream ob eberyt'ing he wants, let oders hab de skim; In fact de wurld and all it holds was only made for him. _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etcetera. So keep de ball a-rollin', boys, an' each one do his best To make de wurld a happy one--for dat's how man is blest. Do unto oders all around de t'ing what's good and true, An' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do do same to you. _Chorus_--Oh when de sun, etcetera. The sailors, who were evidently much pleased, took up the chorus moderately at the second verse, came out strong at the third, and sang with such genuine fervour at the last that it was quite evident, as Moses remarked, there was not a lazy man amongst them--at least, if they all sang conscientiously! The weather improved every hour, and after a fine run of about twenty-four hours over that part of the Malay Sea, our three voyagers were lowered over the steamer's side in their canoe when within sight of the great island of Borneo. "I'm sorry," said the captain at parting, "that our courses diverge here, for I would gladly have had your company a little longer. Good-bye. I hope we'll come across you some other time when I'm in these parts." "Thanks--thanks, my friend," replied Van der Kemp, with a warm grip of the hand, and a touch of pathos in his tones. "I trust that we shall meet again. You have done me good service by shortening my voyage considerably.--Farewell." "I say, Moses," shouted one of the seamen, as he looked down on the tiny canoe while they were pushing off. "Hallo?" "Keep your heart up, for--we'll try to `do to oders all around de t'ing what's good an' true!'" "Das de way, boy--`an' oders, 'turning tit for tat, will do de same to you!'" He yelled rather than sang this at the top of his tuneful voice, and waved his hand as the sharp craft shot away over the sea. Fortunately the sea was calm, for it was growing dark when they reached the shores of Borneo and entered the mouth of a small stream, up which they proceeded to paddle. The banks of the stream were clothed with mangrove trees. We have said the banks, but in truth the mouth of that river had no distinguishable banks at all, for it is the nature of the mangrove to grow in the water--using its roots as legs with which, as it were, to wade away from shore. When darkness fell suddenly on the landscape, as it is prone to do in tropical regions, the gnarled roots of those mangroves assumed the appearance of twining snakes in Nigel's eyes. Possessing a strongly imaginative mind he could with difficulty resist the belief that he saw them moving slimily about in the black water, and, in the dim mysterious light, tree-stems and other objects assumed the appearance of hideous living forms, so that he was enabled to indulge the uncomfortable fancy that they were traversing some terrestrial Styx into one of Dante's regions of horror. In some respects this was not altogether a fancy, for they were unwittingly drawing near to a band of human beings whose purposes, if fully carried out, would render the earth little better than a hell to many of their countrymen. It is pretty well-known that there is a class of men in Borneo called Head Hunters. These men hold the extraordinary and gruesome opinion that a youth has not attained to respectable manhood until he has taken the life of some human being. There are two distinct classes of Dyaks--those who inhabit the hills and those who dwell on the sea-coast. It is the latter who recruit the ranks of the pirates of those eastern seas, and it was to the camp of a band of such villains that our adventurers were, as already said, unwittingly drawing near. They came upon them at a bend of the dark river beyond which point the mangroves gave place to other trees--but what sort of trees they were it was scarcely light enough to make out very distinctly, except in the case of the particular tree in front of which the Dyaks were encamped, the roots of which were strongly illuminated by their camp fire. We say _roots_ advisedly, for this singular and gigantic tree started its branches from a complexity of aerial roots which themselves formed a pyramid some sixty feet high, before the branches proper of the tree began. If our voyagers had used oars the sharp ears of the pirates would have instantly detected them. As it was, the softly moving paddles and the sharp cutwater of the canoe made no noise whatever. The instant that Van der Kemp, from his position in the bow, observed the camp, he dipped his paddle deep, and noiselessly backed water. There was no need to give any signal to his servant. Such a thorough understanding existed between them that the mere action of the hermit was sufficient to induce the negro to support him by a similar movement on the opposite side, and the canoe glided as quickly backward as it had previously advanced. When under the deep shadow of the bank Moses thrust the canoe close in, and his master, laying hold of the bushes, held fast and made a sign to him to land and reconnoitre. Creeping forward to an opening in the bushes close at hand, Moses peeped through. Then he turned and made facial signals of a kind so complicated that he could not be understood, as nothing was visible save the flashing of his teeth and eyes. Van der Kemp therefore recalled him by a sign, and, stepping ashore, whispered Nigel to land. Another minute and the three travellers stood on the bank with their heads close together. "Wait here for me," said the hermit, in the lowest possible whisper. "I will go and see who they are." "Strange," said Nigel, when he was gone; "strange that in so short a time your master should twice have to stalk strangers in this way. History repeats itself, they say. It appears to do so rather fast in these regions! Does he not run a very great risk of being discovered?" "Not de smallest," replied the negro, with as much emphasis as was possible in a whisper. "Massa hab ride wid de Vaquieros ob Ameriky an' hunt wid de Injuns on de Rockies. No more fear ob deir ketchin' him dan ob ketchin' a streak o' lightnin'. He come back bery soon wid all de news." Moses was a true prophet. Within half-an-hour Van der Kemp returned as noiselessly as he had gone. He did not keep them long in uncertainty. "I have heard enough," he whispered, "to assure me that a plot, of which I had already heard a rumour, has nearly been laid. We fell in with the chief plotters on the islet the other night; the band here is in connection with them and awaits their arrival before carrying out their dark designs. There is nothing very mysterious about it. One tribe plotting to attack another--that is all; but as a friend of mine dwells just now with the tribe to be secretly attacked, it behoves me to do what I can to save him. I am perplexed, however. It would seem sometimes as if we were left in perplexity for wise purposes which are beyond our knowledge." "Perhaps to test our willingness to _do right_," suggested Nigel. "I know not," returned the hermit, as if musing, but never raising his voice above the softest whisper. "My difficulty lies here; I _must_ go forward to save the life of my friend. I must _not_ leave you at the mouth of a mangrove river to die or be captured by pirates, and yet I have no right to ask you to risk your life on my account!" "You may dismiss your perplexities then," said Nigel, promptly, "for I decline to be left to die here or to be caught by pirates, and I am particularly anxious to assist you in rescuing your friend. Besides, am I not your hired servant?" "The risk we run is only at the beginning," said Van der Kemp. "If we succeed in passing the Dyaks unseen all will be well. If they see us, they will give chase, and our lives, under God, will depend on the strength of our arms, for I am known to them and have thwarted their plans before now. If they catch us, death will be our certain doom. Are you prepared?" "Ready!" whispered Nigel. Without another word the hermit took his place in the bow of the canoe. Moses stepped into the stern, and our hero sat down in the middle. Before pushing off, the hermit drew a revolver and a cutlass from his store-room in the bow and handed them to Nigel, who thrust the first into his belt and fastened the other to the deck by means of a strap fixed there on purpose to prevent its being rolled or swept off. This contrivance, as well as all the other appliances in the canoe, had previously been pointed out and explained to him. The hermit and negro having armed themselves in similar way, let go the bushes which held them close to the bank and floated out into the stream. They let the canoe drift down a short way so as to be well concealed by the bend in the river and a mass of bushes. Then they slowly paddled over to the opposite side, and commenced to creep up as close to the bank as possible, under the deep shadow of overhanging trees, and so noiselessly that they appeared in the darkness like a passing phantom. But the sharp eyes of the pirates were too much accustomed to phantoms of every kind to be easily deceived. Just as the canoe was about to pass beyond the line of their vision a stir was heard in their camp. Then a stern challenge rolled across the river and awoke the slumbering echoes of the forest--perchance to the surprise and scaring away of some prowling beast of prey. "No need for concealment now," said Van der Kemp, quietly; "we must paddle for life. If you have occasion to use your weapons, Nigel, take no life needlessly. Moses knows my mind on this point and needs no warning. Any fool can take away life. Only God can give it." "I will be careful," replied Nigel, as he dipped his paddle with all the muscular power at his command. His comrades did the same, and the canoe shot up the river like an arrow. A yell from the Dyaks, and the noise of jumping into and pushing off their boats told that there was no time to lose. "They are strong men, and plenty of them to relieve each other," said the hermit, who now spoke in his ordinary tones, "so they have some chance of overhauling us in the smooth water; but a few miles further up there is a rapid which will stop them and will only check us. If we can reach it we shall be safe." While he was speaking every muscle in his broad back and arms was strained to the uttermost; so also were the muscles of his companions, and the canoe seemed to advance by a series of rapid leaps and bounds. Yet the sound of the pursuers' oars seemed to increase, and soon the proverb "it is the pace that kills" received illustration, for the speed of the canoe began to decrease a little--very little at first--while the pursuers, with fresh hands at the oars, gradually overhauled the fugitives. "Put on a spurt!" said the hermit, setting the example. The pirates heard the words and understood either them or the action that followed, for they also "put on a spurt," and encouraged each other with a cheer. Moses heard the cheer, and at the same time heard the sound of the rapid to which they were by that time drawing near. He glanced over his shoulder and could make out the dim form of the leading boat, with a tall figure standing up in the bow, not thirty yards behind. "Shall we manage it, Moses?" asked Van der Kemp, in that calm steady voice which seemed to be unchangeable either by anxiety or peril. "No, massa. Unpossable--widout _dis_." The negro drew the revolver from his belt, slewed round, took rapid aim and fired. The tall figure in the bow of the boat fell back with a crash and a hideous yell. Great shouting and confusion followed, and the boat dropped behind. A few minutes later and the canoe was leaping over the surges of a shallow rapid. They dashed from eddy to eddy, taking advantage of every stone that formed a tail of backwater below it, and gradually worked the light craft upward in a way that the hermit and his man had learned in the nor'-western rivers of America. "We are not safe yet," said the former, resting and wiping his brow as they floated for a few seconds in a calm basin at the head of the rapid. "Surely they cannot take a boat up such a place as that!" "Nay, but they can follow up the banks on foot. However, we will soon baffle them, for the river winds like a serpent just above this, and by carrying our canoe across one, two, or three spits of land we will gain a distance in an hour or so that would cost them nearly a day to ascend in boats. They know that, and will certainly give up the chase. I think they have given it up already, but it is well to make sure." "I wonder why they did not fire at us," remarked Nigel. "Probably because they felt sure of catching us," returned the hermit, "and when they recovered from the confusion that Moses threw them into we were lost to them in darkness, besides being pretty well beyond range. I hope, Moses, that you aimed low." "Yes, massa--but it's sca'cely fair when life an' def am in de balance to expect me to hit 'im on de legs on a dark night. Legs is a bad targit. Bullet's apt to pass between 'em. Howseber, dat feller won't hop much for some time to come!" A couple of hours later, having carried the canoe and baggage across the spits of land above referred to, and thus put at least half-a-day's journey between themselves and their foes, they came to a halt for the night. "It won't be easy to find a suitable place to camp on," remarked Nigel, glancing at the bank, where the bushes grew so thick that they overhung the water, brushing the faces of our travellers and rendering the darkness so intense that they had literally to feel their way as they glided along. "We will encamp where we are," returned the hermit. "I'll make fast to a bush and you may get out the victuals, Moses." "Das de bery best word you've said dis day, massa," remarked the negro with a profound sigh. "I's pritty well tired now, an' de bery t'ought ob grub comforts me!" "Do you mean that we shall sleep in the canoe?" asked Nigel. "Ay, why not?" returned the hermit, who could be heard, though not seen, busying himself with the contents of the fore locker. "You'll find the canoe a pretty fair bed. You have only to slip down and pull your head and shoulders through the manhole and go to sleep. You won't want blankets in this weather, and, see--there is a pillow for you and another for Moses." "I cannot _see_, but I can feel," said Nigel, with a soft laugh, as he passed the pillow aft. "T'ank ee, Nadgel," said Moses; "here--feel behind you an' you'll find grub for yourself an' some to pass forid to massa. Mind when you slip down for go to sleep dat you don't dig your heels into massa's skull. Dere's no bulkhead to purtect it." "I'll be careful," said Nigel, beginning his invisible supper with keen appetite. "But how about _my_ skull, Moses? Is there a bulkhead between it and _your_ heels?" "No, but you don't need to mind, for I allers sleeps doubled up, wid my knees agin my chin. It makes de arms an' legs feel more sociable like." With this remark Moses ceased to encourage conversation--his mouth being otherwise engaged. Thereafter they slipped down into their respective places, laid their heads on their pillows and fell instantly into sound repose, while the dark waters flowed sluggishly past, and the only sound that disturbed the universal stillness was the occasional cry of some creature of the night or the flap of an alligator's tail. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. A NEW FRIEND FOUND--NEW DANGERS ENCOUNTERED AND NEW HOPES DELAYED. When grey dawn began to dispel the gloom of night, Nigel Roy awoke with an uncomfortable sensation of having been buried alive. Stretching himself as was his wont he inadvertently touched the head of Van der Kemp, an exclamation from whom aroused Moses, who, uncoiling himself, awoke Spinkie. It was usually the privilege of that affectionate creature to nestle in the negro's bosom. With the alacrity peculiar to his race, Spinkie sprang through the manhole and sat down in his particular place to superintend, perhaps to admire, the work of his human friends, whose dishevelled heads emerged simultaneously from their respective burrows. Dawn is a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective. Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be done, it was needless. The silently conducted operations of the men appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and alternately into the faces of its comrades. To all appearance it seemed about to speak--but it didn't. Pushing out from the shore they paddled swiftly up stream, and soon put such a distance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of being overtaken was at an end. All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour, and again at mid-day to dine. Towards evening they observed that the country through which they were passing had changed much in character and aspect. The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation, conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the steep banks of the stream. On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene. Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a fire a man and a boy and a monkey. The monkey was a tame orang-utan, youthful but large. The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with the upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy ornaments in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his head. The man was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting garb, with a wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply tanned face, a snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue spectacles. Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in recognition. The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy. "He seems to know you," remarked Nigel, as they made for a landing-place. "Yes. He is the friend I have come to rescue," replied the hermit in a tone of quiet satisfaction. "He is a naturalist and lives with the Rajah against whom the pirates are plotting." "He don't look z'if he needs much rescuin'," remarked Moses with a chuckle, as they drew to land. The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of limb. "Ah! mein frond! mine brodder!" he exclaimed, in fairly idiomatic English, but with a broken pronunciation that was a mixture of Dutch, American, and Malay. His language therefore, like himself, was nondescript. In fact he was an American-born Dutchman, who had been transported early in life to the Straits Settlements, had received most of his education in Hong Kong, was an old school-fellow of Van der Kemp, became an enthusiastic naturalist, and, being possessed of independent means, spent most of his time in wandering about the various islands of the archipelago, making extensive collections of animal and vegetable specimens, which he distributed with liberal hand to whatever museums at home or abroad seemed most to need or desire them. Owing to his tastes and habits he had been dubbed Professor by his friends. "Ach! Van der Kemp," he exclaimed, while his coal-black eyes glittered as they shook hands, "_vat_ a bootterfly I saw to-day! It beat all creation! The vay it flew--oh! But, excuse me--v'ere did you come from, and vy do you come? An' who is your frond?" He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious bow. "An Englishman--Nigel Roy--who has joined me for a few months," said the hermit. "Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor Verkimier." Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist's a shake so hearty, that a true friendship was begun on the spot--a friendship which was rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies. "Ve vill hont an' shot togezzer, mine frond," he said, on making this discovery, "ant I vill show you v'ere de best bootterflies are to be fount--Oh! sooch a von as I saw to--but, excuse me, Van der Kemp. Vy you come here joost now?" "To save _you_," said the hermit, with a scintillation of his half-pitiful smile. "To safe _me_!" exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. "Vell, I don't feel to vant safing joost at present." "It is not that danger threatens _you_ so much as your friend the Rajah," returned the hermit. "But if he falls, all under his protection fall along with him. I happen to have heard of a conspiracy against him, on so large a scale that certain destruction would follow if he were taken by surprise, so I have come on in advance of the conspirators to warn him in time. You know I have received much kindness from the Rajah, so I could do no less than warn him of impending danger, and then the fact that you were with him made me doubly anxious to reach you in time." While the hermit was saying this, the naturalist removed his blue glasses, and slowly wiped them with a corner of his coat-tails. Replacing them, he gazed intently into the grave countenance of his friend till he had finished speaking. "Are zee raskils near?" he asked, sternly. "No. We have come on many days ahead of them. But we found a party at the river's mouth awaiting their arrival." "Ant zey cannot arrife, you say, for several veeks?" "Probably not--even though they had fair and steady winds." A sigh of satisfaction broke through the naturalist's moustache on hearing this. "Zen I vill--_ve_ vill, you and I, Mister Roy,--go after ze bootterflies to-morrow!" "But we must push on," remonstrated Van der Kemp, "for preparations to resist an attack cannot be commenced too soon." "_You_ may push on, mine frond; go ahead if you vill, but I vill not leave zee bootterflies. You know vell zat I vill die--if need be--for zee Rajah. Ve must all die vonce, at least, and I should like to die-- if I must die--in a goot cause. What cause better zan frondship? But you say joost now zere is no dancher. Vell, I vill go ant see zee bootterflies to-morrow. After zat, I will go ant die--if it must be-- with zee!" "I heartily applaud your sentiment," said Nigel, with a laugh, as he helped himself to some of the food which the Dyak youth and Moses had prepared, "and if Van der Kemp will give me leave of absence I will gladly keep you company." "Zank you. Pass round zee victuals. My appetite is strong. It always vas more or less strong. Vat say you, Van der Kemp?" "I have no objection. Moses and I can easily take the canoe up the river. There are no rapids, and it is not far to the Rajah's village; so you are welcome to go, Nigel." "Das de most 'straord'nary craze I eber know'd men inflicted wid!" said Moses that night, as he sat smoking his pipe beside the Dyak boy. "It passes my compr'ension what fun dey find runnin' like child'n arter butterflies, an' beetles, an' sitch like varmint. My massa am de wisest man on eart', yet _he_ go a little wild dat way too--sometimes!" Moses looked at the Dyak boy with a puzzled expression, but as the Dyak boy did not understand English, he looked intently at the fire, and said nothing. Next morning Nigel entered the forest under the guidance of Verkimier and the Dyak youth, and the orang-utan, which followed like a dog, and sometimes even took hold of its master's arm and walked with him as if it had been a very small human being. It was a new experience to Nigel to walk in the sombre shade beneath the tangled arches of the wilderness. In some respects it differed entirely from his expectations, and in others it surpassed them. The gloom was deeper than he had pictured it, but the shade was not displeasing in a land so close to the equator. Then the trees were much taller than he had been led to suppose, and the creeping plants more numerous, while, to his surprise, the wild-flowers were comparatively few and small. But the scarcity of these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant colouring of the foliage. The abundance and variety of the ferns also struck the youth particularly. "Ah! zey are magnificent!" exclaimed Verkimier with enthusiasm. "Look at zat tree-fern. You have not'ing like zat in England--eh! I have found nearly von hoondred specimens of ferns. Zen, look at zee fruit-trees. Ve have here, you see, zee Lansat, Mangosteen, Rambutan, Jack, Jambon, Blimbing ant many ozers--but zee queen of fruits is zee Durian. Have you tasted zee Durian?" "No, not yet." "Ha! a new sensation is before you! Stay, you vill eat von by ant by. Look, zat is a Durian tree before you." He pointed as he spoke to a large and lofty tree, which Mr A.R. Wallace, the celebrated naturalist and traveller, describes as resembling an elm in general character but with a more smooth and scaly bark. The fruit is round, or slightly oval, about the size of a man's head, of a green colour, and covered all over with short spines which are very strong and so sharp that it is difficult to lift the fruit from the ground. Only the experienced and expert can cut the tough outer rind. There are five faint lines extending from the base to the apex of the fruit, through which it may be divided with a heavy knife and a strong hand, so as to get to the delicious creamy pulp inside. There is something paradoxical in the descriptions of this fruit by various writers, but all agree that it is inexpressibly good! Says one--writing of the sixteenth century--"It is of such an excellent taste that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world." Another writes: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions! but immediately they have tasted it they prefer it to all other food." Wallace himself says of it: "When brought into the house, the smell is so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once became a confirmed Durian-eater!" This was exactly the experience of Nigel Roy that day, and the way in which the fruit came to him was also an experience, but of a very different sort. It happened just as they were looking about for a suitable spot on which to rest and eat their mid-day meal. Verkimier was in front with the orang-utan reaching up to his arm and hobbling affectionately by his side--for there was a strong mutual affection between them. The Dyak youth brought up the rear, with a sort of game-bag on his shoulders. Suddenly Nigel felt something graze his arm, and heard a heavy thud at his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height and missed him by a hairbreadth. "Zank Got, you have escaped!" exclaimed the professor, looking back with a solemn countenance. "I have indeed escaped what might have been a severe blow," said Nigel, stooping to examine the fruit, apparently forgetful that more might follow. "Come--come avay. My boy vill bring it. Men are sometimes killed by zis fruit. Here now ve vill dine." They sat down on a bank which was canopied by ferns. While the boy was arranging their meal, Verkimier drew a heavy hunting-knife from his belt and, applying it with an unusually strong hand to the Durian, laid it open. Nigel did not at all relish the smell, but he was not fastidious or apt to be prejudiced. He tasted--and, like Mr Wallace, "became a confirmed Durian-eater" from that day. "Ve draw near to zee region vere ve shall find zee bootterflies," said the naturalist, during a pause in their luncheon. "I hope we shall be successful," said Nigel, helping himself to some more of what may be styled Durian cream. "To judge from the weight and hardness of this fruit, I should think a blow on one's head from it would be fatal." "Sometimes, not always. I suppose zat Dyak skulls are strong. But zee wound is terrible, for zee spikes tear zee flesh dreadfully. Zee Dyak chief, Rajah, with whom I dwell joost now, was floored once by one, and he expected to die--but he did not. He is alife ant vell, as you shall see." As he spoke a large butterfly fluttered across the scene of their festivities. With all the energy of his enthusiastic spirit and strong muscular frame the naturalist leaped up, overturned his dinner, rushed after the coveted specimen, tripped over a root, and measured his length on the ground. "Zat comes of too much horry!" he remarked, as he picked up his glasses and returned, humbly, to continue his dinner. "Mine frond, learn a lesson from a foolish man!" "I shall learn two lessons," said Nigel, laughing--"first, to avoid your too eager haste, and, second, to copy, if I can, your admirable enthusiasm." "You are very goot. Some more cheekin' if you please. Zanks. Ve most make haste viz our meal ant go to vork." The grandeur and novelty of the scenery through which they passed when they did go to work was a source of constant delight and surprise to our hero, whose inherent tendency to take note of and admire the wonderful works of God was increased by the unflagging enthusiasm and interesting running commentary of his companion, whose flow of language and eager sympathy formed a striking contrast to the profound silence and gravity of the Dyak youth, as well as to the pathetic and affectionate selfishness of the man-monkey. It must not, however, be supposed that the young orang-utan was unworthy of his victuals, for, besides being an amusing and harmless companion, he had been trained to use his natural capacity for climbing trees in the service of his master. Thus he ascended the tall Durian trees, when ordered, and sent down some of the fruit in a few minutes--an operation which his human companions could not have accomplished without tedious delay and the construction of an ingenious ladder having slender bamboos for one of its sides, and the tree to be ascended for its other side, with splinters of bamboo driven into it by way of rounds. "Zat is zee pitcher-plant," said Verkimier, as Nigel stopped suddenly before a plant which he had often read of but never seen. He was told by his friend that pitcher-plants were very numerous in that region; that every mountain-top abounded with them; that they would be found trailing along the ground and climbing over shrubs and stunted trees, with their elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these, he said, were long and slender, others broad and short. The plant at which they were looking was a broad green one, variously tinted and mottled with red, and was large enough to hold two quarts of water. Resuming the march Nigel observed that the group of orchids was abundant, but a large proportion of the species had small inconspicuous flowers. Some, however, had large clusters of yellow flowers which had a very ornamental effect on the sombre forest. But, although the exceptions were striking, he found that in Borneo, as elsewhere, flowers were scarcer than he had expected in an equatorial forest. There were, however, more than enough of striking and surprising things to engage the attention of our hero, and arouse his interest. One tree they came to which rendered him for some moments absolutely speechless! to the intense delight of the professor, who marched his new-found sympathiser from one object of interest to another with the secret intention of surprising him, and when he had got him to the point of open-mouthed amazement he was wont to turn his spectacles full on his face, like the mouths of a blue binocular, in order to witness and enjoy his emotions! Nigel found this out at last and was rather embarrassed in consequence. "Zat," exclaimed the naturalist, after gazing at his friend for some time in silence, "zat is a tree vitch planted itself in mid-air and zen sent its roots down to zee ground and its branches up to zee sky!" "It looks as if it had," returned Nigel; "I have seen a tree of the same kind near the coast. How came it to grow in this way?" "I know not. It is zought zat zey spring from a seed dropped by a bird into zee fork of anozer tree. Zee seed grows, sends his roots down ant his branches up. Ven his roots reach zee ground he lays hold, ant, ven strong enough, kills his support--zus returning efil for good, like a zankless dependent. Ah! zere is much resemblance between plants and animals! Com', ve must feed here," said the professor, resting his gun against one of the roots, "I had expected to find zee bootterflies sooner. It cannot be helped. Let us make zis our banqueting-hall. Ve vill have a Durian to refresh us, ant here is a handy tree which seems to have ripe vones on it.--Go," he added, turning to the orang-utan, "and send down von or two." The creature looked helplessly incapable, pitifully unwilling, scratching its side the while. Evidently it was a lazy monkey. "Do you hear?" said Verkimier, sternly. The orang moved uneasily, but still declined to go. Turning sharply on it, the professor bent down, placed a hand on each of his knees and stared through the blue goggles into the animal's face. This was more than it could stand. With a very bad grace it hobbled off to the Durian tree, ascended it with a sort of lazy, lumbering facility, and hurled down some of the fruit without warning those below to look out. "My little frond is obstinate sometimes," remarked the naturalist, picking up the fruit, "but ven I bring my glasses to bear on him he always gives in, I never found zem fail. Come now; eat, an' ve vill go to vork again. Ve must certainly find zee bootterflies somevere before night." But Verkimier was wrong. It was his destiny not to find the butterflies that night, or in that region at all, for he and his companion had not quite finished their meal when a Dyak youth came running up to them saying that he had been sent by the Rajah to order their immediate return to the village. "Alas! ve most go. It is dancherous to disobey zee Rajah--ant I am sorry--very sorry--zat I cannot show you zee bootterflies to-day. No matter.--Go," (to the Dyak youth), "tell your chief ve vill come. Better lock zee next time!" CHAPTER FIFTEEN. HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY. Although Professor Verkimier had promised to return at once, he was compelled to encamp in the forest, being overtaken by night before he could reach the river and procure a boat. Next morning they started at daybreak. The country over which they passed had again changed its character and become more hilly. On the summits of many of the hills Dyak villages could be seen, and rice fields were met with as they went along. Several gullies and rivulets were crossed by means of native bamboo bridges, and the professor explained, as he went along, the immense value of the bamboo to the natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their houses, and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want broader planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out to a plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo serve as receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the path, and every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the bamboos by which it is supported. Honey-bees in Borneo hang their combs, to be out of danger no doubt, under the branches of the Tappan, which towers above all the other trees of the forest. But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder--which can be prolonged to any height on the smooth branchless stem of the Tappan--and storm the stronghold of the bees with much profit to themselves, for bees'-wax will purchase from the traders the brass wire, rings, gold-edged kerchiefs and various ornaments with which they decorate themselves. When travelling, the Dyaks use bamboos as cooking vessels in which to boil rice and other vegetables; as jars in which to preserve honey, sugar, etcetera, or salted fish and fruit. Split bamboos form aqueducts by which water is conveyed to the houses. A small neatly carved piece of bamboo serves as a case in which are carried the materials used in the disgusting practice of betel-nut chewing--which seems to be equivalent to the western tobacco-chewing. If a pipe is wanted the Dyak will in a wonderfully short space of time make a huge hubble-bubble out of bamboos of different sizes, and if his long-bladed knife requires a sheath the same gigantic grass supplies one almost ready-made. But the uses to which this reed may be applied are almost endless, and the great outstanding advantage of it is that it needs no other tools than an axe and a knife to work it. At about mid-day the river was reached, and they found a native boat, or prahu, which had been sent down to convey them to the Rajah's village. Here Nigel was received with the hospitality due to a friend of Van der Kemp, who, somehow--probably by unselfish readiness, as well as ability, to oblige--had contrived to make devoted friends in whatever part of the Malay Archipelago he travelled. Afterwards, in a conversation with Nigel, the professor, referring to those qualities of the hermit which endeared him to men everywhere, said, with a burst of enthusiasm, which almost outdid himself-- "You cannot oonderstant Van der Kemp. No man can oonderstant him. He is goot, right down to zee marrow--kind, amiable, oonselfish, obliging, nevair seems to zink of himself at all, ant, abof all zings, is capable. Vat he vill do, he can do--vat he can do he vill do. But he is sad-- very sad." "I have observed that, of course," said Nigel. "Do you know what makes him so sad?" The professor shook his head. "No, I do not know. Nobody knows. I have tried to find out, but he vill not speak." The Orang-Kaya, or rich man, as this hill chief was styled, had provided lodgings for his visitors in the "head-house." This was a large circular building erected on poles. There is such a house in nearly all Dyak villages. It serves as a trading-place, a strangers' room, a sleeping-room for unmarried youths, and a general council-chamber. Here Nigel found the hermit and Moses enjoying a good meal when he arrived, to which he and the professor sat down after paying their respects to the chief. "The Orang-Kaya hopes that we will stay with him some time and help to defend the village," said Van der Kemp, when they were all seated. "Of course you have agreed?" said Nigel. "Yes; I came for that purpose." "We's allers ready to fight in a good cause," remarked Moses, just before filling his mouth with rice. "Or to die in it!" added Verkimier, engulfing the breast of a chicken at a bite. "But as zee pirates are not expected for some days, ve may as vell go after zee mias--zat is what zee natifs call zee orang-utan. It is a better word, being short." Moses glanced at the professor out of the corners of his black eyes and seemed greatly tickled by his enthusiastic devotion to business. "I am also," continued the professor, "extremely anxious to go at zee bootterflies before--" "You die," suggested Nigel, venturing on a pleasantry, whereat Moses opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest at his plate. "Do you always sneeze like zat?" asked Verkimier. "Not allers," answered the negro simply, "sometimes I gibs way a good deal wuss. Depends on de inside ob my nose an' de state ob de wedder." What the professor would have replied we cannot say, for just then a Dyak youth rushed in to say that an unusually large and gorgeous butterfly had been seen just outside the village! No application of fire to gunpowder could have produced a more immediate effect. The professor's rice was scattered on the floor, and himself was outside the head-house before his comrades knew exactly what was the matter. "He's always like that," said the hermit, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. "Nothing discourages--nothing subdues him. Twice I pulled him out of deadly danger into which he had run in his eager pursuit of specimens. And he has returned the favour to me, for he rescued me once when a mias had got me down and would certainly have killed me, for my gun was empty at the moment, and I had dropped my knife." "Is, then, the orang-utan so powerful and savage?" "Truly, yes, when wounded and driven to bay," returned the hermit. "You must not judge of the creature by the baby that Verkimier has tamed. A full-grown male is quite as large as a man, though very small in the legs in proportion, so that it does not stand high. It is also very much stronger than the most powerful man. You would be quite helpless in its grip, I assure you." "I hope, with the professor," returned Nigel, "that we may have a hunt after them, either before or after the arrival of the pirates. I know he is very anxious to secure a good specimen for some museum in which he is interested--I forget which." As he spoke, the youth who had brought information about the butterfly returned and said a few words to Moses in his native tongue. "What does he say?" asked Niger. "Dat Massa Verkimier is in full chase, an' it's my opinion dat when he comes back he'll be wet all ober, and hab his shins and elbows barked." "Why d'you think so?" "'Cause dat's de way he hoed on when we was huntin' wid him last year. He nebber larns fro' 'sperience." "That's a very fine-looking young fellow," remarked Nigel, referring to the Dyak youth who had just returned, and who, with a number of other natives, was watching the visitors with profound interest while they ate. As the young man referred to was a good sample of the youth of his tribe, we shall describe him. Though not tall, he was well and strongly proportioned, and his skin was of a reddish-brown colour. Like all his comrades, he wore little clothing. A gay handkerchief with a gold lace border encircled his head, from beneath which flowed a heavy mass of straight, jet-black hair. Large crescent-shaped ornaments hung from his ears. His face was handsome and the expression pleasing, though the mouth was large and the lips rather thick. Numerous brass rings encircled his arms above and below the elbows. His only other piece of costume was a waist-cloth of blue cotton, which hung down before and behind. It ended in three bands of red, blue, and white. There were also rows of brass rings on his legs, and armlets of white shells. At his side he wore a long slender knife and a little pouch containing the materials for betel-chewing. "Yes, and he is as good as he looks," said the hermit. "His name is Gurulam, and all the people of his tribe have benefited by the presence in Borneo of that celebrated Englishman Sir James Brooke,--Rajah Brooke as he was called,--who did so much to civilise the Dyaks of Borneo and to ameliorate their condition." The prophecy of Moses about the professor was fulfilled. Just as it was growing dark that genial scientist returned, drenched to the skin and covered with mud, having tumbled into a ditch. His knuckles also were skinned, his knees and shins damaged, and his face scratched, but he was perfectly happy in consequence of having secured a really splendid specimen of a "bootterfly" as big as his hand; the scientific name of which, for very sufficient reasons, we will not attempt to inflict on our readers, and the description of which may be shortly stated by the single word--gorgeous! Being fond of Verkimier, and knowing his desire to obtain a full-grown orang-utan, Gurulam went off early next morning to search for one. Half-a-dozen of his comrades accompanied him armed only with native spears, for their object was not to hunt the animal, but to discover one if possible, and let the professor know so that he might go after it with his rifle, for they knew that he was a keen sportsman as well as a man of science. They did not, indeed, find what they sought for, but they were told by natives with whom they fell in that a number of the animals had been seen among the tree-tops not more than a day's march into the forest. They hurried home therefore with this information, and that day-- accompanied by the Dyak youths, Nigel, the hermit, and Moses--Verkimier started off in search of the mias; intending to camp out or to take advantage of a native hut if they should chance to be near one when night overtook them. Descending the hill region, they soon came to more level ground, where there was a good deal of swamp, through which they passed on Dyak roads. These roads consisted simply of tree-trunks laid end to end, along which the natives, being barefooted, walk with ease and certainty, but our booted hunters were obliged to proceed along them with extreme caution. The only one who came to misfortune was, as usual, the professor; and in the usual way! It occurred at the second of these tree-roads. "Look, look at that remarkable insect!" exclaimed Nigel, eagerly, in the innocence of his heart. The professor was in front of him; he obediently looked, saw the insect, made an eager step towards it, and next moment was flat on the swamp, while the woods rang with his companions laughter. The remarkable insect, whatever it was, vanished from the scene, and the professor was dragged, smiling though confused, out of the bog. These things affected him little. His soul was large and rose superior to such trifles. The virgin forest into which they penetrated was of vast extent; spreading over plain, mountain, and morass in every direction for hundreds of miles, for we must remind the reader that the island of Borneo is considerably larger than all the British islands put together, while its inhabitants are comparatively few. Verkimier had been absolutely revelling in this forest for several months--ranging its glades, penetrating its thickets, bathing, (inadvertently), in its quagmires, and maiming himself generally, with unwearied energy and unextinguishable enthusiasm; shooting, skinning, stuffing, preserving, and boiling the bones of all its inhabitants--except the human--to the great advantage of science and the immense interest and astonishment of the natives. Yet with all his energy and perseverance the professor had failed, up to that time, to obtain a large specimen of a male orang-utan, though he had succeeded in shooting several small specimens and females, besides catching the young one which he had tamed. It was therefore with much excitement that he learned from a party of bees'-wax hunters, on the second morning of their expedition, that a large male mias had been seen that very day. Towards the afternoon they found the spot that had been described to them, and a careful examination began. "You see," said Verkimier, in a low voice, to Nigel, as he went a step in advance peering up into the trees, with rifle at the "ready" and bending a little as if by that means he better avoided the chance of being seen. "You see, I came to Borneo for zee express purpose of obtaining zee great man-monkey and vatching his habits.--Hush! Do I not hear somet'ing?" "Nothing but your own voice, I think," said Nigel, with a twinkle in his eye. "Vell--hush! Keep kviet, all of you." As the whole party marched in single file after the professor, and were at the moment absolutely silent, this order induced the display of a good many teeth. Just then the man of science was seen to put his rifle quickly to the shoulder; the arches of the forest rang with a loud report; various horrified creatures were seen and heard to scamper away, and next moment a middle-sized orang-utan came crashing through the branches of a tall tree and fell dead with a heavy thud on the ground. The professor's rifle was a breech-loader. He therefore lost no time in re-charging, and hurried forward as if he saw other game, while the rest of the party--except Van der Kemp, Nigel, and Gurulam--fell behind to look at and pick up the fallen animal. "Look out!" whispered Nigel, pointing to a bit of brown hair that he saw among the leaves high overhead. "Vere? I cannot see him," whispered the naturalist, whose eyes blazed enough almost to melt his blue glasses. "Do _you_ fire, Mr Roy?" "My gun is charged only with small-shot, for birds. It is useless for such game," said Nigel. "Ach! I see!" Up went the rifle and again the echoes were startled and the animal kingdom astounded, especially that portion at which the professor had fired, for there was immediately a tremendous commotion among the leaves overhead, and another orang of the largest size was seen to cross an open space and disappear among the thick foliage. Evidently the creature had been hit, but not severely, for it travelled among the tree-tops at the rate of full five miles an hour, obliging the hunters to run at a rapid pace over the rough ground in order to keep up with it. In its passage from tree to tree the animal showed caution and foresight, selecting only those branches that interlaced with other boughs, so that it made uninterrupted progress, and also had a knack of always keeping masses of thick foliage underneath it so that for some time no opportunity was found of firing another shot. At last, however, it came to one of those Dyak roads of which we have made mention, so that it could not easily swing from one tree to another, and the stoppage of rustling among the leaves told that the creature had halted. For some time they gazed up among the branches without seeing anything, but at last, in a place where the leaves seemed to have been thrust aside near the top of one of the highest trees, a great red hairy body was seen, and a huge black face gazed fiercely down at the hunters. Verkimier fired instantly, the branches closed, and the monster moved off in another direction. In desperate anxiety Nigel fired both barrels of his shot-gun. He might as well have fired at the moon. Gurulam was armed only with a spear, and Van der Kemp, who was not much of a sportsman, carried a similar weapon. The rest of the party were still out of sight in rear looking after the dead mias. It was astonishing how little noise was made by so large an animal as it moved along. More than once the hunters had to halt and listen intently for the rustling of the leaves before they could make sure of being on the right track. At last they caught sight of him again on the top of a very high tree, and the professor got two more shots, but without bringing him down. Then he was seen, quite exposed for a moment, walking in a stooping posture along the large limb of a tree, but the hunter was loading at the time and lost the chance. Finally he got on to a tree whose top was covered with a dense mass of creepers which completely hid him from view. Then he halted and the sound of snapping branches was heard. "You've not much chance of him now," remarked the hermit, as they all stood in a group gazing up into the tree-top. "I have often seen the mias act thus when severely wounded. He is making a nest to lie down and die in." "Zen ve must shoot again," said the professor, moving round the tree and looking out for a sign of the animal. At last he seemed to have found what he wanted, for raising his rifle he took a steady aim and fired. A considerable commotion of leaves and fall of broken branches followed. Then the huge red body of the mias appeared falling through, but it was not dead, for it caught hold of branches as it fell and hung on as long as it could; then it came crashing down, and alighted on its face with an awful thud. After firing the last shot Verkimier had not reloaded, being too intent on watching the dying struggles of the creature, and when it fell with such violence he concluded that it was dead. For the same reason Nigel had neglected to reload after firing. Thus it happened that when the enormous brute suddenly rose and made for a tree with the evident intention of climbing it, no one was prepared to stop it except the Dyak youth Gurulam. He chanced to be standing between the mias and the tree. Boldly he levelled his spear and made a thrust that would probably have killed the beast, if it had not caught the point of the spear and turned it aside. Then with its left paw it caught the youth by the neck, seized his thigh with one of its hind paws, and fixed its teeth in his right shoulder. Never was man rendered more suddenly and completely helpless, and death would have been his sure portion before the hunters had reloaded if Van der Kemp had not leaped forward, and, thrusting his spear completely through the animal's body, killed it on the spot. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. BEGINS WITH A TERRIBLE FIGHT AND ENDS WITH A HASTY FLIGHT. The hunt, we need scarcely say, was abruptly terminated, and immediate preparations were made for conveying the wounded man and the two orangs to the Dyak village. This was quickly arranged, for the convenient bamboo afforded ready-made poles wherewith to form a litter on which to carry them. The huge creature which had given them so much trouble, and so nearly cost them one human life, was found to be indeed of the largest size. It was not tall but very broad and large. The exact measurements, taken by the professor, who never travelled without his tape-measure, were as follows:-- Height from heel to top of head, 4 feet 2 inches. Outstretched arms across chest, 7 feet 8 inches. Width of face, 1 foot 2 inches. Girth of arm, 1 foot 3 inches. Girth of wrist, 5 inches. The muscular power of such a creature is of course immense, as Nigel and the professor had a rare chance of seeing that very evening--of which, more presently. On careful examination by Nigel, who possessed some knowledge of surgery, it was found that none of Gurulam's bones had been broken, and that although severely lacerated about the shoulders and right thigh, no very serious injury had been done--thanks to the promptitude and vigour of the hermit's spear-thrust. The poor youth, however, was utterly helpless for the time being, and had to be carried home. That afternoon the party reached a village in a remote part of the forest where they resolved to halt for the night, as no other resting-place could be reached before dark. While a supper of rice and fowl was being cooked by Moses, Van der Kemp attended to the wounded man, and Nigel accompanied the professor along the banks of the stream on which the village stood. Having merely gone out for a stroll they carried no weapons except walking-sticks, intending to go only a short distance. Interesting talk, however, on the character and habits of various animals, made them forget time until the diminution of daylight warned them to turn. They were about to do so when they observed, seated in an open place near the stream, the largest orang they had yet seen. It was feeding on succulent shoots by the waterside: a fact which surprised the professor, for his inquiries and experience had hitherto taught him that orangs never eat such food except when starving. The fat and vigorous condition in which this animal was, forbade the idea of starvation. Besides, it had brought a Durian fruit to the banks of the stream and thrown it down, so that either taste or eccentricity must have induced it to prefer the shoots. Perhaps its digestion was out of order and it required a tonic. Anyhow, it continued to devour a good many young shoots while our travellers were peeping at it in mute surprise through the bushes. That they had approached so near without being observed was due to the fact that a brawling rapid flowed just there, and the mias was on the other side of the stream. By mutual consent the men crouched to watch its proceedings. They were not a little concerned, however, when the brute seized an overhanging bough, and, with what we may style sluggish agility, swung itself clumsily but lightly to their side of the stream. It picked up the Durian which lay there and began to devour it. Biting off some of the strong spikes with which that charming fruit is covered, it made a small hole in it, and then with its powerful fingers tore off the thick rind and began to enjoy a feast. Now, with monkeys, no less than with men, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, for the mias had just begun its meal, or, rather, its dessert, when a crocodile, which the professor had not observed and Nigel had mistaken for a log, suddenly opened its jaws and seized the big monkey's leg. The scene that ensued baffles description! Grasping the crocodile with its other three hands by nose, throat, and eyes, the mias almost performed the American operation of gouging--digging its powerful thumbs and fingers into every crevice and tearing open its assailant's jaws. The crocodile, taken apparently by surprise, went into dire convulsions, and making for deep water, plunged his foe therein over head and ears. Nothing daunted, the mias regained his footing, hauled his victim on to a mudbank, and, jumping on his back began to tear and pommel him. There was nothing of the prize-fighter in the mias. He never clenched his fist--never hit straight from the shoulder, but the buffeting and slapping which he gave resounded all over the place. At last he caught hold of a fold of his opponent's throat, which he began to tear open with fingers and teeth. Wrenching himself free with a supreme effort the crocodile shot into the stream and disappeared with a sounding splash of its tail, while the mias waded lamely to the shore with an expression of sulky indignation on its great black face. Slowly the creature betook itself to the shelter of the forest, and we need scarcely add that the excited observers of the combat made no attempt to hinder its retreat. It is said that the python is the only other creature that dares to attack the orang-utan, and that when it does so victory usually declares for the man-monkey, which bites and tears it to death. The people of the village in which the hunters rested that night were evidently not accustomed to white men--perhaps had never seen them before--for they crowded round them while at supper and gazed in silent wonder as if they were watching a group of white-faced baboons feeding! They were, however, very hospitable, and placed before their visitors an abundance of their best food without expecting anything in return. Brass rings were the great ornament in this village--as they are, indeed, among the Dyaks generally. Many of the women had their arms completely covered with them, as well as their legs from the ankle to the knee. Their petticoats were fastened to a coil of rattan, stained red, round their bodies. They also wore coils of brass wire, girdles of small silver coins, and sometimes broad belts of brass ring-armour. It was break of dawn next morning when our hunters started, bearing their wounded comrade and the dead orangs with them. Arrived at the village they found the people in great excitement preparing for defence, as news had been brought to the effect that the pirates had landed at the mouth of the river, joined the disaffected band which awaited them, and that an attack might be expected without delay, for they were under command of the celebrated Malay pirate Baderoon. Nigel observed that the countenance of his friend Van der Kemp underwent a peculiar change on hearing this man's name mentioned. There was a combination of anxiety, which was unnatural to him, and of resolution, which was one of his chief characteristics. "Is Baderoon the enemy whom you saw on the islet on our first night out?" asked Nigel, during a ramble with the hermit that evening. "Yes, and I fear to meet him," replied his friend in a low voice. Nigel was surprised. The impression made on his mind since their intercourse was that Van der Kemp was incapable of the sensation of fear. "Is he so very bitter against you?" asked Nigel. "Very," was the curt reply. "Have you reason to think he would take your life if he could?" "I am sure he would. As I told you before, I have thwarted his plans more than once. When he hears that it is I who have warned the Orang Kaya against him, he will pursue me to the death, and--and I _must not_ meet him." "Indeed!" exclaimed Nigel, with renewed surprise. But the hermit took no note of the exclamation. Anxiety had given place to a frown, and his eyes were fixed on the ground. It seemed to Nigel so evident that he did not wish to pursue the subject, that he slightly changed it. "I suppose," he said, "that there is no fear of the Dyaks of the village being unable to beat off the pirates now that they have been warned?" "None whatever. Indeed, this is so well-known to Baderoon that I think he will abandon the attempt. But he will not abandon his designs on me. However, we must wait and see how God will order events." Next morning spies returned to the village with the information that the pirates had taken their departure from the mouth of the river. "Do you think this is an attempt to deceive us?" asked the chief, turning to Van der Kemp, when he heard the news. "I think not. And even should it be so, and they should return, you are ready and well able to meet them." "Yes, ready--and _well_ able to meet them," replied the Orang-Kaya, drawing himself up proudly. "Did they _all_ go in one direction?" asked Van der Kemp of the youths who had brought the news. "Yes, all went in a body to the north--except one boat which rowed southward." "Hmm! I thought so. My friends, listen to me. This is no pretence. They do not mean to attack you now you are on your guard; but that boat which went south contains Baderoon, and I feel certain that he means to hang about here till he gets the chance of killing me." "That is well," returned the chief, calmly. "My young men will hunt till they find where he is. Then they will bring us the information and Van der Kemp will go out with a band and slay his enemy." "No, my friend," said the hermit, firmly; "that shall not be. I must get out of his way, and in order to do so will leave you at once, for there will be no further need for my services here." The chief looked at his friend in surprise. "Well," he said, "you have a good judgment, and understand your own affairs. But you have already rendered me good service, and I will help you to fly--though such is not the habit of the Dyaks! There is a trader's vessel to start for Sumatra by the first light of day. Will my friend go by that?" "I am grateful," answered the hermit, "but I need no help--save some provisions, for I have my little canoe, which will suffice." As this colloquy was conducted in the native tongue it was unintelligible to Nigel, but after the interview with the chief the hermit explained matters to him, and bade Moses get ready for a start several hours before dawn. "You see we must do the first part of our trip in the dark, for Baderoon has a keen eye and ear. Then we will land and sleep all day where the sharpest eye will fail to find us--and, luckily, pirates have been denied the power of scenting out their foes. When night comes we will start again and get out of sight of land before the next dawn." "Mine frond," said the professor, turning his moon-like goggles full on the hermit. "I vill go viz you." "I should be only too happy to have your company," returned the hermit, "but my canoe cannot by any contrivance be made to hold more than three." "Zat is no matter to me," rejoined Verkimier; "you forget zee trader's boat. I vill go in zat to Sumatra. Ve vill find out zee port he is going to, ant you vill meet me zere. Vait for me if I have not arrived--or I vill vait for you. I have longed to visit Sumatra, ant vat better fronds could I go viz zan yourselfs?" "But, my good friend," returned the hermit, "my movements may not exactly suit yours. Here they are,--you can judge for yourself. First I will, God permitting, cross over to Sumatra in my canoe." "But it is t'ree hoondert miles across, if not more!" "No matter--there are plenty of islands on the way. Besides, some passing vessel will give me a lift, no doubt. Then I will coast along to one of the eastern ports, where I know there is a steamboat loading up about this time. The captain is an old friend of mine. He brought me and my companions the greater part of the way here. If I find him I will ask him to carry my canoe on his return voyage through Sunda Straits, and leave it with another friend of mine at Telok Betong on the south coast of Sumatra--not far, as you know, from my home in Krakatoa. Then I will proceed overland to the same place, so that my friend Nigel Roy may see a little of the country." "Ant vat if you do _not_ find your frond zee captain of zee steamer?" "Why, then I shall have to adopt some other plan. It is the uncertainty of my movements that makes me think you should not depend on them." "Zat is not'ing to me, Van der Kemp; you joost go as you say. I vill follow ant take my chance. I am use' to ooncertainties ant difficoolties. Zey can not influence me." After a good deal of consideration this plan was agreed to. The professor spent part of the night in giving directions about the preserving of his specimens, which he meant to leave at the village in charge of a man whom he had trained to assist him, while Van der Kemp with his companions lay down to snatch a little sleep before setting out on their voyage, or, as the Dyak chief persisted in calling it, their flight! When Nigel had slept about five minutes--as he thought--he was awakened by Moses. "Don't make a noise, Massa Nadgel! Dere may be spies in de camp for all we knows, so we mus' git off like mice. Canoe's ready an' massa waitin'; we gib you to de last momint." In a few minutes our hero was sleepily following the negro through the woods to the spot where the canoe was in waiting. The night was very dark. This was in their favour,--at least as regarded discovery. "But how shall we ever see to make our way down stream?" asked Nigel of the hermit in a whisper on reaching the place of embarkation. "The current will guide us. Besides, I have studied the river with a view to this flight. Be careful in getting in. Now, Moses, are you ready?" "All right, massa." "Shove off, then." There was something so eerie in the subdued tones, and stealthy motions, and profound darkness, that Nigel could not help feeling as if they were proceeding to commit some black and criminal deed! Floating with the current, with as little noise as possible, and having many a narrow escape of running against points of land and sandbanks, they flew swiftly towards the sea, so that dawn found them among the mud flats and the mangrove swamps. Here they found a spot where mangrove roots and bushes formed an impenetrable screen, behind which they spent the day, chiefly in sleep, and in absolute security. When darkness set in they again put forth, and cautiously clearing the river's mouth, were soon far out on the open sea, which was fortunately calm at the time, the slight air that blew being in their favour. "We are safe from pursuit now," said Van der Kemp in a tone of satisfaction, as they paused for a breathing spell. "O massa!" exclaimed Moses at that moment, in a voice of consternation; "we's forgotten Spinkie!" "So we have!" returned the hermit in a voice of regret so profound that Nigel could scarce restrain a laugh in spite of his sympathy. But Spinkie had not forgotten himself. Observing probably, that these night expeditions were a change in his master's habits, he had kept an unusually watchful eye on the canoe, so that when it was put in the water, he had jumped on board unseen in the darkness, and had retired to the place where he usually slept under hatches when the canoe travelled at night. Awakened from refreshing sleep at the sound of his name, Spinkie emerged suddenly from the stern-manhole, right under the negro's nose, and with a sleepy "Oo, oo!" gazed up into his face. "Ho! Dare you is, you mis'rible hyperkrite!" exclaimed Moses, kissing the animal in the depth of his satisfaction. "He's here, massa, all right. Now, you go to bed agin, you small bundle ob hair." The creature retired obediently to its place, and laying its little cheek on one of its small hands, committed itself to repose. Van der Kemp was wrong when he said they were safe. A pirate scout had seen the canoe depart. Being alone and distant from the rendezvous of his commander, some time elapsed before the news could be conveyed to him. When Baderoon was at length informed and had sailed out to sea in pursuit, returning daylight showed him that his intended victim had escaped. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. TELLS OF THE JOYS, ETCETERA, OF THE PROFESSOR IN THE SUMATRAN FORESTS, ALSO OF A CATASTROPHE AVERTED. Fortunately the weather continued fine at first, and the light wind fair, so that the canoe skimmed swiftly over the wide sea that separates Borneo from Sumatra. Sometimes our travellers proceeded at night when the distance between islets compelled them to do so. At other times they landed on one of these isles when opportunity offered to rest and replenish the water-casks. We will not follow them step by step in this voyage, which occupied more than a week, and during which they encountered without damage several squalls in which a small open boat could not have lived. Reaching at last the great island of Sumatra--which, like its neighbour Borneo, is larger in extent than the British Islands--they coasted along southwards, without further delay than was absolutely necessary for rest and refreshment, until they reached a port where they found the steamer of which they were in search just about to start on its return voyage. Van der Kemp committed his little craft to the care of the captain, who, after vainly advising his friend to take a free passage with him to the Straits of Sunda, promised to leave the canoe in passing at Telok Betong. We may add that Spinkie was most unwillingly obliged to accompany the canoe. "Now, we must remain here till our friend Verkimier arrives," said the hermit, turning to Nigel after they had watched the steamer out of sight. "I suppose we must," said Nigel, who did not at all relish the delay--"of course we must," he added with decision. "I sees no `ob course' about it, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who never refrained from offering his opinion from motives of humility, or of respect for his employer. "My 'dvice is to go on an' let de purfesser foller." "But I promised to wait for him," said the hermit, with one of his kindly, half-humorous glances, "and you know I _never_ break my promises." "Das true, massa, but you di'n't promise to wait for him for eber an' eber!" "Not quite; but of course I meant that I would wait a reasonable time." The negro appeared to meditate for some moments on the extent of a "reasonable" time, for his huge eyes became huger as he gazed frowningly at the ground. Then he spoke. "A `reasonable' time, massa, is such an oncertain time--wariable, so to speak, accordin' to the mind that t'inks upon it! Hows'eber, if you's _promised_, ob coorse dat's an end ob it; for w'en a man promises, he's bound to stick to it." Such devotion to principle was appropriately rewarded the very next day by the arrival of the trading prahu in which the professor had embarked. "We did not expect you nearly so soon," said Nigel, as they heartily shook hands. "It vas because zee vind freshen soon after ve set sail--ant, zen, ve made a straight line for zis port, w'ereas you possibly crossed over, ant zen push down zee coast." "Exactly so, and that accounts for your overtaking us," said the hermit. "Is that the lad Baso I see down there with the crew of the prahu?" "It is. You must have some strainch power of attracting frondship, Van der Kemp, for zee poor yout' is so fond of you zat he began to entreat me to take him, ant he says he vill go on vit zee traders if you refuse to let him follow you." "Well, he may come. Indeed, we shall be the better for his services, for I had intended to hire a man here to help to carry our things. Much of our journeying, you see, must be done on foot." Baso, to his great joy, thus became one of the party. We pass over the next few days, which were spent in arranging and packing their provisions, etcetera, in such a way that each member of the party should carry on his shoulders a load proportioned to his strength. In this arrangement the professor, much against his will, was compelled to accept the lightest load in consideration of his liability to dart off in pursuit of creeping things and "bootterflies" at a moment's notice. The least damageable articles were also assigned to him in consideration of his tendency at all times to tumble into bogs and stumble over fallen trees, and lose himself, and otherwise get into difficulties. We also pass over part of the journey from the coast, and plunge with our travellers at once into the interior of Sumatra. One evening towards sunset they reached the brow of an eminence which, being rocky, was free from much wood, and permitted of a wide view of the surrounding country. It was covered densely with virgin forest, and they ascended the eminence in order that the hermit, who had been there before, might discover a forest road which led to a village some miles off, where they intended to put up for the night. Having ascertained his exact position, Van der Kemp led his followers down to this footpath, which led through the dense forest. The trees by which they were surrounded were varied and magnificent-- some of them rising clear up seventy and eighty feet without a branch, many of them had superb leafy crowns, under any one of which hundreds of men might have found shelter. Others had trunks and limbs warped and intertwined with a wild entanglement of huge creepers, which hung in festoons and loops as if doing their best to strangle their supports, themselves being also encumbered, or adorned, with ferns and orchids, and delicate twining epiphytes. A forest of smaller trees grew beneath this shade, and still lower down were thorny shrubs, rattan-palms, broad-leaved bushes, and a mass of tropical herbage which would have been absolutely impenetrable but for the native road or footpath along which they travelled. "A most suitable abode for tigers, I should think," remarked Nigel to the hermit, who walked in front of him--for they marched in single file. "Are there any in these parts?" "Ay, plenty. Indeed, it is because I don't like sleeping in their company that I am so anxious to reach a village." "Are zey dangerows?" asked the professor, who followed close on Nigel. "Well, they are not safe!" replied the hermit. "I had an adventure with one on this very road only two years ago." "Indeed! vat vas it?" asked the professor, whose appetite for anecdote was insatiable. "Do tell us about it." "With pleasure. It was on a pitch-dark night that it occurred. I had occasion to go to a neighbouring village at a considerable distance, and borrowed a horse from a friend--" "Anozer frond!" exclaimed the professor; "vy, Van der Kemp, zee country seems to be svarming vid your fronds." "I have travelled much in it and made many friends," returned the hermit. "The horse that I borrowed turned out to be a very poor one, and went lame soon after I set out. Business kept me longer than I expected, and it was getting dark before I started to return. Ere long the darkness became so intense that I could scarcely see beyond the horse's head, and could not distinguish the path. I therefore let the animal find his own way--knowing that he would be sure to do so, for he was going home. As we jogged along, I felt the horse tremble. Then he snorted and came to a dead stop, with his feet planted firmly on the ground. I was quite unarmed, but arms would have been useless in the circumstances. Suddenly, and fortunately, the horse reared, and next moment a huge dark object shot close past my face--so close that its fur brushed my cheek--as it went with a heavy thud into the jungle on the other side. I knew that it was a tiger and felt that my life, humanly speaking, was due to the rearing of the poor horse." "Are ve near to zee spote?" asked the professor, glancing from side to side in some anxiety. "Not far from it!" replied the hermit, "but there is not much fear of such an attack in broad daylight and with so large a party." "Ve are not a very large party," returned the professor. "I do not zink I would fear much to face a tiger vid my goot rifle, but I do not relish his choomping on me unavares. Push on, please." They pushed on and reached the village a little before nightfall. Hospitality is a characteristic of the natives of Sumatra. The travellers were received with open arms, so to speak, and escorted to the public building which corresponds in some measure to our western town-halls. It was a huge building composed largely of bamboo wooden-planks and wicker-work, with a high thatched roof, and it stood, like all the other houses, on posts formed of great tree-stems which rose eight or ten feet from the ground. "You have frunds here too, I zink," said Verkimier to the hermit, as they ascended the ladder leading to the door of the hall. "Well, yes--I believe I have two or three." There could be no doubt upon that point, unless the natives were consummate hypocrites, for they welcomed Van der Kemp and his party with effusive voice, look and gesture, and immediately spread before them part of a splendid supper which had just been prepared; for they had chanced to arrive on a festive occasion. "I do believe," said Nigel in some surprise, "that they are lighting up the place with petroleum lamps!" "Ay, and you will observe that they are lighting the lamps with Congreve matches--at least with matches of the same sort, supplied by the Dutch and Chinese. Many of their old customs have passed away, (among others that of procuring fire by friction), and now we have the appliances of western civilisation to replace them." "No doubt steam is zee cause of zee change," remarked the professor. "That," said Nigel, "has a good deal to do with most things--from the singing of a tea-kettle to the explosion of a volcano; though, doubtless, the commercial spirit which is now so strong among men is the proximate cause." "Surely dese people mus' be reech," said the professor, looking round him with interest. "They are rich enough--and well off in every respect, save that they don't know very well how to make use of their riches. As you see, much of their wealth is lavished on their women in the shape of ornaments, most of which are of solid gold and silver." There could be little doubt about that, for, besides the ornaments proper, such as the bracelets and rings with which the arms of the young women were covered, and earrings, etcetera,--all of solid gold and native-made--there were necklaces and collars composed of Spanish and American dollars and British half-crowns and other coins. In short, these Sumatran young girls carried much of the wealth of their parents on their persons, and were entitled to wear it until they should be relegated to the ranks of the married--the supposed-to-be unfrivolous, and the evidently unadorned! As this was a region full of birds, beasts, and insects of many kinds, it was resolved, for the professor's benefit, that a few days should be spent in it. Accordingly, the village chief set apart a newly-built house for the visitors' accommodation, and a youth named Grogo was appointed to wait on them and act as guide when they wished to traverse any part of the surrounding forest. The house was on the outskirts of the village, a matter of satisfaction to the professor, as it enabled him at once to plunge into his beloved work unobserved by the youngsters. It also afforded him a better opportunity of collecting moths, etcetera, by the simple method of opening his window at night. A mat or wicker-work screen divided the hut into two apartments, one of which was entirely given over to the naturalist and his _materiel_. "I vil begin at vonce," said the eager man, on taking possession. And he kept his word by placing his lamp on a table in a conspicuous position, so that it could be well seen from the outside. Then he threw his window wide open, as a general invitation to the insect world to enter! Moths, flying beetles, and other creatures were not slow to accept the invitation. They entered by twos, fours, sixes--at last by scores, insomuch that the room became uninhabitable except by the man himself, and his comrades soon retired to their own compartment, leaving him to carry on his work alone. "You enjoy this sort of thing?" said Nigel, as he was about to retire. "Enchoy it? yes--it is `paradise regained!'" He pinned a giant moth at the moment and gazed triumphant through his blue glasses. "`Paradise lost' to the moth, anyhow," said Nigel with a nod, as he bade him good-night, and carefully closed the wicker door to check the incursions of uncaptured specimens. Being rather tired with the day's journey, he lay down on a mat beside the hermit, who was already sound asleep. But our hero found that sleep was not easily attainable so close to an inexhaustible enthusiast, whose every step produced a rattling of the bamboo floor, and whose unwearied energy enabled him to hunt during the greater part of the night. At length slumber descended on Nigel's spirit, and he lay for some time in peaceful oblivion, when a rattling crash awoke him. Sitting up he listened, and came to the conclusion that the professor had upset some piece of furniture, for he could hear him distinctly moving about in a stealthy manner, as if on tip-toe, giving vent to a grumble of dissatisfaction every now and then. "What _can_ he be up to now, I wonder?" murmured the disturbed youth, sleepily. The hermit, who slept through all noises with infantine simplicity, made no answer, but a peculiar snort from the negro, who lay not far off on his other side, told that he was struggling with a laugh. "Hallo, Moses! are you awake?" asked Nigel, in a low voice. "Ho yes, Massa Nadgel. I's bin wakin' a good while, larfin' fit to bu'st my sides. De purfesser's been a-goin' on like a mad renoceros for more'n an hour. He's arter suthin', which he can't ketch. Listen! You hear 'im goin' round an' round on his tip-toes. Dere goes anoder chair. I only hope he won't smash de lamp an' set de house a-fire." "Vell, vell; I've missed him zee tence time. Nevair mind. Have at you vonce more, you aggravating leetle zing!" Thus the unsuccessful man relieved his feelings, in a growling tone, as he continued to move about on tip-toe, rattling the bamboo flooring in spite of his careful efforts to move quietly. "Why, Verkimier, what are you after?" cried Nigel at last, loud enough to be heard through the partition. "Ah--I am sorry to vake you," he replied, without, however, suspending his hunt. "I have tried my best to make no noice, but zee bamboo floor is--hah! I have 'im at last!" "What is it?" asked Nigel, becoming interested. "Von leetle bat. He come in vis a moss--" "A what?" "A moss--a big, beautiful moss." "Oh! a moth--well?" "Vell, I shut zee window, capture zee moss, ant zen I hunt zee bat with my bootterfly-net for an hour, but have only captured him zis moment. Ant he is--sooch a--sooch a splendid specimen of a _very_ rar' species, zee _Caelops frizii_--gootness! Zere goes zee lamp!" The crash that followed told too eloquently of the catastrophe, and broke the slumbers even of the hermit. The whole party sprang up, and entered the naturalist's room with a light, for the danger from fire was great. Fortunately the lamp had been extinguished in its fall, so that, beyond an overpowering smell of petroleum and the destruction of a good many specimens, no serious results ensued. After securing the _Caelops frithii_, removing the shattered glass, wiping up the oil, and putting chairs and tables on their legs, the professor was urged to go to bed,--advice which, in his excitement, he refused to take until it was suggested that, if he did not, he would be totally unfit for exploring the forest next day. "Vy, it is next day already!" he exclaimed, consulting his watch. "Just so. Now _do_ turn in." "I vill." And he did. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. A TRYING ORDEAL--DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON. When the early birds are singing, and the early mists are scattering, and the early sun is rising to gladden, as with the smile of God, all things with life in earth and sea and sky--then it is that early-rising man goes forth to reap the blessings which his lazy fellow-man fails to appreciate or enjoy. Among the early risers that morning was our friend Moses. Gifted with an inquiring mind, the negro had proceeded to gratify his propensities by making inquiries of a general nature, and thus had acquired, among other things, the particular information that the river on the banks of which the village stood was full of fish. Now, Moses was an ardent angler. "I lub fishing," he said one day to Nigel when in a confidential mood; "I can't tell you how much I lub it. Seems to me dat der's nuffin' like it for proggin' a man!" When Nigel demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a compound meaning--it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour ob ticklin' about it," and was rather pleasant. "You see," he continued, "when a leetle fish plays wid your hook, it progs your intellec' an' tickles up your fancy a leetle. When he grabs you, dat progs your hopes a good deal. When a big fish do de same, dat progs you deeper. An' when a real walloper almost pulls you into de ribber, dat progs your heart up into your t'roat, where it stick till you land him." With surroundings and capacities such as we have attempted to describe, it is no wonder that Moses sat down on the river-bank and enjoyed himself, in company with a little Malay boy, who lent him his bamboo rod and volunteered to show him the pools. But there were no particular pools in that river. It was a succession of pools, and fish swarmed in all of them. There were at least fifteen different species which nothing short of an ichthyologist could enumerate correctly. The line used by Moses was a single fibre of bark almost as strong as gut; the hook was a white tinned weapon like a small anchor, supplied by traders, and meant originally for service in the deep sea. The bait was nothing in particular, but, as the fish were not particular, that was of no consequence. The reader will not be surprised, then, when we state that in an hour or so Moses had had his heart progged considerably and had filled a large bag with superb fish, with which he returned, perspiring, beaming, and triumphant to breakfast. After breakfast the whole party went forth for what Verkimier styled "zee business of zee day," armed with guns, spears, botanical boxes, bags, wallets, and butterfly-nets. In the immediate neighbourhood of the village large clearings in the forest were planted as coffee gardens, each separated from the other for the purpose of isolation, for it seems that coffee, like the potato, is subject to disease. Being covered with scarlet flowers these gardens had a fine effect on the landscape when seen from the heights behind the village. Passing through the coffee grounds the party was soon in the tangled thickets of underwood through which many narrow paths had been cut. We do not intend to drag our readers through bog and brake during the whole of this day's expedition; suffice it to say that the collection of specimens made, of all kinds, far surpassed the professor's most sanguine expectations, and, as for the others, those who could more or less intelligently sympathise did so, while those who could not were content with the reflected joy of the man of science. At luncheon--which they partook of on the river-bank, under a magnificently umbrageous tree--plans for the afternoon were fixed. "We have kept together long enough, I think," said Van der Kemp. "Those of us who have guns must shoot something to contribute to the national feast on our return." "Vell, let us divide," assented the amiable naturalist. Indeed he was so happy that he would have assented to anything--except giving up the hunt. "Von party can go von vay, anoder can go anoder vay. I vill continue mine business. Zee place is more of a paradise zan zee last. Ve must remain two or tree veeks." The hermit glanced at Nigel. "I fear it is impossible for me to do so," said the latter. "I am pledged to return to Batavia within a specified time, and from the nature of the country I perceive it will take all the time at my disposal to reach that place so as to redeem my pledge." "Ha! Zat is a peety. Vell, nevair mind. Let us enchoy to-day. Com', ve must not vaste more of it in zee mere gratification of our animal natures." Acting on this broad hint they all rose and scattered in different groups--the professor going off ahead of his party in his eager haste, armed only with a butterfly-net. Now, as the party of natives,--including Baso, who carried the professor's biggest box, and Grogo, who bore his gun,--did not overtake their leader, they concluded that he must have joined one of the other parties, and, as it was impossible to ascertain which of them, they calmly went hunting on their own account! Thus it came to pass that the man of science was soon lost in the depths of that primeval forest! But little cared the enthusiast for that--or, rather, little did he realise it. With perspiration streaming from every pore--except where the pores were stopped by mud--he dashed after "bootterflies" with the wisdom of Solomon and the eagerness of a school-boy, and not until the shades of evening began to descend did his true position flash upon him. Then, with all the vigour of a powerful intellect and an enlightened mind, he took it in at a glance--and came to a sudden halt. "Vat _shall_ I do?" he asked. Not even an echo answered, and the animal kingdom was indifferent. "Lat me see. I have been vandering avay all dis time. Now, I have not'ing to do but right-about-face and vander back." Could reasoning be clearer or more conclusive? He acted on it at once, but, after wandering back a long time, he did not arrive at any place or object that he had recognised on the outward journey. Meanwhile, as had been appointed, the rest of the party met a short time before dark at the rendezvous where they had lunched. "Where is the professor, Baso?" asked Van der Kemp as he came up. Baso did not know, and looked at Grogo, who also professed ignorance, but both said they thought the professor had gone with Nigel. "I thought he was with _you_," said the latter, looking anxiously at the hermit. "He's hoed an' lost his-self!" cried Moses with a look of concern. Van der Kemp was a man of action. "Not a moment to lose," he said, and organised the band into several smaller parties, each led by a native familiar with the jungle. "Let this be our meeting-place," he said, as they were on the point of starting off together; "and let those of us who have fire-arms discharge them occasionally." Meanwhile, the professor was walking at full speed in what he supposed to be--and in truth was--"back." He was not alone, however. In the jungle close beside him a tiger prowled along with the stealthy, lithe, sneaking activity of a cat. By that time it was not absolutely dark, but the forest had assumed a very sombre appearance. Suddenly the tiger made a tremendous bound on to the track right in front of the man. Whether it had miscalculated the position of its intended victim or not we cannot say, but it crouched for another spring. The professor, almost instinctively, crouched also, and, being a brave man, stared the animal straight in the face without winking! and so the two crouched there, absolutely motionless and with a fixed glare, such as we have often seen in a couple of tom-cats who were mutually afraid to attack each other. What the tiger thought at that critical and crucial moment we cannot tell, but the professor's thoughts were swift, varied, tremendous-- almost sublime, and once or twice even ridiculous! "Vat shall I do? Deaf stares me in zee face! No veapons! only a net, ant he is _not_ a bootterfly! Science, adieu! Home of my chilthood, farevell! My moder--Hah! zee fusees!" Such were a few of the thoughts that burned but found no utterance. The last thought however led to action. Verkimier, foolish man! was a smoker. He carried fusees. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the blue binoculars! The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail--undoubtedly though not evidently--between its legs! Heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, the professor stood up and wiped his forehead. Then he listened intently. "A shote, if mine ears deceive me not!" he said, and listened again. He was right. Another shot, much nearer, was heard, and he replied with a shout to which joy as much as strength of lung gave fervour. Hurrying along the track--not without occasional side-glances at the jungle--the hero was soon again in the midst of his friends; and it was not until his eyes refused to remain open any longer that he ceased to entertain an admiring circle that night with the details of his face-to-face meeting with a tiger. But Verkimier's anticipations in regard to that paradise were not to be realised. The evil passions of a wicked man, with whom he had personally nothing whatever to do, interfered with his plans. In the middle of the night a native Malay youth named Babu arrived at the village and demanded an interview with the chief. That worthy, after the interview, conducted the youth to the hut where his visitors lived, and, rousing Van der Kemp without disturbing the others, bade him listen to what the young man had to say. An expression of great anxiety overspread the hermit's usually placid countenance while Babu was speaking. "It is fate!" he murmured, as if communing with himself--then, after a pause--"no, there is no such thing as fate. It is, it must be, the will of God. Go, young man, mention this to no one. I thank you for the kindness which made you take so long a journey for my sake." "It is not kindness, it is love that makes me serve you," returned the lad earnestly. "Every one loves you, Van der Kemp, because that curse of mankind, _revenge_, has no place in your breast." "Strange! how little man does know or guess the secret thoughts of his fellow!" said the hermit with one of his pitiful smiles. "_Revenge_ no place in me!--but I thank you, boy, for the kind thought as well as the effort to save me. My life is not worth much to any one. It will not matter, I think, if my enemy should succeed. Go now, Babu, and God be with you!" "He will surely succeed if you do not leave this place at once," rejoined the youth, in a tone of decision. "Baderoon is furious at all times. He is worse than ever just now, because you have thwarted his plans--so it is said--very often. If he knew that _I_ am now thwarting them also, he would hunt me to death. I will not leave you till you are safe beyond his reach." The hermit looked at the lad with kindly surprise. "How comes it," he said, "that you are so much interested in me? I remember seeing you two years ago, but have no recollection of having done you any service." "Do you not remember that my mother was ill when you spent a night in our hut, and my little sister was dying? You nursed her, and tried your best to save her, and when you could not save her, and she died, you wept as if the child had been your own. I do not forget that, Van der Kemp. Sympathy is of more value than service." "Strangely mistaken again!" murmured the hermit. "Who can know the workings of the human mind! Self was mixed with my feelings-- profoundly--yet my sympathy with you and your mother was sincere." "We never doubted that," returned Babu with a touch of surprise in his tone. "Well now, what do you propose to do, as you refuse to leave me?" asked the hermit with some curiosity. "I will go on with you to the next village. It is a large one. The chief man there is my uncle, who will aid me, I know, in any way I wish. I will tell him what I know and have heard of the pirate's intention, of which I have proof. He will order Baderoon to be arrested on suspicion when he arrives. Then we will detain him till you are beyond his reach. That is not unjust." "True--and I am glad to know by your last words that you are sensitive about the justice of what you propose to do. Indifference to pure and simple justice is the great curse of mankind. It is not indeed the root, but it is the fruit of our sins. The suspicion that detains Baderoon is more than justified, for I could bring many witnesses to prove that he has vowed to take my life, and I _know_ him to be a murderer." At breakfast-time Van der Kemp announced to his friends his intention of quitting the village at once, and gave an account of his interview with the Malay lad during the night. This, of course, reconciled them to immediate departure,--though, in truth, the professor was the only one who required to be reconciled. "It is _very_ misfortunate," he remarked with a sigh, which had difficulty in escaping through a huge mass of fish and rice. "You see zee vonderful variety of ornizological specimens I could find here, ant zee herbareum, not to mention zee magnificent _Amblypodia eumolpus_ ant ozer bootterflies--ach!--a leetle mor' feesh if you please. Zanks. My frond, it is a great sacrifice, but I vill go avay viz you, for I could not joostify myself if I forzook you, ant I cannot ask you to remain vile your life is in dancher." "I appreciate your sentiments and sacrifice thoroughly," said the hermit. "So does I," said Moses, helping himself to coffee; "but ob course if I didn't it would be all de same. Pass de venison, Massa Nadgel, an' don't look as if you was goin' to gib in a'ready. It spoils my appetite." "You will have opportunities," continued Van der Kemp, addressing the professor, "to gather a good many specimens as we go along. Besides, if you will consent to honour my cave in Krakatoa with a visit, I promise you a hearty welcome and an interesting field of research. You have no idea what a variety of species in all the branches of natural history my little island contains." Hereupon the hermit proceeded to enter into details of the flora, fauna, and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the professor became quite reconciled to immediate departure. "But how," he asked, "am I to get zere ven ve reach zee sea-coast? for your canoe holds only t'ree, as you have told me." "There are plenty of boats to be had. Besides, I can send over my own boat for you to the mainland. The distance is not great." "Goot. Zat vill do. I am happay now." "So," remarked Nigel as he went off with Moses to pack up, "his `paradise regained' is rather speedily to be changed into paradise forsaken! `Off wi' the old love and on wi' the new.' `The expulsive power of a new affection!'" "Das true, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who entertained profound admiration for anything that sounded like proverbial philosophy. "De purfesser am an affectionit creeter. 'Pears to me dat he lubs de whole creation. He kills an' tenderly stuffs 'most eberyt'ing he kin lay hands on. If he could only lay hold ob Baderoon an' stuff an' stick him in a moozeum, he'd do good service to my massa an' also to de whole ob mankind." CHAPTER NINETEEN. A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION. After letting the chief of the village know that the news just received rendered it necessary that they should proceed at once to the next town--but carefully refraining from going into particulars lest Baderoon should by any means be led to suspect their intentions--the party started off about daybreak under the guidance of the Malay youth Babu. Anxious as he was that no evil should befall his friend, Nigel could not help wondering that a man of such a calm spirit, and such unquestionable courage, should be so anxious to escape from this pirate. "I can't understand it at all," he said to Moses, as they walked through the forest together a little in rear of the party. "No more kin I, Massa Nadgel," answered the negro, with one of those shakes of the head and glares of solemn perplexity with which he was wont to regard matters that were too deep for him. "Surely Van der Kemp is well able to take care of himself against any single foe." "Das true, Massa Nadgel,--'gainst any half-dozen foes as well." "Fear, therefore, cannot be the cause." The negro received this with a quiet chuckle. "No," said he. "Massa nebber knowed fear, but ob dis you may be bery sure, massa's _allers_ got good reasons for what he does. One t'ing's sartin, I neber saw him do nuffin' for fear, nor revenge, nor anger, no, nor yet for fun; allers for lub--and," added Moses, after a moment's thought, "sometimes for money, when we goes on a tradin' 'spidition--but he don't make much account ob dat." "Well, perhaps the mystery may be cleared up in time," said Nigel, as they closed up with the rest of the party, who had halted for a short rest and some refreshment. This last consisted largely of fruit, which was abundant everywhere, and a little rice with water from sparkling springs to wash it down. In the afternoon they reached the town--a large one, with a sort of market-place in the centre, which at the time of their arrival was crowded with people. Strangers, especially Europeans, were not often seen in that region, so that Van der Kemp and his friends at once attracted a considerable number of followers. Among these was one man who followed them about very unobtrusively, usually hanging well in rear of the knot of followers whose curiosity was stronger than their sense of propriety. This man wore a broad sun-hat and had a bandage round his head pulled well over one eye, as if he had recently met with an accident or been wounded. He was unarmed, with the exception of the kriss, or long knife, which every man in that region carries. This was no other than Baderoon himself, who had outwitted his enemies, had somehow discovered at least part of their plans, and had hurried on in advance of them to the town, where, disguising himself as described, he awaited their arrival. Babu conducted his friends to the presence of his kinsman the chief man of the town, and, having told his story, received a promise that the pirate should be taken up when he arrived and put in prison. Meanwhile he appointed to the party a house in which to spend the night. Baderoon boldly accompanied the crowd that followed them, saw the house, glanced between the heads of curious natives who watched the travellers while eating their supper, and noted the exact spot on the floor of the building where Van der Kemp threw down his mat and blanket, thus taking possession of his intended couch! He did not, however, see that the hermit afterwards shifted his position a little, and that Babu, desiring to be near his friend, lay down on the vacated spot. In the darkest hour of the night, when even the owls and bats had sought repose, the pirate captain stole out of the brake in which he had concealed himself, and, kriss in hand, glided under the house in which his enemy lay. Native houses, as we have elsewhere explained, are usually built on posts, so that there is an open space under the floors, which is available as a store or lumber-room. It is also unfortunately available for evil purposes. The bamboo flooring is not laid so closely but that sounds inside may be heard distinctly by any one listening below. Voices were heard by the pirate as he approached, which arrested his steps. They were those of Van der Kemp and Nigel engaged in conversation. Baderoon knew that as long as his enemy was awake and conversing he might probably be sitting up and not in a position suitable to his fell purpose. He crouched therefore among some lumber like a tiger abiding its time. "Why are you so anxious not to meet this man?" asked Nigel, who was resolved, if possible without giving offence, to be at the bottom of the mystery. For some moments the hermit was silent, then in a constrained voice he said slowly--"Because revenge burns fiercely in my breast. I have striven to crush it, but cannot. I fear to meet him lest I kill him." "Has he, then, done you such foul wrong?" "Ay, he has cruelly--fiendishly--done the worst he could. He robbed me of my only child--but I may not talk of it. The unholy desire for vengeance burns more fiercely when I talk. `Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' My constant prayer is that I may not meet him. Good-night." As the hermit thus put an abrupt end to the conversation he lay down and drew his blanket over him. Nigel followed his example, wondering at what he had heard, and in a few minutes their steady regular breathing told that they were both asleep. Then Baderoon advanced and counted the bamboo planks from the side towards the centre of the house. When looking between the heads of the people he had counted the same planks above. Standing under one he looked up, listened intently for a few seconds, and drew his kriss. The place was almost pitch-dark, yet the blade caught a faint gleam from without, which it reflected on the pirate's face as he thrust the long keen weapon swiftly, yet deliberately, between the bamboos. A shriek, that filled those who heard it with a thrill of horror, rang out on the silent night. At the same moment a gush of warm blood poured over the murderer's face before he could leap aside. Instant uproar and confusion burst out in the neighbourhood, and spread like wildfire until the whole town was aroused. When a light was procured and the people crowded into the hut where the strangers lay, Van der Kemp was found on his knees holding the hand of poor Babu, who was at his last gasp. A faint smile, that yet seemed to have something of gladness in it, flitted across his pale face as he raised himself, grasped the hermit's hand and pressed it to his lips. Then the fearful drain of blood took effect and he fell back--dead. One great convulsive sob burst from the hermit as he leaped up, drew his knife, and, with a fierce glare in his blue eyes, rushed out of the room. Vengeance would indeed have been wreaked on Baderoon at that moment if the hermit had caught him, but, as might have been expected, the murderer was nowhere to be found. He was hid in the impenetrable jungle, which it was useless to enter in the darkness of night. When daybreak enabled the towns-people to undertake an organised search, no trace of him could be discovered. Flight, personal safety, formed no part of the pirate's plan. The guilty man had reached that state of depravity which, especially among the natives of that region, borders close on insanity. While the inhabitants of the village were hunting far a-field for him, Baderoon lay concealed among some lumber in rear of a hut awaiting his opportunity. It was not very long of coming. Towards afternoon the various searching parties began to return, and all assembled in the market-place, where the chief man, with the hermit and his party, were assembled discussing the situation. "I will not now proceed until we have buried poor Babu," said Van der Kemp. "Besides, Baderoon will be sure to return. I will meet him now." "I do not agree viz you, mine frond," said the professor. "Zee man is not a fool zough he is a villain. He knows vat avaits him if he comes." "He will not come openly," returned the hermit, "but he will not now rest till he has killed me." Even as he spoke a loud shouting, mingled with shrieks and yells, was heard at the other end of the main street. The sounds of uproar appeared to approach, and soon a crowd of people was seen rushing towards the market-place, uttering cries of fear in which the word "amok" was heard. At the sound of that word numbers of people-- specially women and children--turned and fled from the scene, but many of the men stood their ground, and all of them drew their krisses. Among the latter of course were the white men and their native companions. We have already referred to that strange madness, to which the Malays seem to be peculiarly liable, during the paroxysms of which those affected by it rush in blind fury among their fellows, slaying right and left. From the terrified appearance of some of the approaching crowd and the maniac shouts in rear, it was evident that a man thus possessed of the spirit of amok was venting his fury on them. Another minute and he drew near, brandishing a kriss that dripped with the gore of those whom he had already stabbed. Catching sight of the white men he made straight for them. He was possessed of only one eye, but that one seemed to concentrate and flash forth the fire of a dozen eyes, while his dishevelled hair and blood-stained face and person gave him an appalling aspect. "It is Baderoon!" said Van der Kemp in a subdued but stern tone. Nigel, who stood next to him, glanced at the hermit. His face was deadly pale; his eyes gleamed with a strange almost unearthly light, and his lips were firmly compressed. With a sudden nervous motion, unlike his usually calm demeanour, he drew his long knife, and to Nigel's surprise cast it away from him. At that moment a woman who came in the madman's way was stabbed by him to the heart and rent the air with her dying shriek as she fell. No one could have saved her, the act was so quickly done. Van der Kemp would have leaped to her rescue, but it was too late; besides, there was no need to do so now, for the maniac, recognising his enemy, rushed at him with a shout that sounded like a triumphant yell. Seeing this, and that his friend stood unarmed, as well as unmoved, regarding Baderoon with a fixed gaze, Nigel stepped a pace in advance to protect him, but Van der Kemp seized his arm and thrust him violently aside. Next moment the pirate was upon him with uplifted knife, but the hermit caught his wrist, and with a heave worthy of Samson hurled him to the ground, where he lay for a moment quite stunned. Before he could recover, the natives, who had up to this moment held back, sprang upon the fallen man with revengeful yells, and a dozen knives were about to be buried in his breast when the hermit sprang forward to protect his enemy from their fury. But the man whose wife had been the last victim came up at the moment and led an irresistible rush which bore back the hermit as well as his comrades, who had crowded round him, and in another minute the maniac was almost hacked to pieces. "I did not kill him--thank God!" muttered Van der Kemp as he left the market-place, where the relatives of those who had been murdered were wailing over their dead. After this event even the professor was anxious to leave the place, so that early next morning the party resumed their journey, intending to make a short stay at the next village. Failing to reach it that night, however, they were compelled to encamp in the woods. Fortunately they came upon a hill which, although not very high, was sufficiently so, with the aid of watch-fires, to protect them from tigers. From the summit, which rose just above the tree-tops, they had a magnificent view of the forest. Many of the trees were crowned with flowers among which the setting sun shone for a brief space with glorious effulgence. Van der Kemp and Nigel stood together apart from the others, contemplating the wonderful scene. "What must be the dwelling-place of the Creator Himself when his footstool is so grand?" said the hermit in a low voice. "That is beyond mortal ken," said Nigel. "True--true. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived it. Yet, methinks, the glory of the terrestrial was meant to raise our souls to the contemplation of the celestial." "And yet how signally it has failed in the case of Baderoon," returned Nigel, with a furtive glance at the hermit, whose countenance had quite recovered its look of quiet simple dignity. "Would it be presumptuous if I were to ask why it is that this pirate had such bitter enmity against you?" "It is no secret," answered the hermit, in a sad tone. "The truth is, I had discovered some of his nefarious plans, and more than once have been the means of preventing his intended deeds of violence--as in the case of the Dyaks whom we have so lately visited. Besides, the man had done me irreparable injury, and it is one of the curious facts of human experience that sometimes those who injure us hate us because they have done so." "May I venture to ask for a fuller account of the injury he did you?" said Nigel with some hesitancy. For some moments the hermit did not answer. He was evidently struggling with some suppressed feeling. Turning a look full upon his young friend, he at length spoke in a low sad voice--"I have never mentioned my grief to mortal man since that day when it pleased God to draw a cloud of thickest darkness over my life. But, Nigel, there is that in you which encourages confidence. I confess that more than once I have been tempted to tell you of my grief--for human hearts crave intelligent sympathy. My faithful servant and friend Moses is, no doubt, intensely sympathetic, but--but--well, I cannot understand, still less can I explain, why I shrink from making a confidant of him. Certainly it is not because of his colour, for I hold that the _souls_ of men are colourless!" "I need not trouble you with the story of my early life," continued the hermit. "I lost my dear wife a year after our marriage, and was left with a little girl whose lovely face became more and more like that of her mother every day she lived. My soul was wrapped up in the child. After three years I went with her as a passenger to Batavia. On the way we were attacked by a couple of pirate junks. Baderoon was the pirate captain. He killed many of our men, took some of us prisoners, sank the vessel, seized my child, and was about to separate us, putting my child into one junk while I was retained, bound, in the other." He paused, and gazed over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon, with a longing, wistful look. At the same time something like an electric shock passed through Nigel's frame, for was not this narrative strangely similar in its main features to that which his own father had told him on the Keeling Islands about beautiful little Kathleen Holbein and her father? He was on the point of seizing the hermit by the hand and telling him what he knew, when the thought occurred that attacks by pirates were common enough in those seas, that other fathers might have lost daughters in this way, and that, perhaps, his suspicion might be wrong. It would be a terrible thing, he thought, to raise hope in his poor friend's breast unless he were pretty sure of the hope being well founded. He would wait and hear more. He had just come to this conclusion, and managed to subdue the feelings which had been aroused, when Van der Kemp turned to him again, and continued his narrative--"I know not how it was, unless the Lord gave me strength for a purpose as he gave it to Samson of old, but when I recovered from the stinging blow I had received, and saw the junk hoist her sails and heard my child scream, I felt the strength of a lion come over me; I burst the bonds that held me and leaped into the sea, intending to swim to her. But it was otherwise ordained. A breeze which had sprung up freshened, and the junk soon left me far behind. As for the other junk, I never saw it again, for I never looked back or thought of it--only, as I left it, I heard a mocking laugh from the one-eyed villain, who, I afterwards found out, owned and commanded both junks." Nigel had no doubt now, but the agitation of his feelings still kept him silent. "Need I say," continued the hermit, "that revenge burned fiercely in my breast from that day forward? If I had met the man soon after that, I should certainly have slain him. But God mercifully forbade it. Since then He has opened my eyes to see the Crucified One who prayed for His enemies. And up till now I have prayed most earnestly that Baderoon and I might _not_ meet. My prayer has not been answered in the way I wished, but a _better_ answer has been granted, for the sin of revenge was overcome within me before we met." Van der Kemp paused again. "Go on," said Nigel, eagerly. "How did you escape?" "Escape! Where was I--Oh! I remember," said the hermit, awaking as if out of a dream; "Well, I swam after the junk until it was out of sight, and then I swam on in silent despair until so completely exhausted that I felt consciousness leaving me. Then I knew that the end must be near and I felt almost glad; but when I began to sink, the natural desire to prolong life revived, and I struggled on. Just as my strength began a second time to fail, I struck against something. It was a dead cocoa-nut tree. I laid hold of it and clung to it all that night. Next morning I was picked up by some fishermen who were going to Telok Betong by the outer passage round Sebesi Island, and were willing to land me there. But as my business connections had been chiefly with the town of Anjer, I begged of them to land me on the island of Krakatoa. This they did, and it has been my home ever since. I have been there many years." "Have you never seen or heard of your daughter since?" asked Nigel eagerly, and with deep sympathy. "Never--I have travelled far and near, all over the archipelago; into the interior of the islands, great and small, but have failed to find her. I have long since felt that she must be dead--for--for she could not live with the monsters who stole her away." A certain contraction of the mouth, as he said this, and a gleam of the eyes, suggested to Nigel that revenge was not yet dead within the hermit's breast, although it had been overcome. "What was her name?" asked Nigel, willing to gain time to think how he ought to act, and being afraid of the effect that the sudden communication of the news might have on his friend. "Winnie--darling Winnie--after her mother," said the hermit with deep pathos in his tone. A feeling of disappointment came over our hero. Winnie bore not the most distant resemblance to Kathleen! "Did you ever, during your search," asked Nigel slowly, "visit the Cocos-Keeling Islands?" "Never. They are too far from where the attack on us was made." "And you never heard of a gun-boat having captured a pirate junk and--" "Why do you ask, and why pause?" said the hermit, looking at his friend in some surprise. Nigel felt that he had almost gone too far. "Well, you know--" he replied in some confusion, "you--you are right when you expect me to sympathise with your great sorrow, which I do most profoundly, and--and--in short, I would give anything to be able to suggest hope to you, my friend. Men should _never_ give way to despair." "Thank you. It is kindly meant," returned the hermit, looking at the youth with his sad smile. "But it is vain. Hope is dead now." They were interrupted at this point by the announcement that supper was ready. At the same time the sun sank, like the hermit's hope, and disappeared beyond the dark forest. CHAPTER TWENTY. NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES--UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL. It was not much supper that Nigel Roy ate that night. The excitement resulting from his supposed discovery reduced his appetite seriously, and the intense desire to open a safety-valve in the way of confidential talk with some one induced a nervously absent disposition which at last attracted attention. "You vant a goot dose of kvinine," remarked Verkimier, when, having satiated himself, he found time to think of others--not that the professor was selfish by any means, only he was addicted to concentration of mind on all work in hand, inclusive of feeding. The hermit paid no attention to anything that was said. His recent conversation had given vent to a flood of memories and feelings that had been pent-up for many years. After supper Nigel resolved to make a confidant of Moses. The negro's fidelity to and love for his master would ensure his sympathy at least, if not wise counsel. "Moses," he said, when the professor had raised himself to the seventh heaven by means of tobacco fumes, "come with me. I want to have a talk." "Das what I's allers wantin', Massa Nadgel; talkin's my strong point, if I hab a strong point at all." They went together to the edge of a cliff on the hill-top, whence they could see an almost illimitable stretch of tropical wilderness bathed in a glorious flood of moonlight, and sat down. On a neighbouring cliff, which was crowned with a mass of grasses and shrubs, a small monkey also sat down, on a fallen branch, and watched them with pathetic interest, tempered, it would seem, by cutaneous irritation. "Moses, I am sorely in need of advice," said Nigel, turning suddenly to his companion with ill-suppressed excitement. "Well, Massa Nadgel, you _does_ look like it, but I'm sorry I ain't a doctor. P'r'aps de purfesser would help you better nor--" "You misunderstand me. Can you keep a secret, Moses?" "I kin try--if--if he's not too diffikilt to keep." "Well, then; listen." The negro opened his eyes and his mouth as if these were the chief orifices for the entrance of sound, and advanced an ear. The distant monkey, observing, apparently, that some unusual communication was about to be made, also stretched out its little head, cocked an ear, and suspended its other operations. Then, in low earnest tones, Nigel told Moses of his belief that Van der Kemp's daughter might yet be alive and well, and detailed the recent conversation he had had with his master. "Now, Moses; what d'ye think of all that?" Profundity unfathomable sat on the negro's sable brow as he replied, "Massa Nadgel, I don't bery well know _what_ to t'ink." "But remember, Moses, before we go further, that I tell you all this in strict confidence; not a word of it must pass your lips." The awful solemnity with which Nigel sought to impress this on his companion was absolutely trifling compared with the expression of that companion's countenance, as, with a long-drawn argumentative and remonstrative _Oh_! he replied:-- "Massa Nadgel. Does you really t'ink I would say or do any mortal t'ing w'atsumiver as would injure _my_ massa?" "I'm _sure_ you would not," returned Nigel, quickly. "Forgive me, Moses, I merely meant that you would have to be very cautious--very careful--that you do not let a word slip--by accident, you know--I believe you'd sooner die than do an intentional injury to Van der Kemp. If I thought you capable of _that_, I think I would relieve my feelings by giving you a good thrashing." The listening monkey cocked its ear a little higher at this, and Moses, who had at first raised his flat nose indignantly in the air, gradually lowered it, while a benignant smile supplanted indignation. "You're right dere, Massa Nadgel. I'd die a t'ousand times sooner dan injure massa. As to your last obserwation, it rouses two idees in my mind. First, I wonder how you'd manidge to gib me a t'rashin', an' second, I wonder if your own moder would rikognise you arter you'd tried it." At this the monkey turned its other ear as if to make quite sure that it heard aright. Nigel laughed shortly. "But seriously, Moses," he continued; "what do you think I should do? Should I reveal my suspicions to Van der Kemp?" "Cer'nly not!" answered the negro with prompt decision. "What! wake up all his old hopes to hab 'em all dashed to bits p'raps when you find dat you's wrong!" "But I feel absolutely certain that I'm _not_ wrong!" returned Nigel, excitedly. "Consider--there is, first, the one-eyed pirate; second, there is--" "'Scuse me, Massa Nadgel, dere's no occasion to go all ober it again. I'll tell you what you do." "Well?" exclaimed Nigel, anxiously, while his companion frowned savagely under the force of the thoughts that surged through his brain. "Here's what you'll do," said Moses. "Well?" (impatiently, as the negro paused.) "We're on our way home to Krakatoa." "Yes--well?" "One ob our men leabes us to-morrer--goes to 'is home on de coast. Kitch one ob de steamers dat's allers due about dis time." "Well, what of that?" "What ob dat! why, you'll write a letter to your fadder. It'll go by de steamer to Batavia. He gits it long before we gits home, so dere's plenty time for 'im to take haction." "But what good will writing to my father do?" asked Nigel in a somewhat disappointed tone. "_He_ can't help us." "Ho yes, he can," said Moses with a self-satisfied nod. "See here, I'll tell you what to write. You begin, `Dear fadder--or Dearest fadder'-- I's not quite sure ob de strengt' ob your affection. P'raps de safest way." "Oh! get on, Moses. Never mind that." "Ho! it's all bery well for you to say dat, but de ole gen'leman'll mind it. Hows'ever, put it as you t'ink best--`Dear fadder, victual your ship; up anchor; hois' de sails, an' steer for de Cocos-Keelin' Islands. Go ashore; git hold ob do young 'ooman called Kat'leen Hobbleben.'" "Holbein, Moses." "_What_! is she Moses too?" "No, no! get on, man." "Well, `Dearest fadder, git a hold ob her, whateber her name is, an' carry her off body and soul, an' whateber else b'longs to her. Take her to de town ob Anjer an' wait dere for furder orders.' Ob course for de windin' up o' de letter you must appeal agin to de state ob your affections, for, as--" "Not a bad idea," exclaimed Nigel. "Why, Moses, you're a genius! Of course I'll have to explain a little more fully." "'Splain what you please," said Moses. "My business is to gib you de bones ob de letter; yours--bein' a scholar--is to clove it wid flesh." "I'll do it, Moses, at once." "I should like," rejoined Moses, with a tooth-and-gum-disclosing smile, "to see your fadder when he gits dat letter!" The picture conjured up by his vivid imagination caused the negro to give way to an explosive laugh that sent the eavesdropping monkey like a brown thunderbolt into the recesses of its native jungle, while Nigel went off to write and despatch the important letter. Next day the party arrived at another village, where, the report of their approach having preceded them, they were received with much ceremony--all the more that the professor's power with the rifle had been made known, and that the neighbourhood was infested by tigers. There can be little doubt that at this part of the journey the travellers must have been dogged all the way by tigers, and it was matter for surprise that so small a party should not have been molested. Possibly the reason was that these huge members of the feline race were afraid of white faces, being unaccustomed to them, or, perchance, the appearance and vigorous stride of even a few stalwart and fearless men had intimidated them. Whatever the cause, the party reached the village without seeing a single tiger, though their footprints were observed in many places. The wild scenery became more and more beautiful as this village was neared. Although flowers as a rule were small and inconspicuous in many parts of the great forest through which they passed, the rich pink and scarlet of many of the opening leaves, and the autumn-tinted foliage which lasts through all seasons of the year, fully made up for the want of them--at least as regards colour, while the whole vegetation was intermingled in a rich confusion that defies description. The professor went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all at the same time. "Look zere!" he cried, at one turning in the path which opened up a new vista of exquisite beauty--"look at zat!" "Ay, it is a Siamang ape--next in size to the orang-utan," said Van der Kemp, who stood at his friend's elbow. The animal in question was a fine full-grown specimen, with long jet-black glancing hair. Its height might probably have been a few inches over three feet, and the stretch of its arms over rather than under five feet, but at the great height at which it was seen--not less than eighty feet--it looked much like an ordinary monkey. It was hanging in the most easy nonchalant way by one hand from the branch of a tree, utterly indifferent to the fact that to drop was to die! The instant the Siamang observed the travellers it set up a loud barking howl which made the woods resound, but it did not alter its position or seem to be alarmed in any degree. "Vat a 'straordinary noise!" remarked the professor. "It is indeed," returned the hermit, "and it has an extraordinary appliance for producing it. There is a large bag under its throat extending to its lips and cheeks which it can fill with air by means of a valve in the windpipe. By expelling this air in sudden bursts it makes the varied sounds you hear." "Mos' vonderful! A sort of natural air-gun! I vill shoot it," said the professor, raising his deadly rifle, and there is no doubt that the poor Siamang would have dropped in another moment if Van der Kemp had not quietly and gravely touched his friend's elbow just as the explosion took place. "Hah! you tooched me!" exclaimed the disappointed naturalist, looking fiercely round, while the amazed ape sent forth a bursting crack of its air-gun as it swung itself into the tree-top and made off. "Yes, I touched you, and if you _will_ shoot when I am so close to you, you cannot wonder at it--especially when you intend to take life uselessly. The time now at the disposal of my friend Nigel Roy will not permit of our delaying long enough to kill and preserve large specimens. To say truth, my friend, we must press on now, as fast as we can, for we have a very long way to go." Verkimier was not quite pleased with this explanation, but there was a sort of indescribable power about the hermit, when he was resolved to have his way, that those whom he led found it impossible to resist. On arriving at the village they were agreeably surprised to find a grand banquet, consisting chiefly of fruit, with fowl, rice, and Indian corn, spread out for them in the Balai or public hall, where also their sleeping quarters were appointed. An event had recently occurred, however, which somewhat damped the pleasure of their reception. A young man had been killed by a tiger. The brute had leaped upon him while he and a party of lads were traversing a narrow path through the jungle, and had killed him with one blow of its paw. The other youths courageously rushed at the beast with their spears and axes, and, driving it off, carried the body of their comrade away. "We have just buried the young man," said the chief of the village, "and have set a trap for the tiger, for he will be sure to visit the grave." "My friends would like to see this trap," said the hermit, who, of course, acted the part of interpreter wherever they went, being well acquainted with most of the languages and dialects of the archipelago. "There will yet be daylight after you have finished eating," said the chief. Although anxious to go at once to see this trap, they felt the propriety of doing justice to what had been provided for them, and sat down to their meal, for which, to say truth, they were quite ready. Then they went with a large band of armed natives to see this curious tiger-trap, the bait of which was the grave of a human being! The grave was close to the outskirts of the village, and, on one side, the jungle came up to within a few yards of it. The spot was surrounded by a strong and high bamboo fence, except at one point where a narrow but very conspicuous opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground--as well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the opening about breast-high for a tiger. The intention was that the animal, in entering the enclosure, should become its own executioner-- should commit unintentional suicide, if we may so put it. "I have an ambition to shoot a tiger," said Nigel to Van der Kemp that evening. "Do you think the people would object to my getting up into a tree with my rifle and watching beside the grave, part of the night?" "I am sure that they would not. But your watch will probably be in vain, for tigers are uncommonly sagacious creatures and seem to me to have exceptional powers for scenting danger." "No matter, I will try." Accordingly, a little before dark that evening our hero borrowed the professor's double-barrelled rifle, being more suitable for large game than his own gun, and sauntered with Moses down to the grave where he ensconced himself in the branches of a large tree about thirty feet from the ground. The form of the tree was such, that among its forks Nigel could form a sort of nest in which he could sit, in full view of the poor youth's grave, without the risk of falling to the ground even if he should chance to drop asleep. "Good-night, massa Nadgel," said Moses as he turned to leave his companion to his solitary vigil. "See you not go to sleep." "No fear of _that_!" said Nigel. "An' whateber you do, don't miss." "I'll do my best--Good-night." While there was yet a little daylight, our hunter looked well about him; took note of the exact position of the fence, the entrance to the enclosure, and the grave; judged the various distances of objects, and arranged the sights of the rifle, which was already loaded with a brace of hardened balls. Then he looked up through the tree-tops and wished for darkness. It came sooner than he expected. Night always descends more suddenly in tropical than in temperate regions. The sun had barely dipped below the horizon when night seemed to descend like a pall over the jungle, and an indescribable sensation of eerieness crept over Nigel's spirit. Objects became very indistinct, and he fancied that he saw something moving on the newly-made grave. With a startled feeling he grasped his weapon, supposing that the tiger must have entered the enclosure with cat-like stealth. On second thoughts, however, he discarded the idea, for the entrance was between him and the grave, and still seemed quite visible. Do what he would, however, the thought of ghosts insisted on intruding upon him! He did not believe in ghosts--oh no!--had always scouted the idea of their existence. Why, therefore, did he feel uncomfortable? He could not tell. It must simply be the excitement natural to such a very new and peculiar situation. He would think of something else. He would devote his mind to the contemplation of tigers! In a short time the moon would rise, he knew--then he would be able to see better. While he was in this very uncomfortable state of mind, with the jungle wrapped in profound silence as well as gloom, there broke on the night air a wail so indescribable that the very marrow in Nigel's bones seemed to shrivel up. It ceased, but again broke forth louder than before, increasing in length and strength, until his ears seemed to tingle with the sound, and then it died away to a sigh of unutterable woe. "I have always," muttered Nigel, "believed myself to be a man of ordinary courage, but _now_--I shall write myself a coward, if not an ass!" He attempted to laugh at this pleasantry, but the laugh was hollow and seemed to freeze in his gullet as the wail broke forth again, ten times more hideous than at first. After a time the wail became more continuous, and the watcher began to get used to it. Then a happy thought flashed into his mind--this was, perhaps, some sort of mourning for the dead! He was right. The duty of the father of the poor youth who had been killed was, for several days after the funeral, to sit alone in his house and chant from sunset till daybreak a death-dirge, or, as it is called, the _tjerita bari_. It was not till next day that this was told to him, but meanwhile the surmise afforded him instantaneous relief. As if nature sympathised with his feelings, the moon arose at the same time and dispelled the thick darkness, though it was not till much later that, sailing across a clear sky, she poured her bright beams through the tree-tops and finally rested on the dead man's grave. By that time Nigel had quite recovered his equanimity, and mentally blotted out the writing of "coward" and "ass" which he had written against himself. But another trouble now assailed him. He became sleepy! Half-a-dozen times at least within half-an-hour he started wide awake under the impression that he was falling off the tree. "This will never do," he exclaimed, rising to his feet, resting his rifle in a position of safety, and then stretching himself to his utmost extent so that he became thoroughly awake. After this "rouser," as he called it, he sat down again, and almost immediately fell fast asleep. How long he sat in this condition it is impossible to say, but he opened his eyes at length with an indescribable sensation that _something_ required attention, and the first thing they rested on, (for daylight was dawning), was an enormous tiger not forty yards away from him, gliding like a shadow and with cat-like stealth towards the opening of the enclosure. The sight was so sudden and so unexpected that, for the moment, he was paralysed. Perhaps he thought it was a dream. Before he could recover presence of mind to seize his rifle, the breast of the animal had touched the fatal line; the trigger was drawn; the stout bamboo straightened with a booming sound, and the spear--or, rather, the giant arrow--was shot straight through the tiger's side! Then occurred a scene which might well have induced Nigel to imagine that he dreamt, for the transfixed creature bounded into the enclosure with a terrific roar that rang fearfully through the arches of the hitherto silent forest. Rushing across the grave, it sprang with one tremendous bound right over the high fence, carrying the spear along with it into the jungle beyond. By that time Nigel was himself again, with rifle in hand, but too late to fire. The moment he heard the thud of the tiger's descent, he slid down the tree, and, forgetful or regardless of danger,--went crashing into the jungle, while the yells and shouts of hundreds of aroused natives suggested the peopling of the region with an army of fiends. But our hero had not to go far. In his haste he almost tumbled over the tiger. It was lying stone dead on the spot where it had fallen! A few minutes more and the natives came pouring round him, wild with excitement and joy. Soon he was joined by his own comrades. "Well, you've managed to shoot him, I see," said Van der Kemp as he joined the group. "Alas! no. I have not fired a shot," said Nigel, with a half disappointed look. "You's got de better ob him anyhow," remarked Moses as he pushed to the front. "The spear got the better of him, Moses." "Vell now, zat is a splendid animal. Lat me see," said the professor, pulling out his tape-measure. It was with difficulty that the man of science made and noted his measurements, for the people were pressing eagerly round the carcase to gratify their revenge by running their spears into the still warm body. They dipped the points in the blood and passed their krisses broadside over the creature that they might absorb the courage and boldness which were supposed to emanate from it! Then they skinned it, and pieces of the heart and brain were eaten raw by some of those whose relatives had been killed by tigers. Finally the skull was hacked to pieces for the purpose of distributing the teeth, which are used by the natives as charms. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF. Leaving this village immediately after the slaying of the tiger, the party continued to journey almost by forced marches, for not only was Nigel Roy very anxious to keep tryst with his father, and to settle the question of Kathleen's identity by bringing father and daughter together, but Van der Kemp himself, strange to say, was filled with intense and unaccountable anxiety to get back to his island-home. "I don't know how it is," he said to Nigel as they walked side by side through the forest, followed by Moses and the professor, who had become very friendly on the strength of a certain amount of vacant curiosity displayed by the former in regard to scientific matters--"I don't know how it is, but I feel an unusually strong desire to get back to my cave. I have often been absent from home for long periods at a time, but have never before experienced these strange longings. I say strange, because there is no such thing as an effect without a cause." "May not the cause be presentiment?" suggested Nigel, who, knowing what a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for himself--touching his recent discovery or suspicion! "I do not believe in presentiments," returned the hermit. "They are probably the result of indigestion or a disordered intellect, from neither of which complaints do I suffer--at least not consciously!" "But you have never before left home in such peculiar circumstances," said Nigel. "Have you not told me that this is the first time for about two hundred years that Krakatoa has broken out in active eruption?" "True, but that cannot be to me the cause of longings or anxieties, for I have seen many a long-dormant crater become active without any important result either to me or to any one else." "Stop, stop!" cried Professor Verkimier in a hoarse whisper at that moment; "look! look at zee monkeys!" Monkeys are very abundant in Sumatra, but the nest of them which the travellers discovered at that time, and which had called forth the professor's admiration, was enough--as Moses said--to make a "renocerus laugh." The trees around absolutely swarmed with monkeys; those of a slender form and with very long tails being most numerous. They were engaged in some sort of game, swinging by arms, legs, and tails from branches, holding on to or chasing each other, and taking the most astonishing leaps in circumstances where a slip would have no doubt resulted in broken limbs or in death. "Stand still! Oh! _do_ stand still--like you vas petrivied," said the professor in a low voice of entreaty. Being quite willing to humour him, the whole party stood immovable, like statues, and thus avoided attracting the attention of the monkeys, who continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of "follow my leader," for one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and less agile companions. They all succeeded, however, from the largest even to the smallest--which last was a very tiny creature with a pink face, a sad expression, and a corkscrew tail. For a time they bounded actively among the branches, now high, now low, till suddenly the big leader took a tremendous leap, as if for the express purpose of baffling or testing his companions. It was immensely amusing to see the degrees of trepidation with which the others followed. The last two seemed quite unable to make up their minds to the leap, until the others seemed about to disappear, when one of them took heart and bounded wildly across. Thus little pink-face with the corkscrew tail was left alone! Twice did that little monkey make a desperate resolution to jump, and twice did its little heart fail as it measured the distance between the branches and glanced at the abyss below. Its companions seemed to entertain a feeling of pity for it. Numbers of them came back, as if to watch the jump and encourage the little one. A third time it made an abortive effort to spring, and looked round pitifully, whereupon Moses gave vent to an uncontrollable snort of suppressed laughter. "Vat you mean by zat?" growled the professor angrily. The growl and snort together revealed the intruders, and all the monkeys, except pink-face, crowding the trees above the spot where they stood, gazed down upon them with expressions in which unparalleled indignation and inconceivable surprise struggled for the mastery. Then, with a wild shriek, the whole troop fled into the forest. This was too much for poor, half-petrified pink-face with the twisted tail. Seeing that its comrades were gone in earnest, it became desperate, flung itself frantically into the air with an agonising squeak, missed its mark, went crashing through the slender branches and fell to the ground. Fortunately these branches broke its fall so that it arose unhurt, bounded into a bush, still squeaking with alarm, and made after its friends. "Why did you not shoot it, professor?" asked Nigel, laughing as much at Verkimier's grave expression as at the little monkey's behaviour. "Vy did I not shot it?" echoed the professor. "I vould as soon shot a baby. Zee pluck of zat leetle creature is admirable. It vould be a horrible shame to take his life. No! I do love to see ploock vezer in man or beast! He could not shoomp zat. He _knew_ he could not shoomp it, but he _tried_ to shoomp it. He vould not be beat, an' I vould not kill him--zough I vant 'im very mooch for a specimen." It seemed as if the professor was to be specially rewarded for his self-denial on this occasion, for while he was yet speaking, a soft "hush!" from Van der Kemp caused the whole party to halt in dead silence and look at the hermit inquiringly. "You are in luck, professor," he murmured, in a soft, low voice--very different from that hissing whisper which so many people seem to imagine is an inaudible utterance. "I see a splendid Argus pheasant over there making himself agreeable to his wife!" "Vare? oh! vare?" exclaimed the enthusiast with blazing eyes, for although he had already seen and procured specimens of this most beautiful creature, he had not yet seen it engage in the strange love-dance--if we may so call it--which is peculiar to the bird. "You'll never get near enough to see it if you hiss like a serpent," said the hermit. "Get out your binoculars, follow me, and hold your tongue, all of you--that will be the safest plan. Tread lightly." It was a sight to behold the professor crouching almost double in order to render himself less conspicuous, with his hat pushed back, and the blue glasses giving him the appearance of a great-eyed seal. He carried his butterfly-net in one hand, and the unfailing rifle in the other. Fortunately the hermit's sharp and practised eye had enabled him to distinguish the birds in the distance before their advance had alarmed them, so that they were able to reach a mound topped with low bushes over which they could easily watch the birds. "Zat is very koorious an' most interesting," murmured the professor after a short silence. He was right. There were two Argus pheasants, a male and female--the male alone being decorated superbly. The Argus belongs to the same family as the peacock, but is not so gaudy in colouring, and therefore, perhaps, somewhat more pleasing. Its tail is formed chiefly by an enormous elongation of the two tail quills, and of the secondary wing feathers, no two of which are exactly the same, and the closer they are examined the greater is seen to be the extreme beauty of their markings, and the rich varied harmony of their colouring. When a male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse--or when she asks him to show it off we know not which--he makes a circle in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition. This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and generally displaying his gorgeous beauty. "Vat ineffable vanity!" exclaimed the professor, after gazing for some time in silence. His own folly in thus speaking was instantly proved by the two birds bringing the exhibition to an abrupt close and hastily taking wing. Not long after seeing this they came to a small but deep and rapid river, which for a time checked their progress, for there was no ford, and the porters who carried Verkimier's packages seemed to know nothing about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had fallen across the stream, and formed a natural bridge. On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight--only a glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops. In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life away over the damp ground by the water's edge. The native forest path which they followed was little better than a tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it, or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step quietly back and unhook themselves. This of itself would have rendered their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic mud-bath-- the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants--obstructed the way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it--as resolute men always do--somehow! "Zis is horrible!" exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions, and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature. "Hah! zee brute! I have 'im." The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face. "What have you got?" asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh. "A splendid _Ornit'optera_ a day-flying moss," said Verkimier as he cautiously rose, "vich mimics zee _Trepsichrois mulciber_. Ant zis very morning I caught von _Leptocircus virescens_, vich derives protection from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly." "What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!" remarked Moses in an undertone to the hermit as they moved on again. "Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses. These are the scientific names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they are not. Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic. Indeed, you have a little of it yourself," said the hermit with one of his twinkling glances. "When you are almost terrified out of your wits don't you pretend that there's nothing the matter with you?" "Nebber, massa, nebber!" answered the negro with remonstrative gravity. "When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in de lips, an' I _pretends_ nuffin'--I don't care _who_ sees it!" The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse. Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat--became more hilly, and the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall, and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so that a man could scarcely see his fellow, even when within two paces of him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from those creatures. "Shall we have a stormy night, think you?" asked Nigel, as he assisted in striking a light. "It may be so," replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of his wet matches, which failed to kindle. "What we hear may be distant thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so--especially after the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have escaped-- mine are useless." But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel, with which, and a small piece of tinder, spark was at last kindled, but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings, an extra spurt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain was of no avail. "Vat must ve do _now_?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a woe-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish. "Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight expansion of the mouth--though no one could see it. "Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright. "Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, bot if zee tigers find us out or zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping. Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?" The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which followed. "It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably increase--meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?" This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not answered, and it was found, on a _feeling_ examination, that, in spite of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation. Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light. Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of light behind them, and fireflies, darting to and fro, peopled the air and gave additional animation to the scene. In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby. But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one which gleamed through intense darkness. How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously, and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another--with growing confidence--and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope. At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs, kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the wilderness fled away. When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had encamped. Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable portion of both in sleep--at least such parts of both as were not devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the utmost regard for himself, we were not sufficiently acquainted with his moral character to answer for his strict truthfulness. As to the main event, there was no denying that. The thing happened thus:-- Towards the afternoon of that same day the travellers began to wake up, stretch themselves, and think about supper. In the course of conversation it transpired that a tiger had been prowling about the village for some days, and had hitherto successfully eluded all attempts to trap or spear it. They had tethered a goat several times near a small pond and watched the spot from safe positions among the trees, with spears, bows and arrows, and blow-pipes ready, but when they watched, the tiger did not come, and when they failed to watch, the tiger did come and carried off the goat. Thus they had been baffled. "Mine frond," said the professor to the hermit on hearing this. "I vill shot zat tiger! I am resolved. Vill you ask zee chief to show me zee place ant zen tell his people, on pain of def, not to go near it all night, for if zey do I vill certainly shot zem--by accident of course!" The hermit did as he was bid, but advised his sanguine friend against exposing himself recklessly. The chief willingly fell in with his wishes. "Won't you tell us what you intend to do, professor?" asked Nigel, "and let us help you." "No, I vill do it all by mineself--or die! I vill vant a shofel or a spade of some sort." The chief provided the required implement, conducted his visitor a little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss, besides the spade. When alone, the bold man put off his glasses, made a careful inspection of the ground, came to a conclusion--founded on scientific data no doubt--as to the probable spot whence the tiger would issue from the jungle when about to seize the goat, and, just opposite that spot, on the face of a slope about ten yards from the goat, he dug a hole deep enough to contain his own person. The soil was sandy easy to dig, and quite dry. It was growing dusk when the professor crept into this rifle-pit, drew his weapons and the spade in after him, and closed the mouth of the pit with moist earth, leaving only a very small eye-hole through which he could see the goat standing innocently by the brink of the pool. "Now," said he, as he lay resting on his elbows with the rifle laid ready to hand and the revolver beside it; "now, I know not vezer you can smell or not, but I have buried mineself in eart', vich is a non-conductor of smell. Ve shall see!" It soon became very dark, for there was no moon, yet not so dark but that the form of the goat could be seen distinctly reflected in the pond. Naturally the professor's mind reverted to the occasion when Nigel had watched in the branches of a tree for another tiger. The conditions were different, and so, he thought, was the man! "Mine yoong frond," he said mentally, "is brav', oondoubtedly, but his nerves have not been braced by experience like mine. It is vell, for zere is more dancher here zan in a tree. It matters not. I am resolf to shot zat tigre--or die!" In this resolute and heroic frame of mind he commenced his vigil. It is curious to note how frequently the calculations of men fail them-- even those of scientific men! The tiger came indeed to the spot, but he came in precisely the opposite direction from that which the watcher expected, so that while Verkimier was staring over the goat's head at an opening in the jungle beyond the pond, the tiger was advancing stealthily and slowly through the bushes exactly behind the hole in which he lay. Suddenly the professor became aware of _something_! He saw nothing consciously, he heard nothing, but there stole over him, somehow, the feeling of a dread presence! Was he asleep? Was it nightmare? No, it was night-tiger! He knew it, somehow; he _felt_ it--but he could not see it. To face death is easy enough--according to some people--but to face nothing at all is at all times trying. Verkimier felt it to be so at that moment. But he was a true hero and conquered himself. "Come now," he said mentally, "don't be an ass! Don't lose your shance by voomanly fears. Keep kviet." Another moment and there was a very slight sound right over his head. He glanced upwards--as far as the little hole would permit--and there, not a foot from him, was a tawny yellow throat! with a tremendous paw moving slowly forward--so slowly that it might have suggested the imperceptible movement of the hour-hand of a watch, or of a glacier. There was indeed motion, but it was not perceptible. The professor's perceptions were quick. He did not require to think. He knew that to use the rifle at such close quarters was absolutely impossible. He knew that the slightest motion would betray him. He could see that as yet he was undiscovered, for the animal's nose was straight for the goat, and he concluded that either his having buried himself was a safeguard against being smelt, or that the tiger had a cold in its head. He thought for one moment of bursting up with a yell that would scare the monster out of his seven senses--if he had seven-- but dismissed the thought as cowardly, for it would be sacrificing success to safety. He knew not what to do, and the cold perspiration consequent upon indecision at a supreme moment broke out all over him. Suddenly he thought of the revolver! Like lightning he seized it, pointed it straight up and fired. The bullet--a large army revolver one--entered the throat of the animal, pierced the root of the tongue, crashed through the palate obliquely, and entered the brain. The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and fell--fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its heart as it gasped its life away. But in his cramped position he could not push it aside. Well aware of the tenacity of life in tigers, he thought that if the creature revived it would certainly grasp him even in its dying agonies, for the weight of its body and its struggles were already crushing in the upper part of the hole. To put an end to its sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was tremendous--so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have burst. The struggles of the tiger became more violent than ever, and its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold perspiration broke out all over the man, and he became unconscious. It must not be supposed that the professor's friends were unwatchful. Although they had promised not to disturb him in his operations, they had held themselves in readiness with rifle, revolver, and spear, and the instant the first shot was heard, they ran down to the scene of action. Before reaching it the second shot quickened their pace as they ran down to the pond--a number of natives yelling and waving torches at their heels. "Here he is," cried Moses, who was first on the scene, "dead as mutton!" "What! the professor?" cried Nigel in alarm. "No; de tiger." "Where's Verkimier?" asked the hermit as he came up. "I dun know, massa," said Moses, looking round him vacantly. "Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured," cried Van der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example. "Let me out!" came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and on each other. "Zounds! vy don't you let me _out_?" shouted the voice again. There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the natives, but Nigel's asking "Where _are_ you?" had the effect of inducing them to delay for the answer. "Here--oonder zee tigre! Kweek, I am suffocat!" Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the tail, and, with a force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat, revealing the man of science underneath--alive and well, but dishevelled, scratched, and soiled--also, as deaf as a door-post. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED. "It never rains but it pours" is a well-known proverb which finds frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time, for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to be the very paradise of the student of nature. We have not room in this volume to follow him in the details of his wonderful experiences, but we must mention one adventure which he had on the very day after the tiger-incident, because it very nearly had the effect of separating him from his travelling companions. Being deaf, as we have said--owing to the explosion of his revolver in the hole--but not necessarily dumb, the professor, after one or two futile attempts to hear and converse, deemed it wise to go to bed and spend the few conscious minutes that might precede sleep in watching Van der Kemp, who kindly undertook to skin his tiger for him. Soon the self-satisfied man fell into a sweet infantine slumber, and dreamed of tigers, in which state he gave vent to sundry grunts, gasps, and half-suppressed cries, to the immense delight of Moses, who sat watching him, indulging in a running commentary suggestive of the recent event, and giving utterance now and then to a few imitative growls by way of enhancing the effect of the dreams! "Look! look! Massa Nadgel, he's twitchin' all ober. De tiger's comin' to him now." "Looks like it, Moses." "Yes--an', see, he grip de 'volver--no, too soon, or de tiger's hoed away, for he's stopped twitchin'!--dare; de tiger comes agin!" A gasp and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow, glared fearfully. "I'n't it awrful?" inquired Moses in a low tone. The professor awoke mentally, recognised the situation, smiled an imbecile smile, and sank back again on his pillow with a sigh of relief. After that, when the skinning of the tiger was completed, the dreams appeared to leave him, and all his comrades joined him in the land of Nod. He was first to awake when daylight entered their hut the following morning, and, feeling in a fresh, quiescent state of mind after the excitement of the preceding night, he lay on his back, his eyes fixed contentedly on the grand tiger-skin which hung on the opposite wall. By degrees his eyes grew wearied of that object, and he allowed them to travel languidly upwards and along the roof until they rested on the spot directly over his head, where they became fixed, and, at the same time, opened out to a glare, compared to which all his previous glaring was as nothing--for there, in the thatch, looking down upon him, was the angular head of a huge python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil, and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head! Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with a snap, while the professor opened his with a roar, and in another moment every man was on his feet blinking inquiringly. "Look! zee snake!" cried the professor, when Moses released him. "We must get him out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head. "Clear out, friends," he said, looking round. All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail as it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so violently that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew the creature straight out--a thick monster full twelve feet long, and capable of swallowing a dog or a child. "Out of zee way!" shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which it took refuge. Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale. "Zat is strainch--very strainch," slowly remarked the professor, as, still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts. "Not so _very_ strange, after all," said Van der Kemp; "I've seen the head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow." "Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in two-- physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still alife, zerfore, zee life--zee spirit--has also been divided!" "It is indeed very strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground, professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not hurt, I hope--are you?" "I razer zink I am," returned the philosopher with a faint smile; "mine onkle, I zink, is spraint." This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man's wanderings were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the professor should ride until his ankle recovered. We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active volcano. By that time Verkimier's ankle had recovered and the pony had been dismissed. The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet above the sea-level. Only one native from the plain below accompanied them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted them to make the ascent. At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with clumps of heath and rhododendrons. In the centre of this was a cone which formed the true--or modern--crater. On scrambling up to the lip of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200 feet in diameter. The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its rim. "You will soon see a change come over it," said the hermit, as the party gazed in silent admiration at the weird scene. He had scarcely spoken, when the middle of the lake became intensely black and scored with dark streaks. This, though not quite obvious at first from the point where they stood, was caused by the slow formation of a great chasm in the centre of the seething lake of mud. The lake was sinking into its own throat. The blackness increased. Then a dull sullen roar was heard, and next moment the entire lake upheaved, not violently, but in a slow, majestic manner some hundreds of feet into the air, whence it fell back into its basin with an awful roar which reverberated and echoed from the rocky walls of the caldron like the singing of an angry sea. An immense volume of steam--the motive power which had blown up the lake--was at the same time liberated and dissipated in the air. The wave-circles died away on the margin of the lake, and the placid, cloud-reflecting surface was restored until the geyser had gathered fresh force for another upheaval. "Amazing!" exclaimed Nigel, who had gazed with feelings of awe at this curious exhibition of the tremendous internal forces with which the Creator has endowed the earth. "Vonderful!" exclaimed the professor, whose astonishment was such, that his eyebrows rose high above the rim of his huge blue binoculars. Moses, to whom such an exhibition of the powers of nature was familiar, was, we are sorry to say, not much impressed, if impressed at all! Indeed he scarcely noticed it, but watched, with intense teeth-and-gum disclosing satisfaction, the faces of two of the native porters who had never seen anything of the kind before, and whose terrified expressions suggested the probability of a precipitate flight when their trembling limbs became fit to resume duty. "Will it come again soon?" asked Nigel, turning to Van der Kemp. "Every fifteen or twenty minutes it goes through that process all day and every day," replied the hermit. "But, if I may joodge from zee stones ant scoriae around," said the professor, "zee volcano is not always so peaceful as it is joost now." "You are right. About once in every three years, and sometimes oftener, the crops of coffee, bananas, rice, etcetera, in this region are quite destroyed by sulphur-rain, which covers everything for miles around the crater." "Hah! it vould be too hote a place zis for us, if zat vas to happin joost now," remarked Verkimier with a smile. "It cannot be far off the time now, I should think," said Van der Kemp. All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He had scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the changeful aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit came on, and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard. It was so awesome that the countenance even of Van der Kemp became graver than usual. As for the two native porters, they gazed and trembled. Nigel and the professor also gazed with lively expectation. Moses--we grieve to record it--hugged himself internally, and gloated over the two porters. Another moment and there came a mighty roar. Up went the mud-lake hundreds of feet into the air; out came the steam with the sound of a thousand trombones, and away went the two porters, head over heels, down the outer slope of the cone and across the sawah as if the spirit of evil were after them. There was no cause, however, for alarm. The mud-lake, falling back into its native cup, resumed its placid aspect and awaited its next upheaval with as much tranquillity as if it had never known disturbance in the past, and were indifferent about the future. That evening our travellers encamped in close proximity to the crater, supped on fowls roasted in an open crevice whence issued steam and sulphurous smells, and slept with the geyser's intermittent roar sounding in their ears and re-echoing in their dreams. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. TELLS OF VOLCANIC FIRES AND A STRANGE RETURN "HOME." This tremendous introduction to volcanic fires was but the prelude to a period of eruptive action which has not been paralleled in the world's history. For a short time after this, indeed, the genial nature of the weather tended to banish from the minds of our travellers all thoughts of violence either in terrestrial or human affairs, and as the professor devoted himself chiefly to the comparatively mild occupation of catching and transfixing butterflies and beetles during the march southward, there seemed to be nothing in the wide universe above or below save peace and tranquillity--except, perhaps, in the minds of beetles and butterflies! Throughout all this period, nevertheless, there were ominous growlings, grumblings, and tremors--faint but frequent--which indicated a condition of mother earth that could not have been called easy. "Some of the volcanoes of Java must be at work, I think," said Nigel one night, as the party sat in a small isolated wood-cutter's hut discussing a supper of rice and fowls with his friends, which they were washing down with home-grown coffee. "It may be so," said Van der Kemp in a dubious tone; "but the sounds, though faint, seem to me a good deal nearer. I can't help thinking that the craters which have so recently opened up in Krakatoa are still active, and that it may be necessary for me to shift my quarters, for my cave is little more, I suspect, than the throat of an ancient volcano." "Hah! say you so, mine frond? Zen I vould advise you to make no delay," said the professor, critically examining a well-picked drumstick. "You see, it is not pleasant to be blown up eizer by the terrestrial eruptions of zee vorld or zee celestial explosions of your vife.--A leetle more rice, Moses if you please. Zanks." "Now, mine fronds," he continued, after having disposed of a supper which it might have taxed a volcano's throat to swallow, "it is viz great sorrow zat I must part from you here." "Part! Why?" asked the hermit in surprise. "Vy, because I find zis contrie is heaven upon eart'. Zat is, of course, only in a scientific point of view. Zee voods are svarming, zee air is teeming, ant zee vaters are vallo'ing vit life. I cannot tear myself avay. But ve shall meet again--at Telok Betong, or Krakatoa, or Anjer, or Batavia." It was found that the man of science was also a man of decision. Nothing would persuade him to go a step further. The wood-cutter's hut suited him, so did the wood-cutter himself, and so, as he said, did the region around him. With much regret, therefore, and an earnest invitation from the hermit to visit his cave, and range the almost unexplored woods of his island, the travellers parted from him; and our three adventurers, dismissing all attendants and hiring three ponies, continued their journey to the southern shores of Sumatra. As they advanced it soon became evident that the scene of volcanic activity was not so far distant as the island of Java, for the air was frequently darkened by the falling of volcanic dust which covered the land with a greyish powder. As, however, at least sixteen volcanoes have been registered in the island of Sumatra, and there are probably many others, it was impossible to decide where the scene of eruption was, that caused those signs. One afternoon the travellers witnessed a catastrophe which induced them to forego all idea of spending more time in examining the country. They had arrived at a village where they found a traveller who appeared to be going about without any special object in view. He spoke English, but with a foreign accent. Nigel naturally felt a desire to become sociable with him, but he was very taciturn and evidently wished to avoid intercourse with chance acquaintances. Hearing that there were curious hot-water and mud springs not far off, the stranger expressed a desire to visit them. Nigel also felt anxious to see them, and as one guide was sufficient for the party the stranger joined the party and they went together. The spot they were led to was evidently a mere crust of earth covering fierce subterranean fires. In the centre of it a small pond of mud was boiling and bubbling furiously, and round this, on the indurated clay, were smaller wells and craters full of boiling mud. The ground near them was obviously unsafe, for it bent under pressure like thin ice, and at some of the cracks and fissures the sulphurous vapour was so hot that the hand could not be held to it without being scalded. Nigel and the stranger walked close behind the native guide, both, apparently, being anxious to get as near as possible to the central pond. But the guide stopped suddenly, and, looking back, said to Van der Kemp that it was not safe to approach nearer. Nigel at once stopped, and, looking at the stranger, was struck by the wild, incomprehensible expression of his face as he continued to advance. "Stop! stop, sir!" cried the hermit on observing this, but the man paid no attention to the warning. Another instant and the crust on which he stood gave way and he sank into a horrible gulf from which issued a gust of sulphurous vapour and steam. The horror which almost overwhelmed Nigel did not prevent him bounding forward to the rescue. Well was it for him at that time that a cooler head than his own was near. The strong hand of the hermit seized his collar on the instant, and he was dragged backward out of danger, while an appalling shriek from the stranger as he disappeared told that the attempt to succour him would have been too late. A terrible event of this kind has usually the effect of totally changing, at least for a time, the feelings of those who witness it, so as to almost incapacitate them from appreciating ordinary events or things. For some days after witnessing the sudden and awful fate of this unknown man, Nigel travelled as if in a dream, taking little notice of, or interest in, anything, and replying to questions in mere monosyllables. His companions seemed to be similarly affected, for they spoke very little. Even the volatile spirit of Moses appeared to be subdued, and it was not till they had reached nearly the end of their journey that their usual flow of spirits returned. Arriving one night at a village not very far from the southern shores of Sumatra they learned that the hermit's presentiments were justified, and that the volcano which was causing so much disturbance in the islands of the archipelago was, indeed, the long extinct one of Krakatoa. "I've heard a good deal about it from one of the chief men here," said the hermit as he returned to his friends that night about supper-time. "He tells me that it has been more or less in moderate eruption ever since we left the island, but adds that nobody takes much notice of it, as they don't expect it to increase much in violence. I don't agree with them in that," he added gravely. "Why not?" asked Nigel. "Partly because of the length of time that has elapsed since its last eruption in 1680; partly from the fact that that eruption--judging from appearances--must have been a very tremendous one, and partly because my knowledge of volcanic action leads me to expect it; but I could not easily explain the reason for my conclusions on the latter point. I have just been to the brow of a ridge not far off whence I have seen the glow in the sky of the Krakatoa fires. They do not, however, appear to be very fierce at the present moment." As he spoke there was felt by the travellers a blow, as if of an explosion under the house in which they sat. It was a strong vertical bump which nearly tossed them all off their chairs. Van der Kemp and his man, after an exclamation or two, continued supper like men who were used to such interruptions, merely remarking that it was an earthquake. But Nigel, to whom it was not quite so familiar, stood up for a few seconds with a look of anxious uncertainty, as if undecided as to the path of duty and prudence in the circumstances. Moses relieved him. "Sot down, Massa Nadgel," said that sable worthy, as he stuffed his mouth full of rice; "it's easier to sot dan to stand w'en its eart'quakin'." Nigel sat down with a tendency to laugh, for at that moment he chanced to glance at the rafters above, where he saw a small anxious-faced monkey gazing down at him. He was commenting on this creature when another prolonged shock of earthquake came. It was not a bump like the previous one, but a severe vibration which only served to shake the men in their chairs, but it shook the small monkey off the rafter, and the miserable little thing fell with a shriek and a flop into the rice-dish! "Git out o' dat--you scoundril!" exclaimed Moses, but the order was needless, for the monkey bounced out of it like india-rubber and sought to hide its confusion in the thatch, while Moses helped himself to some more of the rice, which, he said, was none the worse for being monkeyfied! At last our travellers found themselves in the town of Telok Betong, where, being within forty-five miles of Krakatoa, the hermit could both see and hear that his island-home was in violent agitation; tremendous explosions occurring frequently, while dense masses of smoke were ascending from its craters. "I'm happy to find," said the hermit, soon after their arrival in the town, "that the peak of Rakata, on the southern part of the island where my cave lies, is still quiet and has shown no sign of breaking out. And now I shall go and see after my canoe." "Do you think it safe to venture to visit your cave?" asked Nigel. "Well, not absolutely safe," returned the hermit with a peculiar smile, "but, of course, if you think it unwise to run the risk of--" "I asked a simple question, Van der Kemp, without any thought of myself," interrupted the youth, as he flushed deeply. "Forgive me, Nigel," returned the hermit quickly and gravely, "it is but my duty to point out that we cannot go there without running _some_ risk." "And it is _my_ duty to point out," retorted his hurt friend, "that when any man, worthy of the name, agrees to follow another, he agrees to accept all risks." To this the hermit vouchsafed no further reply than a slight smile and nod of intelligence. Thereafter he went off alone to inquire about his canoe, which, it will be remembered, his friend, the captain of the steamer, had promised to leave for him at this place. Telok Betong, which was one of the severest sufferers by the eruption of 1883, is a small town at the head of Lampong Bay, opposite to the island of Krakatoa, from which it is between forty and fifty miles distant. It is built on a narrow strip of land at the base of a steep mountain, but little above the sea, and is the chief town of the Lampong Residency, which forms the most southerly province of Sumatra. At the time we write of, the only European residents of the place were connected with Government. The rest of the population was composed of a heterogeneous mass of natives mingled with a number of Chinese, a few Arabs, and a large fluctuating population of traders from Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, Siam, and the other innumerable isles of the archipelago. These were more or less connected with prahus laden with the rich and varied merchandise of the eastern seas. As each man in the town had been permitted to build his house according to his own fancy, picturesque irregularity was the agreeable result. It may be added that, as each man spoke his own language in his own tones, Babel and noise were the consequence. In a small hut by the waterside the hermit found the friend--a Malay--to whom his canoe had been consigned, and, in a long low shed close by, he found the canoe itself, with the faithful Spinkie in charge. "Don't go near the canoe till you've made friends with the monkey," said the Malay in his own tongue, as he was about to put the key in the door. "Why not?" asked the hermit. "Because it is the savagest brute I ever came across," said the man. "It won't let a soul come near the canoe. I would have killed it long ago if the captain of the steamer had not told me you wished it to be taken great care of. There, look out! The vixen is not tied up." He flung open the shed-door and revealed Spinkie seated in his old place, much deteriorated in appearance and scowling malevolently. The instant the poor creature heard its master's voice and saw his form--for his features must have been invisible against the strong light--the scowl vanished from its little visage. With a shriek of joy it sprang like an acrobat from a spring-board and plunged into the hermit's bosom--to the alarm of the Malay, who thought this was a furious attack. We need not say that Van der Kemp received his faithful little servant kindly, and it was quite touching to observe the monkey's intense affection for him. It could not indeed wag its tail like a dog, but it put its arms round its master's neck with a wondrously human air, and rubbed its little head in his beard and whiskers, drawing itself back now and then, putting its black paws on his cheeks, turning his face round to the light and opening its round eyes wide--as well as its round little mouth--as if to make sure of his identity--then plunging into the whiskers again, and sometimes, when unable to contain its joy, finding a safety-valve in a little shriek. When the meeting and greeting were over, Van der Kemp explained that he would require his canoe by daybreak the following morning, ordered a few provisions to be got ready, and turned to leave. "You must get down, Spinkie, and watch the canoe for one night more," said the hermit, quietly. But Spinkie did not seem to perceive the necessity, for he clung closer to his master with a remonstrative, croak. "Get down, Spinkie," said the hermit firmly, "and watch the canoe." The poor beast had apparently learned that Medo-persic law was not more unchangeable than Van der Kemp's commands! At all events it crept down his arm and leg, waddled slowly over the floor of the shed with bent back and wrinkled brow, like a man of ninety, and took up its old position on the deck, the very personification of superannuated woe. The hermit patted its head gently, however, thus relieving its feelings, and probably introducing hope into its little heart before leaving. Then he returned to his friends and bade them prepare for immediate departure. It was the night of the 24th of August, and as the eruptions of the volcano appeared to be getting more and more violent, Van der Kemp's anxiety to reach his cave became visibly greater. "I have been told," said the hermit to Nigel, as they went down with Moses to the place where the canoe had been left, "the history of Krakatoa since we left. A friend informs me that a short time after our departure the eruptions subsided a little, and the people here had ceased to pay much attention to them, but about the middle of June the volcanic activity became more violent, and on the 19th, in particular, it was observed that the vapour-column and the force of the explosions were decidedly on the increase." "At Katimbang, from which place the island can be seen, it was noticed that a second column of vapour was ascending from the centre of the island, and that the appearance of Perboewatan had entirely changed, its conspicuous summit having apparently been blown away. In July there were some explosions of exceptional violence, and I have now no doubt that it was these we heard in the interior of this island when we were travelling hither, quite lately. On the 11th of this month, I believe, the island was visited in a boat by a government officer, but he did not land, owing to the heavy masses of vapour and dust driven about by the wind, which also prevented him from making a careful examination, but he could see that the forests of nearly the whole island have been destroyed--only a few trunks of blighted trees being left standing above the thick covering of pumice and dust. He reported that the dust near the shore was found to be twenty inches thick." "If so," said Nigel, "I fear that the island will be no longer fit to inhabit." "I know not," returned the hermit sadly, in a musing tone. "The officer reported that there is no sign of eruption at Rakata, so that my house is yet safe, for no showers of pumice, however deep, can injure the cave." Nigel was on the point of asking his friend why he was so anxious to revisit the island at such a time, but, recollecting his recent tiff on that subject, refrained. Afterwards, however, when Van der Kemp was settling accounts with the Malay, he put the question to Moses. "I can't help wondering," he said, "that Van der Kemp should be so anxious to get back to his cave just now. If he were going in a big boat to save some of his goods and chattels I could understand it, but the canoe, you know, could carry little more than her ordinary lading." "Well, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, "it's my opinion dat he wants to go back 'cause he's got an uncommon affekshnit heart." "How? Surely you don't mean that his love of the mere place is so strong that--" "No, no, Massa Nadgel--'snot dat. But he was awrful fond ob his wife an' darter, an' I know he's got a photogruff ob 'em bof togidder, an' I t'ink he'd sooner lose his head dan lose dat, for I've seed him look at 'em for hours, an' kiss 'em sometimes w'en he t'ought I was asleep." The return of the hermit here abruptly stopped the conversation. The canoe was carried down and put into the water, watched with profound interest by hundreds of natives and traders, who were all more or less acquainted with the hermit of Rakata. It was still daylight when they paddled out into Lampong Bay, but the volumes of dust which rose from Krakatoa--although nearly fifty miles off--did much to produce an unusually early twilight. "Goin' to be bery dark, massa," remarked Moses as they glided past the shipping. "Shall I light de lamp?" "Do, Moses, but we shan't need it, for as we get nearer home the volcanic fires will light us on our way." "De volcanic dust is a-goin' to powder us on our way too, massa. Keep your hands out o' the way, Spinkie," said the negro as he fixed a small oil-lamp to the mast, and resumed his paddle. "After we get out a bit the wind will help us," said the hermit. "Yes, massa, if he don't blow too strong," returned Moses, as a squall came rushing down the mountains and swept over the bay, ruffling its now dark waters into foaming wavelets. Altogether, what with the increasing darkness and the hissing squall, and the night-voyage before them, and the fires of Krakatoa which were now clearly visible on the horizon, Nigel Roy felt a more eerie sensation in his breast than he ever remembered to have experienced in all his previous life, but he scorned to admit the fact--even to himself, and said, mentally, that it was rather romantic than otherwise! Just then there burst upon their ears the yell of a steam-whistle, and a few moments later a steamer bore straight down on them, astern. "Steamer ahoy!" shouted Van der Kemp. "Will ye throw us a rope?" "Ay! ay!--ease 'er!--stop 'er! where are 'ee bound for?" demanded an unmistakably English voice. "Krakatoa!" replied the hermit. "Where are you?" "Anjer, on the Java coast. Do 'ee want to be smothered, roasted, and blown up?" asked the captain, looking down on the canoe as it ranged alongside the dark hull. "No, we want to get home." "Home! Well, you're queer fellows in a queer eggshell for such waters. Every man to his taste. Look out for the rope!" "All right, cappen," cried Moses as he caught the coil. Next moment the steamer went ahead, and the canoe ploughed over the Sunda Straits at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, with her sharp prow high out of the water, and the stern correspondingly low. The voyage, which would have otherwise cost our three travellers a long laborious night and part of next day, was by this means so greatly shortened that when daybreak arrived they were not more than thirteen miles to the east of Krakatoa. Nearer than this the steamboat could not take them without going out of her course, but as Van der Kemp and Nigel gratefully acknowledged, it was quite near enough. "Well, I should just think it was rather too near!" said the captain with a grin. And, truly, he was justified in making the remark, for the explosions from the volcano had by that time become not only very frequent, but tremendously loud, while the dense cloud which hung above it and spread far and wide over the sky covered the sea with a kind of twilight that struggled successfully against the full advent of day. Lightning too was playing among the rolling black masses of smoke, and the roaring explosions every now and then seemed to shake the very heavens. Casting off the tow-rope, they turned the bow of their canoe to the island. As a stiffish breeze was blowing, they set the sails, close-reefed, and steered for the southern shore at that part which lay under the shadow of Rakata. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. AN AWFUL NIGHT AND TERRIBLE MORNING. It was a matter of some satisfaction to find on drawing near to the shore that the peak of Rakata was still intact, and that, although most other parts of the island which could be seen were blighted by fire and covered deeply with pumice-dust, much of the forest in the immediate neighbourhood of the cave was still undestroyed though considerably damaged. "D'you think our old harbour will be available, Moses?" asked Van der Kemp as they came close to the first headland. "Pr'aps. Bes' go an' see," was the negro's practical reply. "Evidently Rakata is not yet active," said Nigel, looking up at the grey dust-covered crags as the canoe glided swiftly through the dark water. "That is more than can be said for the other craters," returned the hermit. "It seems to me that not only all the old ones are at work, but a number of new ones must have been opened." The constant roaring and explosions that filled their ears and the rain of fine ashes bore testimony to the truth of this, though the solid and towering mass of Rakata rose between them and the part of Krakatoa which was in eruption, preventing their seeing anything that was passing except the dense masses of smoke, steam, and dust which rose many miles into the heavens, obstructing the light of day, but forming cloud-masses from which the lurid flames of the volcano were reflected downward. On reaching the little bay or harbour it was found much as they had left it, save that the rocks and bushes around were thickly covered with dust, and their boat was gone. "Strange! at such a time one would scarcely have expected thieves to come here," said the hermit, looking slowly round. "No t'ief bin here, massa," said Moses, looking over the side of the canoe. "I see de boat!" He pointed downwards as he spoke, and on looking over the side they saw the wreck of the boat at the bottom, in about ten feet of water, and crushed beneath a ponderous mass of lava, which must have been ejected from the volcano and afterwards descended upon the boat. The destruction of the boat rendered it impossible to remove any of the property of the hermit, and Nigel now saw, from his indifference, that this could not have been the cause of his friend's anxiety and determination to reach his island-home in spite of the danger that such a course entailed. That there was considerable danger soon became very obvious, for, having passed to some extent at this point beyond the shelter of the cliffs of Rakata, and come partly into view of the other parts of the island, the real extent of the volcanic violence burst upon Nigel and Moses as a new revelation. The awful sublimity of the scene at first almost paralysed them, and they failed to note that not only did a constant rain of pumice-dust fall upon them, but that there was also a pretty regular dropping of small stones into the water around them. Their attention was sharply aroused to this fact by the fall of a lump of semi-molten rock, about the size of a cannon-shot, a short distance off, which was immediately followed by not less than a cubic yard of lava which fell close to the canoe and deluged them with spray. "We must go," said the hermit quietly. "No need to expose ourselves here, though the watching of the tremendous forces that our Creator has at command does possess a wonderful kind of fascination. It seems to me the more we see of His power as exerted on our little earth, the more do we realise the paltriness of our conception of the stupendous Might that upholds the Universe." While he was speaking, Van der Kemp guided the canoe into its little haven, and in a few minutes he and Moses had carried it into the shelter of the cave out of which Nigel had first seen it emerge. Then the lading was carried up, after which they turned into the track which led to the hermit's home. The whole operation may be said to have been performed under fire, for small masses of rock kept pattering continually on the dust-covered ground around them, causing cloudlets, like smoke, to spring up wherever they struck. Nigel and Moses could not resist glancing upward now and then as they moved quickly to and fro, and they experienced a shrinking sensation when a stone fell very near them, but each scorned to exhibit the smallest trace of anxiety, or to suggest that the sooner they got from under fire the better! As for Van der Kemp, he moved about deliberately as if there was nothing unusual going on, and with an absent look on his grave face as though the outbursts of smoke, and fire, and lava, which turned the face of day into lurid night, and caused the cliffs to reverberate with unwonted thunders, had no effect whatever on his mind. A short walk, however, along the track, which was more than ankle-deep in dust, brought them under the sheltering sides of Rakata, up which they soon scrambled to the mouth of their cave. Here all was found as they had left it, save that the entrance was knee-deep in pumice-dust. And now a new and very strange sensation was felt by each of them, for the loud reports and crackling sounds which had assailed their ears outside were reduced by the thick walls of the cave to a continuous dull groan, as it were, like the soft but thunderous bass notes of a stupendous organ. To these sounds were added others which seemed to be peculiar to the cave itself. They appeared to rise from crevices in the floor, and were no doubt due to the action of those pent-up subterranean fires which were imprisoned directly, though it may be very far down, under their feet. Every now and then there came a sudden increase of the united sounds as if the "swell" of the great organ had been opened, and such out-gushing was always accompanied with more or less of indescribable shocks followed by prolonged tremors of the entire mountain. If the three friends had been outside to observe what was taking place, they would have seen that these symptoms were simultaneous with occasional and extremely violent outbursts from the crater of Perboewatan and his compeers. Indeed they guessed as much, and two of them at least were not a little thankful that, awesome as their position was, they had the thick mountain between them and the fiery showers outside. Of all this the hermit took no notice, but, hastening into the inner cavern, opened a small box, and took therefrom a bundle of papers and a little object which, at a first glance, Nigel supposed to be a book, but which turned out to be a photograph case. These the hermit put carefully into the breast-pocket of his coat and then turned to his companions with a sigh as if of relief. "I think there is no danger of anything occurring at this part of the island," he remarked, looking round the cave, "for there is no sign of smoke and no sulphurous smell issuing from any of the crevices in walls or floor. This, I think, shows that there is no direct communication with Rakata and the active volcano--at least not at present." "Do you then think there is a possibility of an outbreak at some future period?" asked Nigel. "Who can tell? People here, who don't study the nature of volcanoes much, though surrounded by them, will expect things ere long to resume their normal condition. I can never forget the fact that the greater part of Krakatoa stands, as you know, exactly above the spot where the two great lines of volcanic action cross, and right over the mouth of the immense crater to which Perboewatan and all the other craters serve as mere chimneys or safety-valves. We cannot tell whether a great eruption similar to that of 1680 may not be in store for us. The only reason that I can see for the quiescence of this peak of Rakata is, as I said to you once before, that it stands not so much above the old crater as above and on the safe side of its lip." "I t'ink, massa, if I may ventur' to speak," said Moses, "dat de sooner we git off his lip de better lest we tumble into his mout'." "You may be right, Moses, and I have no objection to quit," returned the hermit, "now that I have secured the photograph and papers. At the same time I fear the rain of stones and lava is growing worse. It might be safer to stay till there is a lull in the violence of the eruption, and then make a dash for it. What say you, Nigel?" "I say that you know best, Van der Kemp. I'm ready to abide by your decision, whatever it be." "Well, then, we will go out and have a look at the state of matters." The view from the entrance was not calculated to tempt them to forsake the shelter of the cave, however uncertain that might be. The latest explosions had enshrouded the island in such a cloud of smoke and dust, that nothing whatever was visible beyond a few yards in front, and even that space was only seen by the faint rays of the lamp issuing from the outer cave. This lamp-light was sufficient, however, to show that within the semi-circle of a few yards there was a continuous rain of grey ashes and dust mingled with occasional stones of various sizes-- some larger than a man's fist. "To go out in that would be simply to court death," said Nigel, whose voice was almost drowned by the noise of the explosions and fall of material. As it was manifest that nothing could be done at the moment except to wait patiently, they returned to the cave, where they lighted the oil-stove, and Moses--who had taken the precaution to carry up some provisions in a bag from the canoe--proceeded to prepare a meal. "Stummicks must be attended to," he murmured to himself as he moved about the cave-kitchen and shook his head gravely. "Collapses in dat region is wuss, a long way, dan 'splosion of the eart'!" Meanwhile, Nigel and the hermit went to examine the passage leading to the observatory. The eruption had evidently done nothing to it, for, having passed upwards without difficulty, they finally emerged upon the narrow ledge. The scene that burst upon their astonished gaze here was awful in the extreme. It will be remembered that while the hermit's cave was on the southern side of Krakatoa, facing Java, the stair and passage leading to the observatory completely penetrated the peak of Rakata, so that when standing on the ledge they faced northward and were thus in full view of all the craters between them and Perboewatan. These were in full blast at the time, and, being so near, the heat, as well as the dust, molten lava, and other missiles, instantly drove them back under the protection of the passage from which they had emerged. Here they found a small aperture which appeared to have been recently formed--probably by a blow from a mass of falling rock--through which they were able to obtain a glimpse of the pandemonium that lay seething below them. They could not see much, however, owing to the smoke which filled the air. The noise of the almost continuous explosions was so loud, that it was impossible to converse save by placing the mouth to the ear and shouting. Fortunately soon after their ascent the wind shifted and blew smoke, fire, and dust away to the northward, enabling them to get out on the ledge, where for a time they remained in comparative safety. "Look! look at your mirrors!" exclaimed Nigel suddenly, as his wandering gaze happened to turn to the hermit's sun-guides. And he might well exclaim, for not only was the glass of these ingenious machines shivered and melted, but their iron frameworks were twisted up into fantastic shapes. "Lightning has been at work here," said Van der Kemp. It did not at the moment occur to either of them that the position on which they stood was peculiarly liable to attack by the subtle and dangerous fluid which was darting and zigzagging everywhere among the rolling clouds of smoke and steam. A louder report than usual here drew their attention again to the tremendous scene that was going on in front of them. The extreme summit of Perboewatan had been blown into a thousand fragments, which were hurtling upwards and crackling loudly as the smaller masses were impelled against each other in their skyward progress. This crackling has been described by those who heard it from neighbouring shores as a "strange rustling sound." To our hermit and his friend, who were, so to speak, in the very midst of it, the sound rather resembled the continuous musketry of a battle-field, while the louder explosions might be compared to the booming of artillery, though they necessarily lose by the comparison, for no invention of man ever produced sounds equal to those which thundered at that time from the womb of Krakatoa. Immediately after this, a fountain of molten lava at white heat welled up in the great throat that had been so violently widened, and, overflowing the edges of the crater, rolled down its sides in fiery rivers. All the other craters in the island became active at the same moment and a number of new ones burst forth. Indeed it seemed to those who watched them that if these had not opened up to give vent to the suppressed forces the whole island must have been blown away. As it was, the sudden generation of so much excessive heat set fire to what remained of trees and everything combustible, so that the island appeared to be one vast seething conflagration, and darkness was for a time banished by a red glare that seemed to Nigel far more intense than that of noonday. It is indeed the partiality, (if we may say so), of conflagration-light which gives to it the character of impressive power with which we are all so familiar--the intense lights being here cut sharply off by equally intense shadows, and then grading into dull reds and duller greys. The sun, on the other hand, bathes everything in its genial glow so completely that all nature is permeated with it, and there are no intense contrasts, no absolutely black and striking shadows, except in caverns and holes, to form startling contrasts. "These safety-valves," said the hermit, referring to the new craters, "have, under God, been the means of saving us from destruction." "It would seem so," said Nigel, who was too overwhelmed by the sight to say much. Even as he spoke the scene changed as if by magic, for from the cone of Perboewatan there issued a spout of liquid fire, followed by a roar so tremendous that the awe-struck men shrank within themselves, feeling as though that time had really come when the earth is to melt with fervent heat! The entire lake of glowing lava was shot into the air, and lost in the clouds above, while mingled smoke and steam went bellowing after it, and dust fell so thickly that it seemed as if sufficient to extinguish the raging fires. Whether it did so or not is uncertain. It may have been that the new pall of black vapour only obscured them. At all events, after the outburst the darkness of night fell suddenly on all around. Just then the wind again changed, and the whole mass of vapour, smoke, and ashes came sweeping like the very besom of destruction towards the giddy ledge on which the observers stood. Nigel was so entranced that it is probable he might have been caught in the horrible tempest and lost, had not his cooler companion grasped his arm and dragged him violently into the passage--where they were safe, though half suffocated by the heat and sulphurous vapours that followed them. At the same time the thunderous roaring became so loud that conversation was impossible. Van der Kemp therefore took his friend's hand and led him down to the cave, where the sounds were so greatly subdued as to seem almost a calm by contrast. "We are no doubt in great danger," said the hermit, gravely, as he sat down in the outer cave, "but there is no possibility of taking action to-night. Here we are, whether wisely or unwisely, and here we must remain--at least till there is a lull in the eruption. `God is our refuge.' He ought to be so at _all_ times, but there are occasions when this great, and, I would add, glorious fact is pressed upon our understandings with unusual power. Such a time is this. Come--we will see what His word says to us just now." To Nigel's surprise, and, he afterwards confessed, to his comfort and satisfaction, the hermit called the negro from his work, and, taking down the large Bible from its shelf, read part of the 46th Psalm, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." He stopped reading at the verse where it is written, "Be still, and know that I am God." Then, going down on his knees,--without even the familiar formula, "Let us pray"--he uttered a brief but earnest prayer for guidance and deliverance "in the name of Jesus." Rising, he quietly put the Bible away, and, with the calmness of a thoroughly practical man, who looks upon religion and ordinary matters as parts of one grand whole, ordered Moses to serve the supper. Thus they spent part of that memorable night of 26th August 1883 in earnest social intercourse, conversing chiefly and naturally about the character, causes, and philosophy of volcanoes, while Perboewatan and his brethren played a rumbling, illustrative accompaniment to their discourse. The situation was a peculiar one. Even the negro was alive to that fact. "Ain't it koorious," he remarked solemnly in a moment of confidence after swallowing the last bite of his supper. "Ain't it koorious, Massa Nadgel, dat we're a sottin' here comf'rably enjoyin' our wittles ober de mout' ob a v'licano as is quite fit to blow us all to bits an' hois' us into de bery middle ob next week--if not farder?" "It is strange indeed, Moses," said Nigel, who however added no commentary, feeling indisposed to pursue the subject. Seeing this, Moses turned to his master. "Massa," he said. "You don' want nuffin' more to-night, I s'pose?" "No, Moses, nothing." "An' is you _quite_ easy in your mind?" "Quite," replied the hermit with his peculiar little smile. "Den it would be wuss dan stoopid for me to be oneasy, so I'll bid ye bof good-night, an' turn in." In this truly trustful as well as philosophical state of mind, the negro retired to his familiar couch in the inner cave, and went to sleep. Nigel and the hermit sat up for some time longer. "Van der Kemp," said the former, after a pause, "I--I trust you won't think me actuated by impertinent curiosity if I venture to ask you about--the--photograph that I think you--" "My young friend!" interrupted the hermit, taking the case in question from his breast-pocket; "I should rather apologise to you for having appeared to make any mystery of it--and yet," he added, pausing as he was about to open the case, "I have not shown it to a living soul since the day that--Well, well,--why should I hesitate? It is all I have left of my dead wife and child." He placed the case in the hands of Nigel, who almost sprang from his seat with excitement as he beheld the countenance of a little child of apparently three or four years of age, who so exactly resembled Kathy Holbein--allowing of course for the difference of age--that he had now no doubt whatever as to her being the hermit's lost daughter. He was on the point of uttering her name, when uncertainty as to the effect the sudden disclosure might have upon the father checked him. "You seem surprised, my friend," said Van der Kemp gently. "Most beautiful!" said Nigel, gazing intently at the portrait. "That dear child's face seems so familiar to me that I could almost fancy I had seen it." He looked earnestly into his friend's face as he spoke, but the hermit was quite unmoved, and there was not a shadow of change in the sad low tone of his voice as he said-- "Yes, she was indeed beautiful, like her mother. As to your fancy about having seen it--mankind is formed in groups and types. We see many faces that resemble others." The absent look that was so common to the solitary man here overspread his massive features, and Nigel felt crushed, as it were, back into himself. Thus, without having disclosed his belief, he retired to rest in a very anxious state of mind, while the hermit watched. "Don't take off your clothes," he said. "If the sounds outside lead me to think things are quieting down, I will rouse you and we shall start at once." It was very early on the morning of the 27th when Van der Kemp roused our hero. "Are things quieter?" asked Nigel as he rose. "Yes, a little, but not much--nevertheless we must venture to leave." "Is it daylight yet?" "No. There will be no daylight to-day!" with which prophecy the hermit left him and went to rouse Moses. "Massa," said the faithful negro. "Isn't you a-goin' to take nuffin' wid you? None ob de books or t'ings!" "No--nothing except the old Bible. All the rest I leave behind. The canoe could not carry much. Besides, we may have little time. Get ready; quick! and follow me." Moses required no spur. The three men left the cave together. It was so intensely dark that the road could not be distinguished, but the hermit and his man were so familiar with it that they could have followed it blindfold. On reaching the cave at the harbour, some light was obtained from the fitful outbursts of the volcano, which enabled them to launch the canoe and push off in safety. Then, without saying a word to each other, they coasted along the shore of the island, and, finally, leaving its dangers behind them, made for the island of Java--poor Spinkie sitting in his accustomed place and looking uncommonly subdued! Scarcely had they pushed off into Sunda Straits when the volcano burst out afresh. They had happily seized on the only quiet hour that the day offered, and had succeeded, by the aid of the sails, in getting several miles from the island without receiving serious injury, although showers of stones and masses of rock of all sizes were falling into the sea around them. Van der Kemp was so far right in his prophecy that there would be no daylight that day. By that time there should have been light, as it was nearly seven o'clock on the memorable morning of the 27th of August. But now, although the travellers were some miles distant from Krakatoa, the gloom was so impervious that Nigel, from his place in the centre of the canoe, could not see the form of poor Spinkie--which sat clinging to the mast only two feet in front of him--save when a blaze from Perboewatan or one of the other craters lighted up island and ocean with a vivid glare. At this time the sea began to run very high and the wind increased to a gale, so that the sails of the canoe, small though they were, had to be reduced. "Lower the foresail, Nigel," shouted the hermit. "I will close-reef it. Do you the same to the mainsail." "Ay, ay, sir," was the prompt reply. Moses and Nigel kept the little craft straight to the wind while the foresail was being reefed, Van der Kemp and the former performing the same duty while Nigel reefed the mainsail. Suddenly there came a brief but total cessation of the gale, though not of the tumultuous heaving of the waters. During that short interval there burst upon the world a crash and a roar so tremendous that for a few moments the voyagers were almost stunned! It is no figure of speech to say that the _world_ heard the crash. Hundreds, ay, thousands of miles did the sound of that mighty upheaval pass over land and sea to startle, more or less, the nations of the earth. The effect of a stupendous shock on the nervous system is curiously various in different individuals. The three men who were so near to the volcano at that moment involuntarily looked round and saw by the lurid blaze that an enormous mass of Krakatoa, rent from top to bottom, was falling headlong into the sea; while the entire heavens were alive with flame, lightning, steam, smoke, and the upward-shooting fragments of the hideous wreck! The hermit calmly rested his paddle on the deck and gazed around in silent wonder. Nigel, not less smitten with awe, held his paddle with an iron grasp, every muscle quivering with tension in readiness for instant action when the need for action should appear. Moses, on the other hand, turning round from the sight with glaring eyes, resumed paddling with unreasoning ferocity, and gave vent at once to his feelings and his opinion in the sharp exclamation--"Blown to bits!" CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. ADVENTURES OF THE "SUNSHINE" AND AN UNEXPECTED REUNION. We must request the reader to turn back now for a brief period to a very different scene. A considerable time before the tremendous catastrophe described in the last chapter--which we claim to have recorded without the slightest exaggeration, inasmuch as exaggeration were impossible--Captain David Roy, of the good brig _Sunshine_, received the letter which his son wrote to him while in the jungles of Sumatra. The captain was seated in the back office of a Batavian merchant at the time, smoking a long clay pipe--on the principle, no doubt, that moderate poisoning is conducive to moderate health! As he perused the letter, the captain's eyes slowly opened; so did his mouth, and the clay pipe, falling to the floor, was reduced to little pieces. But the captain evidently cared nothing for that. He gave forth a prolonged whistle, got up, smote upon his thigh, and exclaimed with deep-toned emphasis-- "The rascal!" Then he sat down again and re-perused the letter, with a variety of expression on his face that might have recalled the typical April day, minus the tears. "The rascal!" he repeated, as he finished the second reading of the letter and thrust it into his pocket. "I knew there was somethin' i' the wind wi' that little girl! The memory o' my own young days when I boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the rascal's eye the very first time they met--an' he thinks I'm as blind as a bat, I'll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness. But it's a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The young dog! He gives me orders as if he were the owner." Jumping up, Captain Roy hurried out into the street. In passing the outer office he left a message with one of the clerks for his friend the merchant. "Tell him," he said, "that I'll attend to that little business about the bill when I come back. I'm going to sail for the Keeling Islands this afternoon." "The Keeling Islands?" exclaimed the clerk in surprise. "Yes--I've got business to do there. I'll be back, all bein' well, in a week--more or less." The clerk's eyebrows remained in a raised position for a few moments, until he remembered that Captain Roy, being owner of his ship and cargo, was entitled to do what he pleased with his own and himself. Then they descended, and he went on with his work, amusing himself with the thought that the most curious beings in the world were seafaring men. "Mr Moor," said the captain somewhat excitedly, as he reached the deck of his vessel, "are all the men aboard?" "All except Jim Sloper, sir." "Then send and hunt up Jim Sloper at once, for we sail this afternoon for the Keeling Islands." "Very well, sir." Mr Moor was a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that afternoon, he would probably have said "Very well, sir," in the same tone and with the same expression. "May I ask, sir, what sort of cargo you expect there?" said Mr Moor; for to his practical mind some re-arrangement of the cargo already on board might be necessary for the reception of that to be picked up at Keeling. "The cargo we'll take on board will be a girl," said the captain. "A what, sir?" "A girl." "Very well, sir." This ended the business part of the conversation. Thereafter they went into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An amateur detective, in the form of a shipmate, having captured Jim Sloper, the _Sunshine_ finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part of the southern hemisphere. Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa, which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to prevent, as it were, premature explosion. "My son's friend, the hermit of Rakata," said the captain to his second mate, "will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he returns." "Looks like it, sir," said Mr Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened volcano. "Do you expect 'em back soon, sir?" "Yes--time's about up now. I shouldn't wonder if they reach Batavia before us." Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a ship. It was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent him, for he could not assert definitely that the hermit actually was Kathleen Holbein's father, and her self-constituted parents did not relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved as a daughter. "Why not bring this man who claims to be her father _here_?" asked the perplexed Holbein. "Because--because, p'raps he won't come," answered the puzzled mariner, who did not like to say that he was simply and strictly obeying his son's orders. "Besides," he continued, "the man does not claim to be anything at all. So far as I understand it, my boy has not spoken to him on the subject, for fear, I suppose, of raisin' hopes that ain't to be realised." "He is right in that," said Mrs Holbein, "and we must be just as careful not to raise false hopes in dear little Kathy. As your son says, it may be a mistake after all. We must not open our lips to her about it." "Right you are, madam," returned the captain. "Mum's the word; and we've only got to say she's goin' to visit one of your old friends in Anjer--which'll be quite true, you know, for the landlady o' the chief hotel there is a great friend o' yours, and we'll take Kathy to her straight. Besides, the trip will do her health a power o' good, though I'm free to confess it don't need no good to be done to it, bein' A1 at the present time. Now, just you agree to give the girl a holiday, an' I'll pledge myself to bring her back safe and sound--with her father, if he's _him_; without him if he isn't." With such persuasive words Captain Roy at length overcame the Holbein objections. With the girl herself he had less difficulty, his chief anxiety being, as he himself said, "to give her reasons for wishin' her to go without tellin' lies." "Wouldn't you like a trip in my brig to Anjer, my dear girl?" He had almost said daughter, but thought it best not to be too precipitate. "Oh! I should like it _so_ much," said Kathleen, clasping her little hands and raising her large eyes to the captain's face. "_Dear_ child!" said the captain to himself. Then aloud, "Well, I'll take you." "But I--I fear that father and mother would not like me to go--perhaps." "No fear o' them, my girl," returned the captain, putting his huge rough hand on her pretty little head as if in an act of solemn appropriation, for, unlike too many fathers, this exemplary man considered only the sweetness, goodness, and personal worth of the girl, caring not a straw for other matters, and being strongly of opinion that a man should marry young if he possess the spirit of a man or the means to support a wife. As he was particularly fond of Kathleen, and felt quite sure that his son had deeper reasons than he chose to express for his course of action, he entertained a strong hope, not to say conviction, that she would also become fond of Nigel, and that all things would thus work together for a smooth course to this case of true love. It will be seen from all this that Captain David Roy was a sanguine man. Whether his hopes were well grounded or not remains to be seen. Meanwhile, having, as Mr Moor said, shipped the cargo, the _Sunshine_ set sail once more for Sunda Straits in a measure of outward gloom that formed a powerful contrast to the sunny hopes within her commander's bosom, for Krakatoa was at that time progressing rapidly towards the consummation of its designs, as partly described in the last chapter. Short though that voyage was, it embraced a period of action so thrilling that ever afterwards it seemed a large slice of life's little day to those who went through it. We have said that the culminating incidents of the drama began on the night of the 26th. Before that time, however, the cloud-pall was fast spreading over land and sea, and the rain of pumice and ashes had begun to descend. The wind being contrary, it was several days before the brig reached the immediate neighbourhood of Krakatoa, and by that time the volcano had begun to enter upon the stage which is styled by vulcanologists "paroxysmal," the explosions being extremely violent as well as frequent. "It is very awful," said Kathleen in a low voice, as she clasped the captain's arm and leaned her slight figure on it. "I have often heard the thunder of distant volcanoes, but never been so near as to hear such terrible sounds." "Don't be frightened, my ducky," said the captain in a soothing tone, for he felt from the appearance of things that there was indeed some ground for alarm. "Volcanoes always look worse when you're near them." "I not frightened," she replied. "Only I got strange, solemn feelings. Besides, no danger can come till God allows." "That's right, lass. Mrs Holbein has been a true mother if she taught you that." "No, she did not taught me that. My father taught me that." "What! Old Holbein?" "No--my father, who is dead," she said in a low voice. "Oh! I see. My poor child, I should have understood you. Forgive me." As the captain spoke, a tremendous outburst on Krakatoa turned their minds to other subjects. They were by that time drawing near to the island, and the thunders of the eruption seemed to shake not only the heavens but even the great ocean itself. Though the hour was not much past noon the darkness soon became so dense that it was difficult to perceive objects a few yards distant, and, as pieces of stone the size of walnuts, or even larger, began to fall on the deck, the captain sent Kathleen below. "There's no saying where or when a big stone may fall, my girl," he said, "and it's not the habit of Englishmen to let women come under fire, so you'll be safer below. Besides, you'll be able to see something of what's goin' on out o' the cabin windows." With the obedience that was natural to her, Kathleen went down at once, and the captain made everything as snug as possible, battening down the hatches and shortening sail so as to be ready for whatever might befall. "I don't like the look o' things, Mr Moor," said the captain when the second mate came on deck to take his watch. "No more do I, sir," answered Mr Moor calmly. The aspect of things was indeed very changeable. Sometimes, as we have said, all nature seemed to be steeped in thick darkness, at other times the fires of the volcano blazed upward, spreading a red glare on the rolling clouds and over the heaving sea. Lightning also played its part as well as thunder, but the latter was scarcely distinguishable from the volcano's roar. Three days before Sunday the 26th of August, Captain Roy--as well as the crews of several other vessels that were in Sunda Straits at the time--had observed a marked though gradual increase in the violence of the eruption. On that day, as we read in the _Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society_, about 1 p.m. the detonations caused by the explosive action attained such violence as to be heard at Batavia, about 100 English miles away. At 2 p.m. of the same day, Captain Thompson of the _Medea_, when about 76 miles east-north-east of the island, saw a black mass rising like clouds of smoke to a height which has been estimated at no less than 17 miles! And the detonations were at that time taking place at intervals of ten minutes. But, terrible though these explosions must have been, they were but as the whisperings of the volcano. An hour later they had increased so much as to be heard at Bandong and other places 150 miles away, and at 5 p.m. they had become so tremendous as to be heard over the whole island of Java, the eastern portion of which is about 650 miles from Krakatoa. And the sounds thus heard were not merely like distant thunder. In Batavia--although, as we have said, 100 miles off--they were so violent during the whole of that terrible Sunday night as to prevent the people from sleeping. They were compared to the "discharge of artillery close at hand," and caused a rattling of doors, windows, pictures, and chandeliers. Captain Watson of the _Charles Bal_, who chanced to be only 10 miles south of the volcano, also compared the sounds to discharges of artillery, but this only shows the feebleness of ordinary language in attempting to describe such extraordinary sounds, for if they were comparable to close artillery at Batavia, the same comparison is inappropriate at only ten miles' distance. He also mentions the crackling noise, probably due to the impact of fragments in the atmosphere, which were noticed by the hermit and Nigel while standing stunned and almost stupefied on the giddy ledge of Rakata that same Sunday. About five in the evening of that day, the brig _Sunshine_ drew still nearer to the island, but the commotion at the time became so intense, and the intermittent darkness so profound, that Captain Roy was afraid to continue the voyage and shortened sail. Not only was there a heavy rolling sea, but the water was seething, as if about to boil. "Heave the lead, Mr Moor," said the captain, who stood beside the wheel. "Yes, sir," answered the imperturbable second mate, who thereupon gave the necessary order, and when the depth was ascertained, the report was "Ten fathoms, sand, with a hot bottom." "A hot bottom! what do you mean?" "The lead's 'ot, sir," replied the sailor. This was true, as the captain found when he applied his hand to it. "I do believe the world's going on fire," he muttered; "but it's a comfort to know that it can't very well blaze up as long as the sea lasts!" Just then a rain of pumice in large pieces, and quite warm, began to fall upon the deck. As most people know, pumice is extremely light, so that no absolute injury was done to any one, though such rain was excessively trying. Soon, however, a change took place. The dense vapours and dust-clouds which had rendered it so excessively dark were entirely lighted up from time to time by fierce flashes of lightning which rent as well as painted them in all directions. At one time this great mass of clouds presented the appearance of an immense pine-tree with the stem and branches formed of volcanic lightning. Captain Roy, fearing that these tremendous sights and sounds would terrify the poor girl in the cabin, was about to look in and reassure her, when the words "Oh! how splendid!" came through the slightly opened door. He peeped in and saw Kathleen on her knees on the stern locker, with her hands clasped, gazing out of one of the stern windows. "Hm! she's all right," he muttered, softly re-closing the door and returning on deck. "If she thinks it's splendid, she don't need no comfortin'! It's quite clear that she don't know what danger means--and why should she? Humph! there go some more splendid sights for her," he added, as what appeared to be chains of fire ascended from the volcano to the sky. Just then a soft rain began to fall. It was warm, and, on examination at the binnacle-lamp, turned out to be mud. Slight at first, it soon poured down in such quantities that in ten minutes it lay six inches thick on the deck, and the crew had to set to work with shovels to heave it overboard. At this time there was seen a continual roll of balls of white fire down the sides of the peak of Rakata, caused, doubtless, by the ejection of white-hot fragments of lava. Then showers of masses like iron cinders fell on the brig, and from that time onward till four o'clock of the morning of the 27th, explosions of indescribable grandeur continually took place, as if the mountains were in a continuous roar of terrestrial agony--the sky being at one moment of inky blackness, the next in a blaze of light, while hot, choking, and sulphurous smells almost stifled the voyagers. At this point the captain again became anxious about Kathleen and went below. He found her in the same place and attitude--still fascinated! "My child," he said, taking her hand, "you must lie down and rest." "Oh! no. Do let me stay up," she begged, entreatingly. "But you must be tired--sleepy." "Sleepy! who could sleep with such wonders going on around? Pray _don't_ tell me to go to bed!" It was evident that poor Kathy had the duty of obedience to authority still strong upon her. Perhaps the memory of the Holbein nursery had not yet been wiped out. "Well, well," said the captain with a pathetic smile, "you are as safe-- comfortable, I mean--here as in your berth or anywhere else." As there was a lull in the violence of the eruption just then, the captain left Kathleen in the cabin and went on deck. It was not known at that time what caused this lull, but as it preceded the first of the four grand explosions which effectually eviscerated--emptied--the ancient crater of Krakatoa, we will give, briefly, the explanation of it as conjectured by the men of science. Lying as it did so close to the sea-level, the Krakatoa volcano, having blown away all its cones, and vents, and safety-valves--from Perboewatan southward, except the peak of Rakata--let the sea rush in upon its infernal fires. This result, ordinary people think, produced a gush of steam which caused the grand terminal explosions. Vulcanologists think otherwise, and with reason--which is more than can be said of ordinary people, who little know the power of the forces at work below the crust of our earth! The steam thus produced, although on so stupendous a scale, was free to expand and therefore went upwards, no doubt in a sufficiently effective gust and cloud. But nothing worthy of being named a blow-up was there. The effect of the in-rushing water was to cool the upper surface of the boiling lava and convert it into a thick hard solid crust at the mouth of the great vent. In this condition the volcano resembled a boiler with all points of egress closed and the safety-valve shut down! Oceans of molten lava creating expansive gases below; no outlet possible underneath, and the neck of the bottle corked with tons of solid rock! One of two things must happen in such circumstances: the cork must go or the bottle must burst! Both events happened on that terrible night. All night long the corks were going, and at last--Krakatoa burst! In the hurly-burly of confusion, smoke, and noise, no eye could note the precise moment when the island was shattered, but there were on the morning of the 27th four supreme explosions, which rang loud and high above the horrible average din. These occurred--according to the careful investigations made, at the instance of the Dutch Indian Government, by the eminent geologist, Mr R.D.M. Verbeek--at the hours of 5:30, 6:44, 10:02, and 10:52 in the morning. Of these the third, about 10, was by far the worst for violence and for the widespread devastation which it produced. At each of these explosions a tremendous sea-wave was created by the volcano, which swept like a watery ring from Krakatoa as a centre to the surrounding shores. It was at the second of these explosions--that of 6:44--that the fall of the mighty cliff took place which was seen by the hermit and his friends as they fled from the island, and, on the crest of the resulting wave, were carried along they scarce knew whither. As the previous wave--that of 5:30--had given the brig a tremendous heave upwards, the captain, on hearing the second, ran down below for a moment to tell Kathleen there would soon be another wave, but that she need fear no danger. "The brig is deep and has a good hold o' the water," he said, "so the wave is sure to slip under her without damage. I wish I could hope it would do as little damage when it reaches the shore." As he spoke a strange and violent crash was heard overhead, quite different from volcanic explosions, like the falling of some heavy body on the deck. "One o' the yards down!" muttered the captain as he ran to the cabin door. "Hallo, what's that, Mr Moor?" "Canoe just come aboard, sir." "A canoe?" "Yes, sir. Crew, three men and a monkey. All insensible--hallo!" The "hallo!" with which the second mate finished his remark was so unlike his wonted tone, and so full of genuine surprise, that the captain ran forward with unusual haste, and found a canoe smashed to pieces against the foremast, and the mate held a lantern close to the face of one of the men while the crew were examining the others. A single glance told the captain that the mud-bespattered figure that lay before him as if dead was none other than his own son! The great wave had caught the frail craft on its crest, and, sweeping it along with lightning speed for a short distance, had hurled it on the deck of the _Sunshine_ with such violence as to completely stun the whole crew. Even Spinkie lay in a melancholy little heap in the lee scuppers. You think this a far-fetched coincidence, good reader! Well, all we can say is that we could tell you of another--a double-coincidence, which was far more extraordinary than this one, but as it has nothing to do with our tale we refrain from inflicting it on you. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. A CLIMAX. Three of those who had tumbled thus unceremoniously on the deck of the _Sunshine_ were soon sufficiently recovered to sit up and look around in dazed astonishment--namely Nigel, Moses, and the monkey--but the hermit still lay prone where he had been cast, with a pretty severe wound on his head, from which blood was flowing freely. "Nigel, my boy!" "Father!" exclaimed the youth. "Where am I? What has happened?" "Don't excite yourself, lad," said the mariner, stooping and whispering into his son's ear. "We've got _her_ aboard!" No treatment could have been more effectual in bringing Nigel to his senses than this whisper. "Is--is--Van der Kemp safe?" he asked anxiously. "All right--only stunned, I think. That's him they're just goin' to carry below. Put 'im in my bunk, Mr Moor." "Ay ay, sir." Nigel sprang up. "Stay, father," he said in a low voice. "_She_ must not see him for the first time like this." "All right, boy. I understand. You leave that to me. My bunk has bin shifted for'id--more amidships--an' Kathy's well aft. They shan't be let run foul of each other. You go an' rest on the main hatch till we get him down. Why, here's a nigger! Where did you pick him? oh! I remember. You're the man we met, I suppose, wi' the hermit on Krakatoa that day o' the excursion from Batavia." "Yes, das me. But we'll meet on Krakatoa no more, for dat place am blown to bits." "I'm pretty well convinced o' that by this time, my man. Not hurt much, I hope?" "No, sar--not more 'n I can stan'. But I's 'fraid dat poor Spinkie's a'most used up--hallo! what you gwine to do with massa?" demanded the negro, whose wandering faculties had only in part returned. "He's gone below. All right. Now, you go and lie down beside my son on the hatch. I'll--see to Van der Kemp." But Captain David Roy's intentions, like those of many men of greater note, were frustrated by the hermit himself, who recovered consciousness just as the four men who carried him reached the foot of the companion-ladder close to the cabin door. Owing to the deeper than midnight darkness that prevailed a lamp was burning in the cabin--dimly, as if, infected by the universal chaos, it were unwilling to enlighten the surrounding gloom. On recovering consciousness Van der Kemp was, not unnaturally, under the impression that he had fallen into the hands of foes. With one effectual convulsion of his powerful limbs he scattered his bearers right and left, and turning--like all honest men--to the light, he sprang into the cabin, wrenched a chair from its fastenings, and, facing round, stood at bay. Kathleen, seeing this blood-stained giant in such violent action, naturally fled to her cabin and shut the door. As no worse enemy than Captain Roy presented himself at the cabin door, unarmed, and with an anxious look on his rugged face, the hermit set down the chair, and feeling giddy sank down on it with a groan. "I fear you are badly hurt, sir. Let me tie a handkerchief round your wounded head," said the captain soothingly. "Thanks, thanks. Your voice is not unfamiliar to me," returned the hermit with a sigh, as he submitted to the operation. "I thought I had fallen somehow into the hands of pirates. Surely an accident must have happened. How did I get here? Where are my comrades--Nigel and the negro?" "My son Nigel is all right, sir, and so is your man Moses. Make your mind easy--an' pray don't speak while I'm working at you. I'll explain it all in good time. Stay, I'll be with you in a moment." The captain--fearing that Kathleen might come out from curiosity to see what was going on, and remembering his son's injunction--went to the girl's berth with the intention of ordering her to keep close until he should give her leave to come out. Opening the door softly and looking in, he was startled, almost horrified, to see Kathleen standing motionless like a statue, with both hands pressed tightly over her heart. The colour had fled from her beautiful face; her long hair was flung back; her large lustrous eyes were wide open and her lips slightly parted, as if her whole being had been concentrated in eager expectancy. "What's wrong, my girl?" asked the captain anxiously. "You've no cause for fear. I just looked in to--." "That voice!" exclaimed Kathleen, with something of awe in her tones--"Oh! I've heard it so often in my dreams." "Hush! shush! my girl," said the captain in a low tone, looking anxiously round at the wounded man. But his precautions were unavailing,--Van der Kemp had also heard a voice which he thought had long been silent in death. The girl's expression was almost repeated in his face. Before the well-meaning mariner could decide what to do, Kathleen brushed lightly past him, and stood in the cabin gazing as if spell-bound at the hermit. "Winnie!" he whispered, as if scarcely daring to utter the name. "Father!" She extended both hands towards him as she spoke. Then, with a piercing shriek, she staggered backward, and would have fallen had not the captain caught her and let her gently down. Van der Kemp vaulted the table, fell on his knees beside her, and, raising her light form, clasped her to his heart, just as Nigel and Moses, alarmed by the scream, sprang into the cabin. "Come, come; away wi' you--you stoopid grampusses!" cried the captain, pushing the intruders out of the cabin, following them, and closing the door behind him. "This is no place for bunglers like you an' me. We might have known that natur' would have her way, an' didn't need no help from the like o' us. Let's on deck. There's enough work there to look after that's better suited to us." Truly there was enough--and more than enough--to claim the most anxious attention of all who were on board of the _Sunshine_ that morning, for hot mud was still falling in showers on the deck, and the thunders of the great volcano were still shaking heaven, earth, and sea. To clear the decks and sails of mud occupied every one for some time so earnestly that they failed to notice at first that the hermit had come on deck, found a shovel, and was working away like the rest of them. The frequent and prolonged blazes of intense light that ever and anon banished the darkness showed that on his face there sat an expression of calm, settled, triumphant joy, which was strangely mingled with a look of quiet humility. "I thank God for this," said Nigel, going forward when he observed him and grasping his hand. "You knew it?" exclaimed the hermit in surprise. "Yes. I knew it--indeed, helped to bring you together, but did not dare to tell you till I was quite sure. I had hoped to have you meet in very different circumstances." "`It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,'" returned the hermit reverently. "God bless you, Nigel. If you have even aimed at bringing this about, I owe you _more_ than my life." "You must have lost a good deal of blood, Van der Kemp. Are you much hurt?" asked Nigel, as he observed the bandage round his friend's head. "Somewhat. Not much, I hope--but joy, as well as blood, gives strength, Nigel." A report from a man who had just been ordered to take soundings induced the captain at this time to lay-to. "It seems to me," he said to Nigel and the hermit who stood close beside him, "that we are getting too near shore. But in cases o' this kind the bottom o' the sea itself can't be depended on." "What part of the shore are we near, d'you think, father?" "Stand by to let go the anchor!" roared the captain, instead of answering the question. "Ay, ay, sir," replied the second mate, whose cool, sing-song, business-like tone at such a moment actually tended to inspire a measure of confidence in those around him. Another moment, and the rattling chain caused a tremor through the vessel, which ceased when the anchor touched bottom, and they rode head to wind. Coruscations of bluish light seemed to play about the masts, and balls of electric fire tipped the yards, throwing for a short time a ghastly sheen over the ship and crew, for the profound darkness had again settled down, owing, no doubt, to another choking of the Krakatoa vent. Before the light referred to went out, Moses was struck violently on the chest by, something soft, which caused him to stagger. It was Spinkie! In the midst of the unusual horrors that surrounded him, while clinging to the unfamiliar mizzen shrouds on which in desperation the poor monkey had found a temporary refuge, the electric fire showed him the dark figure of his old familiar friend standing not far off. With a shriek of not quite hopeless despair, and an inconceivable bound, Spinkie launched himself into space. His early training in the forest stood him in good stead at that crisis! As already said he hit the mark fairly, and clung to Moses with a tenacity that was born of mingled love and desperation. Finding that nothing short of cruelty would unfix his little friend, Moses stuffed him inside the breast of his cotton shirt. In this haven of rest the monkey heaved a sigh of profound contentment, folded his hands on his bosom, and meekly went to sleep. Two of the excessively violent paroxysms of the volcano, above referred to, had by that time taken place, but the third, and worst--that which occurred about 10 a.m.--was yet in store for them, though they knew it not, and a lull in the roar, accompanied by thicker darkness than ever, was its precursor. There was not, however, any lull in the violence of the wind. "I don't like these lulls," said Captain Roy to the hermit, as they stood close to the binnacle, in the feeble light of its lamp. "What is that striking against our sides, Mr Moor?" "Looks like floating pumice, sir," answered the second mate, "and I think I see palm-trees amongst it." "Ay, I thought so, we must be close to land," said the captain. "We can't be far from Anjer, and I fear the big waves that have already passed us have done some damage. Lower a lantern over the side,--no, fetch an empty tar-barrel and let's have a flare. That will enable us to see things better." While the barrel was being fastened to a spar so as to be thrust well out beyond the side of the brig, Van der Kemp descended the companion and opened the cabin door. "Come up now, Winnie, darling." "Yes, father," was the reply, as the poor girl, who had been anxiously awaiting the summons, glided out and clasped her father's arm with both hands. "Are things quieting down?" "They are, a little. It may be temporary, but--Our Father directs it all." "True, father. I'm _so_ glad of that!" "Mind the step, we shall have more light on deck. There is a friend there who has just told me he met you on the Cocos-Keeling Island, Nigel Roy;--you start, Winnie?" "Y-yes, father. I am _so_ surprised, for it is _his_ father who sails this ship! And I cannot imagine how he or you came on board." "Well, I was going to say that I believe it is partly through Nigel that you and I have been brought together, but there is mystery about it that I don't yet understand; much has to be explained, and this assuredly is not the time or place. Here, Nigel, is your old Keeling friend." "Ay--friend! humph!" said old Roy softly to himself. "My dear--child!" said young Roy, paternally, to the girl as he grasped her hand. "I cannot tell you how thankful I am that this has been brought about, and--and that _I_ have had some little hand in it." "There's more than pumice floating about in the sea, sir," said Mr Moor, coming aft at the moment and speaking to the captain in a low tone. "You'd better send the young lady below--or get some one to take up her attention just now." "Here, Nigel. Sit down under the lee of the companion, an' tell Kathy how this all came about," said the captain, promptly, as if issuing nautical orders. "I want you here, Van der Kemp." So saying, the captain, followed by the hermit, went with the second mate to the place where the flaming tar-barrel was casting a lurid glare upon the troubled sea. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. "BLOWN TO BITS." The sight that met their eyes was well calculated to shock and sadden men of much less tender feeling than Van der Kemp and Captain Roy. The water had assumed an appearance of inky blackness, and large masses of pumice were floating past, among which were numerous dead bodies of men, women, and children, intermingled with riven trees, fences, and other wreckage from the land, showing that the two great waves which had already passed under the vessel had caused terrible devastation on some parts of the shore. To add to the horror of the scene large sea-snakes were seen swimming wildly about, as if seeking to escape from the novel dangers that surrounded them. The sailors looked on in awe-stricken silence for some time. "P'raps some of 'em may be alive yet!" whispered one. "Couldn't we lower a boat?" "Impossible in such a sea," said the captain, who overheard the remark. "Besides, no life could exist there." "Captain Roy," said Van der Kemp earnestly, "let me advise you to get your foresail ready to hoist at a moment's notice, and let them stand by to cut the cable." "Why so? There seems no need at present for such strong measures." "You don't understand volcanoes as I do," returned the hermit. "This lull will only last until the imprisoned fires overcome the block in the crater, and the longer it lasts the worse will be the explosion. From my knowledge of the coast I feel sure that we are close to the town of Anjer. If another wave like the last comes while we are here, it will not slip under your brig like the last one. It will tear her from her anchor and hurl us all to destruction. You have but one chance; that is, to cut the cable and run in on the top of it--a poor chance at the best, but if God wills, we shall escape." "If we are indeed as near shore as you think," said the captain, "I know what you say must be true, for in shoal water such a wave will surely carry all before it. But are you certain there will be another explosion?" "No man can be sure of that. If the last explosion emptied the crater there will be no more. If it did not, another explosion is certain. All I advise is that you should be ready for whatever is coming, and ready to take your only chance." "Right you are, sir. Send men to be ready to cut the cable, Mr Moor. And stand by the topsail halyards." "Ay, ay, sir." During the anxious minutes that followed, the hermit rejoined Winnie and Nigel on the quarterdeck, and conversed with the latter in a low voice, while he drew the former to his side with his strong arm. Captain Roy himself grasped the wheel and the men stood at their various stations ready for action. "Let no man act without orders, whatever happens," said the captain in a deep powerful voice which was heard over the whole ship, for the lull that we have mentioned extended in some degree to the gale as well as to the volcano. Every one felt that some catastrophe was pending. "Winnie, darling," said the hermit tenderly, as he bent down to see the sweet face that had been restored to him. "I greatly fear that there is soon to be another explosion, and it may be His will that we shall perish, but comfort yourself with the certainty that no hair of your dear head can fall without His permission--and in any event He will not fail us." "I know it, father. I have no fear--at least, only a little!" "Nigel," said the hermit, "stick close to us if you can. It may be that, if anything should befall me, your strong arm may succour Winnie; mine has lost somewhat of its vigour," he whispered. "Trust me--nothing but death shall sunder us," said the anxious youth in a burst of enthusiasm. It seemed as if death were indeed to be the immediate portion of all on board the _Sunshine_, for a few minutes later there came a crash, followed by a spout of smoke, fire, steam, and molten lava, compared to which all that had gone before seemed insignificant! The crash was indescribable! As we have said elsewhere, the sound of it was heard many hundreds of miles from the seat of the volcano, and its effects were seen and felt right round the world. The numerous vents which had previously been noticed on Krakatoa must at that moment have been blown into one, and the original crater of the old volcano--said to have been about six miles in diameter--must have resumed its destructive work. All the eye-witnesses who were near the spot at the time, and sufficiently calm to take note of the terrific events of that morning, are agreed as to the splendour of the electrical phenomena displayed during this paroxysmal outburst. One who, at the time, was forty miles distant speaks of the great vapour-cloud looking "like an immense wall or blood-red curtain with edges of all shades of yellow, and bursts of forked lightning at times rushing like large serpents through the air." Another says that "Krakatoa appeared to be alight with flickering flames rising behind a dense black cloud." A third recorded that "the lightning struck the mainmast conductor five or six times," and that "the mud-rain which covered the decks was phosphorescent, while the rigging presented the appearance of Saint Elmo's fire." It may be remarked here, in passing, that giant steam-jets rushing through the orifices of the earth's crust constitute an enormous hydro-electric engine; and the friction of ejected materials striking against each other in ascending and descending also generates electricity, which accounts to some extent for the electrical condition of the atmosphere. In these final and stupendous outbursts the volcano was expending its remaining force in breaking up and ejecting the solid lava which constituted its framework, and not in merely vomiting forth the lava-froth, or pumice, which had characterised the earlier stages of the eruption. In point of fact--as was afterwards clearly ascertained by careful soundings and estimates, taking the average height of the missing portion at 700 feet above water, and the depth at 300 feet below it--two-thirds of the island were blown entirely off the face of the earth. The mass had covered an area of nearly six miles, and is estimated as being equal to one and one-eighth cubic miles of solid matter which, as Moses expressed it, was blown to bits! If this had been all, it would have been enough to claim the attention and excite the wonder of the intelligent world--but this was not nearly all, as we shall see, for saddest of all the incidents connected with the eruption is the fact that upwards of thirty-six thousand human beings lost their lives. The manner in which that terrible loss occurred shall be shown by the future adventures of the _Sunshine_. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. THE FATE OF THE "SUNSHINE." Stunned at first, for a few minutes, by the extreme violence of the explosion, no one on board the _Sunshine_ spoke, though each man stood at his post ready to act. "Strange," said the captain at last. "There seems to be no big wave this time." "That only shows that we are not as near the island as we thought. But it won't be long of--See! There it comes," said the hermit. "Now, Winnie, cling to my arm and put your trust in God." Nigel, who had secured a life-buoy, moved close to the girl's side, and looking anxiously out ahead saw a faint line of foam in the thick darkness which had succeeded the explosion. Already the distant roar of the billow was heard, proving that it had begun to break. "The wind comes with it," said Van der Kemp. "Stand by!" cried the captain, gazing intently over the side. Next moment came the sharp order to hoist the foretopsail and jib, soon followed by "Cut the cable!" There was breeze enough to swing the vessel quickly round. In a few seconds her stern was presented to the coming wave, and her bow cleft the water as she rushed upon what every one now knew was her doom. To escape the great wave was no part of the captain's plan. To have reached the shore before the wave would have been fatal to all. Their only hope lay in the possibility of riding in on the top of it, and the great danger was that they should be unable to rise to it stern first when it came up, or that they should turn broadside on and be rolled over. They had not long to wait. The size of the wave, before it came near enough to be seen, was indicated by its solemn, deep-toned, ever-increasing roar. The captain stood at the wheel himself, guiding the brig and glancing back from time to time uneasily. Suddenly the volcano gave vent to its fourth and final explosion. It was not so violent as its predecessors had been, though more so than any that had occurred on the day before, and the light of it showed them the full terrors of their situation, for it revealed the mountains of Java-- apparently quite close in front, though in reality at a considerable distance--with a line of breakers beating white on the shore. But astern of them was the most appalling sight, for there, rushing on with awful speed and a sort of hissing roar, came the monstrous wave, emerging, as it were, out of thick darkness, like a mighty wall of water with a foaming white crest, not much less--according to an average of the most reliable estimates--than 100 feet high. Well might the seamen blanch, for never before in all their varied experience had they seen the like of that. On it came with the unwavering force of Fate. To the eye of Captain Roy it appeared that up its huge towering side no vessel made by mortal man could climb. But the captain had too often stared death in the face to be unmanned by the prospect now. Steadily he steered the vessel straight on, and in a quiet voice said-- "Lay hold of something firm--every man!" The warning was well timed. In the amazement, if not fear, caused by the unwonted sight, some had neglected the needful precaution. As the billow came on, the bubbling, leaping, and seething of its crest was apparent both to eye and ear. Then the roar became tremendous. "Darling Winnie," said Nigel at that moment. "I will die for you or with you!" The poor girl heard, but no sign of appreciation moved her pale face as she gazed up at the approaching chaos of waters. Next moment the brig seemed to stand on its bows. Van der Kemp had placed his daughter against the mast, and, throwing his long arms round both, held on. Nigel, close to them, had grasped a handful of ropes, and every one else was holding on for life. Another moment and the brig rose as if it were being tossed up to the heavens. Immediately thereafter it resumed its natural position in a perfect wilderness of foam. They were on the summit of the great wave, which was so large that its crest seemed like a broad, rounded mass of tumbling snow with blackness before and behind, while the roar of the tumult was deafening. The brig rushed onward at a speed which she had never before equalled even in the fiercest gale--tossed hither and thither by the leaping foam, yet always kept going straight onward by the expert steering of her captain. "Come aft--all of you!" he shouted, when it was evident that the vessel was being borne surely forward on the wave's crest. "The masts will go for certain when we strike." The danger of being entangled in the falling spars and cordage was so obvious that every one except the hermit and Nigel obeyed. "Here, Nigel," gasped the former. "I--I've--lost blood--faint!--" Our hero at once saw that Van der Kemp, fainting from previous loss of blood, coupled with exertion, was unable to do anything but hold on. Indeed, he failed even in that, and would have fallen to the deck had Nigel not caught him by the arm. "Can you run aft, Winnie?" said Nigel anxiously. "Yes!" said the girl, at once understanding the situation and darting to the wheel, of which and of Captain Roy she laid firm hold, while Nigel lifted the hermit in his arms and staggered to the same spot. Winnie knelt beside him immediately, and, forgetting for the moment all the horrors around her, busied herself in replacing the bandage which had been loosened from his head. "Oh! Mr Roy, save him!--save him!" cried the poor child, appealing in an agony to Nigel, for she felt instinctively that when the crash came her father would be utterly helpless even to save himself. Nigel had barely time to answer when a wild shout from the crew caused him to start up and look round. A flare from the volcano had cast a red light over the bewildering scene, and revealed the fact that the brig was no longer above the ocean's bed, but was passing in its wild career right through, or rather _over_, the demolished town of Anjer. A few of the houses that had been left standing by the previous waves were being swept--hurled--away by this one, but the mass of rolling, rushing, spouting water was so deep, that the vessel had as yet struck nothing save the tops of some palm-trees which bent their heads like straws before the flood. Even in the midst of the amazement, alarm, and anxiety caused by the situation, Nigel could not help wondering that in this final and complete destruction of the town no sign of struggling human beings should be visible. He forgot at the moment, what was terribly proved afterwards, that the first waves had swallowed up men, women, and children by hundreds, and that the few who survived had fled to the hills, leaving nothing for the larger wave to do but complete the work of devastation on inanimate objects. Ere the situation had been well realised the volcanic fires went down again, and left the world, for over a hundred surrounding miles, in opaque darkness. Only the humble flicker of the binnacle-light, like a trusty sentinel on duty, continued to shed its feeble rays on a few feet of the deck, and showed that the compass at least was still faithful to the pole! Then another volcanic outburst revealed the fact that the wave which carried them was thundering on in the direction of a considerable cliff or precipice--not indeed quite straight towards it, but sufficiently so to render escape doubtful. At the same time a swarm of terror-stricken people were seen flying towards this cliff and clambering up its steep sides. They were probably some of the more courageous of the inhabitants who had summoned courage to return to their homes after the passage of the second wave. Their shrieks and cries could be heard above even the roaring of the water and the detonations of the volcano. "God spare us!" exclaimed poor Winnie, whose trembling form was now partially supported by Nigel. As she spoke darkness again obscured everything, and they could do naught but listen to the terrible sounds--and pray. On--on went the _Sunshine_, in the midst of wreck and ruin, on this strange voyage over land and water, until a check was felt. It was not a crash as had been anticipated, and as might have naturally been expected, neither was it an abrupt stoppage. There was first a hissing, scraping sound against the vessel's sides, then a steady checking--we might almost say a hindrance to progress--not violent, yet so very decided that the rigging could not bear the strain. One and another of the backstays parted, the foretopsail burst with a cannon-like report, after which a terrible rending sound, followed by an indescribable crash, told that both masts had gone by the board. Then all was comparatively still--comparatively we say, for water still hissed and leaped beneath them like a rushing river, though it no longer roared, and the wind blew in unfamiliar strains and laden with unwonted odours. At that moment another outburst of Krakatoa revealed the fact that the great wave had borne the brig inland for upwards of a mile, and left her imbedded in a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms! CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD AT LARGE. The great explosions of that morning had done more damage and had achieved results more astounding than lies in the power of language adequately to describe, or of history to parallel. Let us take a glance at this subject in passing. An inhabitant of Anjer--owner of a hotel, a ship-chandler's store, two houses, and a dozen boats--went down to the beach about six on the morning of that fateful 27th of August. He had naturally been impressed by the night of the 26th, though, accustomed as he was to volcanic eruptions, he felt no apprehensions as to the safety of the town. He went to look to the moorings of his boats, leaving his family of seven behind him. While engaged in this work he observed a wave of immense size approaching. He leaped into one of his boats, which was caught up by the wave and swept inland, carrying its owner there in safety. But this was the wave that sealed the doom of the town and most of its inhabitants, including the hotel-keeper's family and all that he possessed. This is one only out of thousands of cases of bereavement and destruction. A lighthouse-keeper was seated in his solitary watch-tower, speculating, doubtless, on the probable continuance of such a violent outbreak, while his family and mates--accustomed to sleep in the midst of elemental war--were resting peacefully in the rooms below, when one of the mighty waves suddenly appeared, thundered past, and swept the lighthouse with all its inhabitants away. This shows but one of the many disasters to lighthouses in Sunda Straits. A Dutch man-of-war--the _Berouw_--was lying at anchor in Lampong Bay, fifty miles from Krakatoa. The great wave came, tore it from its anchorage, and carried it--like the vessel of our friend David Roy-- nearly two miles inland! Masses of coral of immense size and weight were carried four miles inland by the same wave. The river at Anjer was choked up; the conduit which used to carry water into the place was destroyed, and the town itself was laid in ruins. But these are only a few of the incidents of the great catastrophe. Who can conceive, much less tell of, those terrible details of sudden death and disaster to thousands of human beings, resulting from an eruption which destroyed towns like Telok Betong, Anjer, Tyringin, etcetera, besides numerous villages and hamlets on the shores of Java and Sumatra, and caused the destruction of more than 36,000 souls? But it is to results of a very different kind, and on a much more extended scale, that we must turn if we would properly estimate the magnitude, the wide-spreading and far-reaching influences, and the extraordinary character, of the Krakatoa outburst of 1883. In the first place, it is a fact, testified to by some of the best-known men of science, that the shock of the explosion extended _appreciably_ right round the world, and seventeen miles, (some say even higher!) up into the heavens. Mr Verbeek, in his treatise on this subject, estimates that a cubic mile of Krakatoa was propelled in the form of the finest dust into the higher regions of the atmosphere--probably about thirty miles! The dust thus sent into the sky was of "ultra-microscopic fineness," and it travelled round and round the world in a westerly direction, producing those extraordinary sunsets and gorgeous effects and afterglows which became visible in the British Isles in the month of November following the eruption; and the mighty waves which caused such destruction in the vicinity of Sunda Straits travelled--not once, but at least--six times round the globe, as was proved by trustworthy and independent observations of tide-gauges and barometers made and recorded at the same time in nearly all lands--including our own. Other volcanoes, it is said by those who have a right to speak in regard to such matters, have ejected more "stuff," but not one has equalled Krakatoa in the intensity of its explosions, the appalling results of the sea-waves, the wonderful effects in the sky, and the almost miraculous nature of the sounds. Seated on a log under a palm-tree in Batavia, on that momentous morning of the 27th, was a sailor who had been left behind sick by Captain Roy when he went on his rather Quixotic trip to the Keeling Islands. He was a somewhat delicate son of the sea. Want of self-restraint was his complaint--leading to a surfeit of fruit and other things, which terminated in a severe fit of indigestion and indisposition to life in general. He was smoking--that being a sovereign and infallible cure for indigestion and all other ills that flesh is heir to, as every one knows! "I say, old man," he inquired, with that cheerful tone and air which usually accompanies incapacity for food. "Do it always rain ashes here?" The old man whom he addressed was a veteran Malay seaman. "No," replied the Malay, "sometimes it rain mud--hot mud." "Do it? Oh! well--anything for variety, I s'pose," returned the sailor, with a growl which had reference to internal disarrangements. "Is it often as dark as this in the daytime, an' is the sun usually green?" he asked carelessly, more for the sake of distracting the mind from other matters than for the desire of knowledge. "Sometime it's more darker," replied the old man. "I've seed it so dark that you couldn't see how awful dark it was." As he spoke, a sound that has been described by ear-witnesses as "deafening," smote upon their tympanums, the log on which they sat quivered, the earth seemed to tremble, and several dishes in a neighbouring hut were thrown down and broken. "I say, old man, suthin' busted there," remarked the sailor, taking the pipe from his mouth and quietly ramming its contents down with the end of his blunt forefinger. The Malay looked grave. "The gasometer?" suggested the sailor. "No, that _never_ busts." "A noo mountain come into action, p'raps, an blow'd its top _off_?" "Shouldn't wonder if that's it--close at hand too. We's used to that here. But them's bigger cracks than or'nar'." The old Malay was right as to the cause, but wrong as to distance. Instead of being a volcano "close at hand," it was Krakatoa eviscerating itself a hundred miles off, and the sound of its last grand effort "extended over 50 degrees, equal to about 3000 miles." On that day all the gas lights were extinguished in Batavia, and the pictures rattled on the walls as though from the action of an earthquake. But there was no earthquake. It was the air-wave from Krakatoa, and the noise produced by the air-waves that followed was described as "deafening." The effect of the sounds of the explosions on the Straits Settlements generally was not only striking but to some extent amusing. At Carimon, in Java--355 miles distant from Krakatoa--it was supposed that a vessel in distress was firing guns, and several native boats were sent off to render assistance, but no distressed vessel was to be found! At Acheen, in Sumatra--1073 miles distant--they supposed that a fort was being attacked and the troops were turned out under arms. At Singapore--522 miles off--they fancied that the detonations came from a vessel in distress and two steamers were despatched to search for it. And here the effect on the telephone, extending to Ishore, was remarkable. On raising the tubes a perfect roar as of a waterfall was heard. By shouting at the top of his voice, the clerk at one end could make the clerk at the other end hear, but he could not render a word intelligible. At Perak--770 miles off--the sounds were thought to be distant salvos of artillery, and Commander the Honourable F Vereker, R.N., of H.M.S. _Magpie_, when 1227 miles distant, (in latitude 5 degrees 52 minutes North, longitude 118 degrees 22 minutes East), states that the detonations of Krakatoa were distinctly heard by those on board his ship, and by the inhabitants of the coast as far as Banguey Island, on August 27th. He adds that they resembled distant heavy cannonading. In a letter from Saint Lucia Bay--1116 miles distant--it was stated that the eruption was plainly heard all over Borneo. A government steamer was sent out from the Island of Timor--1351 miles off--to ascertain the cause of the disturbance! In South Australia also, at places 2250 miles away, explosions were heard on the 26th and 27th which "awakened" people, and were thought worthy of being recorded and reported. From Tavoy, in Burmah--1478 miles away--the report came--"All day on August 27th unusual sounds were heard, resembling the boom of guns. Thinking there might be a wreck or a ship in distress, the Tavoy Superintendent sent out the police launch, but they `could see nothing.'" And so on, far and near, similar records were made, the most distant spot where the sounds were reported to have been heard being Rodriguez, in the Pacific, nearly 3000 miles distant! One peculiar feature of the records is that some ships in the immediate neighbourhood of Krakatoa did not experience the shock in proportionate severity. Probably this was owing to their being so near that a great part of the concussion and sound flew over them--somewhat in the same way that the pieces of a bomb-shell fly over men who, being too near to escape by running, escape by flinging themselves flat on the ground. Each air-wave which conveyed these sounds, commencing at Krakatoa as a centre, spread out in an ever-increasing circle till it reached a distance of 180 degrees from its origin and encircled the earth at its widest part, after which it continued to advance in a contracting form until it reached the antipodes of the volcano; whence it was reflected or reproduced and travelled back again to Krakatoa. Here it was turned right-about-face and again despatched on its long journey. In this way it oscillated backward and forward not fewer than six times before traces of it were lost. We say "traces," because these remarkable facts were ascertained, tracked, and corroborated by independent barometric observation in all parts of the earth. For instance, the passage of the great air-wave from Krakatoa to its antipodes, and from its antipodes back to Krakatoa, was registered six times by the automatic barometer at Greenwich. The instrument at Kew Observatory confirmed the records of Greenwich, and so did the barometers of other places in the kingdom. Everywhere in Europe also this fact was corroborated, and in some places even a seventh oscillation was recorded. The Greenwich record shows that the air-waves took about thirty-six hours to travel from pole to pole, thus proving that they travelled at about the rate of ordinary sound-waves, which, roughly speaking, travel at the rate of between six and seven hundred miles an hour. The height of the sea-waves that devastated the neighbouring shores, being variously estimated at from 50 to 135 feet, is sufficiently accounted for by the intervention of islands and headlands, etcetera, which, of course, tended to diminish the force, height, and volume of waves in varying degrees. These, like the air-waves, were also registered--by self-acting tide-gauges and by personal observation--all over the world, and the observations _coincided as to date with the great eruptions of the 26th and 27th of August_. The influence of the sea-waves was observed and noted in the Java sea--which is shallow and where there are innumerable obstructions--as far as 450 miles, but to the west they swept over the deep waters of the Indian Ocean on to Cape Horn, and even, it is said, to the English Channel. The unusual disturbance of ocean in various places was sufficiently striking. At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the 27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that small boats at their anchorage were left aground--a thing that had never been seen before. The period of recession was only one-and-a-half minutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and, beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest high-water mark in less than two minutes, thus marking a difference of 8 feet 10 inches instead of the ordinary 2 feet. At one place there was an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, within half-an-hour. At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground, was washed away, so that, according to the observer, "it appeared as if the dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nut garden!" Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten or twelve times--in one case even twenty times--on the 27th. At Trincomalee the sea receded three times and returned with singular force, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fish struggling in the mud. The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at once made manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashed into the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest, when--alas for the poor fishermen!--the sea rushed in again and drove them all away. In the Mauritius, however, the fishers were more fortunate, for when their beach was exposed in a similar manner, they succeeded in capturing a good many fish before the water returned. Even sharks were disturbed in their sinister and slimy habits of life by this outburst of Krakatoa--and no wonder, when it is recorded that in some places "the sea looked like water boiling heavily in a pot," and that "the boats which were afloat were swinging in all directions." At one place several of these monsters were flung out of their native home into pools, where they were left struggling till their enemy man terminated their career. Everywhere those great waves produced phenomena which were so striking as to attract the attention of all classes of people, to ensure record in most parts of the world, and to call for the earnest investigation of the scientific men of many lands--and the conclusion to which such men have almost universally come is, that the strange vagaries of the sea all over the earth, the mysterious sounds heard in so many widely distant places, and the wonderful effects in the skies of every quarter of the globe, were all due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883. With reference to these last--the sky-effects--a few words may not be out of place here. The superfine "ultra-microscopic" dust, which was blown by the volcano in quantities so enormous to such unusual heights, was, after dropping its heavier particles back to earth, caught by the breezes which always blow in the higher regions from east to west, and carried by them for many months round and round the world. The dust was thickly and not widely spread at first, but as time went on it gradually extended itself on either side, becoming visible to more and more of earth's inhabitants, and at the same time becoming necessarily less dense. Through this medium the sun's rays had to penetrate. In so far as the dust-particles were opaque they would obscure these rays; where they were transparent or polished they would refract and reflect them. That the material of which those dust-particles was composed was very various has been ascertained, proved, and recorded by the Krakatoa Committee. The attempt to expound this matter would probably overtax the endurance of the average reader, yet it may interest all to know that this dust-cloud travelled westward within the tropics at the rate of about double the speed of an express train--say 120 miles an hour; crossed the Indian Ocean and Africa in three days, the Atlantic in two, America in two, and, in short, put a girdle round the world in thirteen days. Moreover, the cloud of dust was so big that it took two or three days to pass any given point. During its second circumnavigation it was considerably spread and thinned, and the third time still more so, having expanded enough to include Europe and the greater part of North America. It had thinned away altogether and disappeared in the spring of 1884. Who has not seen--at least read or heard of--the gorgeous skies of the autumn of 1883? Not only in Britain, but in all parts of the world, these same skies were seen, admired, and commented on as marvellous. And so they were. One of the chief peculiarities about them, besides their splendour, was the fact that they consisted chiefly of "afterglows"--that is, an increase of light and splendour _after_ the setting of the sun, when, in an ordinary state of things, the grey shadows of evening would have descended on the world. Greenish-blue suns; pink clouds; bright yellow, orange, and crimson afterglows; gorgeous, magnificent, blood-red skies--the commentators seemed unable to find language adequately to describe them. Listen to a German observer's remarks on the subject:-- "The display of November 29th was the grandest and most manifold. I give a description as exactly as possible, for its overwhelming magnificence still presents itself to me as if it had been yesterday. When the sun had set about a quarter of an hour there was not much afterglow, but I had observed a remarkably yellow bow in the south, about 10 degrees above the horizon. In about ten minutes more this arc rose pretty quickly, extended itself all over the east and up to and beyond the zenith. The sailors declared, `Sir, that is the Northern Lights.' I thought I had never seen Northern Lights in greater splendour. After five minutes more the light had faded, though not vanished, in the east and south, and the finest purple-red rose up in the south-west; one could imagine one's-self in Fairyland." All this, and a great deal more, was caused by the dust of Krakatoa! "But how--how--why?" exclaims an impatient and puzzled reader. "Ay--there's the rub." Rubbing, by the way, may have had something to do with it. At all events we are safe to say that whatever there was of electricity in the matter resulted from friction. Here is what the men of science say--as far as we can gather and condense. The fine dust blown out of Krakatoa was found, under the microscope, to consist of excessively thin, transparent plates or irregular specks of pumice--which inconceivably minute fragments were caused by enormous steam pressure in the interior and the sudden expansion of the masses blown out into the atmosphere. Of this glassy dust, that which was blown into the regions beyond the clouds must have been much finer even than that which was examined. These glass fragments were said by Dr Flugel to contain either innumerable air-bubbles or minute needle-like crystals, or both. Small though these vesicles were when ejected from the volcano, they would become still smaller by bursting when they suddenly reached a much lower pressure of atmosphere at a great height. Some of them, however, owing to tenacity of material and other causes, might have failed to burst and would remain floating in the upper air as perfect microscopic glass balloons. Thus the dust was a mass of particles of every conceivable shape, and so fine that no watches, boxes, or instruments were tight enough to exclude from their interior even that portion of the dust which was heavy enough to remain on earth! Now, to the unscientific reader it is useless to say more than that the innumerable and varied positions of these glassy particles, some transparent, others semi-transparent or opaque, reflecting the sun's rays in different directions, with a complex modification of colour and effect resulting from the blueness of the sky, the condition of the atmosphere, and many other causes--all combined to produce the remarkable appearances of light and colour which aroused the admiration and wonder of the world in 1883. The more one thinks of these things, and the deeper one dives into the mysteries of nature, the more profoundly is one impressed at once with a humbling sense of the limited amount of one's knowledge, and an awe-inspiring appreciation of the illimitable fields suggested by that comprehensive expression: "The Wonderful Works of God." CHAPTER THIRTY. COMING EVENTS, ETCETERA--WONDERFUL CHANGES AMONG THE ISLANDS. Some days after the wreck of the _Sunshine_, as described in a previous chapter, Captain Roy and his son stood on the coast of Java not far from the ruins of Anjer. A vessel was anchored in the offing, and a little boat lay on the shore. All sign of elemental strife had passed, though a cloud of smoke hanging over the remains of Krakatoa told that the terrible giant below was not dead but only sleeping--to awake, perchance, after a nap of another 200 years. "Well, father," said our hero with a modest look, "it may be, as you suggest, that Winnie Van der Kemp does not care for me more than for a fathom of salt water--" "I did not say salt water, lad, I said bilge--a fathom o' _bilge_ water," interrupted the captain, who, although secretly rejoiced at the fact of his son having fallen over head and ears in love with the pretty little Cocos-Keeling islander, deemed it his duty, nevertheless, as a sternly upright parent, to make quite sure that the love was mutual as well as deep before giving his consent to anything like courtship. "It matters not; salt or bilge water makes little difference," returned the son with a smile. "But all I can say is that I care for Winnie so much that her love is to me of as much importance as sunshine to the world--and we have had some experience lately of what the want of _that_ means." "Nonsense, Nigel," returned the captain severely. "You're workin' yourself into them up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-patterin' regions again--which, by the way, should be pretty well choked wi' Krakatoa dust by this time. Come down out o' that if ye want to hold or'nary intercourse wi' your old father. She's far too young yet, my boy. You must just do as many a young fellow has done before you, attend to your dooties and forget her." "Forget her!" returned the youth, with that amused, quiet expression which wise men sometimes assume when listening to foolish suggestions. "I could almost as easily forget my mother!" "A very proper sentiment, Nigel, very--especially the `almost' part of it." "Besides," continued the son, "she is not so _very_ young--and that difficulty remedies itself every hour. Moreover, I too am young. I can wait." "The selfishness of youth is only equalled by its presumption," said the captain. "How d'ee know _she_ will wait?" "I don't know, father, but I _hope_ she will--I--_think_ she will." "Nigel," said the captain, in a tone and with a look that were meant to imply intense solemnity, "have you ever spoken to her about love?" "No, father." "Has she ever spoken to _you_?" "No--at least--not with her lips." "Come, boy, you're humbuggin' your old father. Her tongue couldn't well do it without the lips lendin' a hand." "Well then--with neither," returned the son. "She spoke with her eyes-- not intentionally, of course, for the eyes, unlike the lips, refuse to be under control." "Hm! I see--reef-point-patterin' poetics again! An' what did she say with her eyes!" "Really, father, you press me too hard; it is difficult to translate eye-language, but if you'll only let memory have free play and revert to that time, nigh quarter of a century ago, when you first met with a certain _real_ poetess, perhaps--" "Ah! you dog! you have me there. But how dare you, sir, venture to think of marryin' on nothin'?" "I don't think of doing so. Am I not a first mate with a handsome salary?" "No, lad, you're not. You're nothin' better than a seaman out o' work, with your late ship wrecked in a cocoa-nut grove!" "That's true," returned Nigel with a laugh. "But is not the cargo of the said ship safe in Batavia? Has not its owner a good bank account in England? Won't another ship be wanted, and another first mate, and would the owner dare to pass over his own son, who is such a competent seaman--according to your own showing? Come, father, I turn the tables on you and ask you to aid rather than resist me in this matter." "Well, I will, my boy, I will," said the captain heartily, as he laid his hand on his son's shoulder. "But, seriously, you must haul off this little craft and clap a stopper on your tongue--ay, and on your eyes too--till three points are considered an' made quite clear. First, you must find out whether the hermit would be agreeable. Second, you must look the matter straight in the face and make quite sure that you mean it. For better or for worse. No undoin' _that_ knot, Nigel, once it's fairly tied! And, third, you must make quite sure that Winnie is sure of her own mind, an' that--that--" "We're all sure all round, father. Quite right. I agree with you. `All fair an' aboveboard' should be the sailing orders of every man in such matters, especially of every seaman. But, will you explain how I am to make sure of Winnie's state of mind without asking her about it?" "Well, I don't exactly see my way," replied the captain slowly. "What d'ee say to my soundin' her on the subject?" "Couldn't think of it! You may be first-rate at deep-sea soundings, father, but you couldn't sound the depths of a young girl's heart. I must reserve that for myself, however long it may be delayed." "So be it, lad. The only embargo that I lay upon you is--haul off, and mind you don't let your figurehead go by the board. Meanwhile, here comes the boat. Now, Nigel, none o' your courtin' till everything is settled and the wind fair--dead aft my lad, and blowin' stiff. You and the hermit are goin' off to Krakatoa to-day, I suppose?" "Yes. I am just now waiting for him and Moses," returned Nigel. "Is Winnie going?" "Don't know. I hope so." "Humph! Well, if we have a fair wind I shall soon be in Batavia," said the captain, descending to business matters, "and I expect without trouble to dispose of the cargo that we landed there, as _well_ as that part o' the return cargo which I had bought before I left for Keeling-- at a loss, no doubt, but that don't matter much. Then I'll come back here by the first craft that offers--arter which. Ay!--Ay! shove her in here. Plenty o' water." The last remark was made to the seaman who steered the boat sent from the vessel in the offing. A short time thereafter Captain Roy was sailing away for Batavia, while his son, with Van der Kemp, Moses, Winnie, and Spinkie, was making for Krakatoa in a native boat. The hermit, in spite of his injuries, had recovered his wonted appearance, if not his wonted vigour. Winnie seemed to have suddenly developed into a mature woman under her recent experiences, though she had lost none of her girlish grace and attractiveness. As for Moses-- time and tide seemed to have no effect whatever on his ebony frame, and still less, if possible, on his indomitable spirit. "Now you keep still," he said in solemn tones and with warning looks to Spinkie. "If you keep fidgitin' about you'll capsize de boat. You hear?" Spinkie veiled his real affection for the negro under a look of supreme indifference, while Winnie went off into a sudden giggle at the idea of such a small creature capsizing the boat. Mindful of his father's warning, Nigel did his best to "haul off" and to prevent his "figurehead" from going "by the board." But he found it uncommonly hard work, for Winnie looked so innocent, so pretty, so unconscious, so sympathetic with everybody and everything, so very young, yet so wondrously wise and womanly, that he felt an irresistible desire to prostrate himself at her feet in abject slavery. "Dear little thing," said Winnie, putting her hand on Spinkie's little head and smoothing him down from eyes to tail. Spinkie looked as if half inclined to withdraw his allegiance from Moses and bestow it on Winnie, but evidently changed his mind after a moment's reflection. "O that I were a monkey!" thought Nigel, paraphrasing Shakespeare, "that I might--" but it is not fair to our hero to reveal him in his weaker moments! There was something exasperating, too, in being obliged, owing to the size of the boat, to sit so close to Winnie without having a right to touch her hand! Who has not experienced this, and felt himself to be a very hero of self-denial in the circumstances? "Mos' awrful hot!" remarked Moses, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. "_You_ hot!" said Nigel in surprise. "I thought nothing on earth could be too hot for you." "Dat's your ignerance," returned Moses calmly. "Us niggers, you see, ought to suffer more fro' heat dan you whites." "How so?" "Why, don't your flossiphers say dat black am better dan white for 'tractin' heat, an' ain't our skins black? I wish we'd bin' born white as chalk. I say, Massa Nadgel, seems to me dat dere's not much left ob Krakatoa." They had approached near enough to the island by that time to perceive that wonderful changes had indeed taken place, and Van der Kemp, who had been for some time silently absorbed in contemplation, at last turned to his daughter and said-- "I had feared at first, Winnie, that my old home had been blown entirely away, but I see now that the Peak of Rakata still stands, so perhaps I may yet show you the cave in which I have spent so many years." "But why did you go to live in such a strange place, dear father?" asked the girl, laying her hand lovingly on the hermit's arm. Van der Kemp did not reply at once. He gazed in his child's face with an increase of that absent air and far-away look which Nigel, ever since he met him, had observed as one of his characteristics. At this time an anxious thought crossed him,--that perhaps the blows which his friend had received on his head when he was thrown on the deck of the _Sunshine_ might have injured his brain. "It is not easy to answer your question, dear one," he said after a time, laying his strong hand on the girl's head, and smoothing her luxuriant hair which hung in the untrammelled freedom of nature over her shoulders. "I have felt sometimes, during the last few days, as if I were awaking out of a long long dream, or recovering from a severe illness in which delirium had played a prominent part. Even now, though I see and touch you, I sometimes tremble lest I should really awake and find that it is all a dream. I have so often--so _very_ often--dreamed something like it in years gone by, but never so vividly as now! I cannot doubt--it is sin to doubt--that my prayers have been at last answered. God is good and wise. He knows what is best and does not fail in bringing the best to pass. Yet I have doubted Him--again and again." Van der Kemp paused here and drew his hand across his brow as if to clear away sad memories of the past, while Winnie drew closer to him and looked up tenderly in his face. "When your mother died, dear one," he resumed, "it seemed to me as if the sun had left the heavens, and when _you_ were snatched from me, it was as though my soul had fled and nought but animal life remained. I lived as if in a terrible dream. I cannot recall exactly what I did or where I went for a long, long time. I know I wandered through the archipelago looking for you, because I did not believe at first that you were dead. It was at this time I took up my abode in the cave of Rakata, and fell in with my good faithful friend Moses." "Your sarvint, massa," interrupted the negro humbly. "I's proud to be call your frind, but I's only your sarvint, massa." "Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses," said Van der Kemp, "but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure. After a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period, when I was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to say, even during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander about in search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope seemed to have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as His instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited--for ever!" "Darling father!" were the only words that Winnie could utter as she laid her head on the hermit's shoulder and wept for joy. Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament, her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a problem which he did not care to tackle just then. "See, Winnie," said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on the side of Rakata, "yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now to have been burnt up." "Das so, massa, an' what hasn't bin bu'nt up has bin blow'd up!" remarked the negro. "Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the rest of the island," rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his hands. It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually disappeared from the face of the earth. When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of Rakata, (2623 feet high), had been split from top to bottom, and about one-half of it, with all that part of the island lying to the northward, had been blown away, leaving a wall or almost sheer precipice which presented a grand section of the volcano. Pushing their boat into a creek at the base of this precipice, the party landed and tried to reach a position from which a commanding view might be obtained. This was not an easy matter, for there was not a spot for a foot to rest on which was not covered deeply with pumice-dust and ashes. By dint of perseverance, however, they gained a ledge whence the surrounding district could be observed, and then it was clearly seen how widespread and stupendous the effects of the explosion had been. Where the greater part of the richly wooded island had formerly flourished, the ocean now rippled in the sunshine, and of the smaller islands around it _Lang_ Island had been considerably increased in bulk as well as in height. _Verleden_ Island had been enlarged to more than three times its former size and also much increased in height. The island named _Polish Hat_ had disappeared altogether, and two entirely new islets--afterwards named _Steers_ and _Calmeyer_ Islands--had arisen to the northward. "Now, friends," said Van der Kemp, after they had noted and commented on the vast and wonderful changes that had taken place, "we will pull round to our cave and see what has happened there." Descending to the boat they rowed round the southern shores of Rakata until they reached the little harbour where the boat and canoe had formerly been kept. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. ENDS WITH A STRUGGLE BETWEEN INCLINATION AND DUTY. "Cave's blowed away too!" was the first remark of Moses as they rowed into the little port. A shock of disappointment was experienced by Winnie, for she fancied that the negro had referred to her father's old home, but he only meant the lower cave in which the canoe had formerly been kept. She was soon relieved as to this point, however, but, when a landing was effected, difficulties that seemed to her almost insurmountable presented themselves, for the ground was covered knee-deep with pumice-dust, and the road to the upper cave was blocked by rugged masses of lava and ashes, all heaped up in indescribable confusion. On careful investigation, however, it was found that after passing a certain point the footpath was almost unencumbered by volcanic debris. This was owing to the protection afforded to it by the cone of Rakata, and the almost overhanging nature of some of the cliffs on that side of the mountain; still the track was bad enough, and in places so rugged, that Winnie, vigorous and agile though she was, found it both difficult and fatiguing to advance. Seeing this, her father proposed to carry her, but she laughingly declined the proposal. Whereupon Nigel offered to lend her a hand over the rougher places, but this she also declined. Then Moses, stepping forward, asserted his rights. "It's _my_ business," he said, "to carry t'ings when dey's got to be carried. M'r'over, as I's bin obleeged to leabe Spinkie in charge ob de boat, I feels okard widout somet'ing to carry, an' you ain't much heavier dan Spinkie, Miss Winnie--so, come along." He stooped with the intention of grasping Winnie as if she were a little child, but with a light laugh the girl sprang away and left Moses behind. "'S'my opinion," said Moses, looking after her with a grin, "dat if de purfesser was here he'd net her in mistook for a bufferfly. Dar!--she's down!" he shouted, springing forward, but Nigel was before him. Winnie had tripped and fallen. "Are you hurt, dear--child?" asked Nigel, raising her gently. "Oh no! only a little shaken," answered Winnie, with a little laugh that was half hysterical. "I am strong enough to go on presently." "Nay, my child, you _must_ suffer yourself to be carried at this part," said Van der Kemp. "Take her up, Nigel, you are stronger than I am _now_. I would not have asked you to do it before my accident!" Our hero did not need a second bidding. Grasping Winnie in his strong arms he raised her as if she had been a feather, and strode away at a pace so rapid that he soon left Van der Kemp and Moses far behind. "Put me down, now," said Winnie, after a little while, in a low voice. "I'm quite recovered now and can walk." "Nay, Winnie, you are mistaken. The path is very rough yet, and the dust gets deeper as we ascend. _Do_ give me the pleasure of helping you a little longer." Whatever Winnie may have felt or thought she said nothing, and Nigel, taking silence for consent, bore her swiftly onward and upward,--with an "Excelsior" spirit that would have thrown the Alpine youth with the banner and the strange device considerably into the shade,--until he placed her at the yawning black mouth of the hermit's cave. But what a change was there! The trees and flowering shrubs and ferns were all gone, lava, pumice, and ashes lay thick on everything around, and only a few blackened and twisted stumps of the larger trees remained to tell that an umbrageous forest had once flourished there. The whole scene might be fittingly described in the two words--grey desolation. "That is the entrance to your father's old home," said Nigel, as he set his fair burden down and pointed to the entrance. "What a dreadful place!" said Winnie, peering into the black depths of the cavern. "It was not dreadful when I first saw it, Winnie, with rich verdure everywhere; and inside you will find it surprisingly comfortable. But we must not enter until your father arrives to do the honours of the place himself." They had not to wait long. First Moses arrived, and, shrewdly suspecting from the appearance of the young couple that they were engaged in conversation that would not brook interruption, or, perhaps, judging from what might be his own wishes in similar circumstances, he turned his back suddenly on them, and, stooping down, addressed himself to an imaginary creature of the animal kingdom. "What a bootiful bufferfly you is, to be sure! up on sitch a place too, wid nuffin' to eat 'cept Krakatoa dust. I wonder what your moder would say if she know'd you was here. You should be ashamed ob yourself!" "Hallo! Moses, what are you talking to over there?" "Nuffin', Massa Nadgel. I was on'y habin' a brief conv'sation wid a member ob de insect wurld in commemoration ob de purfesser. Leastwise, if it warn't a insect it must hab bin suffin' else. Won't you go in, Miss Winnie?" "No, I'd rather wait for father," returned the girl, looking a little flushed, for some strange and totally unfamiliar ideas had recently floated into her brain and caused some incomprehensible flutterings of the heart to which hitherto she had been a stranger. Mindful of his father's injunctions, however, Nigel had been particularly careful to avoid increasing these flutterings. In a few minutes the hermit came up. "Ah! Winnie," he said, "there has been dire devastation here. Perhaps inside things may look better. Come, take my hand and don't be afraid. The floor is level and your eyes will soon get accustomed to the dim light." "I's afeared, massa," remarked Moses, as they entered the cavern, "dat your sun-lights won't be wu'th much now." "You are right, lad. Go on before us and light the lamps if they are not broken." It was found, as they had expected, that the only light which penetrated the cavern was that which entered by the cave's mouth, which of course was very feeble. Presently, to Winnie's surprise, Moses was seen issuing from the kitchen with a petroleum lamp in one hand, the brilliant light of which not only glittered on his expressive black visage but sent a ruddy glare all over the cavern. Van der Kemp seemed to watch his daughter intently as she gazed in a bewildered way around. There was a puzzled look as well as mere surprise in her pretty face. "Father," she said earnestly, "you have spoken more than once of living as if in a dream. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that I experience something of that sort now. Strange though this place seems, I have an unaccountable feeling that it is not absolutely new to me-- that I have seen it before." "I do not wonder, dear one," he replied, "for the drawings that surround this chamber were the handiwork of your dear mother, and they decorated the walls of your own nursery when you were a little child at your mother's knee. For over ten long years they have surrounded me and kept your faces fresh in my memory--though, truth to tell, it needed no such reminders to do that. Come, let us examine them." It was pleasant to see the earnest face of Winnie as she half-recognised and strove to recall the memories of early childhood in that singular cavern. It was also a sight worth seeing--the countenance of Nigel, as well as that of the hermit, while they watched and admired her eager, puzzled play of feature, and it was the most amazing sight of all to see the all but superhuman joy of Moses as he held the lamp and listened to facts regarding the past of his beloved master which were quite new to him--for the hermit spoke as openly about his past domestic affairs as if he and Winnie had been quite alone. "He either forgets that we are present, or counts us as part of his family," thought Nigel with a feeling of satisfaction. "What a dear comoonicative man!" thought Moses, with unconcealed pleasure. "Come now, let us ascend to the observatory," said the hermit, when all the things in the library had been examined. "There has been damage done there, I know; besides, there is a locket there which belonged to your mother. I left it by mistake one day when I went up to arrange the mirrors, and in the hurry of leaving forgot to return for it. Indeed, one of my main objects in re-visiting my old home was to fetch that locket away. It contains a lock of hair and one of those miniatures which men used to paint before photography drove such work off the field." Winnie was nothing loth to follow, for she had reached a romantic period of life, and it seemed to her that to be led through mysterious caves and dark galleries in the very heart of a still active volcano by her own father--the hermit of Rakata--was the very embodiment of romance itself. But a disappointment awaited them, for they had not proceeded halfway through the dark passage when it was found that a large mass of rock had fallen from the roof and almost blocked it up. "There is a space big enough for us to creep through at the right-hand corner above, I think," said Nigel, taking the lantern from Moses and examining the spot. "Jump up, Moses, and try it," said the hermit. "If your bulky shoulders get through, we can all manage it." The negro was about to obey the order when Nigel let the lantern fall and the shock extinguished it. "Oh! Massa Nadgel; das a pritty business!" "Never mind," said Van der Kemp. "I've got matches, I think, in my--no, I haven't. Have you, Moses?" "No, massa, I forgit to remember him." "No matter, run back--you know the road well enough to follow it in the dark. We will wait here till you return. Be smart, now!" Moses started off at once and for some moments the sound of clattering along the passage was heard. "I will try to clamber through in the dark. Look after Winnie, Nigel-- and don't leave the spot where you stand, dear one, for there are cracks and holes about that might sprain your little ankles." "Very well, father." "All right. I've got through, Nigel; I'll feel my way on for a little bit. Remain where you are." "Winnie," said Nigel when they were alone, "doesn't it feel awesome and strange to be standing here in such intense darkness?" "It does--I don't quite like it." "Whereabouts are you?" said Nigel. He carefully stretched out his hand to feel, as he spoke, and laid a finger on her brow. "Oh! take care of my eyes!" exclaimed Winnie with a little laugh. "I wish you would turn your eyes towards me for I'm convinced they would give some light--to _me_ at least. Here, do let me hold your hand. It will make you feel more confident." To one who is at all familiar with the human frame, the way from the brow to the hand is comparatively simple. Nigel soon possessed himself of the coveted article. Like other things of great value the possession turned the poor youth's head! He forgot his father's warnings for the moment, forgot the hermit and Moses and Spinkie, and the thick darkness--forgot almost everything in the light of that touch! "Winnie!" he exclaimed in a tone that quite alarmed her; "I--I--" He hesitated. The solemn embargo of his father recurred to him. "What is it! Is there danger?" exclaimed the poor girl, clasping his hand tighter and drawing nearer to him. This was too much! Nigel felt himself to be contemptible. He was taking unfair advantage of her. "Winnie," he began again, in a voice of forced calmness, "there is no danger whatever. I'm an ass--a dolt--that's all! The fact is, I made my father a sort of half promise that I would not ask your opinion on a certain subject until--until I found out exactly what you thought about it. Now the thing is ridiculous--impossible--for how can I know your opinion on any subject until I have asked you?" "Quite true," returned Winnie simply, "so you better ask me." "Ha! _ha_!" laughed Nigel, in a sort of desperate amusement, "I--I--Yes, I _will_ ask you, Winnie! But first I must explain--" "Hallo! Nigel!" came at that moment from the other side of the obstruction, "are you there--all right?" "Yes, yes--I'm here--not all right exactly, but I'll be all right _some day_, you may depend upon that!" shouted the youth, in a tone of indignant exasperation. "What said you?" asked Van der Kemp, putting his head through the hole. "Hi! I's a-comin', look out, dar!" hallooed Moses in the opposite direction. "Just so," said Nigel, resuming his quiet tone and demeanour, "we'll be all right when the light comes. Here, give us your hand, Van der Kemp." The hermit accepted the proffered aid and leaped down amongst his friends just as Moses arrived with the lantern. "It's of no use going further," he said. "The passage is completely blocked up--so we must go round to where the mountain has been split off and try to clamber up. There will be daylight enough yet if we are quick. Come." CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. THE LAST. Descending to the boat they rowed round to the face of the great cliff which had been so suddenly laid bare when the Peak of Rakata was cleft from its summit to its foundations in the sea. It was a wonderful sight--a magnificent section, affording a marvellous view of the internal mechanism of a volcano. But there was no time to spend in contemplation of this extraordinary sight, for evening approached and the hermit's purpose had to be accomplished. High up near the top of the mighty cliff could be seen a small hole in the rock, which was all that remained of the observatory. "It will be impossible, I fear, to reach that spot," said Nigel; "there does not appear to be foothold for a goat." "I will reach it," said the hermit in a low voice, as he scanned the precipice carefully. "So will I," said the negro. "No, Moses, I go alone. You will remain in the boat and watch. If I fall, you can pick me up." "Pick you up!" echoed Moses. "If you tumbles a t'ousand feet into de water how much t'ink you will be lef' to pick up?" It was useless to attempt to dissuade Van der Kemp. Being well aware of this, they all held their peace while he landed on a spur of the riven cliff. The first part of the ascent was easy enough, the ground having been irregularly broken, so that the climber disappeared behind masses of rock at times, while he kept as much as possible to the western edge of the mountain where the cleavage had occurred; but as he ascended he was forced to come out upon narrow ledges that had been left here and there on the face of the cliff, where he seemed, to those who were watching far below, like a mere black spot on the face of a gigantic wall. Still upward he went, slowly but steadily, till he reached a spot nearly level with the observatory. Here he had to go out on the sheer precipice, where his footholds were invisible from below. Winnie sat in the boat with blanched face and tightly clasped hands, panting with anxiety as she gazed upwards. "It looks much more dangerous from here than it is in reality," said Nigel to her in a reassuring tone. "Das true, Massa Nadgel, das bery true," interposed Moses, endeavouring to comfort himself as well as the others by the intense earnestness of his manner. "De only danger, Miss Winnie, lies in your fadder losin' his head at sitch a t'riffic height, an' dar's no fear at all ob dat, for Massa neber loses his head--pooh! you might as well talk ob him losin' his heart. Look! look! he git close to de hole now--he put his foot--yes--next step--dar! he've done it!" With the perspiration of anxiety streaming down his face the negro relieved his feelings by a wild prolonged cheer. Nigel obtained the same relief by means of a deep long-drawn sigh, but Winnie did not move; she seemed to realise her father's danger better than her companions, and remembered that the descent would be much more difficult than the ascent. They were not kept long in suspense. In a few minutes the hermit reappeared and began to retrace his steps--slowly but steadily-- and the watchers breathed more freely. Moses was right; there was in reality little danger in the climb, for the ledges which appeared to them like mere threads, and the footholds that were almost invisible, were in reality from a foot to three feet wide. The only danger lay in the hermit's head being unable to stand the trial, but, as Moses had remarked, there was no fear of that. The watchers were therefore beginning to feel somewhat relieved from the tension of their anxiety, when a huge mass of rock was seen to slip from the face of the cliff and descend with the thunderous roar of an avalanche. The incident gave those in the boat a shock, for the landslip occurred not far from the spot which Van der Kemp had reached, but as he still stood there in apparent safety there seemed no cause for alarm till it was observed that the climber remained quite still for a long time and seemed to have no intention of moving. "God help him!" cried Nigel in sudden alarm, "the ledge has been carried away and he cannot advance! Stay by the boat, Moses, I will run to help him!" "No, Massa Nadgel," returned the negro, "I go to die wid 'im. Boat kin look arter itself." He sprang on shore as he spoke, and dashed up the mountain-side like a hunted hare. Our hero looked at Winnie for an instant in hesitation. "Go!" said the poor girl. "You know I can manage a boat--quick!" Another moment and Nigel was following in the track of the negro. They gained the broken ledge together, and then found that the space between the point which they had reached and the spot on which the hermit stood was a smooth face of perpendicular rock--an absolutely impassable gulf! Van der Kemp was standing with his back flat against the precipice and his feet resting on a little piece of projecting rock not more than three inches wide. This was all that lay between him and the hideous depth below, for Nigel found on carefully drawing nearer that the avalanche had been more extensive than was apparent from below, and that the ledge beyond the hermit had been also carried away--thus cutting off his retreat as well as his advance. "I can make no effort to help myself," said Van der Kemp in a low but calm voice, when our hero's foot rested on the last projecting point that he could gain, and found that with the utmost reach of his arm he could not get within six inches of his friend's outstretched hand. Besides, Nigel himself stood on so narrow a ledge, and against so steep a cliff, that he could not have acted with his wonted power even if the hand could have been grasped. Moses stood immediately behind Nigel, where the ledge was broader and where a shallow recess in the rock enabled him to stand with comparative ease. The poor fellow seemed to realise the situation more fully than his companion, for despair was written on every feature of his expressive face. "What is to be done?" said Nigel, looking back. "De boat-rope," suggested the negro. "Useless," said Van der Kemp, in a voice as calm and steady as if he were in perfect safety, though the unusual pallor of his grave countenance showed that he was fully alive to the terrible situation. "I am resting on little more than my heels, and the strain is almost too much for me even now. I could not hold on till you went to the boat and returned. No, it seems to be God's will--and," added he humbly, "His will be done." "O God, send us help!" cried Nigel in an agony of feeling that he could not master. "If I had better foothold I might spring towards you and catch hold of you," said the hermit, "but I cannot spring off my heels. Besides, I doubt if you could bear my weight." "Try, try!" cried Nigel, eagerly extending his hand. "Don't fear for my strength--I've got plenty of it, thank God! and see, I have my right arm wedged into a crevice so firmly that nothing could haul it out." But Van der Kemp shook his head. "I cannot even make the attempt," he said. "The slightest move would plunge me down. Dear boy! I know that you and your father and Moses will care for my Winnie, and--" "Massa!" gasped Moses, who while the hermit was speaking had been working his body with mysterious and violent energy; "massa! couldn't you _fall_ dis way, an' Nadgel could kitch your hand, an' I's got my leg shoved into a hole as nuffin' 'll haul it out ob. Dere's a holler place here. If Nadgel swings you into dat, an' I only once grab you by de hair--you're safe!" "It might be done--tried at least," said the hermit, looking anxiously at his young friend. "Try it!" cried Nigel, "I won't fail you." It is not possible for any except those who have gone through a somewhat similar ordeal to understand fully the test of cool courage which Van der Kemp had to undergo on that occasion. Shutting his eyes for a moment in silent prayer, he deliberately worked with his shoulders upon the cliff against which he leaned until he felt himself to be on the point of falling towards his friend, and the two outstretched hands almost touched. "Now, are you ready?" he asked. "Ready," replied Nigel, while Moses wound both his powerful arms round his comrade's waist and held on. Another moment and the hands clasped, Nigel uttered an irrepressible shout as the hermit swung off, and, coming round with great violence to the spot where the negro had fixed himself, just succeeded in catching the edge of the cliff with his free hand. "Let go, Nigel," he shouted;--"safe!" The poor youth was only too glad to obey, for the tremendous pull had wrenched his arm out of the crevice in which he had fixed it, and for a moment he swayed helplessly over the awful abyss. "Don't let me go, Moses!" he yelled, as he made a frantic but futile effort to regain his hold,--for he felt that the negro had loosened one of his arms though the other was still round him like a hoop of iron. "No fear, Nadgel," said Moses, "I's got you tight--only don' wriggle. Now, massa, up you come." Moses had grasped his master's hair with a grip that well-nigh scalped him, and he held on until the hermit had got a secure hold of the ledge with both hands. Then he let the hair go, for he knew that to an athlete like his master the raising himself by his arms on to the ledge would be the work of a few seconds. Van der Kemp was thus able to assist in rescuing Nigel from his position of danger. But the expressions of heartfelt thankfulness for this deliverance which naturally broke from them were abruptly checked when it was found that Moses could by no means extract his leg out of the hole into which he had thrust it, and that he was suffering great pain. After some time, and a good deal of violent wrenching, during which our sable hero mingled a few groans in strange fashion with his congratulations, he was got free, and then it was found that the strain had been too much for even his powerful bones and sinews, for the leg was broken. "My poor fellow!" murmured Van der Kemp, as he went down on his knees to examine the limb. "Don' care a buttin for dat, massa. You're safe, an' Nadgel's safe--an' it only cost a broken leg! Pooh! das nuffin'!" said Moses, unable to repress a few tears in the excess of his joy and pain! With considerable difficulty they carried the poor negro down to the boat, where they found Winnie, as might be supposed, in a half-fainting condition from the strain of prolonged anxiety and terror to which she had been subjected; but the necessity of attending to the case of the injured Moses was an antidote which speedily restored her. Do you think, good reader, that Nigel and Winnie had much difficulty in coming to an understanding after that, or that the hermit was disposed to throw any obstacles in the way of true love? If you do, let us assure you that you are mistaken. Surely this is information enough for any intelligent reader. Still, it may be interesting to add, difficulties did not all at once disappear. The perplexities that had already assailed Nigel more than once assailed him again--perplexities about a negro man-servant, and a household monkey, and a hermit father-in-law, and a small income--to say nothing of a disconsolate mother-poetess in England and a father roving on the high seas! How to overcome these difficulties gave him much thought and trouble; but they were overcome at last. That which seemed impossible to man proved to be child's-play in the hands of woman. Winnie solved the difficulty by suggesting that they should all return to the Cocos-Keeling Islands and dwell together there for evermore! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let us drop in on them, good reader, at a later period, have a look at them, and bid them all good-bye. On a green knoll by the margin of the lagoon stands a beautiful cottage with a garden around it, and a pleasure-boat resting on the white coral sand in front. From the windows of that cottage there is a most magnificent view of the lagoon with its numerous islets and its picturesque palm-trees. Within that cottage dwell Nigel and Winnie, and a brown-eyed, brown-haired, fair-skinned baby girl who is "the most extraordinary angel that ever was born." It has a nurse of its own, but is chiefly waited on and attended to by an antique poetess, who dwells in another cottage, a stone's-cast off, on the same green knoll. There she inspires an ancient mariner with poetical sentiments--not your up-in-the-clouds, reef-point-pattering nonsense, observe but the real genuine article, superior to "that other fellow's," you know--when not actively engaged with the baby. The first cottage is named Rakata, in honour of our hermit, who is one of its inhabitants. The second is named Krakatoa by its eccentric owner, Captain Roy. It must not be imagined, however, that our friends have settled down there to spend their lives in idleness. By no means. This probably would not be permitted by the "King of the Cocos Islands" even if they wished to do so. But they do not wish that. There is no such condition as idleness in the lives of good men and women. Nigel has taken to general superintendence of the flourishing community in the midst of which he has cast his lot. He may be almost regarded as the prime minister of the islands, in addition to which he has started an extensive boat-building business and a considerable trade in cocoa-nuts, etcetera, with the numerous islands of the Java Sea; also a saw-mill, and a forge, and a Sunday-school--in which last the pretty, humble-minded Winnie lends most efficient aid. Indeed it is said that she is the chief manager as well as the life and soul of that business, though Nigel gets all the credit. Captain Roy sometimes sails his son's vessels, and sometimes looks after the secular education of the Sunday-school children--the said education being conducted on the principle of unlimited story-telling with illimitable play of fancy. But his occupations are irregular-- undertaken by fits and starts, and never to be counted on. His evenings he usually devotes to poetry and pipes--for the captain is obstinate, and sticks--like most of us--to his failings as well as his fancies. There is a certain eccentric individual with an enthusiastic temperament and blue binoculars who pays frequent and prolonged visits to the Keeling Islands. It need scarcely be said that his name is Verkimier. There is no accounting for the tastes of human beings. Notwithstanding all his escapes and experiences, that indomitable man of science still ranges, like a mad philosopher, far and wide over the archipelago in pursuit of "bootterflies ant ozer specimens of zee insect vorld." It is observed, however, even by the most obtuse among his friends, that whereas in former times the professor's flights were centrifugal they have now become centripetal--the Keeling Islands being the great centre towards which he flies. Verkimier is, and probably will always be, a subject of wonder and of profound speculation to the youthful inhabitants of the islands. They don't understand him and he does not understand them. If they were insects he would take deep and intelligent interest in them. As they are merely human beings, he regards them with that peculiar kind of interest with which men regard the unknown and unknowable. He is by no means indifferent to them. He is too kindly for that. He studies them deeply, though hopelessly, and when he enters the Sunday-school with his binoculars--which he often does, to listen--a degree of awe settles down on the little ones which it is impossible to evoke by the most solemn appeals to their spiritual natures. Nigel and Winnie have a gardener, and that gardener is black--as black as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps slightly on his right leg--his "game" leg, as he styles it. He is, of course, an _immense_ favourite with the young people--not less than with the old. He has been known to say, with a solemnity that might tickle the humorous and horrify the timid, that he wouldn't "hab dat game leg made straight agin! no, not for a hundred t'ousand pounds. 'Cause why?--it was an eber-present visible reminder dat once upon a time he had de libes ob massa and Nadgel in his arms a-hangin' on to his game leg, an' dat, t'rough Gracious Goodness, he sabe dem bof!" Ha! You may smile at Moses if you will, but he can return the smile with kindly interest, for he is actuated by that grand principle which will sooner or later transform even the scoffers of earth, and which is embodied in the words--"Love is the fulfilling of the law." Even the lower animals testify to this fact when the dog licks the hand that smites it and accords instant forgiveness on the slightest encouragement. Does not Spinkie prove it also, when, issuing at call, from its own pagoda in the sunniest corner of the Rakata garden, it forsakes cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, fruits, and other delights, to lay its little head in joyful consecration on the black bosom of its benignant friend? And what of Moses' opinion of the new home? It may be shortly expressed in his own words-- "It's heaben upon eart', an' de most happiest time as eber occurred to me was dat time when Sunda Straits went into cumbusti'n an' Krakatoa was Blown to Bits." THE END. 
38253	----	Transcriber's Note Single characters following '^' or mutiple characters following '^' enclosed within '{ }' denote superscript text. Hyphenation has been standardised. WORK ISSUED BY The Hakluyt Society. DESCRIPTION OF THE COASTS OF EAST AFRICA AND MALABAR. A DESCRIPTION OF THE COASTS OF EAST AFRICA AND MALABAR IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, BY DUARTE BARBOSA, A PORTUGUESE. TRANSLATED FROM AN EARLY SPANISH MANUSCRIPT IN THE BARCELONA LIBRARY WITH NOTES AND A PREFACE, BY THE HON. HENRY E. J. STANLEY. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY. JOHNSON REPRINT CORPORATION JOHNSON REPRINT COMPANY LTD. 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 Berkeley Square House, London, W1X6BA _Landmarks in Anthropology_, a series of reprints in cultural anthropology _General Editor_: Weston La Barre First reprinting 1970, Johnson Reprint Corporation Printed in the United States of America _Note to Thirty-fifth Publication of the Hakluyt Society, "Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar."_ This volume was published by the Hakluyt Society as the work of Duarte Barbosa on the authority of Ramusio, for neither the three Spanish MSS. of Barcelona and Munich, nor the Portuguese MS., give his name; it is probable that Barbosa contributed a largo part of it, for Damian de Goes refers his readers for an account of Malabar and its religion and customs to a book by Duarte Barbosa, who is stated to have spoken the language of Malabar with great correctness, and who resided a long time in that country; yet the authorship must be ascribed to Magellan, for I have just seen, in the possession of Don Pascual de Gayangos, another Spanish MS. which states at the top of the first page,--"Este libro compuso Fernando Magallanes Portugues piloto lo qual el vio y anduvo." "This book was composed by the Portuguese Fernando Magellan the pilot, the things narrated in which he saw and visited." This heading is in the same writing as the rest of the MS., which is clear handwriting of the sixteenth century, and like that of the second part of the MS. No 571 of the Munich Library. The MS. of Mr. Gayangos appears to be part of a larger book, since its second leaf is numbered 111 (the corner of the first is worn off), and the last is numbered 170, and ends with the description of the Lequeos. The _Epitome de la Biblioteca Oriental, Occidental, Nautica y Geografica_ of D. Antonio de Leon Pinelo, Madrid, 1737, mentions, at p. 667 a work of Magellan's under the following heading: _Fernando de Magallanes, Efemerides, or Diary of his Navigation_, a MS. which existed in the possession of Antonio Moreno, Cosmographer of the House of Trade, according to Don Nicolas Antonio. THE TRANSLATOR. _Madrid, February 1867._ ERRATA. Page iii, line 11, _for_ "dearer," _read_ "clearer." " 44 " 34, " "Atuxsia," " "Atauxia." " 73, " 19, " "albejas," " "mussels." " 96, " 13, " "laced," " "placed." " 159, " 8, " "antoridade," " "autoridade." " 200, " 7, " "they burn," " "they burn it." " 232, " 10, " "et d'aller," " "est d'aller." NOTE TO pp. 228-229.--See pages 249-251 of _The Travels of Ludovico de Varthema_ Hakluyt Society, and notes, also Mr. R. Major's able Introduction to the _Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia_. This passage, written about five years later than when Varthema wrote, is a fuller statement than Varthema's: and taking the two together, there can be little doubt that the information they contain was based on actual knowledge of Australia. COUNCIL OF THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY. SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, K.C.B., G.C.St.S., F.R.S., D.C.L., Corr. Mem. Inst. F., Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad. Sc. Petersburg, etc., etc., PRESIDENT. REAR-ADMIRAL C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B.}VICE-PRESIDENTS. THE RT. HON. SIR DAVID DUNDAS, M.P. } REV. G. P. BADGER, F.R.G.S. J. BARROW, ESQ., F.R.S. REAR-ADMIRAL R. COLLINSON, C.B. SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S. GENERAL C. FOX. R. W. GREY, ESQ. JOHN WINTER JONES, ESQ., F.S.A. JOHN W. KAYE, ESQ. HIS EXCELLENCY THE COUNT DE LAVRADIO. THOMAS K. LYNCH, ESQ. R. H. MAJOR, ESQ., F.S.A. SIR WILLIAM STIRLING MAXWELL, BART., M.P. SIR CHARLES NICHOLSON, BART. MAJOR-GENERAL SIR HENRY C. RAWLINSON, K.C.B. VISCOUNT STRANGFORD. WILLIAM WEBB, ESQ. ALLEN YOUNG, ESQ., R.N.R. CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, ESQ., F.S.A., HONORARY SECRETARY. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. The Spanish manuscript from which this volume has been translated is in the handwriting of the beginning of 1500, full of abbreviations, and without punctuation or capital letters at the beginnings of sentences or for the proper names, which adds much to the difficulty of reading it. It contains eighty-seven leaves. The handwriting more resembles an example of the year 1510 than those dated 1529 and 1531, given at p. 319 of the "Escuela de Leer Letras Cursivas Antiguas y Modernas desde la entrada de los Godos en España, por el P. Andres Merino de Jesu Christo, Madrid, 1780." This work was translated into Spanish from the original Portuguese in 1524, at Vittoria, by Martin Centurion, ambassador of the community of Genoa, with the assistance of Diego Ribero, a Portuguese, cosmographer and hydrographer to his Majesty Charles V. There are reasons (as will be shewn in the notes) for supposing that the Spanish translation, probably this copy and not the Portuguese original, assisted the compilers of the early atlases, especially that of Abraham Ortelius, of Antwerp, 1570, other editions of which were published in succeeding years.[1] The similarity of the orthography of this manuscript and of that of the names in maps as late as that of Homann, Nuremberg, 1753, shews how much geography up to a recent period was indebted to the Portuguese and Spaniards. It may also be observed that from their familiarity at that time with the sounds of Arabic, the proper names are in general more correctly rendered in European letters, than used to be the case in later times. This MS. is in the Barcelona Library and is there catalogued "Viage por Malabar y costas de Africa, 1512: letra del siglo xvi." It was supposed to be an original Spanish work, for the statement of its having been translated is in the body of the MS., no part of which can be read without more or less difficulty. This work is not a book of travels as the title given in the catalogue, though not on the MS., indicates; it is rather an itinerary, or description of countries. It gives ample details of the trade, supplies, and water of the various seaports mentioned in it. It contains many interesting historical details, some of which, such as the account of Diu, the taking of Ormuz, the founding of the Portuguese fort in Calicut, their interruption of the Indian trade to Suez by capturing the Indian ships, the rise of Shah Ismail, etc., fix pretty nearly the exact date at which this narrative was composed as the year 1514. Two other MS. copies of this work are preserved in the Royal Library at Munich: the first of these, No. 570 of the catalogue of that library, is in a handwriting very similar to that of the Barcelona MS., and apparently of the same period. It consists of one hundred and three leaves, and is stated to have proceeded from the episcopal library of Passau. This MS. does not contain the appendix respecting the prices of the precious stones. The other MS. No. 571, is of fifty-three leaves, and is written in two handwritings, both of which are much rounder and clearer than that of No. 570; the catalogue states that this MS. came from the library of the Jesuits of Augsburg. There are several verbal differences between the two MSS., and perhaps No. 571 agrees more exactly with the Barcelona MS. The two Munich MSS. frequently write words such as rey with a double r, as _rrey_, which does not occur in the Barcelona MS., where, however, words begin with a large r, which is also used for a double r in the middle of a word. The piracies of the Portuguese are told without any reticence, apparently without consciousness of their criminality, for no attempt is made to justify them, and the pretext that such and such an independent state or city did not choose to submit itself on being summoned to do so by the Portuguese, seems to have been thought all sufficient for laying waste and destroying it. This narrative shows that most of the towns on the coasts of Africa, Arabia, and Persia were in a much more flourishing condition at that time than they have been since the Portuguese ravaged some of them, and interfered with the trade of all. The description of the early introduction of the cultivation and weaving of cotton into South Africa by the Arab traders will be read with interest; and the progress then beginning in those regions three hundred and fifty years ago, and the subsequent stand still to which it has been brought by the Portuguese and by the slave-trade to America, may be taken as supporting the views lately put forward by Captain R. Burton and others at the Anthropological Society. The greater part of this volume was printed in Italian by Ramusio in 1554 in his collection of travels (Venetia, nella Stamperia de' Giunti), as the narration of Duarte Barbosa, and a large part of this work must have been written by Barbosa; and a Portuguese manuscript of his was printed at Lisbon in 1812 in the "Collecção de noticias para a historia e geografia das nações ultramarinas." This manuscript of Barbosa's, however, is much less full than this Spanish MS. of Barcelona, or than the Italian version of Ramusio, and the Lisbon editors have added from Ramusio translations of the passages which were wanting in their MS. These publications do not contain the number of leagues between one place and another which are given in the Spanish translation. That the Portuguese manuscript printed at Lisbon in 1812 belongs to Barbosa, stands only on the authority of Ramusio, who gives an introduction by Odoardo Barbosa of the city of Lisbon, which is not to be found either in the Barcelona MS. or in the Portuguese MS., and which has been translated from the Italian of Ramusio and published in the Lisbon edition. The introduction to the Lisbon edition states that the Portuguese MS. is not an autograph MS., and that the account of Barbosa is bound up along with other papers. This introduction refers to the passages in the Portuguese MS. which are not to be found in Ramusio, and says it may be doubted whether these were additions posterior to the work of Duarte Barbosa. It had occurred to me that this work might be attributed to the famous navigator Magellan, and that it must have been through him that it found its way to Charles the Fifth's court: there are several reasons for this supposition, and some difficulties in the way of it; I will, however, follow Sr. Larrañaga's advice, and state both sides of the question. Duarte Barbosa, cousin of Magellan, Alvaro de Mezquita, Estevan Gomez, Juan Rodrigues de Carvalho were Portuguese employed by Spain along with Magellan[2] in the fleet which sailed on the 21st September 1519, from San Lucar de Barrameda to Brazil and the straits which bear the name of that Admiral. Now the _Panorama_ or Spanish version of the _Univers Pittoresque_ states (page 140): "It was at that time, although it has not been possible to ascertain exactly the year, when the illustrious Viceroy of the Indies sent Francisco Serrano to the Moluccas, a friend, and also, as it is believed, a relation of Magellan, the same person who by reason of the exact and precise data which he furnished to the celebrated navigator deserved later to see his name inscribed amongst those of other notable persons, whose fame will last as long as history endures." * * * * * "At the beginning of the same century Duarte Barbosa also proceeded to the Moluccas, and cruised among those countries for the space of sixteen years, collecting interesting notes, which although they were not published till three centuries after the event, are not on that account the less admirable and precious; these reports were published in Lisbon in a work which bears the following title: _Collecção de noticias para a historia e geografia das nações ultramarinas_; those reports which relate to Barbosa are contained in the second volume." Now this Barcelona MS. contains in an appendix the voyage of three Portuguese, a Spaniard, and five Malays, whose captain was Francisco Serrano, to the Moluccas in the year 1512: this supplies the date of his voyage which the above quoted paragraph says could not be ascertained, and this account is not in Ramusio's collection, and there is every reason to suppose that it was as yet unpublished. In addition to what has been said by the writers of the _Panorama_ and _Univers Pittoresque_, in which statement they follow the 3rd Decade of the "Asia" of Barros, lib. v. cap. 8:-- "We wrote before how Francisco Serrão wrote some letters from the Maluco Islands where he was, to Fernão de Magalhães, on account of being his friend from the time when both were in India, principally at the taking of Malaca:" it was to be expected that Barbosa and Serrano would furnish their information to Magellan, whether as the head of their family, or as the Portuguese who had been longest at the Spanish Court, and through whom they might hope for advancement and further employment, such as Duarte Barbosa obtained with the fleet which discovered the Straits of Magellan. Magellan returned to Europe in 1512. Duarte Barbosa probably did not return till 1517, since he is said to have remained sixteen years in the Indian Ocean, and in that case he could not have returned before 1515--however, it is said in the introduction to the Lisbon edition that he is the son of Diego Barbosa, named in the Decades as having sailed in 1501 with the first fleet with João de Nova: the same introduction also says that the time of his departure to and return to India are unknown. Ramusio's edition of Barbosa's narrative says the writing of it was finished in 1516; it does not, however, mention any facts which occurred later than the year 1514. There is reason to suspect that Ramusio obtained his copy from the same source as the Barcelona manuscript, because the name of the precious stone zircon is spelled differently, giagonza, jagonza, and gegonza, and this difference of orthography coincides in the same places in the Spanish manuscript and in Ramusio. Ramusio gives an appendix containing the prices of precious stones and of spices, but has not got the voyage to the Moluccas of Francisco Serrano. The only reason I can conjecture for this not having reached Ramusio is, that it was a confidential paper, on account of the rivalry of Spain and Portugal with regard to those islands; and it is stated in history that Serrano increased the distances so as to enable Magellan to persuade the Spaniards that the Moluccas were more to the eastward, and that they fell within the demarcation of territories assigned by the Pope to Castille. This account of Francisco Serrano's voyage, and of his remaining behind married at Maluco, was either written by the Spaniard who accompanied him, or was translated by some other person than Diego Ribero and the Genoese ambassador Centurione, since all the points of the compass which in the body of the work are indicated by the names of winds, are here described by their names, as este, sudoeste, etc. Tramontana, greco, maestro, siloque, are all Spanish terms, but are less literate than the names of the points of the compass, and seem to be owing to the Genoese translator, to whom they would be familiar. It must be observed that the handwriting and paper of the narrative and two appendices of the Barcelona MS. are identical, and the leaves are numbered consecutively, so that there is no reason for supposing that the whole papers were not originally, as they now are, placed together. Ramusio in various parts of the narrative leaves a blank with the words, _Here several lines are wanting_; this may be owing to passages having been struck out for political reasons. The Portuguese edition has a short passage not in the Spanish MS., the only apparent motive for its omission being that it was to the glorification of the Portuguese. Since so large a portion of the present volume is contained in the Portuguese manuscript of Barbosa printed at Lisbon, it would be natural to follow Ramusio in attributing the work to him: at the same time it is not easy to understand how Barbosa, who was in the Indian Ocean at the time, should have confounded the two naval actions at Diu in 1508 and 1509, which he relates as one only, although the Portuguese were beaten in the first and victorious in the second. It is also difficult to imagine that one person visited all the places described in this volume, even in the space of sixteen years, at a period when travelling was slower than at present: and the observations on the manners and customs show a more intimate knowledge than what could be acquired by touching at a port for a few days only. This work is that of no ordinary capacity; it shews great power of observation, and also the possession by the writer of great opportunities for inquiry into the manners and habits of the different countries described. It could hardly have been drawn up by an ecclesiastic, there is too great an absence of condemnation of idolatrous practices, and the deficiencies of St. Thomas's Christians are too lightly spoken of. An ecclesiastic would not have been so indifferent to their mode of communion and to the sale of the sacraments, which caused many to remain unbaptized. The scanty mention of Albuquerque and of Goa, and its being the sort of political memorandum which a person in Magellan's position, seeking service from Spain, and desirous of pushing the Spanish government to eastern as well as western enterprise, would be likely to write; the commercial details, which are not those of a merchant, but rather of a soldier, for the prices given chiefly relate to provisions, horses and elephants, things useful in war, whilst the prices of jewels and spices, drawn up in a business-like manner, are in an appendix and not referred to in the narrative,--all these circumstances seem almost to justify the conclusion that this volume was drawn up by Magellan, or under Magellan's guidance, for the purpose of being laid before Charles V, at the time that Magellan was seeking the command which he received a short time later. This volume derives additional value from the numerous passages in which it runs parallel to the _Lusiad_, so that the two confirm one another, and this prose description serves as a commentary to Camoens. Several passages descriptive of the customs of the nairs of Malabar in this work present very forcibly the connection between Plato and the Hindus. The travels of Varthema, a former publication of the Hakluyt Society, gave evidence of the good administration of India especially in regard to justice in olden times; similar testimony will be found in this volume. The expedient of the King of Narsinga for correcting his high officials, without either removing them or lowering them in the eyes of those they had to rule, has not, I believe, been before narrated. Though Suttee has been so often described, the account of it in these pages possesses much interest and novelty, probably from having been written by an eye-witness, before that institution was disturbed by European influence. An allusion to the English longbow as to a weapon in actual use, gives an appearance of antiquity to this narrative even greater than that which belongs to its date. The orthography of the manuscript is not always uniform, therefore where a name is spelt in two different ways, I have left them as they are given. I have altered the original spelling of the names of only a few familiar places, and have retained the Portuguese expressions of Moor and Gentile, which mean Mussulman and heathen, one of which has survived up to the present time in Southern India as Moorman. Any further observations I may have to make on this manuscript will be found in the notes. I wish to express my thanks to Sr. D. Gregorio Romero Larrañaga, the head of the Barcelona Library, and to the other gentlemen of his department, for the cordial manner in which they have supplied me with the contents of their Library, and for their assistance in discussing doubtful points. London, October 21, 1865. [Illustration: facsimile of handwritten manuscript.] [Illustration: facsimile of handwritten manuscript.] PREFACE. (TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE EDITION, LISBON, 1812.) I, Duarte Barbosa, a native of the very noble city of Lisbon, having navigated for a great part of my youth in the Indies discovered in the name of the king our lord, and having travelled through many and various countries neighbouring to the coast, and having seen and heard various things, which I judged to be marvellous and stupendous, and which had never been seen nor heard of by our ancestors, resolved to write them for the benefit of all, as I saw and heard of them from day to day, striving to declare in this my book the towns and limits of all those kingdoms to which I went in person, or of which I had trustworthy information; and also which were kingdoms and countries of the Moors and which of the Gentiles, and their customs. Neither have I left in silence their traffic, the merchandise which is met with in them, the places where they are produced, nor whither they are transported. And besides what I saw personally, I always delighted in inquiring of the Moors, Christians, and Gentiles, as to the usages and customs which they practised, and the points of information thus gained I endeavoured to combine together so as to have a more exact knowledge of them, this being always my special object, as it should be of all those who write on such matters; and I am convinced that it will be recognized that I have not spared any diligence in order to obtain this object, as far as the feeble extent of the power of my understanding allows of. It was in the present year of 1516 that I finished writing this my book. DESCRIPTION OF THE EAST INDIES AND COUNTRIES ON THE SEABORD OF THE INDIAN OCEAN IN 1514.[3] THE CAPE OF ST. SEBASTIAN AFTER PASSING THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. Having passed the Cape of Good Hope in a north-easterly direction, at Cape San Sebastian, there are very fair mountain lands, and fields, and valleys, in which there are many cows and sheep, and other wild animals; it is a country inhabited by people who are black and naked. They only wear skins with the fur of deer, or other wild animals, like some cloaks in the French fashion, of which people the Portuguese, up to the present time, have not been able to obtain information, nor to become acquainted with what there is in the interior of the country. They have no navigation, neither do they make use of the sea, neither have the Moors of Arabia and Persia, or the Indies, ever navigated as far as this, nor discovered them, on account of the strong currents of the sea, which is very stormy. ISLANDS OF THE GREAT UCIQUES.[4] Having passed Cape San Sebastian towards the north-east for India, there are some islands close to the mainland to the east, which are called the Great Uciques; in which, on the side towards the mainland there are a few small towns of Moors, who deal with the people of the continent, and they provision themselves from them. In these Uciques much amber is found of good quality, which the Moors collect and sell in other places, and likewise many pearls and small seed pearls are found in the sea in beds (crusts), which they cannot gather or fish up, and whenever they do get them out they boil them, and extract the said pearls and seed pearls dingy and burnt, and there is no doubt that there are many and good ones, if they knew how to extract them, as is done in Sael, Cochoromandel, and in Barahe,[5] which will be mentioned hereafter. THE LITTLE VCIQUES ISLANDS IN RIVERS. Having passed the Vciques grandes towards Sofala, a fortress which the King of Portugal made there, and where there is much gold, at xvii or xviii leagues from it there are some rivers, which make between their branches, islands, called the Little Vciques, in which there are some villages of the Moors, who also deal with the Gentiles of the mainland in their provisions, which are rice, millet, and meat, and which they bring in small barks to Sufala.[6] SOFALA. Having passed the Little Vciques, for the Indies, at xviii leagues from them there is a river which is not very large, whereon is a town of the Moors called Sofala,[7] close to which town the King of Portugal has a fort. These Moors established themselves there a long time ago on account of the great trade in gold which they carry on with the Gentiles of the mainland: these speak somewhat of bad Arabic (garabia), and have got a king over them, who is at present subject to the King of Portugal.[8] And the mode of their trade is that they come by sea in small barks which they call zanbucs (sambuk), from the kingdoms of Quiloa, and Mombaza, and Melindi; and they bring much cotton cloth of many colours, and white and blue, and some of silk; and grey, and red, and yellow beads, which come to the said kingdoms in other larger ships from the great kingdom of Cambay, which merchandise these Moors buy and collect from other Moors who bring them there, and they pay for them in gold by weight, and for a price which satisfies them; and the said Moors keep them and sell these cloths to the Gentiles of the kingdom of Benamatapa who come there laden with gold, which gold they give in exchange for the before mentioned cloths without weighing, and so much in quantity that these Moors usually gain one hundred for one. They also collect a large quantity of ivory, which is found all round Sofala, which they likewise sell in the great kingdom of Cambay at five or six ducats the hundred weight, and so also some amber, which these Moors of Sofala bring them from the Vciques. They are black men, and men of colour--some speak Arabic, and the rest make use of the language of the Gentiles of the country. They wrap themselves from the waist downwards with cloths of cotton and silk, and they wear other silk cloths above named, such as cloaks and wraps for the head, and some of them wear hoods of scarlet, and of other coloured woollen stuffs and camelets, and of other silks. And their victuals are millet, and rice, and meat, and fish. In this river near to the sea there are many sea horses, which go in the sea, and come out on land at times to feed. These have teeth like small elephants, and it is better ivory than that of the elephant, and whiter and harder, and of greater durability of colour. In the country all round Sofala there are many elephants, which are very large and wild, and the people of the country do not know how to tame them: there are also many lions, ounces, mountain panthers, wild asses, and many other animals. It is a country of plains and mountains, and well watered. The Moors have now recently begun to produce much fine cotton in this country, and they weave it into white stuff because they do not know how to dye it, or because they have not got any colours; and they take the blue or coloured stuffs of Cambay and unravel them, and again weave the threads with their white thread, and in this manner they make coloured stuffs, by means of which they get much gold. KINGDOM OF BENAMATAPA. On entering within this country of Sofala, there is the kingdom of Benamatapa, which is very large and peopled by Gentiles, whom the Moors call Cafers. These are brown men, who go bare, but covered from the waist downwards with coloured stuffs, or skins of wild animals; and the persons most in honour among them wear some of the tails of the skin behind them, which go trailing on the ground for state and show, and they make bounds and movements of their bodies, by which they make these tails wag on either side of them. They carry swords in scabbards of wood bound with gold or other metals, and they wear them on the left hand side as we do, in sashes of coloured stuffs, which they make for this purpose with four or five knots, and their tassels hanging down, like gentlemen; and in their hands azagayes, and others carry bows and arrows: it must be mentioned that the bows are of middle size, and the iron points of the arrows are very large and well wrought. They are men of war, and some of them are merchants: their women go naked as long as they are girls, only covering their middles with cotton cloths, and when they are married and have children, they wear other cloths over their breasts. ZINBAOCH.[9] Leaving Sofala for the interior of the country, at xv days journey from it, there is a large town of Gentiles, which is called Zinbaoch; and it has houses of wood and straw, in which town the King of Benamatapa frequently dwells, and from there to the city of Benamatapa there are six days journey, and the road goes from Sofala, inland, towards the Cape of Good Hope. And in the said Benamatapa, which is a very large town, the king is used to make his longest residence; and it is thence that the merchants bring to Sofala the gold which they sell to the Moors without weighing it, for coloured stuffs and beads of Cambay, which are much used and valued amongst them; and the people of this city of Benamatapa say that this gold comes from still further off towards the Cape of Good Hope, from another kingdom subject to this king of Benamatapa, who is a great lord, and holds many other kings as his subjects, and many other lands, which extend far inland, both towards the Cape of Good Hope and towards Mozambich. And in this town he is each day served with large presents, which the kings and lords, his subjects, send to him; and when they bring them, they carry them bareheaded through all the city, until they arrive at the palace, from whence the king sees them come from a window, and he orders them to be taken up from there, and the bearers do not see him, but only hear his words; and afterwards, he bids them call the persons who have brought these presents, and he dismisses them. This king constantly takes with him into the field a captain, whom they call Sono, with a great quantity of men-at-arms, and amongst them they bring six thousand women, who also bear arms and fight. With these forces he goes about subduing and pacifying whatever kings rise up or desire to revolt. The said king of Benamatapa sends, each year, many honourable persons throughout his kingdoms to all the towns and lordships, to give them new regulations, so that all may do them obeisance, which is in this manner: each one of the envoys comes to a town, and bids the people extinguish all the fires that there are in it; and after they have been put out, all the inhabitants go to this man who has been sent as commissary, to get fresh fire from him in sign of subjection and obedience; and, whoever should not do this is held as a rebel, and the king immediately sends the number of people that are necessary to destroy him, and these pass through all the towns at their expense: their rations are meat, rice, and oil of sesame.[10] RIVER ZUAMA. Leaving Sofala for Mozambich, at forty leagues from it, there is a very large river, which is called the Zuama;[11] and it is said that it goes towards Benamatapa,[12] and it extends more than 160 leagues. In the mouth of this river there is a town of the Moors, which has a king, and it is called Mongalo.[13] Much gold comes from Benamatapa to this town of the Moors, by this river, which makes another branch which falls at Angos, where the Moors make use of boats (almadias), which are boats hollowed out from a single trunk, to bring the cloths and other merchandise from Angos, and to transport much gold and ivory. ANGOY. After passing this river of Zuama, at xl leagues from it, there is a town of the Moors on the sea coast, which is called Angoy,[14] and has a king, and the Moors who live there are all merchants, and deal in gold, ivory, silk, and cotton stuffs, and beads of Cambay, the same as do those of Sofala. And the Moors bring these goods from Quiloa, and Monbaza, and Melynde, in small vessels hidden from the Portuguese ships; and they carry from there a great quantity of ivory, and much gold. And in this town of Angos there are plenty of provisions of millet, rice, and some kinds of meat. These men are very brown and copper coloured; they go naked from the waist upwards, and from thence downwards, they wrap themselves with cloths of cotton and silk, and wear other cloths folded after the fashion of cloaks, and some wear caps and others hoods, worked with stuffs and silks; and they speak the language belonging to the country, which is that of the Pagans, and some of them speak Arabic. These people are sometimes in obedience to the king of Portugal, and at times they throw it off, for they are a long way off from the Portuguese forts. MOZAMBIQUE ISLAND. Having passed this town of Anguox, on the way to India, there are very near to the land three islands, one of which is inhabited by Moors, and is called Mozambique.[15] It has a very good port, and all the Moors touch there who are sailing to Sofala, Zuama, or Anguox. Amongst these Moors there is a sheriff, who governs them, and does justice. These are of the language and customs of the Moors of Anguox, in which island the King of Portugal now holds a fort, and keeps the said Moors under his orders and government. At this island the Portuguese ships provide themselves with water and wood, fish and other kinds of provisions; and at this place they refit those ships which stand in need of repair. And from this island likewise the Portuguese fort in Sofala draws its supplies, both of Portuguese goods and of the produce of India, on account of the road being longer by the mainland. Opposite this island there are many very large elephants and wild animals. The country is inhabited by Gentiles, brutish people who go naked and smeared all over with coloured clay, and their natural parts wrapped in a strip of blue cotton stuff, without any other covering; and they have their lips pierced with three holes in each lip, and in these holes they wear bones stuck in, and claws, and small stones, and other little things dangling from them. ISLAND OF QUILOA. After passing this place and going towards India, there is another island close to the mainland, called Quiloa,[16] in which there is a town of the Moors, built of handsome houses of stone and lime, and very lofty, with their windows like those of the Christians; in the same way it has streets, and these houses have got their terraces, and the wood worked in with the masonry, with plenty of gardens, in which there are many fruit trees and much water. This island has got a king over it, and from hence there is trade with Sofala with ships, which carry much gold, which is dispersed thence through all Arabia Felix, for henceforward all this country is thus named on account of the shore of the sea being peopled with many towns and cities of the Moors; and when the King of Portugal discovered this land, the Moors of Sofala, and Zuama, and Anguox, and Mozambique, were all under obedience to the King of Quiloa, who was a great king amongst them. And there is much gold in this town, because all the ships which go to Sofala touch at this island, both in going and coming back. These people are Moors, of a dusky colour, and some of them are black and some white; they are very well dressed with rich cloths of gold, and silk, and cotton, and the women also go very well dressed out with much gold and silver in chains and bracelets on their arms, and legs, and ears. The speech of these people is Arabic, and they have got books of the Alcoran, and honour greatly their prophet Muhamad. This King, for his great pride, and for not being willing to obey the King of Portugal, had this town taken from him by force, and in it they killed and captured many people, and the King fled from the island, in which the King of Portugal ordered a fortress to be built, and thus he holds under his command and government those who continued to dwell there. ISLAND OF MOMBAZA. Passing Quiloa, and going along the coast of the said Arabia Felix towards India, close to the mainland there is another island, in which there is a city of the Moors, called Bombaza,[17] very large and beautiful, and built of high and handsome houses of stone and whitewash, and with very good streets, in the manner of those of Quiloa. And it also had a king over it. The people are of dusky white, and brown complexions, and likewise the women, who are much adorned with silk and gold stuffs. It is a town of great trade in goods, and has a good port, where there are always many ships, both of those that sail for Sofala and those that come from Cambay and Melinde, and others which sail to the islands of Zanzibar, Manfia, and Penda, which will be spoken of further on. This Monbaza is a country well supplied with plenty of provisions, very fine sheep, which have round tails, and many cows, chickens, and very large goats, much rice and millet, and plenty of oranges, sweet and bitter, and lemons, cedrats, pomegranates, Indian figs, and all sorts of vegetables, and very good water. The inhabitants at times are at war with the people of the continent, and at other times at peace, and trade with them, and obtain much honey and wax, and ivory. This King, for his pride and unwillingness to obey the King of Portugal, lost his city, and the Portuguese took it from him by force, and the King fled, and they killed and made captives many of his people, and the country was ravaged,[18] and much plunder was carried off from it of gold and silver, copper, ivory, rich stuffs of gold and silk, and much other valuable merchandize. MELINDE. After passing the city of Mombaza, at no great distance further on along the coast, there is a very handsome town on the mainland on the beach, called Melinde,[19] and it is a town of the Moors, which has a king. And this town has fine houses of stone and whitewash, of several stories, with their windows and terraces, and good streets. The inhabitants are dusky and black, and go naked from the waist upwards, and from that downwards they cover themselves with cloths of cotton and silk, and others wear wraps like cloaks, and handsome caps on their heads. The trade is great which they carry on in cloth, gold, ivory, copper, quicksilver, and much other merchandise, with both Moors and Gentiles of the kingdom of Cambay, who come to their port with ships laden with cloth, which they buy in exchange for gold, ivory, and wax. Both parties find great profit in this. There are plenty of provisions in this town, of rice, millet, and some wheat, which is brought to them from Cambay, and plenty of fruit, for there are many gardens and orchards. There are here many of the large-tailed sheep, and of all other meats as above; there are also oranges, sweet and sour. This King and people have always been very friendly and obedient to the King of Portugal, and the Portuguese have always met with much friendship and good reception amongst them.[20] ISLAND OF SAN LORENZO.[21] Opposite these places, in the sea above the Cape of the Currents,[22] at a distance of eighty leagues, there is a very large island, which is called San Lorenzo, and which is peopled by Gentiles, and has in it some towns of Moors. This island has many kings, both Moors and Gentiles. There is in it much meat, rice, and millet, and plenty of oranges and lemons, and there is much ginger in this country, which they do not make use of, except to eat it almost green. The inhabitants go naked, covering only their middles with cotton cloths. They do not navigate, nor does any one do so for them; they have got canoes for fishing on their coast. They are people of a dark complexion, and have a language of their own. They frequently are at war with one another, and their arms are azagayes, very sharp, with their points very well worked; they throw these in order to wound, and carry several of them in their hands. They are very well built and active men, and have a good method of wrestling. There is amongst them silver of inferior quality. Their principal food is roots, which they sow, and it is called yname,[23] and in the Indies of Spain it is called maize. The country is very beautiful and luxuriant in vegetation, and it has very large rivers. This island is in length from the part of Sofala and Melinde three hundred leagues, and to the mainland there are sixty leagues. PENDA, MANFIA, AND ZANZIBAR. Between this island of San Lorenzo and the continent, not very far from it, are three islands, which are called one Manfia, another Zanzibar, and the other Penda;[24] these are inhabited by Moors; they are very fertile islands, with plenty of provisions, rice, millet, and flesh, and abundant oranges, lemons, and cedrats. All the mountains are full of them; they produce many sugar canes, but do not know how to make sugar. These islands have their kings. The inhabitants trade with the mainland with their provisions and fruits; they have small vessels, very loosely and badly made, without decks, and with a single mast; all their planks are sewn together with cords of reed or matting, and the sails are of palm mats. They are very feeble people, with very few and despicable weapons. In these islands they live in great luxury, and abundance; they dress in very good cloths of silk and cotton, which they buy in Mombaza of the merchants from Cambay, who reside there. Their wives adorn themselves with many jewels of gold from Sofala, and silver, in chains, ear-rings, bracelets, and ankle rings, and are dressed in silk stuffs: and they have many mosques, and hold the Alcoran of Mahomed. PATE. After passing Melinde, and going towards India, they cross the Gulf (because the coast trends inwards) towards the Red Sea, and on the coast there is a town called Pate,[25] and further on there is another town of the Moors, called Lamon;[26] all these trade with the Gentiles of the country, and they are strongly-walled towns of stone and whitewash, because at times they have to fight with the Gentiles, who live in the interior of the country. BRAVA. Leaving these places, further on along the coast is a town of the Moors, well walled, and built of good houses of stone and whitewash, which is called Brava. It has not got a king; it is governed by its elders,[27] they being honoured and respectable persons. It is a place of trade, which has already been destroyed by the Portuguese, with great slaughter of the inhabitants, of whom many were made captives, and great riches in gold, silver, and other merchandise were taken here, and those who escaped fled into the country, and after the place was destroyed they returned to people it. MAGADOXO.[28] Leaving the before-mentioned town of Brava, on the coast further on towards the Red Sea, there is another very large and beautiful town, called Magadoxo, belonging to the Moors, and it has a king over it, and is a place of great trade in merchandise. Ships come there from the kingdom of Cambay and from Aden with stuffs of all sorts, and with other merchandise of all kinds, and with spices. And they carry away from there much gold, ivory, beeswax, and other things upon which they make a profit. In this town there is plenty of meat, wheat, barley, and horses, and much fruit; it is a very rich place. All the people speak Arabic; they are dusky, and black, and some of them white. They are but bad warriors, and use herbs with their arrows to defend themselves from their enemies. AFUNI.[29] Having passed the district and town of Magadoxo, further on along the coast is another small town of the Moors, called Afuni, in which there is abundance of meat and provisions. It is a place of little trade, and has got no port. CAPE GUARDAFUN. After passing this place the next after it is Cape Guardafun,[30] where the coast ends, and trends so as to double towards the Red Sea. This cape is in the mouth of the Strait of Mecca, and all the ships which come from India, that is to say, from the kingdom of Cambay, of Chaul, Dabul, Baticala, and Malabar, Ceylon, Choromandel, Bengal, Sumatra, Poggru, Tanaseri, Malacca, and China, all come to meet at this cape, and from it they enter into the before-mentioned Red Sea with their merchandise for Aden, Berbera, and Zeyla, and Guida, the port of Mecca, for which ships the ships of the King of Portugal sometimes go and lie in wait and take them with all their riches. MET. In doubling this Cape of Guardafun, towards the inner part of the Red Sea, there is, just near the said cape, a town of the Moors called Met,[31] not very large, where there is plenty of meat; it is of little trade. BARBARA. Further on, on the same coast, is a town of the Moors called Barbara;[32] it has a port, at which many ships of Adeni and Cambay touch with their merchandise, and from there those of Cambay carry away much gold, and ivory, and other things, and those of Aden take many provisions, meat, honey, and wax, because, as they say, it is a very abundant country. ZEYLA. Having passed this town of Berbara, and going on, entering the Red Sea, there is another town of the Moors, which is named Zeyla,[33] which is a good place of trade, whither many ships navigate and sell their cloths and merchandise. It is very populous, with good houses of stone and whitewash, and good streets; the houses are covered with terraces, the dwellers in them are black. They have many horses, and breed much cattle of all sorts, which they make use of for milk, and butter, and meat. There is in this country abundance of wheat, millet, barley, and fruits, which they carry thence to Aden. DALAQUA. After continuing along the coast from the town of Zeyla, there is another place of the Moors, called Dalaqua,[34] the seaport which is most made use of by the Abaxins[35] of the country of Prester John. And all round this place there are much provisions, and much gold comes there from the country of Prester John. MASAVA SAVAQUIN[36] AND OTHER PLACES. Leaving Dalaqua for the interior of the Red Sea, there are Massowa, Suakin, and other towns of the Moors; and this coast is still called Arabia Felix, and the Moors call it Barra Ajan,[37] in all which there is much gold which comes from the interior of the country of Prester John, whom they call Abexi. All these places on this coast trade with the country with their cloths and other merchandise, and they bring from it gold, ivory, honey, wax and slaves; and sometimes they are at war with them, for they are Christians, and they capture many of them; and such captives are much valued by the Moors, and amongst them are worth much more money than other slaves because they find them sharp and faithful, and well-built men in body, and when they turn Moors, they become greater emperors than the original Moors. These Moors of Arabia Felix are all black[38] and good fighting men; they go bare from the waist upwards, and from thence downwards they cover themselves with cloths of cotton; and the more honourable men amongst them wear their cloths over them like Almalafas,[39] and the women are covered in the same way:[40]... KINGDOM OF PRESTER JOHN. Leaving these towns of the Moors and entering into the interior of the country, the great kingdom of Prester John is to be found, whom the Moors of Arabia call Abexi;[41] this kingdom is very large, and peopled with many cities, towns, and villages, with many inhabitants: and it has many kings subject to it and tributary kings. And in their country there are many who live in the fields and mountains, like Beduins: they are black men, very well made: they have many horses, and make use of them, and are good riders, and there are great sportsmen and hunters amongst them. Their provisions are flesh of all kinds, milk, butter, and wheaten bread, and of these things there is a great abundance. Their clothes are of hides because the country is wanting in cloths; and there is a law amongst them by which certain families and ranks of persons may wear cloths, and the rest of the people may wear only hides well dressed and tanned. Amongst them there are men and women who have never drunk water, but only milk, which greatly supports them, and quenches the thirst, on account of its being more healthy and substantial, and there is great abundance of it in the country. These people are Christians of the doctrine of the blessed Saint Bartholomew, as they say; and their baptism is in three kinds, of blood, fire, and water: that is to say, that they circumcise themselves, and mark themselves on the temples and forehead with fire, and also in water, like the Catholic Christians. Many of them are deficient in our true faith, because the country is very large, and whilst in the principal city of Babel Malech, where Prester John resides, they may be Christians, in many other distant parts they live in error and without being taught; so that they are only Christians in name. BABEL MELECH. In the interior of this country is the great city of Babel Melech,[42] where Prester John holds his residence. The Moors call him the great King of the Habeshys: he is Christian, and lord of many extensive countries and numerous people, with whom he makes subject many great kings. He is very rich, and possesses more gold than any other prince. This Prester John holds a very large court, and he keeps many men at arms continually in his pay, whom he takes about with him. He goes out very rarely from his dwelling; many kings and great lords come to visit him. In this city a great feast takes place in the month of August, for which so many kings and nobles come together, and so many people that they are innumerable: and on this day of the feast in August they take an image out of a church, which is believed to be that of Our Lady, or that of St. Bartholomew, which image is of gold and of the size of a man; its eyes are of very large and beautiful rubies of great value, and the whole of it is adorned with many precious stones of much value, and placing it in a great chariot of gold, they carry it in procession with very great veneration and ceremony, and Prester John goes in front of this car in another gold car, very richly dressed in cloth of gold with much jewellery. And they begin to go out thus in the morning, and go in procession through all the city with much music of all sorts of instruments, until the evening, when they go home. And so many people throng to this procession, that in order to arrive at the car of the image many die of being squeezed and suffocated; and those who die in this wise are held as saints and martyrs; and many old men and old women go with a good will to die in this manner. SUEZ. Leaving this country of Prester John and the coast of the sea of Arabia Felix, and turning to the other part of the Red Sea, which is also called Arabia, and the Moors call it Barra Arab, there is a village, a seaport called Suez,[43] and thither the Moors of Guida, the port of Mecca, bring all the spices, drugs, precious stones, seed pearl, amber, musk, and other merchandise of great value from the parts about India; and from there they load them on camels to carry them by land to Cairo, and from Cairo other merchants carry them to Alexandria; and from there the Venetians and other Christians usually export them. And this trade now, in a great measure, ceases on account of the Portuguese, whose fleets prohibit the navigation of the Moors from India to the Red Sea.[44] And the Great Sultan, lord of Cairo, who loses most by this, ordered a fleet to be built in the port of Suez, for which he had the wood and artillery, and other equipments transported by land, in which much money was expended; and this fleet was of ships and galleys, in order to pass with it to India and there forbid the Portuguese from cruising. And when this fleet was built many people of different nations went with it to the first India, which is the Kingdom of Cambay; and the Captain of it was Amir Uçen,[45] and with this fleet they met that of Portugal in front of a city named Dyu, and there they fought vigorously, and many people were killed, and at last the Moors, Turks, and Mamelukes were conquered and all their fleet was taken and part of it burned, and on this account and several other victories which the Portuguese gained over the before-mentioned Moors, they lost their navigation in the Red Sea, and the said port of Suez remains without the trade in spices. MOUNT SINAI. Near the said city of Suez there is in the country of Arabia on the Red Sea, the mountain of Sinai, where lies the blessed Saint Catharine in a church, in which there are Christian friars, under the lordship of the Sultan, to which building the devout of all Christian countries come in pilgrimage, and the chief part of those that throng thither are from the country of Prester John and Armenia, Babilonia, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. ELIOBON AND MEDINA. Having passed Mount Sinai, which the Moors call Tur, along the coast of the Red Sea going out of it, there is a village of the Moors, a seaport called Eliobon,[46] and it is a port where they disembark for Medina, which is another town of the Moors, up the country at three days' journey from the port, and the body of Mahomed is buried in it. GUIDA PORT OF MECA. Leaving the port of Eliobon to go out of the Red Sea, there is a town of the Moors, called Guida, and it is the port of Mecca, whither the ships used to come every year from India with spices and drugs, and they returned thence to Calicut with much copper, quicksilver, vermillion, saffron, rose-water, scarlet silks, camelots, tafetans and other goods, of stuffs used in India, and also with much gold and silver; and the trade was very great and profitable. And from this port of Guida these spices and drugs were transported in small vessels to Suez, as has been already said. MECA. At one day's journey up the country from the port of Guida is the great city of Meca, in which there is a very large mosque, to which all the Moors from all parts go in pilgrimage, and they hold for certain that they are saved by washing with the water of a well which is in this mosque: and they carry it away from there in bottles to their countries as a great relic. In the aforesaid Guida port of Mecca a fortress has been lately built by Emir Hussein, the Moorish captain of the ships of the Sultan, which the Portuguese destroyed in India: this captain when he saw himself defeated, did not dare return to his country without performing some service to his king, and he decided on begging of the King of Cambay (who is called Sultan Mahamud) assistance in money, and so also from the nobles and merchants of his kingdom and from other Moorish kings, in order to construct this fortress, saying: that since the Portuguese, (whom they call Franks) were so powerful, it would not be wonderful if they were to come into this port and were to go and destroy the house of Mahomet. And these Moorish kings and people hearing his petition, and seeing the power of the King of Portugal, it seemed to them that this might come to pass, and thus all gave him great gifts, by means of which he loaded three ships with spices and other merchandise, and went with them to the Red Sea, and arrived at Guida, where he sold them, and with the money he made the said fortress, and during the time that he was building it, the Portuguese were making another inside the town of Calicut,[47] and the King of Calicut begged the Captain Major of the King of Portugal to give him permission to send then a ship laden with spices to Mecca. And this permission was given him, and the ship was sent. And there went in it as captain an honourable person of the Moors named Califa, and he arrived at Guida the port of Mecca, where he came on shore very well dressed out, along with his people, and he found Emir Hussein building his fortress, and was asked by him news of the Portuguese. And this Califa answered him, telling him how they were in great peace at Calicut, and making a handsome fortress. And Emir Hussein asked him, how dare you come to Mecca being a friend of the Portuguese? Califa answered him, I am a merchant and am unable to do anything, but you who are a captain of the great Sultan if you go to India to turn them out of it, how came you to leave them there, and to make a fortress here? At which Emir Hussein was much put out, and ordered Califa immediately, and well dressed as he was, to take stones and mortar, he and his people, and help to build the fortress: and he made him work for the space of an hour.[48] And Califa related this in Calicut later when he returned there.[49] JAZAN, HALI, ALHOR. Leaving Jiddah the port of Mekkah, to go out of the Red Sea there are three towns of the Moors, which have got kings over them, one is called Jazan,[50] another Hali, and the other Alhor; in these there are many horses and plenty of provisions. This king does not obey the Sultan nor any other king whatever; he holds many countries under him in which he has many towns with many sea ports, from which the Moorish merchants used to export a few horses to India in their merchant ships, because there they are worth a good deal. HODEYDA, MAHA, BABEL MENDE. Having passed these places and kingdom, there are three places further on the coast which belong to the kingdom of Aden; the one they call Hodeyda, the other Maha,[51] the other Babelmende, which is in the mouth of the strait of the Red Sea where the ships enter it, and at this place the ships take pilots as far as Jiddah, who live by it. ISLAND OF CAMARON. In the sea of these other places, there is a small island called Camaron,[52] inhabited by Moors, in which the ships were accustomed to take refreshments when they passed by it to Jiddah. This island was ravaged by Alonso de Alboquerque, captain of the King of Portugal; and he staid there for some days repairing his fleet in order to leave the Red Sea, for the season did not allow him to go as far as Jiddah, to which he wished to arrive. ADEM. Coming out of the Red Sea by Babelmendel, which is in the straits, as has been said, towards the open sea, further on the coast there are several towns of Moors, which all belong to the kingdom of Aden, and having passed these villages you arrive at the town of Aden, which belongs to the Moors, and has a king over it. It is a very handsome city, with very large and fine houses, and a place of much trade, with good streets, and surrounded with a strong wall in their fashion. This city is on a point between a mountain and the sea; and this mountain ridge on the side of the main land is a precipitous rock, in such manner that on that side it has no more than one entrance, and on the top of this ridge, where the town is, there are many small towers, which look very pretty from the sea. Inside the city there is no water at all, and outside of the gate towards the main land there is a building to which they make water come in pipes from another mountain at some little distance from there, and between one ridge and the other ridge there was a great plain. In this city there are great Moorish merchants, and many Jews.[53] They are white men, a few of them black, they dress in cloth of cotton, silk, scarlet wool, and camelots. Their clothes are long robes, and they wear caps on their heads, and with low shoes on their feet. Their victuals are plenty of meat, wheaten bread, and rice which comes from India: there is plenty of fruit as in our parts, and there are in this place many horses and camels. The king is always in the interior of the country, and he maintains his governor in this city. Many ships, great and small, come there from many parts; that is to say, from Jiddah, whence they bring them much copper and quicksilver, and vermillion, coral, cloths of wool and silk. And they take from here in return spices, drugs, cotton cloths, and other things from Cambay, with provisions and other goods. Many ships also touch there from Zeyla and Berbera with provisions and other goods, and carry away from there stuffs from Cambay, alaquequas,[54] and large and small beads perforated for stringing, with which they trade in Arabia Felix, and in the country of Prester John. Some ships from Ormuz likewise touch there to trade, and also from Cambay, whence they bring much cotton stuff, spices, drugs, jewels and pearls, alaquequas, spun cotton, and unspun; and they take from these madder, opium, raisins, copper, quicksilver, vermillion, rose-water which they make there, woollen and silk stuffs, coloured stuffs from Mecca, and gold in ingots or coined, and thread and camelots. And these ships of Cambay are so many and so large, and with so much merchandise, that it is a terrible thing to think of so great an expenditure of cotton stuffs as they bring. There come likewise to this port of Aden many ships from Chaul and Dabul, and from Bengal and the country of Calicut; they used to come there with the before-mentioned goods and with a large quantity of rice and sugar, and cocoa-nuts which grow on the palm trees, and which are like nuts in flavour, and with the kernels[55] they make drinking cups. There also arrive there ships from Bengal, Samatra, and Malaca, which bring much spices and drugs, silks, benzoin, alacar,[56] sandal-wood, aloes-wood, rhubarb, musk, and much cotton stuffs from Bengal and Mangala,[57] so that it is a place of as much trade as there can be in the world, and of the richest merchandise. The fleet and armament of the King of Portugal came to this city, and took and burned in its harbour several ships laden with much merchandise, and several empty ships, and it made an assault to enter the town, and mounted the walls with scaling ladders, which broke with the weight of the many people on them; so that the Portuguese went out again, and abandoned the town: and at this entry the Moors defended themselves very vigorously, and many of them died, and some of the Christians. KINGDOM OF FARTACH. Having passed the said kingdom of Aden, going out of the strait towards the East, there is another kingdom of the Moors about twenty-five leagues off, near the sea, it has three or four towns on the coast, and they are called Xebech, Diufar,[58] and Fartach.[59] These Moors have got a king over them and are very good fighting men: they have got horses which they make use of in war, and good arms with short blades; the said king is subject to the King of Aden and is his servant. CAPE FARTACH AND THE ISLAND OF SACOTORA. In this country and kingdom there is a cape which is called Cape Fartach, where the coast turns and makes a bend towards the said sea between north-east and east,[60] and between this cape and that of Guardafun, is the mouth of the strait of Mecca, which runs north-west and south-east,[61] and it is xl leagues in width, where all the ships pass for those voyages and to the Red Sea. Above Cape Guardafun, to the north-east by east, twenty-seven leagues off, is an island called Sacotora, with very high mountains, it is inhabited by dusky people, who are said to be Christians; but they are deficient in the teaching of the Christian law and baptism, and have got only the name of Christians: they have in their chapels crosses, +.[62] It was in former times a country of Christians, and the Christian doctrine was lost there on account of Christian navigation having ceased there; and the Moors say that this was an island of Amazons, who later in the course of time mixed with men, and something of this appears to be the case, since there the women administer property and manage it, without the husbands having a voice in the matter. These people have a language of their own; they go without clothes, and only cover their nakedness with cotton cloths and skins: they have many cows and sheep, and date palms. Their victuals are meat, milk, and dates. In this island there is much dragon's blood[63] and aloes of Socotra. And the Moors of Fartach built in it a fortress, to subjugate them, and turn them Moors; and some of those that lived around the fortress were Moors, and served the Moors of the fort like their slaves, both in their persons and property. A fleet of the King of Portugal arrived at this island, and took this fortress by force of arms from the Moors of Fartach, fighting with them: and they defended themselves much more vigorously than any men of these parts; so that they never would give themselves up, and all died in the fight, for none of them escaped; so that they are very good and daring fighting men. The Captain of this fleet left troops and artillery in this fortress in order to keep it in the name of the King of Portugal. And quite near to this island of Sacotora there are two other islands inhabited by coloured people and blacks, like the people of the Canary Islands, without law or knowledge, and they have no dealings with any other people. In these two islands much amber and of good quality is found, and many shells of the valuable and precious kind in the mine, and much dragon's blood and aloes of Socotra; and there are large flocks of sheep and oxen. DIUFAR. Leaving Cape Fartach towards the coast of the open sea to the north-east by east, going along the coast L leagues off is a town of the Moors and seaport called Diufar,[64] a city of the kingdom of Fartach, in which the Moors of Cambay trade in cotton stuffs, rice, and other goods. XEHER.[65] Further on from this place, in the direction of the same wind, at xx leagues off, along the same coast, is another town of the Moors, called Xeher; it also belongs to the kingdom of Fartach, and is very large; it has a large trade in the stuffs, which the Moors of Cambay, Chaul, Dabul, and Baticala, and the country of Malabar, bring in their ships to this port and town of Xeher; these are coarse and fine cotton stuffs, with which they clothe themselves; granates on strings and several other jewels of small value, much rice, sugar, and spice of all kinds, cocoa-nuts, and other goods, which they sell there to the merchants of the country, who carry them from there to Aden and all this part of Arabia. And the importers afterwards employ the money in horses for India: these are very large and very good, and each one of them in India is worth five or six hundred ducats. And they also take from there much wormwood,[66] which grows in that country. And in the interior of the country all the people are Beduins: in this country there is much wheat and plenty of meat and dates, grapes, and all other fruits which are in our parts. And all the ships which sail from India for the Red Sea, and having been delayed cannot arrive in good time[67] with their merchandise at the place of their destination, remain to sell them in this port of Xeher, and from there they go to India along the coast to Cambay. And so this port is large and of much trade at all times. This King of Fartach is, with the whole of his kingdom, in obedience to the King of Aden, because he holds a brother of his a prisoner. The wormwood which grows in this country of Xeher is carried from here to all the world, and the ships of this place load[68] the said wormwood, which is there worth a hundred and fifty maravedis the hundred weight. FASALHAD. Having passed this town of Xeher, along the coast there are other small towns, and Beduins in the interior of the country. This coast lasts as far as Cape Fasalhat, which is xxv leagues from Xeher, between north-east and east, where the kingdom and rule of the King of Ormuz begins. At this cape there is a fortress which the King of Ormuz holds there which is called Cor: and from there the coast begins to bend inwards towards Ormuz. KINGDOM OF ORMUZ. After passing this Cape of Fasalhat along the coast to the north-east, there are many towns and castles of the kingdom of Ormuz in Arabia, fifty leagues to the north-east, and then twenty-five leagues to the east, and as much again to the north-east and north, and then it makes a bay to the north-west for twelve leagues, and turns to the north-east twenty-five leagues as far as Cape Refalcate,[69] and then it turns to the north-west, making bays until Madea, which are eighty-six leagues off, and from there it trends to the north-east by north thirty leagues until Cape Mocondon,[70] which is at the mouth of the sea of Persia, which is twelve leagues in width, and on this sea also further on, this rule and lordship continue to extend, and there are in it many towns and forts; and islands which are in the midst of the said sea of Persia, inhabited by Moors. These places belonging to this kingdom are the following. In the beginning of this kingdom on the coast outside of this sea of Persia, is:-- First Calhat,[71] a very large town of handsome houses, and well situated; the inhabitants are rich nobles and merchants: it is forty-four leagues from Cape Fasalhat. Thirty-two leagues further on there is another small place called Tybi, which has good water with which the ships navigating all this coast provide themselves. Twenty-five leagues further on is another small place called Daxnia, also a seaport. Thirty leagues further on is another large place which is a very good town of much trade in merchandise, which is called Curiat,[72] in which, as well as in the others in the neighbourhood, there is plenty of meat, wheat, dates, and other fruit in abundance: there are plenty of horses, which are bred in the country, and they are very good, and the Moors of Ormuz come to buy them for exportation to India. Leaving this town of Curiat, at twelve leagues along the coast is another place with a fortress which is called Sar,[73] which the King of Ormuz keeps there. Having doubled the Cape of Resalcate, the coast turns to the sea of Persia. Forty leagues further on from this cape is another town upon the coast itself called Mazquate. It is a large town, and of very honourable people, and of much trade in merchandise, and a place of great fisheries: they catch large fish there, which they export dried and salted to other parts. Going along the coast further on to the sea of Persia there is at a distance of ten leagues another place called Sohar.[74] Leaving this town of Sohar, further inland from the coast, at fourteen leagues off is another fortress of the King of Ormuz called Rosach; and with these fortresses this king is better able to keep all this country in subjection. Having passed the fortress of Rosach, there is another fortress called Nahel twelve leagues off. Twelve leagues further on is another place they call Madeha; it is a small place, of few inhabitants, inside the mouth of the Sea of Persia, thirty leagues to the south-west.[75] Further on, there is a large place of many inhabitants called Corfasan,[76] around which and the other neighbouring places are many very agreeable country houses belonging to the chief men and most honoured of the Moors of Ormuz, who come during certain months of the year there to repose, and to collect their provisions, and enjoy their fruit. Fifteen leagues further on there is another place on the coast, called Dadena. As much again further on to the south-west, another place called Daba. Further on, on the coast to the south-west by west, at a distance of lxxxv leagues, is another very large town called Julfar,[77] where there are many very respectable people, and many merchants and sailors. And there they fish up many large pearls and seed pearls, which the merchants of the city of Ormuz come there to buy, to carry them to India and other parts. This place is one of much trade, and produces a great deal to the king of Ormuz. Further along the coast of the Persian Sea, in the before-mentioned inner part, are three other places belonging to the king of Ormuz: Raçolhiman,[78] which is a good town, at a distance of twenty-four leagues, and another beyond this, called Melquehoan,[79] and six leagues further on there is a fortress called Calba,[80] which the king maintains to defend his country from the Bedouins, who live in the interior of the country, and who are governed by sheikhs; and at times they go against these towns of the kingdom of Ormuz, and make war upon them, and sometimes they make them rebel against the king. This king of Ormuz possesses, besides these places already mentioned, on the coast of Arabia, many other towns in the country of Persia, on the sea-coast, and in the midst of the Persian Sea many islands inhabited by Moors, in which he has many large towns, very rich and handsome, all of which are named separately further on, and afterwards the island and city of Ormuz and its customs are mentioned. On this coast the king of Ormuz has a town called Baha,[81] in which he maintains his governors. Having passed this place, further along the coast is another place called Dexar. Further on another place called Xahen. Further on another place called Ygun.[82] Further on another place called El-guadun. Further on another place called Nabani,[83] from which place they carry much water to drink to Ormuz, because there is no drinkable water there; and from this and all those other places they carry to Ormuz all its supplies. Further on is another place called Guan-meda, and from there further on there are also some other places belonging to the king of Ormuz, which are the following--Lefete, Quesebi,[84] and from here further on the coast turns to the north-west by north as far as the mouth of the river Eufrates, and it begins here to be a wide estuary. Berohu,[85] Caljar, Xuza, Mohimasim,[86] Lima,[87] Gorbaz, Alguefa, Carmon.[88] Which lasts two hundred and forty leagues, and then Bazera, a castle of Sophi. At the entrance of the river Eufrates the land turns to the sea in a southerly direction eighty leagues, and then returns as much again to the north, and after that turns again to the south, when there begin these towns--Cohomo, Barque Guex,[89] Ganguan, Basido,[90] Goxtaque, Conch, Conga, Ebrahemi,[91] and as far as this there are one hundred and sixty-five leagues, and after that Xenase,[92] Menahao Xamile, Leytam, Bamtani, Doani,[93] and from this point the coast trends to the east for a distance of thirty leagues as far as Lorom.[94] Between these places there are many large towns with much trade, and very respectable inhabitants, and great merchants; and many castles, which the King of Ormuz maintains for the defence of his country, and they are all on the coast of the Persian Sea. They are places abundantly supplied with meat and wheaten bread, barley, vines, and all other things which are found in our parts, and many dates; and the inhabitants of these towns are white, and very polite people; they dress in long clothes of silk and cotton stuffs and camelots; and this is a very rich country. THE ISLANDS OF THE KINGDOM OF ORMUZ. In the mouth of this sea of Persia there are the following islands belonging to the king of Ormuz. Cuyx, Andrany,[95] Baxeal, _Quiro_,[96] _Lar_,[97] Cojar,[98] Tomon,[99] _Firror_ Guolar, Melugan,[100] Gory, Queximi,[101] Baharem.[102] These two islands of Queximi and Baharem are large; and Queximi has eight inhabited towns and has plenty of provisions. Baharem has a large town of many Moors, important and honourable personages. And it is distant from Lorom to the north-east xxxiv leagues, and to the island of Queximi fifty leagues of channel; and between it and the mainland from two to four leagues; and after that the coast turns between north-east and east, until the island of Ormuz for xxxv leagues, of which island mention is made lower down.[103] Merchants from many parts reside in this island, and it is situated in the middle of this sea, and many ships with great merchandise sail to it; and here and in the neighbourhood much seed pearl and many pearls are produced, and they fish them on the island itself, from which there is a great profit to the inhabitants; and the king draws from this island and from all the others large revenues. The merchants of Ormuz go to this island of Baharem to buy the pearls and seed pearl for India and other parts where they find it profitable, and for the kingdom of Narsinga; and also those of Persia and Arabia go there to buy them, and in all this sea of Persia these pearls are found, but not in such quantity as in this island of Baharem. COUNTRY OF SHEIKH ISMAIL. After passing these countries along the coast of Persia, there are many towns, places, and villages of the Moors, very handsome and rich enough. From here further on it is no longer the country of the king of Ormuz, but belongs to other lords, of whom we do not possess so much information, except that Xeque Yzmael[104] subjugates and governs them. He is a Moor, and a young man, who in a short time has subjugated these parts, and a great part of Persia and Arabia, and many kingdoms and lordships of the Moors, not being a king nor the son of a king, except that he was only a sheikh of the house and lineage of Aly, the brother-in-law[105] of Mahomed; and, being poor, he united with other young Moors, and they took up the habit of going without clothes, which is a custom amongst them; they abandoned their property, honours, and clothes, and only covered themselves with skins of goats, and leopards, and deer with the fur, which many are in the habit of carrying, and they mark their arms and breasts with many scars of burns; and they carry heavy iron chains, and in their hands some weapons, different from those of other people, such as small battle-axes of much workmanship, and iron maces; they go as pilgrims, and do not sustain themselves except by alms; and to such people, wherever they go, much honour and entertainment is shown by the other Moors; and they always go shouting and crying out in the villages the name of Mahomet. So this Sheikh Ismail took this habit, and determined to shout and cry out for Aly, whilst he took no heed of Mahomed. Many people began to collect round him, so that he began soon to take towns and to grant property to the persons who flocked to him, and were with him at a conquest; and, in case they took nothing, he decided on making some hoods of scarlet wool, of ample dimensions, and ordering them to be worn by the persons who followed him;[106] thus he collected many people, and with them he went on taking many towns, and making war in many parts; and he did not choose to be called king, but the leveller of property, who took from those who had much, and gave to those who had little; neither did he choose to rest in any place. But all that he conquered he gave away and distributed to those who followed and obeyed him; whenever he found any very rich people whose riches did not profit any one, he took them away and distributed them amongst honourable people and the poor; and to the owners of the property he left a share equal to that which he gave to each one of the others; this he did many times, on which account they called him the Equaller. This king sent ambassadors to all the Moorish kings to persuade them to wear those coloured hoods, and if they did not choose to accept them, he sent to challenge them, and to say that he would come against them, to take their country, and make them believe in Aly. He sent this embassy to the great Sultan of Cairo and to the Grand Turk, who gave him a hostile answer and made a league against him. As soon as Sheikh Ismail saw their answers he determined to go against the Grand Turk, and he went against him with large forces, horse and foot, and the Turk came out to receive him, and they had a great battle,[107] in which the Grand Turk was the conqueror, on account of the quantity of artillery which he brought with him, which Sheikh Ismail did not bring, and he only fought with his men with the strength of their arms. They killed there many of his people, and he took to flight, and the Turk followed him, killing many of his troops, until he left him within Persia, when he returned thence to Turkey. This was the first time that this Sheikh Ismail was routed, for which he said that he wished to return to Turkey with greater power and provided with artillery. This king ruled over a part of Babilonia, and Armenia, and Persia, and a large part of Arabia, and of India, near to the kingdom of Cambay. His design was to get into his hands the house of Mekkah. This sheikh sent an embassy with many presents to the captain of the king of Portugal, who was exercising his functions in India, and asked him to agree to peace and friendship. And the Portuguese captain-major received this embassy and presents, and in return sent another embassy.[108] At the extremity of this Sea of Persia there is, as has been said, a fortress called Basera, inhabited by Moors, in subjection to Sheikh Ismail, at which there comes out from the mainland to the sea a very large and beautiful river of good fresh water, which is called Frataha.[109] This is said to be one of the four rivers which flow out of the terrestrial Paradise, which river is the Eufrates, and these Moors say it has sixty thousand branches, and that one of the principal ones comes out at the kingdom of Dahulcino, in which is the first India, which we call the river Indus; and the river Ganges is the other branch, which comes out in the second India to the sea; and the Nile, which is another branch, which comes through the country of Prester John, and waters Cairo.[110] ISLAND AND CITY OF ORMUZ. On coming out of the Sea and Strait of Persia, in its mouth there is a small island, in which is the city of Ormuz, which is small and very handsome, and with very pretty houses, lofty, of stone, whitewash, and mortar, covered with terraces, and because the country is very hot, they have fans made in such a manner that they make the air come from their summits to the lower part of the houses and rooms. It is a very well situated town, which has very good streets and squares. Outside of this city, in the island itself, there is a small mountain, which is entirely of rock salt and sulphur; this salt is in great lumps, and very white and good: they call it Indian salt, because nature produces it there; and the ships which come there from all parts take this salt as ballast, because in all other parts it is worth much money. The inhabitants of this island and city are Persians and Arabs, and they speak Arabic and another language which they call Persian. They are very white, and good-looking people, of handsome bodies, both men and women; and there are amongst them black and coloured people also, who are from the country of Arabia. And the Persians, who are very white, are fat and luxurious people, who live very well. They are very voluptuous, and have musicians with various instruments. There are among them very rich merchants, and many ships, because they have a good port, and they trade in many kinds of goods, which are imported there from many parts, and exported thence to other parts of India. They bring there all sorts of spices, drugs, precious stones, and other goods, such as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmeg, long pepper, aloes-wood, sandal-wood, brasil-wood, balsam, tamarinds, Indian saffron, beeswax, iron, sugar, rice, cocoa-nuts, rubies, sapphires, giagonzas,[111] amethysts, topazes, chrysolites, hyacinths, porcelain, benzoin; and upon all these goods much money is made, and many stuffs from the kingdom of Cambay, Chaul, Dabul, and Bengala, which are called Sinabasos, Chautars, Mamonas, Dugasas, Soranatis, which are kinds of stuffs of cotton very much valued amongst them for caps and shirts, which are much made use of by the Arabs and Persians, and people of Cairo, Aden, and Alexandria. They also bring to this city of Ormuz, quicksilver, vermillion, rose-water, brocade and silk stuffs, scarlet woollens, coarse camelots, and silk. And from China and Catuy they bring to this city by land much fine silk in skeins, and very rare musk and rhubarb;[112] and they bring from Babilonia very fine torquoises, and some emeralds, and very fine lapis lazuli from Acar. And from Baharem and Julfar they bring much seed pearl and large pearls, and many horses from Arabia and Persia, of which they carry away to India every year as many as five or six hundred, and at times a thousand; and the ships which export these horses load much salt, dates, and raisins, and sulphur, and of the other goods which the Indians are pleased with. These Moors of Ormuz are very well dressed, with very white, long, and fine cotton shirts, and their fine drawers[113] of cotton, and above that, very rich silk clothes and camelots, scarlet cloth, and very rich gauzes, with which they wrap their waists[114], and they wear in their girdles daggers and knives, ornamented with gold and silver, and some heavy short swords, all adorned with gold and silver, according to the rank of the wearers: and large round shields, richly garnished with silk, and in their hands they carry Turkish bows, painted with gold and very pretty colours, and their cords are of silk. These bows are of stiff wood and of buffaloe's horn; they carry very far, and these people are very good archers; their arrows are slender and well worked. Others carry in their hands iron maces, well wrought and elegant; others again, battle-axes of various patterns and of very good temper, and inlaid or enamelled.[115] They are very agreeable and polite people, and very civil in their mutual relations. Their food is of very good meats, very well cooked, wheaten bread, and very good rice, and many other dishes very well prepared, and many kinds of conserves, and preserved fruits, and others fresh: that is to say, apples, pomegranates, peaches, apricots, figs, almonds, melons, radishes, salads, and all the other things which there are in Spain; dates of many kinds, and other eatables and fruits not used in our parts. They drink wine of grapes in secret, because their law forbids it them; and the water which they drink is flavoured with pistachio nuts, and set to cool, for which purpose they employ and seek many methods for cooling and preserving it cool. And all the noblemen and honourable merchants always take, wherever they go, both in the streets and public places, and on the road, a page with a bottle of water, which is covered underneath with silver, or with a silver cup, as much for state and show as for use and comfort. All these people possess gardens and farms, to which they go to enjoy themselves for some months of the year.[116] This city of Ormuz is, as has been said, very rich and well supplied with everything in the way of provisions, but everything is very dear, because it is brought by sea from the towns of Arabia and Persia, for in the island there is nothing that can be made use of except salt; neither have they water to drink, for they bring it each day in boats from the mainland or other neighbouring islands. But for all that, the squares are full of all sorts of things, and everything is sold by weight, and with great order and regulation. And they give a very proper punishment to whoever falsifies the weights or sells above the regulation price; and they also sell cooked and roasted meat by weight, and so with all other cooked victuals; and all these so well arranged and so clean that many people do not have cooking done in their houses, but eat in the squares. The king is always in this city of Ormuz, in which he has some beautiful palaces, and a fortress, where he has his residence, and where he keeps his treasury; and there he holds all his court, and out of it provides governors or judges for all his states and lordships. But it is his council that does everything; and he does not meddle with any affair, but only amuses himself, neither would it have been in his power to do otherwise; for if he wished to govern in person, and wished to be free and exempt like other kings, immediately they would put his eyes out, and would put him in a house with his wife, and maintain him there miserably; and they would raise up another son of his as king, or some one else more fitting for it, of his lineage, in order that his council may govern all his kingdoms and territories peacefully in his name. And with respect to all the other heirs of the kingdom, as they grow up and become persons able to command and govern, if it should appear to the council that they desire to meddle with the government, they take them and put their eyes out also, and put them also in a house; so that there are always ten or twelve of these blind men, and those who reign live with this fear before them.[117] They give food there to them and to their wives and children. This king has many men-at-arms, and many gentlemen who guard and serve him, and they receive very good pay and rations, and are always at the court with their arms; and they send some to the frontiers on the mainland whenever they are required. They make gold and silver money in this city; the gold coins are called Sarafin, and are worth three hundred maravedis, and most of them are halves, which are worth a hundred and fifty, a round coin like ours,[118] and with Moorish letters on both sides, and about the size of a fanon of Calicut, with Moorish letters, and it is worth fifty-five maravedis; they call these tanga, and they are of very fine silver, and of the standard of twelve dinars.[119] There is a large quantity of this money, both gold and silver, and much of it goes out to India, where it has much currency. There came a Portuguese fleet to this kingdom of Ormuz, and its captain-major was Alfonso de Alborquerque, who attempted to come to an understanding with this kingdom of Ormuz, but the Moors would not agree, and on that account this captain began to make war upon the whole kingdom at all the seaports, and he did them much injury, and at last he came and touched at the port of Ormuz with his fleet, and there was a great battle there, with many and great ships full of many and smart well-armed men. And the said captain routed the fleet of the Moors, and killed many of them, and sunk many of their ships, and took and burned many which were moored in the harbour, drawn up by the wall of the city. And when the king and the governors of the country saw such great destruction of their people and ships, without being able to assist them, they offered peace to the before-mentioned captain, who accepted it under the condition that they should let him make a fortress at one extremity of the city; and they agreed, and this began to be done; and the work having commenced, the Moors repented again, and did not choose that more should be built; and then the Portuguese began again to make war upon them, and they did them so great damage, and slaughtered so many people, that they made them tributary to the King of Portugal to the amount of fifteen thousand serafins of gold each year. Some years from that time the king and governors of Ormuz sent an ambassador with offers of services and letters to the King of Portugal, and the before-named captain returned with his answer and a good fleet to the city of Ormuz,[120] and there they received him very peacefully in this city, and at once gave him permission and a place in which to built the fortress, which on a former occasion the Portuguese had begun to build: and he ordered it to be built at once, very large and magnificent. At this time the king, who was a Moor, and very young, and in the power of the governors, and so ruined that he did not dare do anything of himself, found the means to inform the captain-major secretly of the little liberty he enjoyed, and that the governors kept him like a prisoner, and that they had forcibly taken the government which belongs to others who were accustomed to exercise it, and that it appeared that they were exchanging letters with Sheikh Ismail in order to give him the kingdom. The captain-major kept this very secret, and determined to have an interview with the king; and they agreed that this interview should be in some large houses near the sea. On the day on which the interview was to take place, the captain-major entered the houses with ten or fifteen captains, leaving his people well arranged, and all concerted as was most convenient. So the king and his principal governor came there with many people, and the king and the governor entered the houses with ten or twelve honourable Moors, and the door was well shut and guarded. Then the captain-major ordered them to kill the governor[121] with their daggers in his presence and that of the king: and he said to the king, "Have no fear, Sir, for I do this to make you absolute king." However those who were without heard the noise, and began to raise a disturbance, that it to say, the relations, servants, and friends of the said governor, who were many in number, and all came armed, so that it was necessary for the captain-major to take the king by the hand; they went up on to the roof, both of them armed, in order that the king might speak thence to the Moors, and might pacify them; so he spoke to them, but could do nothing with them. They, on the contrary, required that he should confide to them his brother and lord: and they went thence to establish themselves in the king's palace, saying they would make another king. The captain-major wished to lay hands upon them, and thus they remained a great part of the day, and the king sought how to turn them out, and the captain-major determined to kill them by force or to drive them out, as they did not choose to go out of the fortress. So when the Moors saw that the captain-major, with the king, was determined to attack them, they resolved to give the fortress to the king; and when they gave it up, the king commanded that they should be banished immediately, they and their families; and this was done, and they went to the mainland. The captain-major conducted the king from these houses to the palace in triumph and honourably, and with many people, both of ours and of his, and entrusted him to the other governor who was so before. He then committed to him his palaces and the city very freely, and told the governor to serve the king very honourably, and to leave him to govern his country at his pleasure, and only give him advice, as happens with other Moorish kings: and thus he put him at liberty. He then left in the fortress that was built a captain and many men of Portugal, and ships, in order to favour this king, who does nothing without the advice of the captain of the fort. And he is in submission to the King of Portugal, with all his kingdoms and territories. After the captain-major had put everything in quiet and order, and under his command, he then had banished by the public crier, and turned out of the island all the paiderastoi, with a warning that if they returned there again they would be burned, at which the king showed great satisfaction. He likewise ordered all the blind kings who were in the city to be taken, and there were thirteen or fourteen of them, and put in a large ship, and he sent them to India, and they were landed at Goa, where he gave orders for them to be maintained at the expense of his revenues, so that they might end their days there, and not cause any disturbance in the kingdom of Ormuz, and be in peace and quietness. DIULCINDI. Leaving the kingdom of Ormuz, from the mouth of the Sea of Persia the coast goes to the south-east for a hundred and seventy-two leagues as far as Diulcinde,[122] entering the kingdom of Ulcinde,[123] which is between Persia and India. It is a kingdom, and has a Moorish king over it, and most of the inhabitants of the country are Moors, and there are some Gentiles subject to the Moors. This king has an extended rule over the country in the interior, and few seaports. They have many horses. On the eastern side this country is bounded by the kingdom of Cambay, and on the west by Persia. It is in obedience to Sheikh Ismail. The Moors are white and coloured; they have a language of their own, and also speak that of the Persians and of Arabia. There is much wheat and barley in this country, and plenty of meat. It is a level country, with little timber. They make little practice of navigating the sea; they possess extensive sea-beaches, where there are great fisheries, and they catch large fish, which they dry and salt, both for consumption in the country and for exportation in small vessels to other kingdoms. In this country they give dried fish to their horses to eat. A few ships which sail to this country from India, bring rice, sugar, and some spices, timber, planks, and Indian canes, which are as thick as a man's leg. And in all this trade they make much money; and from this place they carry away cotton, horses, and cloth. A great river comes into the sea through this kingdom; it comes through the middle of Persia, and they say that it comes out of the river Eufrates. Along this river there are many large and rich towns of Moors. It is a very fertile and fruitful land, and very abundant in provisions. KINGDOM OF GUZERAT, IN INDIA. Leaving the kingdom of Ulcinde, in the same direction, at a distance of fifty leagues, the traveller enters the first[124] India, in the great kingdom of Guzarat, which kingdom had belonged to King Darius. And the Indians have long histories of him and of King Alexander. This kingdom has many cities and towns in the interior of the country, as well as ports along the sea; and very much shipping. It has many merchants and shipowners, both Moors and Gentiles. The king, and the men-at-arms, and nobles of the country were all Gentiles formerly, and now they are Moors, since the Moors conquered the country in war, and hold the Gentiles subject to them, and molest them and treat them ill. There are three qualities of these Gentiles, that is to say, some are called Razbutes, and they, in the time that their king was a Gentile, were knights, the defenders of the kingdom, and governors of the country; they used to carry on war, and even now there remain some towns of them in the mountains, which have never chosen to pay obedience to the Moors, but, on the contrary, make war upon them; and the King of Cambaya is not sufficiently powerful to destroy them or subject them. They are very good knights and great archers, and they have many other kinds of arms with which they defend themselves from the Moors, without owning any king or lord to govern them. The others are called Banians, and are merchants and traders. These live amongst the Moors, and trade with them in their goods. They are men who do not eat meat nor fish, nor anything that has life; neither do they kill anything, nor like to see it killed, because their idolatry forbids it them; and they observe this to such an extreme that it is something marvellous. For it often happens that the Moors bring them some worms or little birds alive, saying they intend to kill them in their presence; and they ransom them, and buy them to set them flying, and save their lives for more money than they are worth. And in the same way, if the governor of the country has got a man to be executed, these Banians unite together and buy him from the officers of justice, that he may not die; and frequently they sell him to them. And in the same manner the Moors who beg for alms, when they want alms from these people, take great stones and strike themselves with them on the shoulders and the breast, and on their stomachs, as if they were going to kill themselves with them, and they receive alms not to do it, and to go away in peace. And others bring knives and stab themselves in the arms and legs before them, in order to extract alms; and others come to their doors to decapitate rats and snakes and other reptiles, and they give them money not to do it, so that they are very ill-treated by the Moors. If these people meet with a band of ants in the road, they hasten out of the road, and go and look for a place to pass without treading upon them. They likewise sup in the daytime because they do not light candles at night, in order that the mosquitoes and other insects may not come and die in the flame; and if of necessity they must have a candle, they keep them in lanterns of paper, or of stuff dipped in gum, so that no living thing can get there to suffer. If these people have lice they do not kill them, and if they worry them very much, they send to fetch some men whom they have amongst them, also Gentiles, whom they esteem of holy lives, like hermits, and who live in much abstinence for the love of their idols, and these people pick out their insects, and all those that they extract they put in their own heads, and they nourish them on themselves and on their flesh for the service of their idols. And so this law of not killing anything is held in great observance. On the other hand, they are great usurers and falsifiers of weights and measures, and merchandise, and coin; and liars and cheats. These Gentiles are brown people, well built and of good proportions, smart in their dress, and delicate and temperate in their food. Their victuals are milk, butter, sugar, rice, preserves of many kinds, many fruits, bread, vegetables, and field herbs; they all have gardens and orchards wherever they live, and many pools of water where they bathe twice every day, both men and women; and having ended their washing, they hold the belief that they are pardoned for all the sins which they have committed up to that time. They wear the hair very long like the women in Spain, and they wear it gathered on the top of the head, and made into a band which is much adorned, and upon this a cap to fasten it; and they always wear many flowers stuck into their hair, and sweet smelling things. They also anoint themselves with white sandal mixed with saffron and other scents; they are much given to fall in love. They go bare, only covering themselves from the waist downwards with very rich silk stuffs; they wear embroidered shoes of very good leather, well worked, and some short silk skirts, and other short ones of cotton, with which they cover their bodies. They do not carry arms, only some small knives garnished with gold and silver, for two reasons: one because they are persons who make little use of arms, the other because the Moors forbid it to them. They use many ear-rings of gold and jewellery in the ears, and many rings, and belts of gold and jewellery upon the cloths with which they gird themselves. The women of these Gentiles have very pretty, delicate faces, and well made bodies, a little dark. Their dress is silk stuff like their husbands' as far as the feet, and jackets[125] with narrow sleeves of silk stuff, open at the shoulders, and other silk cloths with which they cover themselves in the manner of morisco almalafas; their heads bare, the hair gathered up upon the head; they wear thick ankle rings of gold and silver on the legs, and rings on their toes, and large coral beads on their arms, with beads of gold filigree, and gold and silver bracelets; and round their necks, necklaces of gold and jewellery, fitting closely; they have large holes pierced in their ears, and in them rings of gold or silver large enough for an egg to pass through them. They are modest women, and when they go out of their houses they are much covered up with their wraps over their heads. The other set of people are called Bramans, and are priests and the persons who administer and direct the idolatry; they have very large houses of prayer, some of them with revenues, others are maintained by alms. In these they keep many idols: some of stone, some of wood, and other of copper. In these houses and monasteries they always perform many ceremonies to their gods; they make feasts for them magnificently, with instruments and songs, and with many lights of oil, and they have bells in our fashion. These Bramans have got images which represent the Holy Trinity: they pay much honour to the number three, and in trine make their adoration to God, whom they confess to be the true God, Creator, and Maker of all things, which are three things in one sole person; and they say that there are many other gods governed by him, in which they also believe. These Bramans, wherever they find our churches, enter willingly into them, and adore our images; and they always ask for Santa Maria, our Lady, like men who have some knowledge of her. And as they see our manner of honouring the churches, they say that there is no great difference between them and us. These Bramans go bare from the waist upwards; they wear upon their shoulder a thread of three threads, which is a sign by which they are known to be Bramans. They are men who also do not eat anything which receives death, nor do they kill anything. They hold it to be a great ceremony to wash their bodies, and say that they wash on that account. These Bramans, and also the Banians, marry in our fashion, with one woman only, and only once. They make great feasts at their weddings, which last many days, and there are many people assembled at these very well dressed and decked out. These festivities are magnificent. For the most part they are married when very young, both men and women, and on the day of the betrothal, and of the wedding, the couple are both of them seated on a platform,[126] very much bedizened with gold and jewellery and precious stones, and in front of them is a small table with an idol covered with flowers, and many lighted oil lamps all round it; and both of them have to remain there with their eyes fixed on that idol from the morning until the evening, without eating or drinking, or speaking to anybody during that time. The people make great rejoicings over them with their instruments and songs and dances; they let off many cannons, rockets and other fireworks to divert themselves. And if the husband dies the woman does not marry again, and so also does the husband should the wife die. And the children are his rightful heirs; and Bramans must be sons of Bramans, amongst whom there are some of a lower rank who serve as messengers and travellers, and they go in security to all parts without any one vexing them in any way. Even if there should be war or thieves, they always pass safely. These are called _pater_. OF THE KING AND THE LORDS OF GUZARAT, WHICH IS OF THE KINGDOM OF CAMBAY. The King of Guzarat is a great lord, both in revenue and people, and extensive and rich territory. He is a Moor, as also are his men-at-arms, as has been said. He has a large court of many knights, and he is the lord of many horses and elephants, which are brought for sale to this kingdom from the country of Malabar and Ceylon. And with the horses and elephants he makes war upon the Gentiles of the kingdom of Guzarat who do not pay obedience to him, and upon some other kings with whom at times he is at war. And they make wooden castles on the top of the elephants, which hold four men, who carry bows and guns, and other weapons, and fight thence with the enemy. And the elephants are so well trained, that they know how to take part in the battle, and with their tusks wound the men and horses so severely, that in a very short time they put any array into confusion. But they are so timid, and subject to pain when wounded, that they take to flight at once, and put one another into confusion, and rout their own side. This king has four or five hundred of these at his residence, very large and fine. They buy them for one thousand five hundred ducats each, at the seaports where the Malabars bring them for sale. And they make war much with the horses bred in the country, for it has a wonderful quantity; and the Moors and Gentiles of this kingdom are bold riders, ride small saddles,[127] and use whips. They carry very thick round shields, edged with silk, and two swords each man, a dagger, and a Turkish bow, with very good arrows; and some carry steel maces, and many of them coats of mail, and others tunics quilted with cotton. And the horses have housings and steel head pieces, and so they fight very well and are light in their movements; and they are so supple in their saddles that they can play on horseback at the choga[128] or at any other game. They have amongst them the game of the jerid, as in Spain. These Moors are white, and of many countries: both Turks and Mamelukes, Arabs, Persians, Khorasanys, Turkomans, and from the great kingdom of Dily, and others born in the country itself. These people come together there on account of the country being very rich, and well supplied; and the king gives good pay and rations, and regularly paid. These people are very well dressed, with very rich stuffs of gold, silk, cotton, and goats' wool, and all wear caps on their heads, and their clothes long, such as morisco shirts and drawers, and leggings to the knee of good thick leather, worked with gold knots and embroidery; and their swords are borne in their girdles, or in the hands of their pages. They are richly ornamented with gold and silver. Their women are very white and pretty, also very richly decked out. They may marry as many as they like and are able to maintain, to honour the sect of Mahomed; and so there are many of them who have three or four or five wives, and of all of them they have sons and daughters. And these Moors of Cambay speak many languages, that is to say, Arabic, Persian, Turkish,[129] and Guzaraty. They eat wheaten bread, rice, meat of all kinds, leaving aside pork, which is against their law. They are luxurious people, who live well and spend much money. They always go with their heads shaved, and the women with very fine hair. When they go out of their houses, they go on horses, or in cars, and so covered up that nobody can see them. They are very jealous men, and can unmarry themselves when they please, on paying to the wife a certain sum of money (which is promised when they marry them), if at any time they repent of it; and the women have also the same liberty. This King of Cambay has been king since a short time only, and his father was called Sultan Mahomed, who was brought up from a child and nourished with poison, for his father desired that he should so be brought up in order that it should not be possible to kill him with poison; for the Moorish kings of these parts often have one another killed by poison. And this king began to eat it in such a small quantity that it could not do him any harm, and from that he went on increasing this kind of food in such manner that he could eat a great quantity of it; for which cause he became so poisonous that if a fly settled on his hand it swelled and immediately fell dead. And many wives with whom he slept died at once of his poison, which he was unable to leave off eating, for he feared if he did not use it, to die soon after; as we see by experience with the opium which the Indians eat, for if they leave off eating it they die immediately, that is, if they begin as children to eat it in such a small quantity that it can do them no harm, for some length of time, and then increasing the quantity by degrees until they remain accustomed to it. This anfion is cold in the fourth degree, and on account of being so cold it kills. We call it opio, and the women of India when they wish to kill themselves in any case of dishonour or of despair, eat it with oil of sesame, and so die sleeping without feeling death. CITY OF CHAMPAVER.[130] This King possesses great cities in his kingdom, and especially the city of Champaver, where he resides continually, with all his court. This city is to the north of Guzerat, eighty leagues inland. It is a very fertile country: of abundant provisions, wheat, barley, millet, rice, peas and other vegetables, and many cows, sheep, goats, and plenty of fruit, so that it is very full of all things; and it has in its neighbourhood many hunting grounds, and deer and other animals, and winged game. And this country possesses dogs and falcons for the chase, and tame leopards for hunting all sorts of game. And the King for his pastime keeps many animals of all kinds, which they send to find and bring up. This King sent a Ganda[131] to the King of Portugal, because they told him that he would be pleased to see her. ANDAVAT. Leaving this city and going further inland there is another city called Andavat, which is larger than the said city of Champaver, and it is very rich, and well supplied. The former kings used always to reside in this city. These towns are walled, and embellished with good streets and squares, and houses of stone and whitewash, with roofs in our fashion; and they have large courts, and much water in wells and pools. They make use of horses, donkeys, mules, camels and carts, and have fine rivers, with plenty of fresh water fish, and many orchards and gardens. There are also in this kingdom, inland, many cities, towns and villages, in which the king keeps his governors and collectors of his revenue. If these commit a fault he summons them, and after having heard them he bids them drink a cup of poison, with which anyone dies immediately; and in this way he chastises them, so that they are in great fear of him. PATEMXI. The places which this king has on the sea coast are these. Firstly, leaving the kingdom of Ulcinde for India at a distance of thirty-seven leagues, is a river, on the shore of which there is a great city called Patemxi, a good seaport, very rich, and of great trade. In this city many silk stuffs are made, coloured with much embroidery, which are used over the whole of India, Malacca, Bengal, and also many cotton stuffs. To this port come many Indian ships laden with cocoa nuts, sugar of palms which they call xagara[132], and from there they carry away a great quantity of cloth and much cotton, horses, wheat, and vegetables, by which much money is made. Their voyage, with the delays, is of four months. SURATIMANGALOR. Passing by this city, further on the coast to the east and south, at fifteen leagues distance, there is another town of commerce, which has a very good port, and is called Suratimangalor, where also many ships from Malabar touch, for horses, wheat, rice, cotton cloths, vegetables and other goods which are of use in India. And they bring cocoa nuts, hurraca[133] (which is something to drink), emery, beeswax, cardamums, and all sorts of spices, in which trade and voyage great profit is made in a short time. DUY. Fifty leagues further along the coast, towards the south, there is a promontory, and joining close to it is a small island, which contains a very large and fine town, which the Malabars call Diuixa[134], and the Moors of the country call it Diu. It has a very good harbour, and is a port of much trade in merchandise, and of much shipping from Malabar, Baticala, Goa Dabul and Cheul; and the people of Diu sail to Aden, Mekkah, Zeyla, Barbara, Magadoxo, Brava, Melinde, Mombaza, Xer[135], Ormuz, and all parts of the kingdom. And the Malabars bring hither rice, cocoa nuts, jagara, wax, emery, iron, and sugar from Baticala, and all the spices that can be got in India and Malacca; and from Chaul and Dabul they bring a large quantity of cotton stuffs, which they call _beyranies_, and caps for women, which are carried from this place to Arabia and Persia. And they load at this port for the return voyage cotton cloths of the country and silk stuffs, horses, wheat, vegetables, sesame, cotton, oil of sesame, and opium, both that which comes there from Aden, and that which is made in the kingdom of Cambay, which is not so fine as that of Aden; and they export many coarse camlets and silk stuffs made in this kingdom of Cambay, and thick carpets,[136] taffeta, scarlet cloth, and of other colours. They also export the spices and things brought to them from India, by the people of the country, to Aden, Ormuz, and all parts of Arabia and Persia, so that this town is the chief emporium of trade which exists in all these parts. This town gives such a large sum of money as revenue to the king, for the loading and unloading of such rich goods, that it is a subject of marvel and amazement; for they also bring to it from Mekkah much coral, copper, quicksilver, vermillion, lead, alum, madder, rose-water, saffron, and much gold and silver coined and uncoined. The king keeps a Moorish governor in this place called Melquiaz; an old man, and a very good gentleman, discreet, industrious, and of great information, who lives with great order and regularity in all his affairs. He makes much artillery, and has many rowing barges, very well arranged, small and very light, which are called Talayas.[137] He has had constructed in the port a very strong and fine bulwark, in which he has very good artillery, with many lombards,[138] and he always keeps with him many men-at-arms, to whom he pays very good appointments. They are very well armed. He is always on his guard, and is very apprehensive of the power of the King of Portugal.[139] He shows great honour and attention to the ships and people of Portugal who come to his port. The people of his country are kept in very good order, and governed with much justice and good treatment; he dispenses many favours and presents to voyagers and strangers in his country. A large fleet of the Great Sultan[140] of sailing ships and row galleys arrived at this port, well equipped, with large crews and a good armament; its captain was Emir Hussein. He came to reinforce himself in this port with the assistance of the king of Cambay and the before-mentioned governor Meliquiaz, and from thence to go to Calicut, to fight with the Portuguese, and turn them out of India. He was for some time in the port making many preparations, and the Portuguese fleet came there to seek for them, of which Don Francisco de Almeyda, viceroy of India, was the captain major. And the Moors put out to sea to meet them, and the two fleets fought in the entrance of this roadstead vigorously, and many people were killed and wounded on both sides; and at the end the Moors were beaten and captured with great slaughter, and the Portuguese took their ships and galleys, with all their arms and heavy artillery. They captured there many Moors, and the said Emir Hussein escaped, and left his fleet to suffer as has been told; and when Meliquiaz, who assisted and favoured them with his guard-boats and forces, saw the havoc, he at once sent messengers to the before-mentioned viceroy to seek peace of him, and he sent many provisions and refreshments and other presents as a sign of peace.[141] GOGARI. Further on after this the coast begins to make a bend into Cambay towards the north, in which bend are several seaports of the same king, and towns of great trade. One of these is Guogari, at a distance of twenty-five leagues (from Diu), which is a very large town and a good port, where they always load many ships from Malabar and other parts of India; and many other ships bound for Mekkah and Aden. At this place all sorts of merchandise are dealt in, as at Diu. BARBESY. Another is called Barbesy, a seaport twelve leagues further on to the north, in which stretch of coast are several seaports of the King of Cambay. All sorts of goods are traded in for all parts, and the dues upon them produce very much to the king, who has in each of these two places his custom houses, and all are well supplied with provisions. BUENDARI. Further on, to north-west by north, there is another place in the mouth of a small river which is called Guendari, twenty leagues distant from Barbesy. And it is a very good town, a seaport of the same trade, because further up that river is the great city of Cambay. There arrived there many zambucos,[142] which are small vessels of the Malabar country, with areca (nuts), spices, wax, sugar, cardamums, emery, ivory, and elephants:[143] and these goods are sold there very well. And from there they carry away cotton, sesame, thread, wheat, peas, horses, alaquequas, and many other goods. The navigation of these places is very dangerous, especially for ships with keels which draw much water, because in this gulf which the coast here makes, the ebb and flow is so great, that in a very short space of time the sea leaves uncovered four or five leagues of dry land, and in some places less; and it is expedient for those who go in there to take country pilots, because, when the tide runs down, they may know how to remain in pools of deep water[144] such as there are there, and sometimes they make mistakes and remain upon rocks, where they are lost. CITY OF CAMBAY. Entering this river of Guendari, to the north-east is the great city of Cambay, inhabited by Moors and Gentiles. It is a very large city of handsome houses of stone and whitewash, very lofty, with windows, and covered with roofs in the Spanish fashion; it has very good streets and squares, and is situated in a rich, fertile, and pretty country, full of abundant provisions. There are in it rich merchants and men of great property, both Moors and Gentiles; and there are many workmen and mechanicians of subtle workmanship of all sorts, after the fashion of Flanders, and all very cheap. They make there many cloths of white cotton, fine and coarse, and other woven and coloured fabrics of all kinds; also many silk fabrics, of all kinds and colours; and camlets of silk and velvets of all colours, both smooth and fluffy, coloured tafetans, and thick alcatifas. The inhabitants of this city are all white, both men and women, and there are many people from outside living in it who are very white and very well dressed, and of luxurious lives, much given to pleasure and amusement. They are very much accustomed to wash themselves; they eat very well, and always go perfumed and anointed with sweet smelling things. They wear in their hair, both men and women, many jessamine and other flowers that grow amongst them. They have many musicians, and various kinds of instruments and songs. There are always carts with oxen and horses going about the city, of which they make use for everything; and they go in these with rich mattrasses, shut up and well fitted up with their windows, after the manner of cabins; furnished and ornamented with silk stuffs, and the seats within with cushions and pillows of silk and stamped kid skins:[145] and with their waggoners. Men and women go in these to see amusements and diversions, or to visit their friends, or wherever they wish, without being known, and they see all that they wish. And they go singing and playing on instruments in these same waggons for their amusement. And these people possess many orchards and gardens, where they go to take their ease, and where they grow much fruit and vegetables for the sustenance of the gentiles, who do not eat meat nor flesh. In this city a very large quantity of ivory is employed in very delicate works, well known in commerce, like inlaid works of gold, and things made by turning, and handles of knives and daggers, bracelets, games of chess and chess-boards. There are also great artists with the turning lathe, who make large bedsteads, and they make beads of great size, brown, yellow, blue and coloured, which they export to all parts. There are also great lapidaries, and imitators of precious stones of all kinds, and makers of false pearls which seem real. So also there are very good silversmiths of very skilful workmanship. In this city they make very delicate cushions, and pretty ceilings (or canopies) of bedsteads, of delicate workmanship and paintings, and quilted clothes for wearing. There are many Moorish women who produce very delicate needlework. They work there too in coral alaquequas and other stones. LIMADURA. Leaving this city of Cambay there is a town inland called Limadura, where there is a stone with which they make aquequas, for making beads for Berberia. It is a stone white as milk, and has some red in it, and with fire they heighten the colour, and they extract it in large blocks. In these places there are great artists who manufacture and pierce these beads in various fashions, oval, octagonal, round, and of other shapes; and with this stone they make rings, buttons, and knife handles. And the Cambay merchants go there to buy them, and they harden[146] them to take them away to sell in the Red Sea, from whence they are in the habit of arriving in our parts by way of Cairo or Alexandria: and they also carry them throughout all Arabia, Persia, and Nubia, and now they take them to India, because our people buy them. They also find in this town much chalcedony, which they call _babagore_. They make beads with it, and other things which they wear about them, so that they touch the skin, as they say that it is good for chastity. These stones are of little value there, for there are many of them. RAVEL. Returning to the towns on the sea, and passing Gandar, to the east there is a good river twenty leagues further along the coast, and on this side of it there is a good town of the Moors, called Ravel,[147] built of very pretty houses and squares. It is a rich and agreeable place, because the Moors of this town trade with their ships at Malacca, Bengal, Tarvasery, Pegu, Martaban, and Samatara, in all sorts of spices, drugs, silks, musk, benzoin, porcelain, and all other valuable merchandise. They possess very large and fine ships, so that those who would wish to get Chinese articles, will find them there more completely than in any other part, and at very fair prices. The Moors of this place are white and well dressed, and very rich. They have very pretty wives, and in the furniture[148] of their houses they have many china vases of different shapes, and they keep them in glass cupboards very well arranged. These women are not secluded like those of other Moors and other places, but go about the city in the daytime attending to their business, with the face uncovered as in our parts. SURATI. Having passed this river of Ravel, at twenty leagues to the south is a city called Surat, at the mouth of a river. This also is a city of very great trade, in all classes of merchandise. Many ships of Malabar and all other parts sail thither continually, and discharge and take in goods, because this is a very important seaport, and there are in it very vast quantities of merchandise. Moors, Gentiles, and all sorts of people live in this city. Its custom-house, which they call the Divana,[149] produces a very large revenue for the King of Guzarat: and until now Malaguioy, a Gentile, commands in, and governs it, as lord of it. And he is the greatest nobleman in all India, and he gave orders to kill the King of Guzerat for some gossip which they reported respecting him. DENVY.[150] After leaving the town of Surat, at ten leagues along the coast to the south, there is place called Denvy, of Moors and Gentiles, also of great trade, where many merchant ships from Malabar and many other parts always take in cargo. BAXAY. Having passed this town of Dendi, twenty leagues further on to the south[151] is another town of Moors and Gentiles, a good seaport, which also belongs to the King of Guzarat, in which much goods are exchanged; and there is a great movement of the shipping which comes there from all parts, and many Zambucs from the Malabar country laden with areca, cocoas, and spices, which they delight in, and they take thence others which are used in Malabar. TANAMAYAMBU. Twenty-five leagues further on the coast is a fortress of the before named king, called Tanamayambu, and near it is a Moorish town, very pleasant, with many gardens, and very fertile--a town of very great Moorish mosques, and temples of worship of the Gentiles. It is nearly at the extremity of the kingdom of Cambay or Guzarat, and it is likewise a seaport, but of little trade. And there are in this port small vessels of rovers like watch boats, which go out to sea, and if they meet with any small ship less strong than themselves, they capture and plunder it, and sometimes kill their crews. KINGDOM OF DACANI. On coming out of this kingdom of Guzarat and Cambay, towards the south and the inner parts of India, is the kingdom of Dacani, which the Indians call Decani. The king is a Moor, and a large part of his people is Gentile. He is a great lord, and possesses many subjects and an extensive territory, which stretches far inland. It has very good seaports, of great trade in the goods used on the mainland, and they are the following places: CHEUL. Leaving the kingdom of Cambay, along the coast towards the south, at eight leagues distance, there is a fine large river, and on it is a place called Cheul,[152] not very large, of handsome houses, which are all covered with thatch. This place is one of great commerce in merchandise, and in the months of December, January, February and March there are many ships from the Malabar country and all other parts, which arrive with cargoes. That is to say, those of Malabar laden with cocoa nuts, arecas, spices, drugs, palm sugar, emery, and there they make their sales for the continent and for the kingdom of Cambay; and the ships of Cambay come there to meet them laden with cotton stuffs, and many other goods which are available in Malabar, and these are bartered for the goods which have come from the Malabar country. And on the return voyage they fill their ships with wheat, vegetables, millet, rice, sesame, oil of sesame, of which there is much in this country; and these Malabars also buy many pieces of fine muslin[153] for women's head dress, and many beyranies, of which there are plenty in this kingdom. A large quantity of copper is sold in this port of Cheul, and at a high price, for it is worth twenty ducats the hundred weight, or more, because in the interior money is made of it, and it is also used throughout the country for cooking pots. There is also a great consumption in this place of quicksilver and vermilion for the interior, and for the kingdom of Guzarat, which copper, quicksilver and vermilion is brought to this place by the Malabar merchants, who get it from the factories of the King of Portugal; and they get more of it by way of the Mekkah, which comes there from Diu. These people wear the beyranies put on for a few days nearly in the raw state, and afterwards they bleach them and make them very white, and gum them to sell them abroad, and thus some are met with amongst them which are torn. In this port of Chaul there are few inhabitants, except during three or four months of the year, the time for putting in cargo, when there arrive merchants from all the neighbourhood, and they make their bargains during this period, and despatch their goods, and after that return to their homes until the next season, so that this place is like a fair in those months. There is a Moorish gentleman as governor of this place, who is a vassal of the King of Decani, and collects his revenues, and accounts to him for them. He is called Xech, and does great service to the King of Portugal, and is a great friend of the Portuguese, and treats very well all those that go there, and keeps the country very secure. In this place there is always a Portuguese factor appointed by the captain and factor of Goa, in order to send from this place provisions and other necessaries, to the city of Goa, and to the Portuguese fleets; and at a distance of about a league inland from Cheul is a place where the Moors and Gentiles of the cities and towns throughout the country come to set up their shops of goods and cloths at Cheul during the before-mentioned months; they bring these in great caravans of domestic oxen, with packs like donkeys, and on the top of these long white sacks placed crosswise, in which they bring their goods; and one man drives thirty or forty beasts before him. DAMDA. Having passed this place, Cheul, at twelve leagues further on along the coast to the south towards Malabar is another town and seaport, also belonging to the kingdom of Dacani, called Damda; where there enter and go out many Moorish ships, both Guzaratis and Malabaris, with cloth and other goods, as at Cheul. MANDABAD. Five leagues further on is a river called Mandabad, on which is a town of Moors and Gentiles, of the same kingdom of Decani; likewise a seaport. Many ships from various parts congregate at this harbour to buy stuffs, particularly from the Malabar country. And they bring there many cocoa-nuts, arecas, and also a few spices, copper and quicksilver: for the merchants of the country buy all these goods. DABUL. Having left this place, Mandabad, and going along the coast to Malabar and the south, at eight leagues distance is another fine large river, at the mouth of which is a large town of Moors and Gentiles, belonging to the same kingdom of Decani. It is called Dabul,[154] and in the mouth of the river near this same town there is a rampart, with artillery to defend the entrance of the river. This town of Dabul has a very good harbour, where there always congregate many Moorish ships from various parts, and especially from Mekkah, Aden, and Ormuz with horses, and from Cambay, Diu, and the Malabar country. It is a place of very great trade in all sorts of merchandise; there are in it very respectable Moors and Gentiles, and Guzarati merchants. Much copper, quicksilver, and vermilion is sold here for the interior of the country: a great quantity of country fabrics are brought to this town down the river for embarcation in the ships, and also much wheat and vegetables of all sorts. The custom-house of this port produces much money, and the collectors take the dues there for the lord of the town. And this town is pretty and well situated, but its houses are covered with thatch, and it also has very beautiful mosques. Higher up this river, on either bank there are many pretty towns, plentifully supplied, and owning much cultivated land and flocks. A fleet of the King of Portugal arrived at this city, of which the viceroy was the captain, and landed his people on the shore for the purpose of taking and destroying this town.[155] And the Moors put themselves on the defensive, and fought very courageously with the Portuguese. In the fight many Moors and Gentiles died, and at last the Portuguese took this city by assault, making a great slaughter of the inhabitants, and plundering and burning the city, in which much wealth and merchandise were burned, and at the same time several ships which were lying in the river. And those who escaped thence returned later to restore this city, so that now it is already inhabited as before. SINGUYCAR. Ten leagues further on from this river, along the coast southwards, is another river called Singuycar, upon which is a town of much commerce and merchandise. And many ships from divers parts put in there; and it is a town of Moors and Gentiles, and belongs to the kingdom of Dacani. RIVER DOBETALA. Twelve leagues further along the coast, to the south, is another river called Dobetela; and there are along its course several small places, with very pretty gardens and orchards, where they gather a great quantity of betel; this is a leaf which they eat, and it is put on board small vessels, and carried away for sale in other towns and seaports. We call this betel Indian leaf, and it is as large as a leaf of the plantain,[156] and about of the same pattern; and it grows like ivy, and climbs up other trees by means of poles placed for that purpose: it does not give any fruit or seed. It is a very favourite leaf, and all the Indians both men and women eat it both day and night in their houses, in the streets, and on the road, and in their beds. They always go about eating this leaf, which they mix with some small fruits called arecas, and the leaf is smeared with moistened lime, which is made with sea-shells, and the shells of oysters and mussels. And these three things being added together, they eat this betel, not swallowing more than the juice; and it colours the mouth and makes the teeth brown: and they say that it is good for drying and purging the stomach, and for preserving the brain, and it drives out flatulence, and quenches thirst: so that it is very much esteemed among all Indians, and in general use from this place further on throughout India. There are great quantities of it, and it is one of the principal revenues which the kings of the country possess. The Moors and Arabs and Persians call it tanbul. After passing this river of Betala, further along the coast are other small places and seaports, likewise belonging to the kingdom of Dacani, in which small vessels from Malabar enter to take on board inferior rice and vegetables which are found there: and one of them is called Arapatani, and another Munaryni.[157] BANDA. After leaving these places, about six leagues along the coast southwards is a river, upon which is a town of Moors and Gentiles called Banda, in which there are many merchants who trade on the continent with the merchants whom the Malabars bring thither. And many ships come there from many parts on account of its being a good harbour, and there is a great exportation of goods and provisions from the interior of the country. Many ships fill here with rice, coarse millet, and other vegetables that are profitable to them; and they bring to this place cocoa-nuts, pepper, and other spices and drugs which have a good sale there, because thence they ship them for Diu, Aden, and Ormuz. And leaving this place, between it and Goa there is another river called Bardes, on which there are other towns which are not of much trade. GUOA. Leaving these places, there are twenty leagues of coast southwards as far as a cape, which must be doubled to enter Goa; and after that ten leagues to the north-west, then ten more to the east, and south-south-west twenty leagues, then seventeen leagues to the north-west, as far as the Cape Rama. And in this gulf there are many small islands, the chief of which is Goa. There is a large river which issues by two branches into the sea, between which is formed the island of the city of Goa, which belonged to the kingdom of Decani, and was a lordship of itself along with other towns in the neighbourhood; and the king gave it to a vassal of his, a great lord called Vasabaxo, who was a very good knight, and on account of his being very distinguished and skilful in warlike matters, this lordship of Goa was given him, in order that he might carry on war thence with the King of Narsinga, as he always did until his death. This city then remained to his son, Sabaym Delcani, and it was inhabited by many Moors, respectable men, and foreigners, white men and rich merchants, and several of them are very good gentlemen. There are also many great Gentile merchants, and others, gentlemen and cultivators, and men-at-arms. It was a place of great trade in merchandise. It has a very good port, to which flocked many ships from Mekkah, Aden, Ormuz, Cambay, and the Malabar country. And the before mentioned Sabaym Delcani resided much in this place, and he kept there his captain and men-at-arms, and no one entered or went out of this island and city, either by sea or by land, without his permission; and all those who entered there were registered with all their signs and particulars, and from whence they came; and so, with this precaution and arrangement, they allowed them to return. This town was very large, with goodly edifices and handsome streets and squares, surrounded by walls and towers. There is a very good fortress in it, and in the environs many gardens and orchards of fine trees and fruits, and many pools of good water. There were many mosques and houses of worship of the Gentiles. The country all round was very fruitful and well cultivated, and enjoyed much produce both from sea and land. This Sabaym, as soon as he knew that the Portuguese viceroy had routed the Rumes[158] and the fleet of the great sultan before Diu, immediately sent to call the Rumes, knights, and other people of the sultan, who having escaped thence, arrived, leaving their captain in the kingdom of Guzarat. And this Sabaym Delcani received them very well, and determined on putting all India at their disposition for their assistance, and to refit them again with the aid of all the Moors and kings of India, in order to again carry on war against the Portuguese. They then collected together much money and began to build in this city of Goa very large ships, and handsome galleys and brigantines, all after the manner and fashion of ours, and likewise to prepare much artillery of brass and iron, and all other munitions of maritime war. And the Moors were so expeditious in this that they had got a large part of the fleet made, and vast magazines of munitions for the fleet; and they already went out with guard boats and rowing galleys, to take the Sambuks which passed by, because they carried Portuguese safe-conducts. And Alfonso de Albuquerque, who was then captain-major in India, had information of all this, and determined to go and seek them, and drive them from their design. He therefore collected the most that he could of a fleet of ships, caravels, and galleys, and with these entered the before mentioned river, and attacked the city of Goa[159] and took it. Upon which many great things occurred, which I say nothing about, in order not to be more prolix. He captured many people, and all the ships and galleys of the Rumes, and he burned some of them; and the city submitted to the commands of the King of Portugal, as it now is. And he fortified it with several castles. This city is inhabited by Portuguese, Moors and Gentiles; and the fruits of the earth and provisions now produce a yearly revenue to the King of Portugal of twenty thousand ducats, without the port, which has much trade in merchandise of Malabar, Cheul, Dabul, Cambay and Diu. They sell there many horses for other parts, at two, three and four hundred ducats each, according to their quality, and upon each the King of Portugal levies forty ducats as duty; and although they pay less dues than in the time of the Moors, this harbour produces much revenue to the King of Portugal.[160] In this kingdom of Decani there are many great cities, and many other towns within the country inhabited by Moors and Gentiles. It is a country very well cultivated, and abundantly supplied with provisions, and it has an extensive commerce, which produces much revenue to the king, who is called Mahamuza, and is a Moor; and he lives very luxuriously, and with much pleasure, in a great city inland, which is called Mavider. This king holds the whole of his kingdom, divided amongst Moorish lords, to each one of whom he has assigned cities, towns, and villages; and these lords govern and rule, so that the king does not give any orders in his kingdom, nor does he meddle except in giving himself a pleasant life and amusement. And all these lords do obeisance to him, and bring him the revenue, with which they have to come into his presence. And if any one of them were to revolt or disobey, the others go against him and destroy him, or reduce him again to obedience to the king. These lords frequently have wars and differences among one another, and it happens that some take villages from others; but afterwards the king makes peace, and administers justice between them. Each one has many horsemen, very good archers with the Turkish bow, white people, of good figures. Their dress is of cotton stuffs, and they wear caps on their heads. They give large pay to the soldiers: they speak Arabic, Persian and the Decani language, which is the natural language of the country. These Moorish lords take tents of cotton cloth into the field, in which they dwell when going on a journey, or to war. They ride a small saddle, and fight tied to their horses. They carry in their hands very long light lances, with four-sided iron points, very strong, and three palms in length. They wear tunics quilted with cotton, which they call _laudes_, and some wear tunics of mail, and their horses caparisoned; some carry iron maces and battle-axes, two swords and a buckler, Turkish bows supplied with many arrows, so that each man carries offensive weapons for two persons. Many of these take their wives with them to the wars; they make use of pack oxen, on which they carry their chattels when they travel. They are frequently at war with the King of Narsinga, so that they are at peace but for a short time. The Gentiles of this kingdom of Decani are black, well made and courageous; most of them fight on foot, and some on horseback: and these foot soldiers carry swords and shields, bows and arrows, and are very good archers. Their bows are long, after the fashion of Englishmen. They go naked from the waist upwards, and wear small caps on their heads; they eat all meats except cow; they are idolaters, when they die their bodies are burned, and their wives burn themselves alive with them voluntarily, as will be related further on. CINTACOLA. Seventeen leagues further along the same coast to the south-east, and towards Malabar, there is another river called Aliga,[161] which separates the kingdom of Decani from the kingdom of Narsinga, and at the mouth of the river on the top of a hill is a fortress, Cintacola;[162] and it belongs to the Zabayo, for the defence of his country. In it he continually keeps horse and foot soldiers. Here the said kingdom of Decani comes to an end at its southern portion, and the northern part ends at Cheul; and from one place to the other along the coast there are eighty leagues. KINGDOM OF NARSINGA. Beyond this river commences the kingdom of Narsinga, which contains five very large provinces, with a language of their own. One province is along the coast, and is called Tulinat; another has the name of Legni, which confines with the kingdom of Tisa; another is Canari, in which is the great city of Visenagar,[163] and the other is Chomendel,[164] a kingdom which they call Tamul. This kingdom of Narsinga is very rich and well supplied with provisions, and is very full of cities and large townships; and all the country is very fertile and brought into cultivation. The province of Tulinat contains many rivers and seaports, in which there is much trade and shipping bound for all parts, and many rich merchants dwell in them. Between the others there is a very large river called Mergeo, from which is produced a large quantity of inferior rice for the common people, which the Malabars come here to buy, with their sambuks, in exchange for cocoa nuts, oil, and jagra, which are much used in this country. HONOR. Having passed this river Aliga,[165] and going along the coast to the south-east, there is another river, at ten leagues distance, with a good town near the sea, called Honor,[166] and the Malabars call it Povaran; many of them come to this place to fetch cargoes of inferior brownish rice, which is their peculiar food: and they bring cocoa nuts, oil and jagra, and wine of the palm trees, from which grow the cocoa nuts. BATECALA. Ten leagues further along this coast to the south is another small river, with a large town called Baticala,[167] of very great trade in merchandise, inhabited by many Moors and Gentiles, very commercial people. And at this port congregate many ships from Orguz, to load very good white rice, sugar in powder, of which there is much in this country, for they do not know how to make it in loaves; and it is worth at the rate of two hundred and forty maravedis the arroba.[168] They likewise load much iron, and these three kinds of goods are what are chiefly shipped at this place: and also some spices and drugs, which the Malabars import. There are many myrobalans of all sorts, and very good preserves are made with them, which the ships of Ormuz, which traffic at this place, export for the Arabs and Persians. They used each year to bring to this port many horses and pearls, which were there sold for the whole kingdom of Narsinga, and now they take them all to the city of Goa, on account of the Portuguese. Some ships are also laden at this place for Aden, risking themselves, although it is forbidden them by the Portuguese. Many Malabar ships and sambuks also come to this port to take in rice, sugar, and iron; and they bring cocoa nuts, palm sugar, cocoa nut oil, and palm wine, in return for these things, and spices and drugs, concealed from the Portuguese who prohibit them. This town produces much revenue to the king. Its governor is a Gentile; he is named Damaqueti. He is very rich in money and jewels. The king of Narsinga has given this place and others to a nephew of his, who rules and governs them, and lives in great State and calls himself king, but he is in obedience to the king his uncle. In this kingdom they make a great practice of duelling, for on account of anything they at once challenge one another, and the king at once grants them a field and arms, and appoints a time for killing each other, and gives them seconds, who back up each his own man. They go to fight one another bare from the waist upwards, and from the waist downwards wrapped in cotton cloths drawn tightly round, and with many folds, and with their arms, which are swords, bucklers and daggers.[169] And the king appoints them of equal length. They enter the lists with great pleasure, first saying their prayers, and in a very few passes they kill each other in the presence of the king and many people, without any one speaking except the seconds, of whom each encourages his own man. This town of Baticala pays a yearly tribute to the king of Portugal; much copper is also sold in it each year, which is taken into the interior of the country to make money, and cauldrons and other pans which they use. There is also sold there much quicksilver, vermilion, coral, alum and ivory. This town is situated in level country, it is very populous, and not walled; it is surrounded with many gardens, very good estates, and very fresh and abundant water. There is in this place gold coin called Pardan,[170] and it is worth three hundred and twenty maravedis; and there is another silver coin called _dama_, worth twenty. The weights are called bahars, and each bahar is equal to four quintals of Portugal.[171] MAYANDUR. Having passed Baticala, at ten leagues towards the south is another small river, on which there is a town called Mayandur, under the jurisdiction of Baticala, in which much rice is gathered of a good quality, which is shipped at Baticala. The people of this town sow it principally in certain watery valleys, which they plough with oxen and with buffaloes, two and two, in couples, with their ploughs after our fashion, and they put the rice for seed in some hollow irons placed in the ploughshare, which entering the earth ploughing it and making a furrow, leave behind the seed in it, because otherwise they would not be able to sow it on account of the quantity of water; and on dry land they sow it by hand. They gather the harvest twice every year from this watery land, and it is of four sorts of rice. The first they call girazat, which is the best; the second jani bazal,[172] the third camagar, and the fourth pachari: each one has its price, and there is a great difference between one and the other. BACAVOR BAZALOR. There are two small rivers ten leagues further along the coast to the south, and on both of them towns, one of which is called Bacavor, and the other Basalor;[173] both belong to the kingdom of Narsinga. In these also there is much rice of good quality, which is there shipped for all parts: and many ships come from Malabar, and sambuks great and small, which take this rice on board in sacks of a fanega[174] each, which is worth from one hundred and fifty to two hundred maravedis each fanega, according to its goodness. Ships also put in here from Ormuz, Aden, Xeher, and many other places, to take in cargo for Canaor and Calicut. They also ship there much rice in exchange for copper, cocoa nuts, jagra, oil of cocoa nuts, for the Malabars maintain themselves with scarcely anything else but rice, since the country of Malabar is small and very populous: so full of inhabitants, that it may almost be said that all the country is one single city from the mountain Deli to Coulam. MANGALOR. Having left these places, at ten leagues distance there is another large river towards the south, along the sea-shore, where there is a very large town, peopled by Moors and Gentiles, of the kingdom of Narsinga, called Mangalor.[175] There many ships always load brown rice, which is much better and more healthy than the white, for Malabar, for the common people, and it is very cheap. They also ship there much rice in Moorish ships for Aden, also pepper, which henceforward the earth begins to produce, but little of it, and better than all the other which the Malabars bring to this place in small vessels. The banks of this river are very pretty, and very full of woods and palm trees, and are very thickly inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, and studded with fine buildings and houses of prayer of the Gentiles, which are very large, and enriched with large revenues. There are also many mosques, where they greatly honour Mahomed. CUNBALA. Ten leagues further along the same coast to the south, is another town of the Gentiles, of the kingdom of Narsinga, which is called Cunbala. In it also much brown and very bad rice is harvested, which the Malabars go to buy there, and load it in their vessels for the lowest people amongst them, and of the Mahaldiu islands, which are across from Malabar, because it is very cheap, and the people poor; and they sell it there in exchange for thread for making cordage for ships. This thread is made of a covering and integument which grows upon the cocoa nuts of the palm trees, and a great quantity of it is produced; and in that place it is a great article of commerce with all parts. This town of Cunbala has a lord to rule and govern it for the kingdom of Narsinga, and it is frontier to the kingdom of Cananor: because here the kingdom of Narsinga comes to an end along the coast of this province of Tulinat. OF THE CUSTOMS AND GREATNESS OF THIS KINGDOM OF NARSINGA IN THE INTERIOR OF THE COUNTRY. Leaving this sea coast, and going inland into the kingdom of Narsinga, at twelve or fifteen leagues distance there is a very high mountain range, precipitous and difficult of ascent, which stretches from the beginning of this kingdom to Cape Comeri,[176] which is beyond the Malabar country; and the before-mentioned province of Tulinat is at the foot of this range, between it and the sea. And the Indians say that in former times all these low grounds were sea, which reached to the said range, and that in process of time the sea uncovered it, and swelled it up in other parts, and to the foot of those mountains. There are many traces of things of the sea, and all the low ground is very level like the sea, and the mountain chain is very craggy, and seems to rise to the heavens; and it is not possible to ascend, except in a few parts, and with difficulty, which is a cause of great strength to the Malabars, for were it not for the difficulty of entering their country on account of the roughness of these mountains, the King of Narsinga would already have conquered them. This range is peopled in several parts, with good towns and villages, very luxuriant in water and delicious fruit: and in it there are many wild boars, and large and fine deer, many leopards, ounces, lions, tigers, bears, and some animals of an ashy colour, which look like horses, very active, and which cannot be caught.[177] There are serpents with wings, which fly, very venomous, so that their breath and looks kill whatever person places himself very near them, and they always go amongst the trees. There are also many wild elephants, and many stones of gegonzas,[178] amethysts, and soft sapphires, are found in the rivers where they are deposited. They carry them from the mountains to sell them in the Malabar towns, where they are wrought. After passing this mountain range, the country is almost entirely plain, very fertile and abundantly supplied in the inland districts, which belong to the kingdom of Narsinga, in which there are many cities and villages and forts, and many large rivers run through it. There is in this country much cultivation of rice and other vegetables, with which they maintain themselves, and many cows, buffaloes, pigs, goats, sheep, asses, and diminutive ponies, all of which they make use of; and they carry their goods by means of buffaloes, oxen, asses, and ponies, and do their field work with them. Almost all the villages are of Gentiles, and among them are a few Moors; some of the lords of these villages are of these last, to whom the king of Narsinga has granted the villages, and others are his, and he keeps his governors and tax collectors in them. BIJANAGUER. Forty-five leagues from these mountains inland, there is a very large city which is called Bijanaguer, very populous and surrounded on one side by a very good wall, and on another by a river, and on the other by a mountain. This city is on level ground, the King of Narsinga always resides in it. He is a Gentile and is called Raheni: he has in this place very large and handsome palaces, with numerous courts in which are many mounds, pools of water with plenty of fish, gardens of shrubs, flowers, and sweet-smelling herbs. There are also in the city many other palaces of great lords who live there. And all the other houses of the place are covered with thatch, and the streets and squares are very wide: they are constantly filled with an innumerable crowd of all nations and creeds; for, besides many Moorish merchants and traders, and the Gentile inhabitants of the country who are very rich, an infinite number of others flock there from all parts, who are able to come, dwell, trade, and live very freely and in security, without anyone molesting them, or asking or requiring of them any account of whence they come, or in what creed they live, whether they be Moors, Christians, or Gentiles; and each one may live according to any creed, or as he pleases. There is an infinite trade in this city, and strict justice and truth are observed towards all by the governors of the country. In this city there are very many jewels which are brought from Pegu and Celani, and in the country itself many diamonds are found, because there is a mine of them in the kingdom of Narsinga and another in the kingdom of Dacani. There are also many pearls and seed-pearls to be found there, which are brought from Ormus and Cael; and all these jewels and pearls are much esteemed among them, because they adorn themselves much with them, and on that account a great quantity are poured in. In this city they wear many silks and inferior brocades, which are brought from China and Alexandria, and much scarlet cloth, and of other colours, and much coral worked into round beads; and they import copper, quicksilver, vermilion, saffron, rose-water, much anfiani which is opium, sandal and aloes wood, camphor, musk, because the inhabitants of this country are much in the habit of anointing themselves with these perfumes. There is also a great consumption in this place, and in the whole kingdom, of pepper, which is brought from Malabar on oxen and asses. The money is of gold, and is called parda, and is worth three hundred maravedis;[179] it is coined in certain cities of this kingdom of Narsinga, and throughout all India they use this money, which passes in all those kingdoms; its gold is a little inferior. This coin is round, and made in a mould. Some of them have some Indian letters on one side, and two figures on the other of a man and a woman, and others have nothing but the lettering on one side. CUSTOMS OF THIS KINGDOM OF NARSINGA AND OF ITS INHABITANTS. This king constantly resides in the before-mentioned palaces, and very seldom goes out of them: he lives very luxuriously and without any labour, because he discharges it all upon his governors. He and all the dwellers in this city are Gentiles, coloured men and nearly white, of long and very smooth black hair; they are well proportioned men, of features and ----[180] similar to our own, and so likewise are the women. The costume of the men is from the waist downwards with many folds and very tight, and a short shirt which reaches half way down the thigh, made of white cotton stuff, silk, or brocade, open down the front, small caps on their heads, and the hair gathered up on the top, some caps of silk or brocade, and their sandals on their bare feet, cloaks of cotton stuff or silk on their arms, and their pages with their swords behind them, and their bodies anointed with white sandal, aloes-wood, camphor, musk, and saffron; all ground together with rose-water. They bathe every day, and after bathing, anoint themselves. They wear small gold chains and jewels round their necks, and bracelets on their arms, and rings on their fingers of very valuable jewels, and also many jewels in their ears of pearls and precious stones. And they take a second page who carries for them a slender canopy with a long handle with which to shade them and protect them from the rain. These shades are of silk stuff, much ornamented with gold fringes, and some of them have jewels and seed-pearls, and made in such a manner that they shut up and open; and some of these cost three or four hundred gold pieces, according to the quality of the persons. The women wear a cloth of very fine white cotton, or of silk of pretty colours, which may be about six cubits long; they gird themselves with part of this cloth from the waist below, and the other end of the cloth they cast over the shoulder and the breasts, and one arm and shoulder remain uncovered; on their feet sandals of gilt and well-worked leather; their heads bare, only their hair combed, and they put a plait of it over their heads, and in this many flowers and scents; and in the nostrils a small hole on one side, and in it a gold thread with a drop, either a pearl, or a ruby, or a sapphire drilled with a hole; their ears also are bored and in them they wear many gold rings with pearls and precious stones; and jewel necklaces round their throats, bracelets on their arms of the same fashion, and also strings of fine round coral on their arms, many rings with precious stones on their fingers; and girt over their clothes with belts of gold and jewels; and rings of gold on their legs; so that for the most part these are very rich and well-dressed people. They are great dancers; they sing and play on various instruments; they are taught to tumble and to perform many feats of agility. They are pretty women, and of a grand presence. These people marry in our manner; they have a marriage law, but the great men marry as many women as they can maintain, and the king has with him in his palaces many wives, daughters of the great lords of his kingdom; and, besides these, he has many others as concubines, and others as serving women who are chosen throughout the kingdom as the most beautiful. And all the attendance on the king is done by women, who wait upon him within doors; and amongst them are all the employments of the king's household: and all these women live and find room within these palaces, which contain apartments for all. They bathe every day in the pools of water, they sing and play on their instruments, and in a thousand ways amuse the king: and he goes to see them bathe, and from thence sends to his chamber the one that pleases him most; and the first son that he has from any of these, inherits the kingdom. Amongst them there is so much envy and rivality for the preference of the king, that sometimes they kill themselves with poison. This king has a house in which he meets with the governors and his officers in council upon the affairs of the kingdom; and there all the great men of the realm go to see him with great gifts; and he dispenses great favours and likewise great punishments to those that deserve them. These great men, his relations and those of great lineage, when they do anything ill-done or prejudicial to his service, are summoned to him; and they have to come immediately: and they come in very rich litters on men's shoulders, and their horses are led by the bridle before them, and many horsemen go in front of them. They get down at the door of the palace and wait there with their trumpets and musical instruments, until word is brought to the king, and he commands them to come to his presence; and if they do not give a good excuse and account of themselves and of the evil of which they are accused, he commands them to be stripped and thrown on the ground, and there bids them to receive many stripes. If such a person were a near relation of the king's or a very great personage, the king himself scourges him with his own hand, and after he has been well beaten, the king orders very rich garments to be given him from his own clothes chests, and then directs him to be reconducted to his litter, and carried with great honour and great clang of musical instruments and festivity to his abode. Many litters and many horsemen always stand at the door of this palace: and the king keeps at all times nine hundred elephants and more than twenty thousand horses, all which elephants and horses are bought with his money: the elephants, at the price of fifteen hundred to two thousand ducats each, because they are very great and well-fitted for war, and for taking about with him continually for state. And the horses cost from three to six hundred ducats each, and some of the choicest for his personal use, nine hundred or a thousand ducats. These horses are distributed amongst the great lords who are responsible for them, and keep them for the gentry and knights to whom the king bids them to be given: and he gives to each knight a horse and a groom and a slave girl, and for his personal expenses four or five pardaos of gold per month, according to who he is; and, besides that, each day's provisions for the horse and groom; and they send to the kitchen for the rations both for the elephants and horses. The kitchens are very large and numerous, they contain many cauldrons of copper, and several officials who cook the food of the elephants and horses; which, it must be said, is rice, chick-peas, and other vegetables. In all this there is much order and arrangement, and if the knight to whom the king has given a horse cares for it and treats it well, they take away that one and give him another and a better one; and if he is negligent, they take his away and give him another that is worse. And thus all the king's horses and elephants are well fed and cared for, at his cost: and the grandees, to whom he gives a great quantity of them, act in the same manner with their knights. These horses live but a short time; they are not bred in this country, for all of them are brought there from the kingdom of Ormuz and that of Cambay, and on that account, and for the great need of them, they are worth so much money. This king has more than a hundred thousand men, both horse and foot, to whom he gives pay: and fully five or six thousand women, to whom also he gives pay. And wherever there is war, according to the number of men-at-arms whom he sends there, he likewise sends with them a quantity of women; because they say that it is not possible to bring together an army, nor carry on war well, without women. These women are like enchantresses, and are great dancers; they play and sing, and pirouette. And whenever the king's officers take and enrol any man, they strip him and look what marks he has got on his body, and measure what his stature is, and set it all down in writing, and from whence he comes, and the names of his father and mother: and so he remains enrolled with all these particulars in the pay books. And after being enrolled, it is with difficulty that he can again obtain permission to go to his country; and if he flies and is taken, he runs great danger, and is very ill treated. Among these men-at-arms there are many knights, who arrive there from many parts to take service, and these do not cease to live in their creeds. In this kingdom there are three sects of Gentiles, and each one of them is distinguished from the others, and their customs are different. In the first place, the king and the grandees, and lords and chief people of the men-at-arms, can marry more than one wife, especially the grandees, who can maintain them: their children are their heirs. The wives are bound to burn themselves and to die with their husbands when they decease, because when the people die, their bodies are burned, both of men and women. And the wives burn themselves alive with them to honour them, in this manner: that is to say, if she is a poor woman of little rank, when the body of the husband is borne out to be burned in an open space outside the city, where there is a great fire, and whilst the body of the husband is being consumed, the wife casts herself, of her own will, into the fire, and burns there with him. And if she is some honourable woman, and of much property, and whether she be a young woman of beautiful presence, or old, when her husband dies, the relations all go to the before mentioned open space, and make a wide grave as deep as a man's height, and fill it with sandal and other wood, and place the dead body within and burn it; and his wife, or wives, weep for him, and then, should she desire to honour her husband, she asks for a term of a certain number of days to go and be burnt with him. And they bid all her relations, and those of her husband, come and do her honour, and give her a festal reception. And in this manner all collect together, and entertain and pay court to her, and she spends what she possesses among her relations and friends, in feasting and singing, in dances and playing on musical instruments, and amusements of jugglers. And when the term fixed has ended, she dresses herself in her richest stuffs, and adorns herself with many precious jewels, and the rest of her property she divides amongst her children, relations, and friends, and then mounts a horse, with a great sound of music, and a large following. The horse must be grey, or very white if possible, for her to be seen better. And so they conduct her through the whole city; paying court to her as far as the place where the body of her husband was burned; and in the same grave they place much wood, with which they light a very great fire, and all round it they make a gallery with three or four steps, whither she ascends with all her jewels and robes; and when she is upon the top she takes three turns round it, and raises her hands to heaven, and worships towards the east three times. And having ended this, she calls her relations and friends, and to each she gives a jewel of those which she wears: and all this with a very cheerful demeanour, not as though she were about to die. And after she has given them away, and there only remains a small cloth with which she is covered from the waist downwards, she says to the men, "See, gentlemen, how much you owe to your wives, who, whilst enjoying their freedom, burn themselves alive with their husbands." And to the women she says, "See, ladies, how much you owe to your husbands, for in this manner you ought to accompany them even in death." And when she has concluded uttering these words, they give her a pitcher full of oil, and she places it on her head and says her prayer, and takes three more turns and worships to the east, and casts the pitcher of oil into the pit where the fire is: and she springs into it, after the pitcher, with as much good will as though she were jumping into a pool of water. And the relations have ready for this occasion many pitchers and pots full of oil and butter, and dry wood, which they immediately throw in, so that so great a flame is at once kindled, that she is suddenly reduced to ashes. And afterwards they collect these ashes, and cast them into flowing rivers. All perform this in general, and if any women do not choose to do this, their relations take them, shave their heads, and turn them out of their houses and families with disgrace. And so they wander through the world as lost ones. And those of this sort to whom they may wish to show favour, are sent to the houses of prayer of the idols, to serve and gain for that temple with their bodies, if they are young women. And of these houses there are many, which contain fifty or a hundred women of this sort; and others, who of their own accord, being unmarried, place themselves there.[181] These have to play and sing, for certain hours of the day, before their idols, and the rest of the time they work for themselves. So also when the king dies, four or five hundred women burn themselves with him in the same manner, and they throw themselves suddenly into the pit and fire where they burn the body of the king: for the pit and fire are very large, and a great quantity can be burned in it, with great abundance of wood, sandal, brasil, eagle wood, aloes wood, and much oil of sesame and butter to make the wood burn well. So great is the haste of those who wish to burn themselves first, that it is something wonderful, and many men, confidants of the king, burn themselves with him. These people eat meat, fish, and all other viands, only cow is forbidden them by their creed. There is another sect of Gentiles who are called Bramans, who are priests and directors of the houses of prayer. These do not eat meat or fish, they marry only one wife, and if she dies they do not marry again: their children inherit their property. They wear over the shoulder three threads as a sign of being Bramans. These do not die for any cause, or crime which they may commit; they are very free and easy, and are very much venerated amongst the people. They enjoy amongst them large alms from the kings, lords, and honourable people, with which they maintain themselves; and many of them are rich, and others live in the houses of prayer which there are about the country, after the manner of monasteries. These temples also have great revenues. These people are great eaters, and do no work except in order to eat: and they at any time go eight leagues to satisfy themselves with food, which they can eat on the road. Their food is rice, butter, sugar, vegetables, and milk. In this country there is another sect of people, who are like Bramans: they wear round their necks hung with silk cords and wrapped in coloured cloth, a stone of the size of an egg, and they say that it is their god. These people are much venerated and honoured in this country; they do them no harm for any offence which they may commit, out of reverence for that stone, which they call tabaryne.[182] Neither do these people eat flesh nor fish; they go safely in all countries, and they transport from one kingdom to another much merchandise and money of the merchants, on account of their greater security from thieves. And there are some of them who deal in merchandise with their tani bar ine round their necks. These likewise marry only one woman, and if they die before their wives, they bury these alive in this manner.[183] It must be said, that they make a grave for her a little deeper than she is tall, and put her in it standing, and while she is quite alive they throw in earth all around her, and press it down with their feet until she is walled in with earth much pressed down, which reaches to her neck, and then they put some large stones above her, and leave her there alive covered with earth until she dies; and on this occasion they perform great ceremonies for them. The women of this country are so enterprising and idolatrous, that they do marvellous things for the love of their idols, in this manner. There are amongst them young girls who desire to marry some man for whom they have a liking, and one of these will promise her idol to do it a great service if she should marry such a one whom she wishes for. And if she marries that one, she then says to him, I have to make a feast for such a god, and I have to offer my blood before I deliver myself to you. And so they appoint a day for celebrating that feast. And she takes a large waggon with oxen, and they fix it in a very high crane, such as those with which they draw water, and they fasten it to an iron chain with two iron hooks, and she comes out of her house with great honour, accompanied by all her relations and friends, men and women, with much singing and playing of instruments, and many dancers and jesters; and she comes wrapped very tightly round the waist with her white stuffs, covered from the waist to the knees, the rest bare, and at the door of her house, where the car stands, they lower the crane, and stick the two hooks into her in the loins between the skin and the flesh, and put into her left hand a small round shield, and a little bag with lemons and oranges. They then raise the crane with great shouting and sound of instruments, firing guns, and making other festal demonstrations: and in this manner the car begins its march on the way to the house of the idol to which the promise was made, and she goes suspended by those hooks fastened into her flesh, and the blood runs down her legs. And she continues to sing and shout for joy, and to strike upon the shield, and to throw oranges and lemons to her husband and to her relations, who go with her in this manner to the door of the said house of prayer, where they take her down, and cure her, and deliver her to her husband; and she gives at that place great alms to the Bramans and offerings to the idols, and a great feast to as many as accompanied her. There are other persons also who offer the virginity of their daughters to an idol, and as soon as they are ten years of age they take her to a monastery and the house of prayer of that idol, with great honour, and accompanied by her relations, entertaining her like one that is going to be married. And outside of the monastery, at the door, there is a bench of hard black stone, square, of half a man's height, and surrounded with wooden steps, with many oil lamps placed on the steps, which are lit at night.[184] * * * * * This King of Narsinga is frequently at war with the King of Dacani, who has taken from him much of his land; and also with another Gentile King of the country of Otira,[185] which is the country in the interior. And he always sends his captains and troops to this war, and on some occasions, if of necessity, he goes to the war in person; and as soon as it is determined on, he goes out to the country, on a certain day, on an elephant or in a litter, very richly adorned with gold and jewels, accompanied by many knights and horse and foot-men: and many elephants go before him, all covered with scarlet cloth and silk, and much bedizened and dressed out as for a feast. And as they go through the fields they bring the king a horse, on which he rides, and a bow and an arrow, which he shoots towards the part where he intends to go and make war. And they name the day of his setting out, and this news immediately runs throughout all the kingdom. He then pitches his tents and camp in the country, and there remains until the appointed term of days is accomplished for his departure. When this is concluded he orders the city to be set on fire, and directs it all to be burned except the royal palaces, castles, houses of prayer, and those of some of the grandees which are not covered with thatch, in order that all may go to the war to die with him, and with his wives and children, whom he has with him in the wars. In order that these may not take to flight he directs large pay to be given to all: in the first place, to the enchanting single women, who are numerous, and who do not fight, but their lovers fight for love of them very vigorously. And it is also said that many men come from all the other kingdoms to this king's camp for the love of these women,[186] amongst whom there are many very honourable ones, great confidantes of the king, who come of great houses, and are very rich. Each one of them keeps seven or eight pretty waiting women, who are given to them by their mothers to bring them up, and put them in the court enrolled on the pay list. They hold this service in great honour, and it is but a short time since one of them died who had no son nor heir, and left the king for her heir; and he gathered from the inheritance sixty thousand gold pardaos, besides twelve thousand which he gave to a waiting woman of his, whom he had brought up from a girl: which is not to be wondered at for the great wealth of the kingdom. In this kingdom jewels are esteemed as treasure by the king and also by the rich, who buy them at large prices. The people of this kingdom are great hunters both of flying game and wild beasts. There are many small hacks, and very good ones to go. HOTISA. Having passed the said kingdom of Narsynga inland, there is next another kingdom called Hotisa,[187] which confines with it on one side, and on another with the kingdom of Bengal, and on the other with the kingdom of Dely: and it is inhabited by Gentiles. The king is also a Gentile, very rich and powerful, who has many foot soldiers; he is frequently at war with the kingdom of Narsinga, from which he has taken lands and villages; and the King of Narsinga has taken others from him: so that they are rarely at peace. Of the customs of these people I have little information, on account of their being placed so much in the interior of the country. It is only known that in that country there are very few Moors, and that they are almost all Gentiles and very good fighting men. KINGDOM OF DELY. Having passed this kingdom of Otisa, more inland there is another great kingdom, which is called Dely, of many provinces, and of large and rich cities of great trade. This kingdom is of the Moors, and has a Moorish king, a great lord; and in former times this kingdom was of the Gentiles, of whom there are still many who live amidst the Moors, with much vexation. And many of them nobles and respectable people, not to be subject to the Moors, go out of the kingdom and take the habit of poverty, wandering the world; and they never settle in any country until their death; nor will they possess any property, since they lost their lands and property, and for that go naked, barefooted, and bareheaded; they only cover their nakedness with coverings[188] of brass, in this manner: it must be said, that they wear belts of Moorish brass of pieces fitted together, of four fingers in breadth, carved with many images of men and women, sculptured and shining: and they wear it so tight that it makes their guts rise high up; and from the girdle below the hips there comes a bandage of the same brass, and in front it forms a sort of braguette, which comes and fastens in the girdle in front with its fastenings: all very tight. Besides this, they carry very heavy chains round their necks, and waists, and legs; and they smear all their bodies and faces with ashes. And they carry a small brown horn at their necks, after the fashion of a trumpet, with which they call and beg for food at the door of any house where they arrive: chiefly at the houses of kings and great lords and at the temples; and they go many together, like the gipsies.[189] They are accustomed to stop very few days in each country. These people are commonly called jogues, and in their own speech they are called zoame, which means servant of God. They are brown, very well made and proportioned, of handsome faces; they wear their hair without ever combing it, and made into many plaits, wound round the head. And I asked them many times why they went in this fashion. And they answered me, that they wore those chains upon their bodies as penance for the sin which they committed for allowing themselves to be captured by such bad people as the Moors, and that they went naked as a sign of dishonour, because they had allowed their lands and houses to be lost, in which God brought them up; and that they did not want more property since they had lost their own, for which they ought to have died; and that they smeared themselves with ashes in order to remind themselves perpetually that they were born of earth and had to return again to the earth, and that all the rest[190] was falsehood. And each one of them carries his little bag of these ashes with him; and all the Gentiles of the country honour them greatly, and receive from them some of these ashes, and put it on their heads,[191] shoulders, and breasts, making a few lines with it. And throughout all the country the Gentiles are in the habit of doing this. And so also throughout all India among the Gentiles, many of them turn jogues; but most of them are from the kingdom of Dely. These jogues eat all meats and do not observe any idolatry, and they mingle with all kinds of people: neither do they wash like other Gentiles, except when the wish to do so comes to them. In this kingdom of Dely there are many very good horses, which are born and bred there. The people of the kingdom, both Moors and Gentiles, are very good fighting men and good knights, armed with many kinds of weapons; they are great bowmen, and very strong men; they have very good lances, swords, daggers, steel maces, and battle-axes, with which they fight; and they have some steel wheels, which they call chacarani, two fingers broad, sharp outside like knives, and without edge inside; and the surface of these[192] is of the size of a small plate. And they carry seven or eight of these each, put on the left arm; and they take one and put it on the finger of the right hand, and make it spin round many times, and so they hurl it at their enemies, and if they hit anyone on the arm or leg or neck, it cuts through all. And with these they carry on much fighting, and are very dexterous with them. This king of Dely confines with Tatars, and has taken many lands from the King of Cambay; and from the King of Dacan, his servants and captains, with many of his people, took much, and afterwards in time they revolted and set themselves up as kings. In this kingdom of Dely there are some trees, the root of which is called Baxarague,[193] and it is so poisonous that any one who eats it dies at once; and its fruit is called Nirabixy,[194] and it is of such virtue that it extinguishes all poison, and gives life to any one poisoned with the said root or with other poisons. These jogues, who come from the kingdom of Dely, carry this root and fruit; some of them give it to some Indian kings; and so likewise they carry with them sometimes rhinoceros' horn and Pajar stone, which possess great virtue against all poisons. And this stone, Pajar, is grey and soft, of the size of an almond; and they say that it is found in the head of an animal: it is greatly esteemed amongst the Indians.[195] COUNTRY OF MALABAR. Having passed the province of Tulynate, which is of the kingdom of Narsinga, along the coast of the sea, which province begins from Cinbola near the mountain Dely, and ends at the Cape of Conmery, which is a distance of seventy leagues along the coast towards the south and south-east. And there begins the country of Malabar, which was governed by a king who was called Sernaperimal,[196] who was a very great lord. And after that the Moors of Mekkah discovered India, and began to navigate near it, which was six hundred and ten years ago; they used to touch at this country of Malabar on account of the pepper which is found there. And they began to load their ships with it in a city and seaport, Coulom,[197] where the king used frequently to be. And so for some years these Moors continued their voyages to this country of Malabar, and began to spread themselves through it, and became so intimate and friendly with the said king, that they made him turn Moor, and he went away with them to die at the house of Mekkah, and he died on the road. And before he set out from his country, he divided the whole of his kingdom of Malabar amongst his relations; and it remained divided amongst them and their descendants as it now is. And when he distributed the lands, he abandoned those that he gave, never to return to them again; and at last, when he had given away all, and there did not remain anything more for him to give, except ten or twelve leagues of land all round the spot from which he embarked, which was an uninhabited beach, where now stands the city of Calicut. And at that moment he was accompanied by more Moors than Gentiles, on account of having given to the latter almost all that he possessed, and he had with him only one young nephew, who waited on him as a page, to whom he gave that piece of land; and he told him to get it peopled, especially that very spot whence he embarked. And he gave him his sword and a chandelier, which he carried with him for state. And he left an injunction to the other lords, his relations to whom he had made grants of lands, that they should obey him, only leaving exempt the King of Coulam and the King of Cavanor:[198] so that he instituted three kings in the country of Malabar, and commanded that no one should coin money except the King of Calicut. And so he embarked at the same place where the city of Calicut was founded; and the Moors held this time and place in much veneration, and would not after that go and load pepper any more in any other part since the said king embarked there after becoming a Moor and going to die at Mekkah. This city of Calicut is very large, and ennobled by many very rich merchants and great traffic in goods. This king became greater and more powerful than all the others: he took the name of Zomodri,[199] which is a point of honour above all other kings. So that this great King of Malabar did not leave more kings than these three: that is to say, the Zomodry, who was named Cunelava-dyri, and the King of Culaon, who was named Benate-diry, and the King of Cananor, who was named Coletry.[200] And there are many other lords in the country of Malabar, who wish to call themselves kings; and they are not so, because they are not able to coin money, nor cover houses with roofs under penalty of all the others rising up against whomsoever should do such a thing, or of having to destroy them. And these kings of Culam and Cananor afterwards struck money for a certain time in their countries without having the power of doing so. In all the country they use one language, which is called Maleama, and all the kings are of one sect, and almost of the same customs. In these kingdoms of Malabar there are eighteen sects of Gentiles, each one of which is much distinguished from the others in so great a degree that the ones will not touch the others under pain of death or dishonour or loss of their property: and all of them have separate customs in their idol-worship, as will be set forth further on. CUSTOMS OF THE SAID KINGDOMS AND COUNTRY OF MALABAR. In the first place, the Kings of Malabar are, as has been said, Gentiles, and honour their idols: they are brown, almost white, others are darker; they go naked from the waist upwards, and from the waist downwards are covered with white cotton wraps and some of them of silk. Sometimes they clothe themselves with short jackets open in front, reaching halfway down the thigh, made of very fine cotton cloth, fine scarlet cloth, or of silk and brocade. They wear their hair tied upon the top of their heads, and sometimes long hoods like Galician casques, and they are barefooted. They shave their beards and leave the moustaches[201] very long, after the manner of the Turks. Their ears are bored, and they wear in them very precious jewels and pearls set in gold, and on their arms from the elbows upwards gold bracelets, with similar jewels and strings of very large pearls. At their wrists over their clothes they wear jewelled girdles three fingers in width, very well wrought and of great value. And on their breasts, shoulders, and foreheads, they make marks by threes with ashes, which they wear in accordance with the custom of their sect, saying that they do it to remind themselves that they have to turn to ashes: for when they die they burn their bodies, and so this ceremony continues among them. And many use it mixed with sandal wood, saffron, aloes wood, and rose water, all this ground up. When they are in their houses they always sit on high benches, and in houses without stories; these benches are very smooth, and are slightly smeared once every day with cow dung. And they keep there a stand very white and four fingers high, and a cloth of brown wool undyed, after the manner of a carpet of the size of a horsecloth[202] folded in three folds; and upon this they sit, and they lean upon pillows, round and long, of cotton, silk, or fine cloth. And they also sit on carpets of cloth of gold and silk; but they always keep under them, or near them, that cloth of brown wool, on account of their sect, and for state. And frequently they happen to be lying on couches and cushions of silk and very fine white sheets, and when any one comes to see them, they bring him this brown woollen cloth and put it near him, and when he goes out, a page carries the cloth folded before him for state and ceremony. And likewise he always keeps a sword near him, and when he changes from one spot to another, he carries it in his hand naked, as they always keep it. These kings do not marry, nor have a marriage law, only each one has a mistress, a lady of great lineage and family, which is called nayre, and said to be very beautiful and graceful. Each one keeps such a one with him near the palaces in a separate house, and gives her a certain sum each month, or each year, for expenses, and leaves her whenever she causes him discontent, and takes another. And many of them for honour's sake do not change them, nor make exchanges with them; and they seek much to please their king, for that honour and favour which they receive. And the children that are born from these mistresses are not held to be sons, nor do they inherit the kingdom, nor anything else of the king's; they only inherit the property of the mother. And whilst they are children, they are favoured by the king like children of other people whom he might be bringing up; but not like his own, because since they are men, the children are not accounted for more than as children of their mothers.[203] The king sometimes makes grants of money to them, for them to maintain themselves better than the other nobles. The heirs of these kings are their brothers, or nephews, sons of their sisters, because they hold those to be their true successors, and because they know that they were born from the body of their sisters. These do not marry, nor have fixed husbands, and are very free and at liberty in doing what they please with themselves. In this wise the lineage of the kings of this country, and the true stock, is in the women: that is to say, if a woman[204] gives birth to three or four sons and two or three daughters, the first is king, and so on, all the other brothers inherit from one another; and when all these have died, the son of the eldest sister, who is niece of the king, inherits, and so also his other heirs after him; and when these have deceased, the children of the next sister. And the kingdom always goes in this way to brothers, and nephews sons of sisters, and if by good or evil fortune these women happen not to give birth to male children, they do not consider them as capable of inheriting the kingdom; and these ladies, in such a case, all unite in council and institute some relation of theirs as king, if they have one, and if there is none, they name any other person for this office. And on this account the kings of Malabar are old men when they succeed to reign, and the nieces or sisters from whom has to proceed the lineage of the kings are held in great honour, guarded and served, and they possess revenues for their maintenance. And when one of these is of age to bring forth, on arriving at from thirteen to fourteen years, they prepare to make festivity and entertainment for her, and to make her enceinte. And they summon some young man, a nobleman and honourable person, of whom there are many deputed for this. And they send to fetch him that he may come for this purpose. And he comes, and they give him a great entertainment, and perform some ceremonies, and he ties some gold jewel to the neck of the damsel, and she wears it all her life in sign of her having performed those ceremonies, in order to be able to do with herself whatever she chooses; because, until the performance of this ceremony, she could not dispose of herself. And the before mentioned youth remains with her for some days, very well attended to, and then returns to his land. And she sometimes remains in the family way, and sometimes not, and from this time forth for her pleasure she takes some Braman, whomsoever she likes best, and these are priests among them, and of these she has as many as she likes. This King of Calicut, and so also the other kings of Malabar, when they die, are burned in the country with much sandal and aloes wood; and at the burning all the nephews and brothers and nearest relations collect together, and all the grandees of the realm, and confidantes of the king, and they lament for him and burn him. And before burning him they keep him there when dead for three days, waiting for the assembling of the above mentioned persons, that they may see him if he died of a natural death, or avenge his death if any one killed him, as they are obliged to do in case of a violent death. And they observe this ceremony very rigidly. After having burned him, all shave themselves from head to foot, excepting the eyelashes, from the prince, the heir to the throne, to the smallest child of the kingdom: that is, those who are Gentiles, and they also clean their teeth, and universally leave off eating betel for thirteen days from that time; and if in this period they find any one who eats it, his lips are cut off by the executioner. During these thirteen days the prince does not rule, nor is he enthroned as king, in order to see if in this time any one will rise up to oppose him; and when this term is accomplished, all the grandees and former governors make him swear to maintain all the laws of the late king, and to pay the debts which he owed, and to labour to recover that which other former kings had lost. And he takes this oath, holding a drawn sword in his left hand, and his right hand placed upon a chain lit up with many oil wicks, in the midst of which is a gold ring, which he touches with his fingers, and there he swears to maintain everything with that sword. When he has taken the oath, they sprinkle rice over his head, with many ceremonies of prayer and adoration to the sun, and immediately after certain counts, whom they call caymal,[205] along with all the others of the royal lineage, and the grandees, swear to him in the same manner to serve him, and to be loyal and true to him. During these thirteen days one of the caymals governs and rules the State like the king himself: he is like an accountant-general of the king, and of all the affairs of the kingdom. This office and dignity is his by right and inheritance. This person is also the chief treasurer of the kingdom, without whom the king cannot open or see the treasury; neither can the king take anything out of the treasury without a great necessity, and by the counsel of this person and several others. And all the laws and ordinances of the kingdom are in the keeping of this man. No one eats meat or fish in these thirteen days, nor may any one fish under pain of death. During that period large alms are given from the king's property, of food to many poor people, and to Bramans; and when the thirteen days are ended, all eat what they please, except the new king, who observes the same abstinence for one year, neither does he shave his beard, nor cut a hair of his head nor of his body, nor his nails: and he says prayers for certain hours of the day, and does not eat more than once a day. And before he eats he has to wash himself, and after washing, he must not drink anything until he has eaten. This king is always in the city of Calicut, in some very large palaces which he possesses outside of the city, and when the year of this mourning is accomplished, the prince who is to succeed him, and all those of the royal family and all the other grandees and nobles of the country, come to see him, and to perform a ceremony, which takes place at the end of the year, in honour of the death of his predecessor: at which great alms are given, and much money is spent in giving food to many Bramans and poor people, and to all those who come to visit him, and to their retinues, so that more than a hundred thousand people are assembled there. And on this occasion he confirms the prince as the heir, and likewise the others as his successors step by step. And he confirms to all the lords their estates, and he confirms or changes as he sees fit the governors and officers who were under the former king. And he then dismisses them, and sends each to his duties, and he sends the prince to the estates which are assigned to him. And he must not re-enter Calicut until the king dies; and all the other successors may go and come to the court, and reside with the king. When the before mentioned crown prince departs, after he has left Calicut, and on passing the bridge of a river, he takes a bow in his hand and shoots an arrow towards the residence of the king, and then says a prayer with uplifted hands in the manner of prayer, and then goes on. This prince, when he comes to visit the king at the said feast and ceremony, brings all his nobles with him, and his instruments of music, which are kettle-drums,[206] drums of many shapes, trumpets, horns, flutes, small brass plates,[207] and lutes;[208] these come making a great harmony, and the nobles in front, all drawn up in order, as they regulate processions here. That is to say, the bowmen in the van, next the lancers, after them the bearers of sword and buckler. And the king issues from the palaces and places himself at a great door, on foot, and there he stands looking at all these people who come up to him with great reverence, and do as though they worshipped him. All retire after a while, and so he remains for the space of two hours, until all have done, and the prince appears at a considerable distance[209] with a drawn sword in his hand, which he brandishes as he advances, with his face raised up, and eyes fixed upon the king. And on seeing him, he worships him and throws himself with his face upon the ground, and with outstretched arms; and he lies thus for a short time, then gets up again, and goes forward very slowly brandishing his drawn sword in his hand, and with his eyes still fixed upon the king, and at half way he does the same thing again, and the king looks at him fixedly, without making any movement, and the prince gets up again, and so arrives where the king stands: and there he again throws himself on the ground in front of him. The king then goes forward two steps and takes him by the hand, and raises him up, and so they enter both together into the palaces. The king then sits on his dais, and the prince with all the other heirs, stand in front with their drawn swords in their right hands, and their left hands placed upon their mouths out of respect, withdrawn a little from the king's dais. They speak there to the king with much reverence, without speaking to one another, and if it is necessary for one to say anything to another, they speak so softly that no one hears them: so much so, that there are two thousand men before the king in the palace, and no one hears them; and they may not spit or cough before the king. This King of Calicut keeps many clerks constantly in his palace, they are all in one room, separate and far from the king, sitting on benches, and there they write all the affairs of the king's revenue, and his alms, and the pay which is given to all, and the complaints which are presented to the king, and, at the same time, the accounts of the collectors of taxes. All this is on broad stiff leaves of the palm tree, without ink, with pens of iron: they make lines with their letters, engraven like ours. Each of these clerks has great bundles of these leaves written on, and blank, and wherever they go they carry them under their arms and the iron pen in their hand: in this way they are known to all people as scribes of the palace. And among these there are seven or eight who are great confidants of the king, and the most honoured, and who always stand before him with their pens in their hand, and writings under their arm, ready for the king's orders to do anything, as he is in the habit of doing. These clerks always have several of these leaves subscribed[210] by the king in blank, and when he commands them to despatch any business, they write it on those leaves. These accountants are persons of great credit, and most of them are old and respectable: and when they get up in the morning and want to write anything, the first time that they take the pen and the leaf in their hand, they cut a small piece off it with the knife which is at the end of the pen, and they write the names of their gods upon it and worship them towards the sun with uplifted hands; and having finished their prayer, they tear the writing and throw it away, and after that begin writing whatever they require. This king has a thousand waiting women, to whom he gives regular pay, and they are always at the court, to sweep the palaces and houses of the king: and this he does for state, because fifty would be enough to sweep. These women are of good family, they come into the palace to sweep and clean twice every day, and each one carries a broom and a brass dish with cow dung dissolved in water; and all that they sweep, after having swept it, they smear it with their right hand, giving a very thin coating, which dries immediately. And these women do not all serve, but take turns in the service; and when the king goes from one house to another, or to some temple, on foot, these women go before him with these dishes of the said cow dung, spilling it on the road by which he has to pass. And these thousand women give a great feast to the king when he newly comes to the throne, after he has finished his year of mourning and abstinence. It is fitting to know that all the thousand assemble together, both the old and the young ones, in the king's house, very much adorned with jewellery, gold belts, pearls, and many bracelets of gold, and many rings with precious stones, and ankle rings of gold on their legs, and dressed from the waist downwards with very rich silk stuffs, and others of very fine cotton, and from the waist upwards bare, and anointed with sandal and perfumes, and their hair wreathed with flowers, and rings of gold and precious stones in their ears, the feet bare, as they always are accustomed to be. And they have there all sorts of musical instruments, and many guns and other fireworks of various kinds. Many nobles who accompany them come there very smart and gay, and are their admirers: and seven or eight elephants covered with silk housings and small bells in great quantity hanging to them, and large chains of iron suspended from their backs. And the ladies take an idol for their protector,[211] and put it on the top of the biggest elephant, and a priest who carries it in his arms sits on the back of the elephant. So they set out in procession with their music and rejoicing, and much firing of guns, going along a very broad street to a house of prayer. There they lower the idol which is to be seen with another which is in that temple, and they perform to them great ceremonies, and many people assemble to see and adore those idols, and pay honour to their images. These thousand women have each got a brass dish full of rice, and on the top of the rice lamps full of oil, with many lighted wicks, and between the chandeliers are many flowers. And at nightfall they set out from the temple with their idol for the king's palace, where they have to place it; and all come in procession before the idol which is set upon the elephant, in bands of eight, with the before mentioned salvers, and many men accompany them with oil, with which they replenish the lamps. And the nobles, their admirers, go along with them, talking to them with much courtesy; and they remove the perspiration from the ladies' faces, and from time to time put into their mouths the betel, which both men and women are constantly eating; and they fan them with fans, because their hands are fully occupied with the salvers. And all the instruments are sounding, and there is a great firing of rockets, and they carry some burning shrubs, so that it is a very pretty sight. Also at night some gentlemen go in front of the idol inflicting wounds with their swords upon their own heads and shoulders, and shouting like madmen, and foaming at the mouth like persons possessed: and they say that the gods enter into them and make them do this. Many tumblers and buffoons also go along performing feats of agility, and the governors and chief men of the city go there to direct and arrange that procession, which is conducted with much order until it arrives at the king's palace, where it disperses. This king is for the most part sitting on his dais, and sometimes his confidential advisers are there, rubbing his arms and legs, or his body, and a page with a napkin round his neck full of betel, which he gives him to chew, and sometimes it is kept in a gilt and coloured casket edged with silver, and at times in a gold plate, and the page gives it to him leaf by leaf, smeared with a little lime of sea shells diluted with rose water, like a sauce, which he keeps in a small box[212] of gold; and he also gives him areca, which is a small fruit, cut into pieces, and he chews it all together; and it colours his mouth, and what he spits is like blood. And another page holds in his hand a large gold cup, into which he spits the juice of that leaf which he does not swallow, and he washes his mouth from time to time, so that he is almost always munching these leaves. His manner of eating is that no one sees him eat: only four or five servants wait upon him. First of all, when he wishes to eat, he bathes in a pool of water which he has in his palaces, very clean and prettily kept; and there, when undressed, he performs his ceremonies and worships three times to the east, and walks three times round, and plunges three more times under the water, and after that dresses in clean clothes, each time fresh washed; and then he goes and sits in the place which he has appointed for eating, the ground having been swept, or on a very low, round stand. There they bring him a large silver tray, and upon it are many small silver saucers, all empty. And they are set before him on the ground upon another low stand: and the cook comes, who is a Braman, and brings a copper pot with cooked rice, which is very dry and entire, and with a spoon they take it out, and make a pile of it in the middle of the said large tray; afterwards they bring many other pans with divers viands, and put portions of them into the small saucers. He then begins to eat with the right hand, taking handfuls of the rice without a spoon, and with the same hand he takes some of all the dishes and mixes it with the rice; and with his left hand he must not touch anything of what he eats; and they set near him a silver pitcher of water; and when he wants to drink, he takes it with the left hand, and raises it in the air, and pours the water into his mouth in a small jet; thus he drinks without the pitcher touching his mouth;[213] and the viands which they give him, both of flesh and fish, or vegetables and herbs, are done with so much pepper, so that no one from our parts could endure them in his mouth. And he never cleans his right hand, nor uses a napkin or cloth for that, whilst eating, until he has done eating, when he washes his hand. And if, during his meals, there should be present with him any honourable Bramans, in his confidence, he bids them eat there apart from himself on the ground; and they set before them leaves of the Indian fig-tree, which are very large and stiff, a leaf for each man, and upon these they set food before them, the same as for the king; and he who is not going to eat there goes away, because no one else may be where the king eats; and when he has ended his meal, the king returns to his dais, and is almost always chewing betel. Whenever the king goes out of the palace to amuse himself, or to pray to some idol, all his gentlemen are summoned who are in waiting, and also the minstrels, and they carry the king in a litter, which is borne by men, and is covered with silk stuffs and jewels. Many jugglers and tumblers go before the king, with whom he amuses himself, and he stops frequently to look at them, and praises the one who performs best. And one Braman carries a sword and shield, and another a long gold sword, and another a sword in his right hand, which the King of all Malabar, who went to die at Mekkah, left behind him; and in his left hand a weapon which is like a fleur-de-lis. And on each side go two men with two fans, very long and round, and two others with two fans made of white tails of animals, which are like horses, and which are much valued amongst them, set on gold spears; these men fan the king, and close to them is a page with a gold pitcher full of water, and on the left side another with a silver one; and a page with a napkin, for when the king wishes to clean his nose, or if he touch his eyes or mouth, they pour water and wash his fingers, and the other gives him the napkin to dry them; they also carry vases, in which the king spits the betel. His nephews, governors, and other lords go along with him, and all accompany him with their swords drawn and shields. And a great quantity of buffoons, musicians, tumblers, and musqueteers firing guns accompany the king; and if he goes by night, they carry four large chandeliers of iron full of oil with many lighted wicks. ON THE FASHION OF JUSTICE IN THE KINGDOM OF MALABAR. In the said city of Calicut there is a governor, whom they call Talaxe, a gentleman appointed by the king,[214] who has under him five thousand gentlemen, to whom he pays their salaries from the revenue, which is assigned for that purpose. This person administers justice in the city of Calicut, and gives an account of everything to the king. And justice is administered according to the qualities of the persons, because there are divers sects and laws amongst them; that is to say, of gentlemen, Chetres, Guzurates, Brabares, who are very honourable people; and thence downwards there are also divers sects of low and base people who are all serfs of the king, or of the other lords and governors of the country. And if any of these low people commits a robbery, concerning which a complaint has been made to the king or to the governor, they send to take the robber, and if they find the thing stolen in his hands, or if he confess that he did it, if he is a Gentile, they take him to a place where they carry out executions, and there they set some high posts with sharp points and a small stand, through which passes one of those points; and there they cut off his head with a sword, and spit him through the back and the pit of the stomach, and that point comes out about a cubit, and on it they also spit his head. And they tie ropes to his legs and arms, and fasten them to four posts, so that the limbs are stretched out and the body on its back upon the stand. And if the malefactor is a Moor, they take him to a field, and there kill him by stabbing him; and the stolen property is appropriated to the governor without its owner recovering anything; because their law so disposes, doing justice on the thief. And if the stolen property is found and the thief escapes, it is for a certain number of days in the charge of the governor; and if during that time they do not catch the thief, they return the stolen goods to its owner, a fourth part of it, however, remaining for the governor; and if the thief denies the robbery, they keep him eight days in prison, making his life uncomfortable, to see if he will confess, and throwing him his food; and when the eight days are passed without his confessing, they call the accuser, and he is told that the accused does not confess, and they ask him if he requires them to take his oath or let him go. If the accuser then requires the accused to swear, they make him wash and commend himself to his gods, and eat no betel, and cleanse his teeth from the blackness caused by the betel, in order that he may swear next day, and that he may prepare himself for it. Next day they take him out of prison, and take him to a pool of water where he washes, performing his ceremony, and from there they take him to a house of prayer where his idols are kept, before which he takes his oath in this manner. It must be known that, if he is a Gentile, they heat a copper-pot full of oil until it boils, and they throw in a few leaves of trees, and with the great heat of the pot the leaves fly out, and this is in order that the parties may see that the oil is hot and boiling; and then two scribes come near, and take the right hand of the accused and look if he has any wound of itch or other disease, and write down in what condition his hand is, in the presence of the party. Then they bid him look at the idol, and say three times "I did not commit this theft of which I am accused, nor do I know who did it," and then put his two fingers up to the middle joints in the oil which is boiling upon the fire; and he does so; and they say that if he did not commit the theft, that he does not burn himself, and that if he did it, he burns his fingers. [And then the scribes, and governor and party, look at him again, and the scribes write down the condition in which his hand is, and they tie it up with a cloth whether it is burned or not, and put seals on the fastenings of the cloth, and send him back to prison. And three days later, all return to the same place where the oath was taken, and they untie his hand before the governor and party, and if they find it burned they kill him, but first give him so many torments that they make him confess where he has got the stolen property, or that he did it. And even if he does not confess, all the same he suffers the penalty because his hand was burned; and if they find his hand not burned, then they let him go, and he who accused him pays a certain sum as a fine to the governor. And they have the same method for him who kills another, or for him who kills a cow, or raises his hand in anger against Bramans or noblemen. And this is to be understood as amongst the Gentile peasants and low people. And if it is a Moor who does such things, he passes through the same examinations, only that instead of putting his fingers in oil, they make him lick with his tongue a red-hot axe, and if he does not burn himself he remains free, and if he burns his tongue he suffers death. And if any of the common people, whether Gentiles or Moors, commit other offences for which they do not deserve death, they punish them with a pecuniary penalty for the governor, and this produces much revenue to him; and he lays hold of vagabonds as slaves, and he has the power of selling them, and sells them without any opposition whatever, at a price of from four to five ducats. The nobles enjoy exemption and the privilege, that they cannot be taken and put in irons for anything which they do. And if a noble were to rob or kill any one, or kill a cow, or were to sleep with a woman of low caste, or of the Bramans, or if he eat or drank in the house of a low caste man, or spoke ill of his king--this being established by his own words--they call three or four honourable gentlemen in whom the king places confidence, and he bids them go and kill this noble wherever they may meet with him, and they give them a warrant[215] signed by the king for them to kill him without penalty. They then kill him with daggers or spears, or shoot him with arrows, because at times these men who are accused are such that before being put to death, they wound two or three of the slaughterers, if they have been forewarned. And after he is dead they lay him on his back and place that king's warrant upon his breast. And if they kill him in the country they leave him there, and no one comes near him, so that the fowls and dogs devour him. And if they kill him in the city, the people of the street where he lies dead go and beg the king to order his removal; and the king gives the orders, sometimes as a favour, sometimes with a fine.[216]] And if any noble comes to the king or to the governor, and complains to him of any other noble who has robbed or murdered or done any other evil deed, the governor reports it to the king, and the king gives orders to summon the accused, and if he absents himself they hold him guilty, and he is ordered to be executed in the same manner without further investigation. And if he presents himself, they summon the accuser, and examine both of them together. And the accuser takes a small branch of a tree or green herbs in his hand, and says, such a one did such a thing; the other one takes another branch, and denies it. The king then bids them return eight days thenceforward to the house of the governor to take oath and prove that which each one asserts; and so they depart, and return on the day fixed to the house of the governor, where the accused swears in the manner already described with boiling butter, and having concluded taking the oath, they tie up his fingers as has been said, and both of them are detained in a house under a guard, so that neither of them can run away. And on the third day they untie his fingers, and clear up the truth, and if they find the fingers burned, they kill the accused; and not finding them injured, they kill the accuser. And if the accused is not of as great value, they do not kill the accuser, on whom in such case they inflict a pecuniary penalty and that of banishment. And if such a noble was accused of a great robbery of the king's property, they have him imprisoned in a close room and well guarded, and conduct him thence to take the oath. In this kingdom of Calicut there is another governor, who is like the chief justice of all the kingdom, with the exception of the city of Calicut. This chief justice is called Coytoro tical carnaver; he has his lieutenants in all the villages, to whom he farms the administration of justice: that is to say, the fines, not capital penalties. And people come to this chief justice for any injury, and he gives an account of it and reports to the king, and renders justice in the manner followed at Calicut. In this kingdom of Calicut no women ever die by sentence of law for any offence whatever; they are only subject to pecuniary penalties. And if any woman of Nayr family should offend against the law of her sect, and the king know of it before her relations and brothers, he commands her to be taken and sold out of the kingdom to Moors or Christians. And if her male relations or sons know of it first, they shut her up and kill her with dagger or spear wounds, saying that if they did not do so they would remain greatly dishonoured. And the king holds this to be well done. SECTION OF THE BRAMANS AND THEIR CUSTOMS. The Gentile Bramans are priests all of one lineage, and others cannot be priests, but only their own sons. And when these are seven years old, they put round their necks a strap two fingers in width of an animal which they call Cressua-mergan,[217] with its hair, which is like a wild ass; and they command him not to eat betel for seven years, and all this time he wears that strap round the neck, passing under the arm, and when he reaches fourteen years of age they make him a Braman, removing from him the leather strap round his neck, and putting on another of three threads, which he wears all his life as a mark of being a Braman. And they do this with much ceremony and festivity, just as here at the first mass,[218] and from this time forward he may eat betel. They do not eat flesh nor fish, they are much reverenced and honoured by the Indians, and they are not executed for any offence which they may commit: but their chief, who is like a bishop, chastises them in moderation. They marry only once, and only the eldest brother has to be married, and of him is made a head of the family like a sole heir by entail,[219] and all the others remain bachelors, and never marry. The eldest is the heir of all the property. These Bramans, the elder brothers, keep their wives very well guarded, and in great esteem, and no other man can approach them; and if any of the married ones die, the person who becomes widowed does not marry again. And if the wife commits adultery, the husband kills her with poison. These young men who do not marry, nor can marry, sleep with the wives of the nobles, and these women hold it as a great honour because they are Bramans, and no woman refuses them. And they must not sleep with any woman older than themselves. And these live in their houses and estates, and they have great houses of prayer, in which they do service as abbots, and whither they go to recite their prayers at fixed times of the day, and worship their idols and perform their ceremonies. And these temples have their principal doors to the west, and each temple has three doors, and in front of the principal gate, outside of it, is a stone of the height of a man, with three steps all round it, and in front of that stone inside the church is a small chapel, very dark, inside of which they keep their idol, of gold, silver, or metal, and three lamps burning. And no one may enter there except the minister of that church, who goes in to set before the idol flowers and scented herbs, and they anoint it with sandal and rose water, and take it out once in the morning, and another time in the evening with sound of trumpets and drums, and horns. And he who takes it out first washes thoroughly, and carries it on his head with the face looking backwards, and they walk with it three times in procession round the church, and certain wives of the Bramans carry lighted lamps in front, and each time that they reach the principal door, they set the idol on that stone and there worship it, and perform certain ceremonies; and having ended the three turns with music and rejoicing, they again place it in the chapel, and each day they do this twice, by day and at night. And around this church there is a stone wall, between which and the church they walk in the before mentioned procession, and they carry over the idol a very lofty canopy upon a very long bamboo for state as for kings. They place all the offerings upon the stone before the principal gate of the temple, and twice a day it is washed, and they set cooked rice upon it to feed the crows twice a day with great ceremony. These Bramans greatly honour the number trine: they hold that there is a God in three persons, and who is not more than one. All their prayers and ceremonies are in honour of the trinity, and they, so to say, figure it in their rites, and the name by which they call it is this, Berma Besnu Maycereni, who are three persons and one sole god,[220] Thus they confess him to be from the beginning of the world. They have no knowledge or information of the coming of Jesus Christ. They believe many more vain things, which they speak of. These people each time that they wash put some ashes upon their heads, foreheads and breasts, in token that they have to turn again into ashes; and when they die they have their bodies burned. When the wife of a Braman is in the family way, as soon as the husband knows it he cleans his teeth, and eats no more betel nor trims his beard, and fasts until his wife gives birth to her child. The kings make great use of these Bramans for many things, except in deeds of arms. Only Bramans can cook the king's food, or else men of the king's own family, and so all the king's relations have this same custom of having their food cooked by Bramans. These are the messengers who go on the road from one kingdom to another, with letters and money and merchandise, because they pass in safety in all parts, without any one molesting them, even though the kings may be at war. These Bramans are well read in the law of their idolatry, and possess many books, and are learned and masters of many arts: and so the kings honour them as such. SECTION OF THE NAIRS OF MALABAR, WHO ARE THE GENTRY, AND THEIR CUSTOMS. In these kingdoms of Malabar there is another sect of people called nairs, who are the gentry, and have no other duty than to carry on war, and they continually carry their arms with them, which are swords, bows, arrows, bucklers, and lances. They all live with the kings, and some of them with other lords, relations of the king, and lords of the country, and with the salaried governors; and with one another. And no one can be a nair if he is not of good lineage. They are very smart men, and much taken up with their nobility. They do not associate with any peasant, and neither eat nor drink except in the houses of other nairs. These people accompany their lords day and night; little is given them for eating and sleeping, and for serving and doing their duty; and frequently they sleep upon a bare bench to wait for the person whom they serve, and sometimes they do not eat more than once a day; and they have small expenses for they have little pay. Many of them content themselves with about two hundred maravedis[221] each month for themselves and the servant that attends to them. These are not married nor maintain women or children; their nephews the sons of their sisters are their heirs. The nair women are all accustomed to do with themselves what they please with bramans or nairs, but not with other people of lower class under pain of death. After they are ten or twelve years old or more, their mothers perform a marriage ceremony for them in this manner. They advise the relations and friends that they may come to do honour to their daughters, and they beg some of their relations and friends to marry these daughters, and they do so. It must be said they have a small gold jewel made, which will contain half a ducat of gold, a little shorter than the tag of a lace, with a hole in the middle passing through it, and they string it on a thread of white silk; and the mother of the girl stands with her daughter very much dressed out, entertaining her with music and singing, and a number of people. And this relation or friend of hers comes with much earnestness, and there performs the ceremony of marriage, as though he married with her, and they throw a gold chain round the necks of both of them together, and he puts the above mentioned jewel round her neck, which she always has to wear as a sign that she may now do what she pleases.[222] And the bridegroom leaves her, and goes away without touching her nor having more to say to her, on account of being her relation; and if he is not so, he may remain with her if he wish it, but he is not bound to do so if he do not desire it. And from that time forward the mother goes begging some young men, "que le desvirguen aquella hija, porque lo an entre sy por cosa sucia y casi vileza a desvirgar mugeres." And after she is already a woman the mother goes about seeking who will take her daughter to live with him. But when she is very pretty three or four nairs join together and agree to maintain her, and to live all of them with her; and the more she has the more highly is she esteemed, and each man has his appointed day from midday till next day at the same hour, when the other comes; and so she passes her life without anyone thinking ill of it. And he who wishes to leave her, does so whenever he pleases, and goes to take another. And if she takes a dislike to any of them she dismisses him. The children which she has remain at the expense of the mother and of the brothers of the mother, who bring them up, because they do not know the fathers, and even if they should appear to belong to any persons in particular, they are not recognised by them as sons, nor do they give anything for them. And it is said that the kings made this law in order that the nairs should not be covetous, and should not abandon the king's service.[223] These nairs, besides being all of noble descent, have to be armed as knights by the hand of the king, or lord with whom they live, and until they have been so equipped they cannot bear arms nor call themselves nairs, but they enjoy the freedom and exemption and advantages of the nairs in many things. In general when these nairs are seven years of age they are immediately sent to school to learn all manner of feats of agility and gymnastics for the use of their weapons. First they learn to dance, and then to tumble, and for that purpose they render supple all their limbs from their childhood, so that they can bend them in any direction. And after they have exercised in this, they teach them to manage the weapons which suit each one most. That is to say bows, clubs, or lances; and most of them are taught to use the sword and buckler, which is of more common use among them. In this fencing there is much agility and science. And there are very skilful men who teach this art, and they are called Panicars;[224] these are captains in war. These nairs when they enlist to live with the king, bind themselves and promise to die for him; and they do likewise with any other lord from whom they receive pay. This law is observed by some and not by others; but their obligation constrains them to die at the hands of anyone who should kill the king or their lord: and some of them so observe it; so that if in any battle their lord should be killed, they go and put themselves in the midst of the enemies who killed him, even should those be numerous, and he alone by himself dies there: but before falling he does what he can against them; and after that one is dead another goes to take his place, and then another: so that sometimes ten or twelve nayrs die for their lord. And even if they were not present with him when he was killed, they go and seek him who killed him, or the king who ordered him to be killed: and so one by one they all die. And if anyone is in apprehension of another man, he takes some of these nairs, as many as he pleases, into his pay; and they accompany and guard him; and on their account he goes securely, since no one dares to molest him; because if he were molested they and all their lineage would take vengeance on him who should cause this molestation. These guards are called Janguada:[225] and there are some people who sometimes take so many of these nairs, and of such quality, that on their account they no longer fear the king, who would not venture to command the execution of a man who was guarded by these, in order not to expose many nairs to danger for it. And even if the nairs were not in his company when the man they guard was killed, they would not any the less revenge his death. These nayrs live outside the towns, separate from other people, on their estates which are fenced in. They have there all that they require; they do not drink wine. When they go anywhere they shout to the peasants that they may get out of the way where they have to pass; and the peasants do so, and if they did not do it the nayrs might kill them without penalty. If a young man of family who is very poor meets a rich and respectable peasant, one favoured by the king, he makes him get out of the road in the same manner, as if he were a king. These nayrs have great privileges in this matter, and the nayr women even greater with the peasants, and the nairs with the peasant women. This, they say, is done to avoid all opportunity of mixing their blood with that of peasants. And if a peasant were by misfortune to touch a nayr lady, her relations would immediately kill her and likewise the man that touched her, and all his relations. When these nayrs order any work to be done by the peasants, or buy anything of them which they take, being between man and man, they are not exposed to any other penalty on touching one another than the not being able to enter their houses without first washing themselves and changing their clothes for others that are clean. And likewise as regards the nair women and the peasant women: these practices are more observed in the country. No nair woman ever enters the towns under pain of death except once a year, when they may go for one night with their nayrs wherever they like. On that night more than twenty thousand nair women enter Calicut to see the town, which is full of lamps in all the streets, which the inhabitants set there to do honour to the nairs, and all the streets are hung with cloth. And the nair women come in to see the houses of their friends and of their husbands, and there they receive presents and entertainment, and are invited to eat betel: and it is held to be a great politeness to receive it from friends. Some of them come wrapped up,[226] and others uncovered; and the women relations of the kings and great lords come also to see the city on this night, and to walk about it, looking at the property of the great merchants, from whom they receive presents, in order that they may favour them with the king. Those nayrs whom the king has received as his, he never dismisses however old they may be; on the contrary, they always receive their pay and rations, and he grants favours to whoever has served well. And if some years should pass without their being paid, some four or five hundred of the aggrieved rise up, and go in a body to the palace, and send word to the king that they are going away dismissed, to take service with another king, because he does not give them food. Then the king sends to beg them to have patience, and that he will send and pay them immediately. And if he does not immediately give them a third part of what is due, and an order for the payment of the rest, they go away to another king, wherever it appears to them that they can best suit themselves; and they engage with him, and he receives them willingly, and gives them food for thirteen days before he has them enrolled for pay. And during this time this king sends to inquire of their king if he intends to send and pay them; and if he does not pay them, then he receives them in his pay, and gives them the same allowances which they had in their own country, from which and from their king in such a case they remain disnaturalized. And many undertake, but few perform this, because their king grants them a remedy, and holds it to be a great disgrace should they go away. When these nayrs go to the wars their pay is served out to them every day as long as the war lasts; it is four taras per day each man, which are worth five maravedis each,[227] with which they provide for themselves. And during the time that they are at war, they may touch any peasant, and eat and drink with them in their houses, without any penalty. And the king is obliged to maintain the mother and family of any nayr who may die in the war, and those persons are at once written down for their maintenance. And if these nayrs are wounded, the king has them cured at his expense, besides their pay, and has food given them all their lives, or until they are cured of their wounds. These nayrs show much respect to their mothers,[228] and support them with what they gain, because besides their allowances, most of them possess houses and palm trees and estates, and some houses let to peasants, which have been granted by the king to them or to their uncles, and which remain their property. They also have much respect for their elder sisters, whom they treat as mothers. And they do not enter into a room with those that are young girls, nor touch them nor speak to them, saying that it would give occasion to sin with them, because they are younger and have less understanding, which could not happen with the elder ones, on account of the respect they have for them. These nair women every month set themselves apart in their houses for three days without approaching anyone; at which time a woman has to prepare her food in separate pots and pans. And when the three days are ended, she bathes with hot water which is brought there, and after bathing dresses in clean clothes, and so goes out of the house to a pool of water and bathes again, and again leaves those clean clothes, and takes other fresh ones, and so returns home, and talks with her mother and sisters and the other people. And the room where she was for those three days is well swept and wetted, and plastered with cow dung, because otherwise no one would dwell there. These women when they are confined, three days afterwards are washed with hot water, and after getting up from their confinement they bathe many times each day from head to foot. They do no business, eat the bread of idleness, and only get their food to eat by means of their bodies: because besides each one having three or four men who provide for them, they do not refuse themselves to any braman or nayr who pays them. They are very clean and well dressed women, and they hold it in great honour to know how to please men. They have a belief amongst them that the woman who dies a virgin does not go to paradise.[229] SECTION OF THE BRABARES WHO ARE MERCHANTS OF THE KINGDOM OF MALABAR, OF THEIR CUSTOMS AND SECT. In this kingdom of Calicut, and in all the other Malabar kingdoms, there is a sect of gentile merchants who are called amongst them brabares, who trafficked also before foreign persons came to port or navigated in these seas. These still deal, especially in the interior, in all sorts of goods, and collect all the pepper and ginger from the nayrs and cultivators, and frequently buy them in advance in exchange for cotton stuffs, and other goods which come from beyond the sea. These people are also great changers, and gain much upon coin. They enjoy such freedom in this country that the kings cannot sentence them to death, but the chief men of these brabares assemble together in council, and having arrived at the knowledge that the offender deserves death, they kill him, the king having information thereof: and if the king knows first of the offence before them, he informs them of it, and they kill him with dagger or lance thrusts. For the most part they are very rich people, and possess in the country many estates inherited from old times. They marry only one wife in our fashion, and their sons are their immediate heirs; and when they die their bodies are burned, and their wives accompany the body weeping for him: and she takes from her neck a small gold jewel which he gave her when he married her, and she throws it into the fire upon him, and then returns to her house, and never more can be married, however young she may be. And if she were to die before her husband he has her burned, and may marry again. These people are of as pure lineage as the nairs, men and women, and they may touch one another. SECTION OF THE CUJAVEN, WHO ARE POTTERS AND WORKERS OF CLAY. There is another sect of people among the Indians of Malabar, which is called Cujaven, and which is only separated from the nayrs on account of a fault which they committed.[230] For this reason they remained as a separate sect. Their business is to work at baked clay, and tiles for covering houses, with which the temples and Royal buildings are roofed; and by law no other persons may roof their houses except with palm branches. Their idolatry and their idols are different from those of the others; and in their houses of prayer they perform a thousand acts of witchcraft and necromancy; they call their temples pagodes, and they are separate from the others. Their descendants cannot take any other sect nor any other occupation. In their marriages they follow the law of the nayrs. The nayrs may cohabit with their women, provided that they do not re-enter their houses without washing themselves from that sin, and putting on a change of clean garments. SECTION OF THE WASHERMEN. In this country there is another sect of gentiles whom they call manatamar,[231] and their business is only to wash the clothes of the bramans, kings, and nayrs; and they live by this business, and they cannot adopt other employments, nor can their descendants. The men are those that wash, and they wash in their houses in large tanks and reservoirs which they have got for this purpose. They have constantly in their houses such a large quantity of clothes to wash, both of their own and of strangers, that they hire out many of them day by day to the nayrs who have not got their own, and they pay so much a day for them when clean; and so each day they return them the dirty ones, and fetch away clean clothes. And the clothes have to be suitable to each person. They wash for a great many people for money, so that they serve all with cleanliness, and they all gain their livelihoods very sufficiently. Their lineage does not mix with any other, neither can any other with theirs; only the nayrs can have mistresses from amongst the women of this lineage, with the condition that each time that they approach them, they have to bathe themselves and change their garments before entering their houses. These washermen have got idolatries of their own, and their houses of prayer are separate, and they believe in many extravagant things. They marry like the nairs, their brothers and nephews inherit their property, and they do not recognise their sons. SECTION OF THE WEAVERS OF THE MALABAR COUNTRY. There is another set of gentiles, still lower, whom they call chalien, who are weavers and have no other business except to weave cloths of cotton, and some of silk, which are of little value, and are used by the common people. And these also have a sect and form of idolatry apart. Their lineage does not mix with any others; only the nairs may have mistresses amongst the women of these people, so that they do not enter their houses without bathing and changing their clothes, whenever they have visited them. Many of these are sons of nairs, and so they are very fine men in their figures; and they bear arms like the nayrs and go to the wars, and fight very well. In marriages they have the law of the nairs, and their sons do not inherit. Their wives have the power of doing what they please with themselves with the nairs, or with other weavers: and they cannot mix with any other lineage under pain of death.[232] SECTION OF LOW PEOPLE: ZIVIL TIVER. Of low people zevil tiver,[233] there are eleven sects, which no respectable people touch under pain of death: and between each other there is a great difference and separation, and one family does not mix with another. The best of these are labourers, whom they call tiver. Their principal employment is to till the palm trees, and gather their fruits; and to carry everything for hire from one point to another, because they are not in the habit of transporting them with beasts of burden, as there are none: and they hew stone, and gain their livelihood by all kinds of labour. Some of them learn the use of arms, and fight in the wars when it is necessary. They all carry a staff in their hand of a fathom's length as a sign of their lineage. Most of them are serfs of the nayrs, to whom the king of the country gives them, in order that their masters may be supported by their labour, and these protect and shew favour to these slaves. These people have an idolatry of their own, and believe in their idols. Their nephews are their heirs, and their sons do not inherit, because the wives whom they marry get their livelihood with their bodies, and give themselves to the Moors, natives of the country, and also to foreigners of all kinds; and this very publicly, and with the knowledge of their husbands who give them opportunities for so doing. They make wines in the country, and they alone can sell it. They take much care not to touch other people lower than themselves; and live separate from other people. Of this sect sometimes two brothers have one wife only and both of them live with her. MOGUER. I find another sect of people still lower, moguer, which they call moguer,[234] who are almost like the tivers, but they do not touch one another. These are the people who transport the king's property from one place to another when he moves. There are very few of these in the country, they have a sect of their own, and have no law of marriage; their wives are public for all, and for strangers. These people for the most part get their living at sea, they are mariners and fishermen. They have a separate idolatry: they are slaves of the kings and nayrs and bramans. There are some of them very rich men who have got ships with which they navigate, for they gain much money with the Moors. Their nephews are their heirs, and not their sons, because they do not marry. They take care not to touch other people lower than themselves. These people live in separate villages: their women are very pretty, and whiter than others of this country, because they are for the most part daughters of foreigners who are white: they are very smartly dressed and adorned with gold. CANION. There is another lower set of gentiles called canion. Their business is to make shields and shades[235]: they learn letters and astronomy, and some of them are great astrologers, and they foretell many future things, and form very accurate judgments upon the births of men. Kings and great persons send to call them, and come out of their palaces to the gardens and pleasure grounds to see them and ask them what they desire to know: and these people form judgments upon these things in a few days, and return to those that asked of them, but they may not enter the palaces, nor may they approach the king's person on account of being low people. And the king is then alone with them. They are great diviners, and pay great attention to times and places of good and bad luck, which they cause to be observed by these kings and great men, and by the merchants also: and they take care to do their business at the times which these astrologers advise them, and they do the same in their voyages and marriages. And by this means these men gain a great deal. They reckon the months, seasons, signs and planets as we do, except that they have months of twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one and thirty-two days: and their first month of the year is April. From May till the middle of October they have their winter, and during this time it rains much in that country, and there are frequent storms, without any cold: and from the middle of October till the end of April is the summer, of great heat and little wind. And on the coast there are many land breezes, and frequent changes in the sea breezes. They navigate their ships in the summer, and in the winter they draw them up on shore, and cover them up on account of the heavy falls of rain. AJARE. Another lower lineage amongst these gentiles is called ajare. Their business is that of quarry men and carpenters, and others are blacksmiths, carvers of metals, and silversmiths. These are all of a sect different from the idolatry of the other people. These people marry and their sons inherit their property and employments which they teach them from their childhood. They are slaves of the king and the nairs, and very skilful in their business. MUCOA. There is another lower sect of gentiles called mucoa, who are fishermen and mariners, without other business. They sail in ships of moors and gentiles, and are quite at home on the sea: they also live in separate villages. They are great thieves, and shameless: they marry and their children inherit, and their wives sleep with whom they like without their thinking ill of it. They have a separate sect and form of idolatry, and are also slaves of the king and the nayrs of the country. They do not pay any duty on the fresh fish which they sell, and if they dry it they pay four per cent. duty: and the fresh fish is very cheap. This is the chief food in use amongst the Indians, for they are people who eat very little meat on account of the country being very populous[236] and of few flocks. There are some of these fishermen who are very rich and well supplied, they have large houses and property. The king takes them when he pleases, and puts much pressure on them because they are slaves. BETUA. There is another lower sect of gentiles called betua. Their business is to make salt, to plough and sow rice, and they do not live by anything else: they have houses in the country apart from the roads where respectable people pass. These people have a form of idolatry of their own: they also are slaves of the king and of the nayrs. They live very miserably: the nayrs make them keep far aloof from them, and speak to them from a great distance: they have no intercourse with other people. They are married and their children inherit. PANEU. There is another sect even lower of these people, called paneu,[237] who are great practisers of witchcraft, and they do not gain their living by anything else than charms. They visibly speak with devils who put themselves within them, and make them do awful things. When any king falls ill of fevers or any other illness, he immediately sends to call these men and women; of whom the most accomplished charmers come with their wives and children. Twenty-two families establish their dwellings at the gate of the palace of the king, or house of the person who is suffering, and has sent to call them: and there they set up a tent of coloured cloth in which they all place themselves. And there they paint their bodies with colours, and make crowns of painted paper and cloth, and other inventions of many sorts, with plenty of flowers and herbs, and great bonfires, and lighted lamps, and kettle-drums, trumpets, horns, and lutes, which they sound; and in this manner they come out of the tent two and two, with their swords in their hands, shouting and jumping, and running about the place or the court of the palace, and they jump upon one another's backs, and go on this way for some time, sticking one another with knives, and pushing one another naked and barefooted into the fire, until they are tired; and so they come out both men and boys two and two together to do the same thing again: and the women shout and sing with a great noise. And they go on this way for two or three days, night and day, always performing together, and they make rings of earth, and lines of red ochre and white clay, and spread upon them rice and flowers of various colours, and put lights all round, and go on this way until the devil, for whose service they do all this, enters into one of them, and makes him say what the king is suffering from, and what must be done to cure him. And then they tell it to the king, and he remains satisfied and gives them many presents, and does what they tell him, either as to making offerings to their idols, or any other matter which they enjoin him to do. And so he gets well by the work of the devil, to whom they all belong. These also live separated from intercourse with the nayrs and respectable people, and do not touch any other sect. They are great hunters and archers: they kill many boars and stags upon which they maintain themselves. They are married and their children inherit. RENOLENI. There is another sect of people still lower, who are called renoleni,[238] who live in the mountains very poorly and miserably. And they have no other occupation than bringing wood and grass to the city for sale, to support themselves. And these people have no intercourse with any others, nor others with them, under pain of death; and they go naked, covering only their middles, many of them do so with only leaves of trees, and some with small and very dirty cloths. They marry and their children are their heirs. The women wear much brass on their ears, necks, arms, and legs, in bracelets, rings, and beads. PULER. There is another lower sect of gentiles called puler.[239] These are held as excommunicated and accursed; they live in swampy fields and places where respectable people cannot go: they have very small and abject huts, and plough and sow the fields with rice, they use buffaloes and oxen. They do not speak to the nairs, except from a long way off, as far as they can be heard speaking with a loud voice. When they go along the road they shout, so that whoever comes may speak to them, and that they may withdraw from the roads, and put themselves on the mountains. And whatever woman or man should touch these, their relations immediately kill them like a contaminated thing: and they kill so many of these pulers until they are weary of it, without any penalty. These low people during certain months of the year try as hard as they can to touch some of the nair women, as best they may be able to manage it, and secretly by night, to do harm. So they go by night amongst the houses of the nayrs to touch women, and these take many precautions against this injury during this season. And if they touch any woman, even though no one see it, and though there should be no witnesses, she, the nair woman herself, publishes it immediately, crying out, and leaves her house without choosing to enter it again to damage her lineage. And what she most thinks of doing is to run to the house of some low people, to hide herself, that her relations may not kill her as a remedy for what has happened, or sell her to some strangers as they are accustomed to do. And touching is in this manner, that even if there is no contact from one person to another, yet by throwing anything, such as a stone or a stick, if the person is hit by it, he remains touched and lost. These people are great charmers, thieves, and very vile people. PARENI.[240] There is yet another sect of people among them still lower, who live in desert places, called pareni. These likewise do not converse with any one. They are looked upon as worse than the devil, and as altogether condemned:[241] so that by looking at them only they consider themselves as defiled and excommunicated, which they call contaminated. They support themselves on yname, which is like the root of the maize which is found in the island of Antilla, and on other roots and wild fruits, and they cover themselves with leaves and eat the flesh of wild animals. And with these ends the diversity of the sects of the gentiles, which are in all eighteen, each one by itself: they live without intercourse or intermarriage of one with another. OTHER KINDS OF PEOPLE. In these kingdoms of Malabar, besides the races of the kings and gentiles and natives of the country, there are other foreign people who are merchants and traders in this country, in which they possess houses and estates; and they live like natives of the country, and observe their own sect and customs, which are the following. CHETIS. Some of these are called Chetis,[242] who are gentiles, natives of the province of Cholmender, which will be mentioned further on. For the most part they are brown men, and some of them are almost white; they are tall and stout. These people are considerable merchants and changers, they deal in precious stones of all sorts, and in seed pearl, coral, and other valuable merchandise; and in gold, silver, either bullion or coined, which is a great article of trade amongst them, because they rise and fall many times. They are rich and respected, and live very decently; they have very good houses in streets set apart for themselves; and also their temples and idols are different from those of the country. They go bare from the waist upwards, and have cotton cloths many cubits in length wrapped round them; on their heads they wear small caps, and very long hair gathered up inside the caps; their beards shaved, and a few pinches of ashes with sandal and saffron, on their heads, breasts, and arms. They have holes in their ears, so large that they would almost hold an egg, full of rings of gold and jewelry, and many gold rings with jewels on their fingers, and round their waists gold belts, some of them studded with precious stones. They also carry with them continually large bags in which their scales and weights are kept, and their money, and jewels and pearls. And their sons as soon as they have passed the age of ten do the same, and go about changing small coin. They are great clerks and accountants, and make out all their accounts on their fingers: they are great usurers, so much so that from one brother to another they do not lend a real without gain. They are very orderly people in their food and expenditure; they keep account of everything, and are very subtle in their dealings. Their language differs from that of the Malabars, like that of Castilians and Portuguese. They marry in our fashion, and their children are their heirs: and if their wives become widows, they never marry again, however young they may be; but if the husband becomes a widower he may marry again. Should the wife commit adultery the husband may kill her with poison. And these people have their own jurisdiction, and the king cannot have anything to say in their deeds and faults; they do justice amongst one another, with which the king is well-satisfied. When they die their bodies are burned. They eat all flesh except cow. GUZURATES. There is another sect of gentile merchants in the city of Calicut, which they call Guzarates, who are natives of the Kingdom of Cambay, whose customs have already been related; and they observe them in this city as in their own country. They are men who possess ships, and trade in spices, drugs, cloth, copper, and other kinds of merchandise from this place to the kingdom of Cambay, and that of Decan, where they have other correspondents; and they at the same time are correspondents of others. They have very good houses in separate streets, and their temples and idols different from the others, and many large and small bells in our fashion. The king shows them great honour and favour, and is much pleased with them because they give him much revenue from their trade. Some of them also live in the city of Cananor, and others in Cochin; and so also in other ports of Malabar. But in general most of them reside in Calicut. MAPULER. In all this said country of Malabar there are a great quantity of Moors, who are of the same language and colour as the gentiles of the country. They go bare like the nairs, only they wear, to distinguish themselves from the gentiles, small round caps on their heads and their beards fully grown. So that it appears to me that these people are a fifth part of all the inhabitants that there are in this country. They call these Moors Mapulers, they carry on nearly all the trade of the seaports: and in the interior of the country they are very well provided with estates and farms. So that if the King of Portugal had not discovered India this country would have had a Moorish king: because many of the gentiles turned Moors for any offence which they received amongst one another: and the Moors did them great honour, and if they were women they immediately married them. These people have many mosques in the country in which they also unite in council. PARDESY. There were other foreign Moors in Calicut, whom they call Pardesy. These are Arabs, Persians, Guzarates, Khorasanys, and Decanys: they are great merchants, and possess in this place wives and children, and ships for sailing to all parts with all kinds of goods. They have among them a Moorish governor who rules over and chastises them, without the king meddling with them. And before the King of Portugal discovered the country they were so numerous and powerful in the city of Calicut, that the gentiles did not venture to dispute with them. And after that the King of Portugal made himself master there, and these Moors saw that they could not defend it, they began to leave the country, and little by little they went away from it, so that very few of them remain. And at the time that they prospered in their trade, without any exaggeration, they made ships in this city of a thousand and of eleven hundred bahars bulk, which make four quintals each.[243] These ships are with keels like ours and without any nails, because they sew the planks with mat cords, very well pitched, and the timber very good. The upper works are of different patterns from ours, and without decks,[244] with divisions in which they used to stow much pepper, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, long pepper, sandal and brazil wood, lac, cardamoms, myrabolans, tamarinds, bamboos,[245] and all sorts of jewels and pearls, musk, amber, rhubarb, aloes-wood, many fine cotton stuffs, and much porcelain. And in this manner ten or twelve ships laden with these goods sailed every year in the month of February, and made their voyage to the Red Sea: and some of them were for the city of Aden, and some for Jiddah the port of Mekkah, where they sold their merchandise to others, who transported them thence in other smaller vessels to Turkey and to Suez, and thence by land to Cairo, and from Cairo to Alexandria. And these ships returned laden with copper, quicksilver, vermilion, coral, saffron, coloured velvets, rose-water, knives, coloured camlets, scarlet and other coloured cloths, gold and silver, and other things, and they returned to Calicut from August to the middle of October of the same year that they sailed. These Moors were very well dressed and fitted out, and were luxurious in eating and sleeping. The king gave to each one a nair to guard and serve him, a Chety scribe for his accounts, and to take care of his property, and a broker for his trade. To these three persons such a merchant would pay something for their maintenance, and all of them served very well, and when the merchant bought spices the sellers gave him for each farazola of ginger, which is of twenty-five pounds, three or four pounds of it for them; and so of some other goods, which duties the merchant collects to pay these officials of his. [_Here follow eleven lines in the Lisbon edition, saying_:--These are white men and very gentlemanlike and of good appearance, they go well dressed, and adorned with silk stuffs, scarlet cloth, camlets and cottons: their head-dress wrapped round their heads. They have large houses and many servants: they are very luxurious in eating, drinking, and sleeping; and in this manner they prospered until the Portuguese came to India: now there are hardly any of them, and those that there are do not live at liberty. Hitherto I have spoken at length of all the sects, and different kinds of people of Malabar, and of some set apart in Calicut: now I will relate the position of each kingdom by itself, and how the said country of Malabar is divided.] [_Here follows in the MS. No. 570 of the Munich Royal Library...._ SECTION OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE COUNTRY OF MALABAR IS DIVIDED, AND OF THAT WHICH GROWS IN IT. You must know that from Cunbala, country of the King of Narsynga, towards the south and along the coast to the kingdom of Cananor, and within it there is a town called Cotcoulam, and on the sea-shore a fortress in which is a nephew of the King of Cananor, as guardian of the frontier. And further on there is a river called Nira-pura, in which is a good town, and seaport, of Moors and Gentiles, and of trade and navigation: in this town resides the said nephew, who at times rises up in rebellion: and the king goes to overthrow him with large forces, and puts him down under his authority. After passing this place along the coast is the mountain Dely, on the edge of the sea; it is a round mountain, very lofty, in the midst of low land: all the ships of the Moors and Gentiles that navigate in this sea of India, sight this mountain when coming from without, and make their reckoning by it. When they are going away the ships take in much good water and wood.... After this at the foot of the mountain to the south is a town called Marave, very ancient and well off, in which live Moors and Gentiles and Jews: these Jews are of the language of the country, it is a long time since they have dwelt in this place. There is much fishery in the neighbourhood of this mountain of Dely: which at sea is seen at a great distance by the ships that are trying to make it. Further on along the coast is a river in which is a handsome town entirely of Moors, and all round many Gentiles, and at the entrance is a small hill on which is a fortress in which the King of Cananor constantly resides. It contains very good wells and which are very capacious. This city is called Balapatan, at four leagues from it is a city of Moors and Gentiles, very large, and of much trade with the merchants of the Kingdom of Narsynga; this town is called eah paranco, in which much copper is expended. CANANOR. Coming to the sea, and passing this town of Balapatan, in which the king lives, towards the south is a very good town called Cananor.] CANANOR. On the sea coast near the kingdom of Calicut towards the south is a city called Cananor, in which there are many Moors and Gentiles of many kinds, who are all merchants, and possess many large and small ships. They trade in all sorts of goods, principally with the kingdom of Cambay and Ormuz, Colan, Dabul Banda, Goa, Ceylon, and the Maldiu Islands. In this city of Cananor the King of Portugal has a fortress and a factory and very peaceable trade, and all round the fortress a town of Christians of the country, married with their wives, who were baptized after the fortress was made, and each day some are baptized. CIECATE. Having passed the said city along the coast towards the south, there is a town of Moors, natives of the country, which also possesses much shipping, named Ciecate.[246] [_Here Ramusio says_: Some lines are wanting here.] TARMAPATAN. Having passed beyond this place, there is a river which makes two arms, and near it a large town of Moors, natives of the country, and very rich, great merchants who likewise possess much shipping. It is called Tarmapatam, and has many and very large mosques; it is the last town of the kingdom of Cananor on the side of Calicut. These Moors when they receive any injury from the king of Cananor, immediately rise up, and withdraw their obedience until the king goes in person to remove the injury, and to cajole them. [_Here the Lisbon edition adds_: and if the Portuguese had not discovered India, this town would already have a Moorish king of its own, and would convert all Malabar to the sect of Mahomed.] COTAOGATO. At four leagues higher up the said river there is another city of Moors, very large, rich, and of much trade, which deals with the people of Narsinga by land, and is called Cotaogato.[247] DESCRIPTION OF WHAT GROWS IN THIS KINGDOM OF CANANOR. Very good pepper grows in this kingdom of Cananor, but there is not much of it; much ginger is also produced in it, which is not of a very good quality, called _Hely_ because it is near the mountain Dely. There grow also much cardamoms, myrobolans, bamboos, zerubs,[248] and zedoary.[249] There are in this country, especially in the rivers, very large lizards which eat men, and their scent when they are alive smells like civet. And throughout the country in the brushwood there are two kinds of venomous serpents, some which the Indians call murcas, and we call hooded snakes,[250] because there is something like an hood on their heads. These kill with their bite, and the person bitten dies in two hours, though he sometimes lasts two or three days. Many mountebanks carry some of these alive in earthen jars, and charmed so that they do not bite, and with them they gain money, putting them round their necks, and exhibiting them. There is another kind of more venomous serpents, which the Indians call mandal, and these kill suddenly by their bite, without the persons bitten being able to speak any more, nor even make any movement. OF MANY TOWNS AND CITIES OF THE KINGDOM OF CALICUT WHICH POSSESS SHIPPING. Leaving the kingdom of Cananor towards the south, on the further side of the river of Tarmapatam, there is a town of Moors of the country, called Terivangaty, which has shipping; and beyond that there is another river on which there is another large place, also belonging to Moors, great merchants and shippers, which is called Mazery; and beyond Mazery there is another town also of the Moors, which is called Chemonbay, which also possesses shipping. And the country inland of these three places is thickly peopled by Nairs, good men who do not obey any king, and they have got two Nair lords who govern them, the before-mentioned Moors are under their rule. PUDOPATANI, FIRST TOWN OF THE KINGDOM OF CALICUT. Having passed these places there is a river called Pudopotani on which is a good town of many Moorish merchants, who own many ships; here begins the kingdom of Calicut. TIRCORE. Further along the coast to the south south-east, is another village of the Moors called Tircore. PANDARENI. Further on south south-east is another Moorish place, which is called Pandarani, in which also there are many ships. CAPUCAD. Further on to south south-east is another town, at which there is a small river, which is called Capucad, where there are many country-born Moors, and much shipping and a great trade of exporting the goods of the country. In this place many soft sapphires are found on the sea beach. CALICUT. Having passed the said place at two leagues further to the south and south-east, is the city of Calicut, where the King of Portugal has a very good fortress, made with the good will of the King of Calicut, after that the Portuguese had routed him; and they have there their principal fortress. CHALYANI. Beyond this city, towards the south is another city, which is called Chaliani, where there are numerous Moors natives of the country and much shipping. PURPURANGARI. Further on there is another city of the King of Calicut, called Purpurangari, inhabited by Moors and Gentiles who deal much in merchandise. PARAVANOR AND TANOR. Further on in the same direction are two places of Moors five leagues from one another. One is called Paravanor and the other Tanor, and inland from these towns is a lord to whom they belong; and he has many nairs, and sometimes he rebels against the King of Calicut. In these towns there is much shipping and trade, for these Moors are great merchants. PANANX. Having passed these towns along the coast to the south there is a river on which is another city of Moors, amongst whom a few Gentiles live, and it is called Pananx.[251] The Moors are very rich merchants and own much shipping. The King of Calicut collects much revenue from this city. CHATNA. There is another river further on called Chatna,[252] and higher up the stream there are many Gentile villages, and much pepper comes out by this river. CRANGOLOR. Further on there is another river which divides the kingdom of Calicut from the country of Cochin, and on this side of the river is a place called Crongolor,[253] belonging to the King of Calicut. The King of Cochin has some rights in this place. There live in it Gentiles, Moors, Indians, and Jews, and Christians of the doctrine of Saint Thomas; they have there a church of Saint Thomas and another of our Lady, and are very devout Christians, only they are deficient in doctrine, of which more will be said hereafter, because from this place further on as far as Cholmender there dwell many of these Christians. OF WHAT IS GATHERED IN THIS KINGDOM OF CALICUT. In the kingdom of Calicut, as has been said, there grows much pepper on trees like ivy, which climbs up the palms and other trees, and poles, and makes clusters; and much very good ginger of the country,[254] cardamoms, myrobolans of all kinds, bamboo canes, zerumba, zedoary, wild cinnamon; and the country produces this though covered with palm trees higher than the highest cypresses: these trees have clean smooth stems without any branch, only a tuft of leaves at the top amongst which grows a large fruit which they call tenga: by this they make profit, and it is a great article of trade, for each year more than four hundred ships are laden with it for many parts. We call these fruits cocoas: these trees give their fruits the whole year without any intermission; and there are others which support the people of Malabar, so that they cannot suffer famine even though all other provisions should fail them: because these cocoas, both green and dry, are very sweet and agreeable, and they give milk, like that of almonds. Now each of these cocoas when green has inside it a quart[255] of water very fresh, savoury, and cordial; it is very nourishing, and when they are dried that water congeals inside in a white fruit the size of an apple, which is very sweet and delicious: they eat the cocoa also when dry. They make much oil of these cocoas in presses as we do, and with the rind which these cocoa-nuts have close to the marrow, they make charcoal for the silversmiths, who do not work with any other charcoal. And with another husk which it has outside the first, which makes many threads, they weave cordage, which is a great article of trade; and from these trees they make wine with the sap, which is like spirits, and in such great quantities, that many ships are laden with it. With the same wine they make very good vinegar, and they also make very sweet sugar, which is yellow like honey, and is a great article of trade in India. With the leaves of the tree they make mats of the size of the leaf, with which they cover all their houses instead of with tiles: and with the tree they also make wood for their houses and for other services, and firewood.[256] And of all these things there is so great abundance that ships are laden with them. There are other palm trees of other kinds, and shorter, from which the leaves are gathered upon which the Gentiles write. There are other palms, slender and very lofty, and of very clean stems, upon which grow clusters of fruit the size of walnuts (which the Indians eat with the betel, which we call Folio Indio), and they call Areca. It is much esteemed among them and is very acid: there is such a quantity of it that they fill many ships with it for Cambay and the kingdom of Decan, and many other parts, after drying and packing it. KINGDOM OF COCHIN. Having passed the town of Crongolor, the extremity of the kingdom of Calicut, towards the south extends the kingdom of Cochin, in which also there is much pepper. It possesses a very fine large river where many and great ships enter, both Portuguese and Moorish. And within it is a large city inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, who are Chetis and Guzaratys, and Jews natives of the country. The Moors and Chetis are great merchants and own many ships, and trade much with Chormandel, Cambay, Cheul, and Dabul, with areca, cocoas, pepper, and jagara, which is sugar of palm trees. The King of Portugal has a very good fortress at the mouth of this river, all round which is a large village of Portuguese and Christians, natives of the country, who were baptised since the Portuguese have inhabited the country; and every day many more are converted. And there are likewise many of the above-named Christians of the doctrine of Saint Thomas, who come there from Culan and other Gentile places, where they are accustomed to live. In this fortress and town of Cochin there is much machinery and apparatus for caulking and refitting ships, and also galleys and caravels, with as much perfection as in our parts. And much pepper is put on board at this place, and spices and drugs which come from Malacca and which are transported every year to Portugal. This King of Cochin has but a small country, and he was not a king before the Portuguese went there, because all the kings of Calicut when newly come into power, had the custom of entering Cochin and depriving the king of his state and taking possession of it, and afterwards they restored it to him again for life. The King of Calicut observed this as a law, and the King of Cochin used to give him a tribute of elephants, and so he returned to Calicut. And the King of Cochin could not coin money, nor roof his houses with tiles, under pain of losing his state. And now since the Portuguese went there, the King of Portugal made him exempt from all this; so that he lords it absolutely and coins money according to his custom. PORCA. Beyond this kingdom of Cochin towards the south, the kingdom of Coulam is entered; between these kingdoms there is a place which is called Porca, it belongs to a lord. In this place dwell many Gentile fishermen who have no other business than to fish in the winter, and in summer to plunder at sea the property of whoever is weaker than themselves: they have small vessels like brigantines, good rowers, and they assemble in numbers with bows and arrows, and go in such a crowd all round any ship that they find becalmed, that they make it surrender by discharging arrows, and take the vessels or ships and put the people safe on shore; and what they steal they divide with the lord of the country, and so they maintain themselves. They call these vessels catur. KINGDOM OF COULAM. Having passed this place the kingdom of Coulam commences, and the first town is called Caymcolan in which dwell many Gentiles, Moors, and Indian Christians of the before-mentioned doctrine of Saint Thomas. And many of these Christians live inland amongst the Gentiles. There is much pepper in this place, of which there is much exportation. THE CITY OF COULAM. Further on along the same coast towards the south is a great city and good seaport, which is named Coulam, in which dwell many Moors and Gentiles, and Christians. They are great merchants and very rich, and own many ships, with which they trade to Cholmendel, the Island of Ceylon, Bengal, Malaca, Samatara, and Pegu: these do not trade with Cambay. There is also in this city much pepper. They have a Gentile king, a great lord of much territory and wealth, and of numerous men at arms, who for the most part are great archers. At this city, withdrawn a little from it, there is a promontory in the sea where stands a very great church which the apostle St. Thomas built miraculously before he departed this life.[257] It must be known that on arriving at this city of Coulan where all were Gentiles, in a poor habit, and going along converting some poor people to our holy faith he brought with him a few companions natives of the country, although they were very few: and while he was in this city, one morning there was found in this port of Coulam a very large piece of timber which had been stranded on the sea-beach, and news of it was immediately brought to the king. He sent many people and elephants to draw it out upon dry land, but they could never move it; and the king himself went in person to it later, and they were unable to draw it out. And as soon as St. Thomas saw them despair of the timber, he went to the king, and said to him: "If I were to draw out this timber would you give me a piece of land upon which to build a church with it, to the praise of our Lord God, Who sent me here." And the king laughed at him, and said to him: "If you see that with all my power it cannot be dragged out, how do you hope to draw it out." And Saint Thomas answered him: "To draw it out by the power of God, which is greater." The king immediately ordered all the land which he asked for this purpose to be given to him. And when it was granted to him, by the grace of the Lord, he went alone to the timber, and tied a cord to it, with which he began to draw it on shore without anyone assisting him. And the timber followed behind him as far as the place where he wished to build the church. The king seeing such a miracle commanded that they should let him do what he pleased with the timber and the land which had been given him; and that he should be shewn favour, because he held him to be a holy man. But he did not choose to turn Christian, and many people became converted to our holy faith. And the said Apostle whom they call Martoma,[258] called many carpenters and sawyers of the country, and began to have the timber worked, and it was so large that it was sufficient by itself for the building of the whole church. And it is a custom amongst the Indians that when the workmen or any persons are going to set to work, the master of the work gives them at midday a certain quantity of rice to eat, and at night he gives to each man a small coin of inferior gold called fanam.[259] And St. Thomas at midday took a measure full of sand, and gave to each of these workmen his measure, which turned into very good rice, and at night he gave to each one a little bit of the wood which he was hewing, and they turned into fanams; so that they went away well satisfied, and so the said Apostle finished the church of Coulam. And when those people saw these miracles and many others which our Lord did by this glorious saint, many Indians turned to the Christian faith, through the whole kingdom of Coulam, which reaches to the frontier of Ceylon, so that there are more than two thousand houses of Christians scattered throughout the country among the Gentiles; and they have a few churches, but most of them are deficient in teaching and some of them wanting in baptism. And when the King of the Indians saw so great a change he feared that if he gave more opportunity for it, the said Christians would multiply so much that they would be able to rise and possess the country. And so he began to persecute the said St. Thomas, who withdrew himself to Cholmendel, and then to a city which was called Muylepur,[260] where he received martyrdom, and there he is buried, as will be mentioned hereafter. And so the Christians remained in the kingdom of Coulam with the before mentioned church which St. Thomas built, and with others about the country. This church was endowed by the King of Coulam with the revenue from the pepper, which remains to it to this day. These Christians had not any Christian doctrine amongst them, nor were they baptized, only they held and believed the faith of Christ in a gross manner. And at a certain period they held a council amongst them and sent men about the world to study the Christian doctrine, and manner of baptism; these men reached Armenia, where they found many Greek Christians and a patriarch who governed them, who seeing their good intention sent with them a bishop and six priests to baptize them and administer the sacraments and perform divine service, and indoctrinate them in the Christian faith. And these remain there for five or six years and then are relieved for an equal period of time, and so on. And in this manner they improved themselves somewhat. These Armenians[261] are white men; they speak Arabic, and have the sacred scriptures in Chaldean, and recite the offices in that language in our fashion. They wear tonsures on their heads the opposite of ours; that is to say, that, where ours shave they wear hair, and where we have the hair they shave it. They go dressed in white shirts and caps on their heads, barefooted, and with long beards; they are very devout people, and say mass on altars like ours with a cross (+) in front of them. And he who says mass is in the middle of the altar, and those who assist him are at the sides. They communicate with salt bread instead of a wafer, and they consecrate of that bread enough for all that are in the church, and they give it to all of them divided like blessed bread.[262] Each one who communicates goes to receive it at the foot of the altar with his hand.[263] The wine is in this manner, because there is no wine in India; they take raisins which come from Mekkah and Ormuz, and put them for a night in water; and on the next day when they have to say mass they squeeze them and with the juice they say their mass. These priests baptize for money,[264] and go away from this country of Malabar very rich when they return to their own country. And many remain unbaptized for want of money. TIRINANGOTO. Further on along the same coast towards the south, is a town of Moors and Gentiles called Tirinamgoto, which also possesses shipping. The town and territory belong to a lord, a relation of the King of Coulam; it is abundantly supplied with provisions, rice and meat. CAPE OF COMORY. [Further along the coast is the Cape of Comery where the Malabar country finishes; but the kingdom of Coulam reaches thirty leagues further, as far as a city which is called Cael.][265] [At this Cape Comory there is an ancient church of Christians, which was founded by the Armenians, who still direct it, and perform in it the divine service of Christians and have crosses on the altars. All mariners pay it a tribute, and the Portuguese celebrate mass there when they pass. There are there many tombs, amongst which there is one which has written on it a Latin epitaph: "Hic jacet Cataldus Gulli filius qui obiit anno...."][266][267] ARCHIPELAGO OF ISLES. Opposite this country of Malabar, forty leagues to the west in the sea, there is an archipelago of isles, which the Indians say amount to twelve thousand; and they begin in front of the mountain Dely, and extend southwards. The first are four small flat islands, which are called Malandiva; they are inhabited by Malabar Moors, and they say that they are from the kingdom of Cananor. Nothing grows in them, except palm trees (cocoa-nut), with the fruit of which and rice brought them from Malabar, they maintain themselves. These islands make much cordage of palm trees, which they call cayro (coir). ISLANDS OF PALANDIVA. Over against Panam, Cochin, and Coulam, to the west and south-west, at a distance of seventy-five leagues are other islands, of which ten or twelve are inhabited by Moors, brown and small in stature, who have a separate language and a Moorish king who resides in an island called Mahaldiu.[268] And they call all these islands Palandiva. The inhabitants are ill-formed and weak, but are very ingenious and charming. Their king is elected by some Moorish merchants, inhabitants of Cananor, and they change him when they please. These persons receive tribute of him every year in cordage and other produce of the country. They go there to load their ships without money, because the people of the country, with or against their will, have to give these said Moors whatever they wish. There is much fish in these islands, of which they prepare much dried,[269] which is a great article of trade. And as ballast for the ships which take on board these things, they carry away sea-snails, which are worth a good deal in many parts, and in some, especially Cambay, they serve as small change. Many fine cotton cloths are manufactured in these islands, and others of silk and gold, which are worth a good deal amongst the Moors. They gather much amber in these islands, of a good quality and in large pieces, white, grey, and brown; and I asked several of these Moors various times how the amber was produced: they hold that it is the droppings of birds, and say that in this archipelago in the uninhabited islands there are some large birds which perch on the rocks near the sea, and there void that amber, which becomes refined by exposure to the air, the sun and the rain, until some storms arise and gales of wind, which drive the sea waves over the rocks, and this bird-dung is torn off the rocks in large and small pieces, and so carried out to sea, where it floats till they meet with it, or it is cast up on some beach, or that some whales swallow it. And they say that what is found of a white colour, and which they call ponabar, has been in the sea only for a short time, and this they value most highly amongst themselves; and that the other which is found of a greyish colour, and which they name puambar, has been, they say, in the sea for a long time, and has taken that colour from floating about in the water; this also is very good, but not equal to the white; and what they find of a brown colour and bruised, has been swallowed, they say, by whales, and turned brown in their bodies, and that it has such a quality that the whale cannot digest it, and they eject it whole just as they swallowed it; this they call minabar, and it is that which among them has least value. In these isles of Maldiva they construct many large ships of palm tree, sewn together with matting, for there is no other wood there. Some of these sail to the mainland, and are ships with keels and of much tonnage; they also construct there other small rowing vessels, like brigantines and _fustas_, very pretty and good for rowing, which they use to go from one island to another; and they likewise cross over to the Malabar country. Many Moorish ships touch at these islands from China, Malacojana, Malaca, Samatra, Bengala, Ceylan, and Peygu, on their passage to the Red Sea: and there they take in water and refreshments for their voyage. Sometimes they arrive so shattered that they unload their cargo there, and they let it be lost. Many of these ships get lost amongst these islands because they do not venture to come to the Malabar coast from fear of the Portuguese. ISLAND OF CEYLAM. Leaving these islands of Mahaldiva further on towards the east, where the cape of Comory is doubled, at thirty-eight leagues from the cape itself, there is a very large and beautiful island which the Moors, Arabs, Persians, and our people call Ceylam,[270] and the Indians call it Ylinarim. It is a rich and luxuriant land, inhabited by Gentiles, and ruled by a Gentile king. Many Moors live in the seaports of this island in large quarters, and all the inhabitants are great merchants. There are fifty leagues of channel towards the north-east from the said cape until passing the island of Maylepur.[271] Both Moors and Gentiles are well-made men, and almost white, and for the most part stout, with large stomachs, and luxurious. They do not understand, nor possess arms, they are all given to trade and to good living. They go bare from the waist upwards, and below that cover themselves with good cloths of silk and cotton, caps on their heads, and the ears pierced with large holes in which they wear many gold rings and jewellery, so much that their very ears reach to their shoulders: and many rings and precious jewels on their fingers; they wear belts of gold richly adorned with precious stones. Their language is partly Malabar and partly of Cholmendel, and many Malabar Moors come to live in this island on account of its being so luxuriant, abundant, and very healthy. Men live longer here than in other parts of India. They have a great deal of very good fruit; and the mountains are full of sweet and sour oranges of three or four kinds, and plenty of lemons and citrons, and many other very good fruits which do not exist in our parts, and they last all the year. And there is plenty of meat and fish, little rice, for most of it comes from Cholmendel, and it is their chief food; much good honey and sugar brought from Bengal, and butter of the country. All the good cinnamon grows in this island upon the mountains, on trees which are like laurels. And the king of the country orders it to be cut in small sticks, and has the bark stripped off in certain months of the year, and sells it himself to the merchants who go there to buy it, because no one can gather it except the king. There are likewise in this island many wild elephants which the king orders to be caught and tamed; and they sell them to merchants of Cholmendel, Narsynga, and Malabar, and those of the kingdoms of Decam and Cambay go to those places to buy them. These elephants are caught in this manner: it must be known that they have got other elephants with which they manage it, and they fasten them with chains in the mountains and woods where they are bred; and at the foot and all round a tree near the elephant they make three or four very large pits, covered over with slender poles, and they strew earth on the top, so that nothing appears: and the wild elephants seeing the female come to her, and fall into these pits, where they keep them seven or eight days half-dead of hunger, and so many men watch them by day and night, always speaking to them so as not to let them sleep, until they tame and render them domestic, giving them their food with their hands. And after they have got them broken in and tame, they take them with strong chains, and by degrees throw so much earth and branches into the pit that the elephant gradually rises until he comes out of the pit, and then they tie him to some tree and keep him some days watching, with fire, and men who always talk to him, and give him food in moderation until they make him domestic and obedient. And in this way they catch them male and female, great and small, and sometimes two at once in one pit. They make great merchandise of them, and they are worth much, because they are much valued by the kings of India for war and for labour, and they become as domestic and quick at understanding as men. The very good ones are worth in the Malabar country and in Cholmendel from a thousand to one thousand five hundred ducats, and the others from four to six hundred ducats according as they may be, but in the island they are to be had for a small price. And all have to be brought and presented to the king. There are also many jewels in this island, rubies which they call manica, sapphires, jacinths, topazes jagonzas,[272] chrysoliths, and cat's eyes, which are as much esteemed amongst the Indians as rubies. And all these stones are all gathered in by the king, and sold by himself. And he has men who go and dig for them in the mountains and shores of the rivers, who are great lapidaries and who are good judges in those matters: so much so that if they have a few handfuls of earth brought them from the mountain, at once on seeing it they know if it is of rubies or of any other stones, and where it comes from. And the king sends them to look there, and after they have brought them he orders to set aside each kind, and pick out the good ones, and he has them worked to have them sold when cut, which he does himself to foreigners; and the other inferior ones he sells at once to the country merchants. These rubies which grow here, for the most part, are not of so brilliant a colour as these which grow in Ava and Capelam, of which mention will be made further on; and some which come out perfect in colour are much more highly prized by the Indians than those of Paygu, because they say that they are stronger. And in order to make them of a deeper colour they put them into the fire. These lapidaries whom the king has near him, on seeing a stone before it is cut, say: this ruby will endure so many hours of fire, and will remain very good. And the king risks it, and orders it to be put in a very strong charcoal fire for that space of time which the lapidary has mentioned to him: and if it endures it without danger, it comes out more perfect in colour, and is worth very much. And all the other stones are found and worked in the same manner: and some stones are found which are half ruby and half sapphire, and others half topaze and half sapphires, and also cat's eyes. The king has a great treasure of these jewels, for whenever he meets with any very good stone he puts it in his treasury. Close to this island of Ceylam in the sea there is a sand-bank covered with ten or fifteen fathoms of water, in which a very great quantity of very fine seed pearls are found, small and great, and a few pearls: and the Moors and Gentiles go there from a city which is called Sael, belonging to the King of Coulam, to fish for this seed pearl, twice a year by custom, and they find them in some small oysters, smoother than those of our parts. And the men plunging under the water, where they remain a considerable time, pick them up: and the seed pearl is for those who gather them, and the large pearls are for the king, who keeps his overseer there, and besides that they give him certain duties upon the seed-pearl. The King of Ceylan is always in a place called Columbo, which is a river with a very good port, at which every year many ships touch from various parts to take on board cinnamon and elephants. And they bring gold and silver, cotton and silk stuffs from Cambay, and many other goods which are saffron, coral, quicksilver, vermilion which here is worth a great deal; and there is much profit on the gold and silver, because it is worth more than in other parts. And there come likewise many ships from Bengal and Cholmendel, and some from Malaca for elephants, cinnamon and precious stones. In this island of Ceylan there are four or five other harbours and places of trade which are governed by other lords, nephews of the King of Ceylan, to whom they pay obedience, except that sometimes they revolt. In the middle of this island is a very lofty mountain range in which is a very high stone peak, and upon it a pool of spring water, and on this stone there is the form of a man's foot,[273] which the Indians say is the footmark of father Adam, whom they call Adam Baba. And from all those parts and kingdoms the Moors come in pilgrimage, saying that father Adam went up from there to heaven, and they go in the habit of pilgrims, with chains of iron, and clothed with skins of leopards, lions, and other wild animals, and on their arms and legs they inflict wounds continually along the road to keep up open sores, saying that they do that for the service of God, and honour of Mahomed and Adam Baba. And some of them go well provided with money which they carry hidden to spend it on the jewels of Ceylon. Before they arrive at this mountain where Adam's footstep is, they go through swampy land, through valleys full of water, and by the banks of water, and they have five or six leagues to go with water to the waist, and all carry knives in their hands to rid themselves of the leeches which fasten on their legs, and which are innumerable. And on arriving at the mountain they make the ascent of it, and they cannot mount up to the pinnacle except by ladders of iron chains,[274] which it has put round it, of a great thickness. And on the top of it they wash with the water of that pool, and perform their prayer: and they say that with that they remain free and pure of all sin. The said island of Ceylon is very near the mainland, and between it and the continent are some banks which have got a channel in the midst, which the Indians call Chylam,[275] by which all the Malabar sambuks pass to Cholmendel. And every year many are lost upon these banks because the channel is very narrow: and in the year that the Admiral of Portugal went the second time to India, so many ships and sambuks of Malabar were lost in those shallows, that twelve thousand Indians were drowned there, who were coming with provisions, and were determined on driving the Portuguese fleet away from India, without allowing it to take any cargo. QUILACARE, OF THE KINGDOM OF COLAM. Leaving the island of Ceylon and returning to the mainland, after doubling Cape Comory at twenty leagues to the north-east, is the country of the King of Colam and of other lords, who live in it subject to him. And the first place is named Quilacare, in which country there are many and great towns of Gentiles and several harbours, where dwell many Moors born in the country. They perform their voyages in small vessels which they call champana.[276] The Malabar Moors come to these towns to trade and to bring Cambay goods, which are worth a good deal there, and a few horses. And they take in rice and cloths for Malabar. And in this province of Quilacare there is a Gentile house of prayer, in which there is an idol which they hold in great account, and every twelve years they celebrate a great feast to it, whither all the Gentiles go as to a jubilee. This temple possesses many lands and much revenue: it is a very great affair. This province has a king over it, who has not more than twelve years to reign from jubilee to jubilee. His manner of living is in this wise, that is to say: when the twelve years are completed, on the day of this feast there assemble together innumerable people, and much money is spent in giving food to Bramans. The king has a wooden scaffolding made, spread over with silken hangings: and on that day he goes to bathe at a tank with great ceremonies and sound of music, after that he comes to the idol and prays to it, and mounts on to the scaffolding, and there before all the people he takes some very sharp knives, and begins to cut off his nose, and then his ears, and his lips, and all his members, and as much flesh off himself as he can; and he throws it away very hurriedly until so much of his blood is spilled that he begins to faint, and then he cuts his throat himself. And he performs this sacrifice to the idol, and whoever desires to reign other twelve years and undertake this martyrdom for love of the idol, has to be present looking on at this: and from that place they raise him up as king. SAEL. Having left Quilacare, further along the coast, at ten leagues to the north-east, is another town called Çael,[277] which belongs to the King of Colam: it is inhabited by Gentiles and great Moorish merchants, and is a seaport where many ships touch every year from Malabar, Cholmendel, and Bengala. They deal in all kinds of goods from all parts at this place. The Chetis of this city are great lapidaries and artists for setting[278] pearls, which fishery belongs to the King of Sahel, who has farmed it for many years forward to a very rich Moorish merchant, who is almost as important in the country as the king. And this person administers justice amongst the Moors, without the king's mixing himself up in it. Those who fish up the pearls, as has been said, fish all the week for themselves, and on the Friday for the owner of the boat; and all of them together fish at the end of the season during which they are there a whole week for this Moor. The king of Colam lives always near this city, and is very rich and powerful on account of his many men at arms, who are very good bowmen. He always has in his guard four or five hundred women, trained from girls to be archers: they are very active. He sometimes is at war with the King of Narsinga, who wishes to take his country, but he defends himself very well. CHORMENDEL. Twelve leagues further on the coast turns to the north, the country is called Cholmender,[279] and it extends seventy or eighty leagues along the coast. In it there are many Gentile cities, towns and villages, and it belongs to the King of Narsinga; it is a land abounding in rice, meat and wheat, and all sorts of vegetables, because it is a country which has very beautiful plains. And many ships of Malabar come here to load rice, and they bring goods from Cambay to this country, that is to say, copper, quicksilver, vermilion, pepper and other goods. And throughout all this Cholmender much spice and drugs, and goods of Malaca, China, and Bengal are to be met with, which the Moorish ships bring here from those parts, since they do not venture to pass to Malabar from dread of the Portuguese. And although this country is very abundantly provided, yet if it should happen any year not to rain it falls into such a state of famine that many die of it, and some sell their own children for a few provisions, or for two or three fanoes, each of which will be worth thirty-six maravedis. And in these times the Malabars carry rice and cocoa nuts to them, and return with their ships laden with slaves, and all the chetis, Gentile merchants, who live throughout India, are natives of this country of Cholmender; they are very sharp, great accountants, and dexterous merchants. And many country-born Moors, mercantile and seafaring men, live in the seaports. MAYLEPUR. Further along this coast, which makes a bend to the north-west and then turns to the north-east, having left the Cholmendel country, at a distance of twelve leagues there is a city almost uninhabited and very ancient, which is called Maylepur; in former times it was a considerable place of the kingdom of Narsinga. In this city is buried the body of the apostle St. Thomas, in a small church near the sea. And the Christians of Cuolam, who are of his doctrine, say that when St. Thomas left Cuolam, on being persecuted by the Gentiles, he went with a few companions to that country, and settled in this city of Maylepur, which at that period was twelve leagues distant from the sea, which later eat away the land, and came in upon it. And there he began to preach the faith of Christ, to which he converted some, whilst others persecuted and wished to kill him, and he separated himself from the people, and went about frequently among the mountains. And one day as he wandered about in that manner, a gentile hunter, with a bow, saw many peacocks together upon the ground in that mountain, and in the midst of them one very large and very handsome standing upon a stone slab; this hunter shot at it, and sent an arrow through its body, and they rose up flying, and in the air it turned into the body of a man. And this hunter stood looking until he saw the body of the said apostle fall. And he went to the city where he related that miracle to the governors, who came to see it, and they found that it was indeed the body of St. Thomas, and then they went to see the place where he had been wounded, and they saw two impressions of human feet marked on the slab, which he left impressed when he rose wounded.[280] And when the governors of the country saw so great a miracle, they said this man was holy, and we did not believe him; and they took him and buried him in the church where he now is, and they brought the stone upon which he left the said footmarks, and they placed it close to his grave; and they say that on burying him they could never put his right arm in the tomb, and it always remained outside; and if they buried him entirely, next day they found the arm above the earth, and so they let it be. The Christians, his disciples and companions who built the said church, and the Gentiles already held him for a saint, and honoured him greatly. He remained thus with his arm outside of the grave for a long time, and they say that many people came there from many quarters in pilgrimage,[281] and that some Chinese came also, who wished to cut off his arm and carry it away as a relic, and that when they were about to strike at it with a sword, he withdrew his arm inside, they say, and it was never seen again. So he remains still in that hermitage, very humbly, and lighted up by the grace of God, because the Moors and Gentiles light him up, each one saying that he is something belonging to them. And the house and church are ordered in our fashion, with crosses on the altar, and at the top of the vault a great wooden cross, and peacocks for a device: this church is much deteriorated. All round it there is much brushwood, and a poor Moor takes care of that building and begs alms for it, and for the lamp, which still continues burning. The Christians of India still go there as pilgrims, and carry away thence as relics some little pellets of earth of the tomb of this blessed apostle. PALECATE. Further on this coast goes forty-three leagues to the north-east and twelve leagues to the north, there is another city of the kingdom of Narsinga, inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, great and rich merchants, it is called Palecate,[282] and is a harbour at which many Moorish ships touch, coming from divers parts with all kinds of goods. It also has much trade with the interior of the kingdom, and they sell there many jewels which are brought from Peygu, especially rubies and spinel-rubies of a good quality, and much musk. These jewels may be had for very little there, by whoever knows how to buy well. The King of Narsynga keeps his governors in this city, and collectors of his revenues. In this place they make many good coloured cotton stuffs which are worth much in Malaca, Peigu, and Samatra, also in the kingdom of Guzurate and Malabar they are much valued for the clothing both of Moors and Gentiles. Copper, quicksilver, vermilion, opium, and many Cambay goods fetch a good price, so also scarlet cloth, coral, saffron, velvets from Mekkah, and rose water. THE MOUNTAIN OF DIGUIRMALE. Having passed this city of Palecate further along the coast which trends to north-east by north as far as Marepata, a distance of a hundred and forty leagues, in which there are many other places belonging to the kingdom of Narsynga, as far as the kingdom of Horisa. KINGDOM OF ORISSA. Further on after passing Marepata, along the coast which trends from hence to north-east by east, the kingdom of Horisa commences. It is of the Gentiles, very good fighting men, and the king is frequently at war with the king of Narsynga, and is powerful in the numbers of his foot soldiers. The greater part of his country is withdrawn from the sea, and has few seaports and little trade. His territory extends seventy leagues along the coast as far as the river Ganges, which they call Guenga,[283] and on the other side of this river commences the kingdom of Bengala, with which he is sometimes at war. And all the Indians go in pilgrimage to this river to bathe in it, saying that with this they all become safe, because it issues from a fountain which is in the terrestrial paradise. This river is very great and magnificent, it is studded on both banks with opulent and noble cities of the Gentiles. Between this river and the Eufrates are the first and the second India, a territory very abundant and well provided, very healthy and temperate, and from this river further on to Malaca is the third India, according as the Moors say. BENGAL. Having passed the river Ganges, along the coast twenty leagues to north-east by east and twelve leagues to the south-west, and then twelve leagues to the east until reaching the river Paralem,[284] is the kingdom of Bengala, in which there are many towns, both in the interior and on the sea-coast. Those of the interior are inhabited by Gentiles, subject to the King of Bengal, who is a Moor; and the seaports are inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, amongst whom there is much trade in goods and much shipping to many parts, because this sea is a gulf which enters towards the north, and at its inner extremity there is a very great city inhabited by Moors which is called Bengala,[285] with a very good harbour. Its inhabitants are white men and well formed. Many foreigners from various parts live in this city, both Arabs and Persians, Abyssinians[286] and Indians, who congregate here on account of the country being very fertile and of a temperate climate. They are all great merchants, and own large ships of the same build as those of Mekkah, and others of the Chinese build which they call jungos, which are very large and carry a very considerable cargo. With these ships they navigate to Cholmender, Malabar, Cambay, Peigu, Tarnasari, Samatra, Ceylon, and Malaca; and they trade in all kinds of goods, from many places to others. There is much cotton in the country, and sugar cane plantations, and very good ginger and much long pepper. They manufacture many kinds of stuffs, extremely fine and delicate, coloured for their own use, and white for trade to all parts; they call them saravetis, and they are excellent for women's head gear, and much valued for that purpose: the Arabs and Persians make caps of this stuff, in such great quantities, that every year they fill several ships with them for different places. And they make others which they call mamuna, and others duguza, and others chautar, and others called topan and sanabafos which are the most valued for their shirts, and which are very durable. They are all of the length of twenty cubits, very little more or less, and in this city they are all at a low price. They are spun by a man with a wheel and woven. White sugar of very good quality is made in this city, but they do not know how to join it to make loaves, and so they pack it up in powder in stuff covered over with raw hide, well sewn up. They load many ships with it and export it for sale to all parts. And when these merchants were accustomed to go freely and without dread to the parts of Malabar and Cambay with their ships, the quintal of this sugar was worth two ducats and a half in Malabar, and a good sinabafo was worth two ducats, and a piece of muslin for women's caps three hundred maravedis; and a chautar of the best quality six hundred maravedis. And those who brought them gained much money. They likewise make many preserves in this city of Bengal, very good ones of ginger, and of oranges, lemons and other fruits which grow in the country. There are also in this country many horses, cows and sheep, and all other meats in great abundance, and very extremely large hens. The Moorish merchants of this city go into the interior of the country and buy many Gentile children of their fathers and mothers, or of others who steal them, and castrate them, cortandole todo de manera que quedan rasos como la palma de la mano. Some of them die of it, and those who recover they bring them up very well, and sell them as merchandise for twenty or thirty ducats each to the Persians, who value them much as guards to their wives and houses.[287] The respectable Moors of this city go dressed in long morisco shirts reaching to the instep, white and of slight texture, and underneath some cloths wrapped round below the waist, and over the shirt a silken sash round the waist, and a dagger set with silver; they wear many jewelled rings on their fingers, and fine cotton caps on their heads. They are luxurious people, who eat and drink a great deal, and have other bad habits. They bathe frequently in large tanks which they have in their houses: they have many servants, and have each of them three or four wives, and as many more as they can maintain. They keep them very much shut up and very richly dressed and adorned with silks and jewels set in gold; they go out at night to visit one another and to drink wine, and hold festivals and marriage feasts. They make various kinds of wine in this country, chiefly of sugar and palm trees, and also of many other things. The women are very fond of these wines, and are much accustomed to them. They are great musicians both in singing and playing on instruments. The men of the common people wear short white shirts half way down the thigh, and drawers, and very small head wraps of three or four turns; all of them are shod with leather, some with shoes, others with sandals, very well worked, sewn with silk and gold thread. The king is a great lord and very rich, he possesses much country inhabited by Gentiles, of whom every day many turn Moors, to obtain the favour of the king and governors. This king possesses more territory further on the before named gulf, inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, both inland and on the sea coast, which turns to the south. KINGDOM OF BERMA. Having passed the kingdom of Bengala, along the coast which turns to the south, there is another kingdom of Gentiles called Berma.[288] In this there are no Moors, nor are there sea ports which can be made use of for trade in merchandise. The people of this kingdom are black men and go naked, for they only cover their middles with cotton cloths. They have their idolatries and houses of prayer. They frequently are at war with the King of Peigu. We have no further information respecting this country because it has no shipping. It is only known that it borders on the kingdom of Bengala on one side, and on the kingdom of Peigu on the other. And it has a gulf in the middle which enters the country in a direction north-east by east forty leagues, and is fourteen leagues wide at the mouth and twenty leagues wide further in, and in the middle of it is a large island which is thirty-six leagues long and from four to ten leagues broad. ERE CAN GUY.[289] Inland of this kingdom of Berma towards the north is another kingdom of Gentiles, very large and which has no sea ports. It also borders on the kingdom of Bengal and the kingdom of Ava, and it is called Ere can guy. The king and people of this kingdom are Gentiles. It is said that this king possesses many cities and towns, and horses and elephants. These elephants are brought from the kingdom of Peigu. These people are brown men, naked from the waist upwards, and wrapped round below the waist with cotton and silk cloths; they use many ornaments of gold and silver. They venerate idols and have large houses of prayer. This king is very rich in money, and powerful from the number of his men at arms: he is often at war with his neighbours, and some of them obey him against their wills, and render him tribute. He lives in great luxury, and possesses very good houses in all the towns where he resides, which have got many pools of water, green and shady gardens, and good trees. They have also got many women at their caprice, and have no law of marriage. In twelve towns of his kingdom he has twelve first-rate palaces in which he has many women brought up; that is, in each of these cities he has a governor who each year takes twelve girls born in that year, daughters of persons of the highest rank and the prettiest to be found; and he has them carefully brought up at the expense of the king, in these palaces, up to the age of twelve years; they are very well dressed, and taught thoroughly to dance and sing and play on musical instruments; in this way each palace constantly contains many of them of tender age. And at the end of the year the governor conducts to the king at whatever place he may be at, twelve damsels of the age of twelve years. The king orders them to be well dressed and to have the name of each one written on their clothes, and the next morning he orders them to be sent up to a terrace in the sun, and there remain fasting until midday. And they perspire so much with the heat of the sun that their clothes become damp, and then the king orders them to be taken to a room where they change their clothes. And the damp garments which they have thrown off are all carried to the king, who smells them, and those which do not smell bad he keeps for himself, and those which smell bad from the perspiration he makes a present of to those of his courtiers who are there present, as also the damsels who had worn them, who are known by the names written on the clothes. The other damsels whose clothes did not smell ill from the perspiration the king keeps for himself.[290] And thus he is always accustomed to do, and in this way they bring to him from all these twelve cities a hundred and forty-four girls, whom he distributes in the manner above described. And he has many amusements in the way of hunting, games, music, feasting and other things. PEYGU. Returning to the sea coast, after passing the kingdom of Berma, towards the south and south-east, there is another kingdom of Gentiles, very wealthy, well supplied with everything, and of great trade in merchandise by sea. It is called Peygu,[291] and extends seventy-five leagues. This kingdom has three or four sea ports in which are many Moorish and Gentile inhabitants, who are very great merchants. And the actual city of Peigu is seven or eight leagues distant from the sea,[292] on the arm of a very great river which runs through this kingdom, and comes from some very high mountains. During certain months of the year there is so great an increase of water, that the river leaves its bed and irrigates a large extent of land, from which a great deal of rice is gathered. They ship from these ports a great quantity of provisions in vessels which have three or four high masts, which they call jungos, for Malaca, Samatara, and other parts, and amongst other things much rice is shipped, and cane sugar, brown and loaf. Many Moorish ships from different parts assemble at these ports of Peigu, and bring thither much cloth of Cambay and Palacate, coloured cottons and silks, which the Indians call patola, which are worth a good deal there; they also bring opium, copper, scarlet cloth, coral in strings, in branches, and polished, quicksilver, vermilion, rose water, and a few drugs from Cambay. In this kingdom they ship very fine lac which grows there. There is much trade in cloves and mace and other Chinese goods, and musk and rubies, which come thither from inland from a city called Ava, of which mention will be made hereafter. The people of this kingdom go undressed, they only cover their middles. They are not warlike, and possess few weapons, and those wretched ones. They are very voluptuous, y traen en los capirotes de sus miembros unos cascaveles redondos cosydos soldados entre la carne y el cuero por hazerselos mayores, algunos traen tres, y algunos cinco, y algunos syete, y dellos de oro y de plata, y otros de metal, los quales les van sonando de que andan y an lo por mucha gentileza y las mugeres huelgan mucho con ellos y no quieren hombres que no los tengan, y los que mas honrados son, esos los traen mas y mayores. (_The Lisbon edition continues_: e nom diga mais deste costume pola desonestidade.)[293] The king is called the King of the White Elephant, and in this kingdom there are very high mountains where many wild elephants are bred; and they have a rule to catch one every day, and the king orders food to be sent them and has them brought up. He has a great quantity of them which he sells to merchants who come there to buy them, to take them to Pelecate, whence they go on to Narsynga, Malabar and Cambaya. There are likewise many small horses which go at an amble, which they make great use of; they also have horses on which they ride à la bastarda,[294] and with these and the elephants, and infantry, they carry on war. There are also many sheep and swine, wild and domestic in this kingdom, and the people are great sportsmen and hunters. MARTAVAN. In this same kingdom of Peygu towards Malaca, there are three or four seaports, of which I do not know the name, amongst them is one very good sea port called Martaban,[295] which is seventy-five leagues to the south south-east from the before-mentioned gulf. Many ships touch at it, and trade there and stow provisions and other goods, especially lac of a very good quality, which grows in the country itself; and the Moors of Persia and India call it lucomartaban. And it also grows in the country of Narsinga, but not so good as this: they say of this lac that it is gum of trees, others say that it grows on the slender branches of the trees, just as in our parts the berries grow. And this explanation appears the most natural. And so they bring it in small sticks, which naturally cannot produce so much gum. In this town of Martaban very large and beautiful porcelain vases are made, and some of glazed earthenware, of a black colour, which are highly valued amongst the Moors, and they export them as merchandise, and they also carry away from this country much benjuy in large loaves. AVA. Inland beyond this kingdom of Peigu between the kingdom of Daran cangui and the kingdom of Dansiam, to the east there is another kingdom of Gentiles which has a king who resides in a very great and opulent city called Ava,[296] eight days' journey from the sea; a place of rich merchants, in which there is a great trade of jewels, rubies, and spinel-rubies, which are gathered in this kingdom. Many foreign merchants flock thither from many parts to buy these jewels, and likewise much musk which is found there. And the king commands all to be gathered for himself, and sells it himself to the merchants of the country who sell it to the foreign merchants. The merchants bring there for sale quicksilver, vermilion, coral, copper, saffron, rose-water, opium, scarlet cloth, coloured velvet from Mekkah, and many other things from the kingdom of Cambay, and the jewels and musk are sold here at a low price in exchange for these goods. These rubies and spinel-rubies are found in the mountains and banks of rivers, by making many holes, and mines where they find these spinel-rubies; and on the surface of the earth and underneath it the rubies are found. The men of the country are very skilful lapidaries who know and cut them well. The musk is found in some small white animals, like gazelles, and they have teeth like elephants, but small. These animals are born with sorts of tumours under the belly and the breast, and these ripen, and after they are mature and have formed like matter, they have so much itching in them that they go to rub themselves against the trees, and the drops which fall from these tumours are of the best and most excellent musk, and the hunters, who pursue them with dogs and nets and other snares, follow their tracks by the smell, and they find these grains of fine musk, and by following them they catch them alive, and bring them to houses appointed for that purpose, where they entirely cut off these tumours with the skin, and they let them dry. These are the genuine musk pouches, of which very few are exported, because they falsify them, and they do it in this way. It must be known that on taking it from the living animal, they place many leeches on the wounds, and allow them to gorge themselves with blood, and when full they put them in the sun to dry, and of these they put so many that the animal falls dead without any blood, and afterwards they skin it, and with the skin they make several counterfeit pouches, which look like the real ones. Having pounded the leeches and reduced them to powder; with the powder they make grains in their hands, and add one weight of good musk taken from the real pouches, to a hundred of this blood of the leeches, and having mixed up the whole, they fill with it the counterfeit pouches, and they look very good. And they also esteem it in these parts as very fine, because the merchants through whose hands it passes adulterate it still further. The real musk is so strong that on putting it to the nostrils it causes the blood to issue. In this kingdom there are many elephants, horses and men devoted to war: and it is a country well supplied with provisions. CAPELAN. Further inland than the said kingdom of Ava, at five days' journey to the south-east is another city of Gentiles which has a ruler who is subject to the said King of Ava. This city is called Capelan,[297] and all round it are likewise found many and excellent rubies, which they bring to sell at the city and fair of Ava, and which are better than those of Ava. KINGDOM OF ANSIAM. Having passed the kingdom of Peigu, further along the coast to the south south-east towards Malaca, eighty-seven leagues from Martaban towards Malaca, and further on in the country is the kingdom of Ansiam,[298] which is of the Gentiles. And the king is a Gentile and a great ruler, and inland his borders are from this coast unto the other side, which is the coast of China: and he has seaports on both sides. He is the lord of many people both horse and foot, and of many elephants. And he does not allow any Moor to bear arms in his country. And from the kingdom of Peigu as far as a city which has a seaport, and is named Tanasery,[299] there are a hundred leagues. In this city there are many Moorish and Gentile merchants, who deal in all sorts of goods, and own ships, with which they navigate to Bengal, Malaca, and other parts. In the inland parts of this kingdom there grows much good benjuy, which is a resin of trees which the Moors call luban javi,[300] and it is of two kinds, that is to say, one which does not smell except in the fire, and the other of much scent, of which the good and genuine storax is made in the Levant, before extracting from it the oil, which in the Levant is extracted from it. And many ships of Moors and from other parts congregate at this port of Tanasary, and bring them copper, quicksilver, vermilion, scarlet cloth, silks, coloured velvets from Mekkah, saffron, coral, wrought and in strings, rose-water from Mekkah in little bottles of tinned copper, and it is sold by weight with the bottle; opium, Cambay stuffs, and all these goods fetch a high price at this place. QUEDA, TOWN OF THE KINGDOM OF ANSYAM. Having left this town of Tanasery further along the coast towards Malaca there is another seaport of the kingdom of Ansiam, which is called Queda,[301] in which also there is much shipping, and great interchange of merchandise. And many ships of the Moors and from other parts come there. Very good pepper grows in the country, which they carry to Malaca, and thence to China. This King of Ansiam has three other sea ports between Malaca and Tenasery, of which I do not know the names, and he possesses many cities, towns, and other villages. Throughout the country in the interior the people are Gentiles, and Moors do not enter there, and if at any time any Moor goes there to trade with them, they do not permit him to carry arms. There is much gold in this kingdom which is collected in the country, particularly in the lordship of Pani[302], which is beyond Malacca towards China, and has always belonged to the kingdom of Siam, until now that it has risen up against it, and does not obey it, but has rather placed itself in subjection to the King of Malacca. And so likewise in this kingdom of Siam, there is another lordship and country of Gentiles, in subjection to it, which is called Sara hangor,[303] in which there is much tin, which they carry to the city of Malacca as merchandise, and hence they carry it to all parts. The king and people of the kingdom of Ansyam, who are Gentiles, greatly honour their idols, and have many customs different from those of the other nations. They go naked from the waist upwards, and some wear small jackets of silk stuffs. The country is very well supplied with provisions, flesh of domestic and wild animals, and rice. They have many horses of a small breed, and much fruit of various qualities. The men are great hunters and sportsmen. In the interior of the country towards China, there is another kingdom of Gentiles which is in obedience to him, (the King of Siam) and there, when a relation or a friend dies, they eat him roasted before a great fire in the middle of a field, where they set up three poles stuck in the earth, and between them a chain with two hooks of iron, and they bring the body of the man who has died of illness or of any other death, and they hang him up there by the hams, roasting him, and his children and relations are there bewailing him, and after he is well roasted they take wine in cups, and they have knives with which they all cut from the body and eat of it, weeping all the while, and they drink their wine; and the nearest relations begin first to eat, and in this manner they finish eating him, and leave only the bones, which they burn afterwards; and they say that they give such a burial to their relations on account of their being of their own flesh, and that they cannot be any where better buried than in their bodies.[304] And in all the kingdom of Ansyam they burn the dead bodies, because that is the custom of all the Gentile countries. KINGDOM AND CITY OF MALACCA. The said kingdom of Ansyane throws out a great point of land into the sea,[305] which makes there a cape, where the sea returns again towards China to the north; in this promontory is a small kingdom in which there is a large city called Malaca; and in former times it belonged to the kingdom of Ansyam. And the Moors of the town and foreign Moors, established their trade in this city, in which they increased so much in wealth, that they revolted with the country and caused the neighbouring inhabitants to turn Moors, and they set up a Moorish king over them, without paying further obedience to the said King of Ansyam. Many Moorish merchants reside in it, and also Gentiles, particularly Chetis, who are natives of Cholmendel: and they are all very rich and have many large ships, which they call jungos. They deal in all sorts of goods in different parts, and many other Moorish and Gentile merchants flock thither from other countries to trade; some in ships of two masts from China and other places, and they bring thither much silk in skeins,[306] many porcelain vases, damasks, brocades, satins of many colours, they deal in musk, rhubarb, coloured silks, much iron, saltpetre, fine silver, many pearls and seed pearl, chests, painted fans, and other toys, pepper, wormwood,[307] Cambay stuffs, scarlet cloths, saffron, coral polished and rough, many stuffs of Palecate, of coloured cotton, others white from Bengal, vermilion, quicksilver, opium and other merchandise, and drugs from Cambay; amongst which there is a drug which we do not possess and which they call puchô, and another called cachô, and another called magican, which are gall nuts, which they bring from the Levant to Cambay, by way of Mekkah, and they are worth a great deal in China and Java. There also come thither many ships from Java, which have four masts, very different from ours, and of very thick wood. When these become old they fish[308] them with other new planks, and in this manner they carry three or four coverings of planking one above the other; and the sails are of woven osiers,[309] and the cordage of the same. These bring much rice, meat of cows, sheep, pigs and deer, dried and salted, many chickens, garlic and onions. They also bring thither many weapons for sale, that is to say, lances, daggers and swords, worked with inlaid metal and of very good steel, they bring likewise cubebs and a yellow die which they call cazunba, and gold which is produced in Java. They bring their wives and children in these ships, and there are some mariners whose wives and children never leave the ship to go on shore, nor have any other dwelling, but there are born and die. From this place many ships sail to the Molucca Islands, which will be mentioned further on, to ship cloves, and they carry there as merchandise Cambay cloths, and all sorts of cottons, silks, and other stuffs of Palacate and Bangala, quicksilver, tin, copper unwrought and wrought into bells, and in a coin which they bring from China, like ceutis[310] of Portugal, pierced in the middle, pepper, porcelain, garlic and onions, with other things and drugs from Cambay; and they traffic much in them. So they navigate in these ships to other islands which are scattered over all the sea, that is to say, to Timor, whence they bring white sandal, which the Indians make great use of; and they carry to them iron, hatchets, knives, swords, cloths of Palacate and Cambay, copper, quicksilver, vermilion, tin and lead, little beads from Cambay of all sorts. And in exchange for these things they carry away the before named sandal, honey, wax, slaves; and at the Isles of Bandam they ship nutmeg and mace. These islands supply themselves with goods from Cambay. These ships also fetch pepper from Samatra, silk in skeins, benjuy, and fine gold; and from other islands they fetch camphor and aloes wood; and they also navigate to Tanasery, Peygu, Bengala, Palecate, Cholmender, Malabar, Cambay, and Aden, with all kinds of goods, so that this city of Malaca is the richest trading port and possesses the most valuable merchandise, and most numerous shipping and extensive traffic, that is known in all the world. And it has got such a quantity of gold that the great merchants do not estimate their property, nor reckon otherwise than by bahars of gold, which are four quintals each bahar. There are merchants among them who will take up singly three or four ships laden with very valuable goods, and will supply them with cargo from their own property. They are very well made men, and likewise the women, they are of a brown colour, and go bare from the waist upwards, and from that downwards cover themselves with silk and cotton cloths, and they wear short jackets half way down the thigh of scarlet cloth, and silk, cotton or brocade stuffs; and they are girt with belts, and carry daggers in their waists wrought with rich inlaid work, these they call querix.[311] And the women dress in wraps of silk stuffs, and short shirts much adorned with gold and jewellery, and have long beautiful hair. These people have many mosques, and when they die they bury their bodies. Their children inherit from them. They live in large houses, and have their gardens and orchards, and pools of water outside the city for their recreation. They have got many slaves who are married with wives and children. These slaves live separately and serve them when they have need of them. These Moors who are named Malayos are very polished people, and gentlemen, musical, gallant, and well proportioned. The Chety merchants from Cholmendel are for the most part stout and corpulent. They also go bare from the waist upwards. In this city there are also many people from Java dwelling in it; they are small stout men, whose breasts and faces are long and ill formed. They are Moors and go bare from the waist upwards, and wear cloths ill put on from the waist downwards. They wear nothing on their heads, and their hair is curled with art, and some of them are shaved. They are ingenious and subtle in all their work, and very cunning and treacherous, and of little truth, daring in all mischief, and unto death. They have very good arms and fight valiantly. There are some of them who if they fall ill of any severe illness, vow to God that if they remain in health they will of their own accord seek another more honourable death for his service,[312] and as soon as they get well they take a dagger in their hands and go out into the streets and kill as many persons as they meet, both men, women and children, in such wise that they go like mad dogs, killing until they are killed. These are called amuco. And as soon as they see them begin this work, they cry out saying, amuco, amuco,[313] in order that people may take care of themselves, and they kill them with dagger and spear thrusts. Many of these Javans live in this city with wives and children and property. This city possesses very good water and fruit, and is very healthy. Other provisions are brought from outside. The King of Malaca has got much treasure, and a large revenue from the duties which he collects. To him the lord of Pam made himself tributary, who was a ruler in the kingdom of Ansyam, and he raised himself up against it. In this country of Pam much gold of inferior quality is found. This country of Malaca was discovered by Diego Lopez de Sequeyra, a Portuguese gentleman, and after it was discovered the Moors of the country took certain Portuguese and merchandise by stratagem,[314] and killed some, on account of which Alfonso de Alborquerque, Captain General of the King of Portugal in the Indies, moved his fleet, and went against Malaca to avenge this event, and he attacked and took it by assault, and drove out the King of Malaca, notwithstanding that the Moors made a vigorous defence with artillery, spears, arms, guns, and arrows, and with elephants armed with wooden castles, in which were good soldiers with their weapons. So that the merchants and traders of this city surrendered into subjection to the King of Portugal, without any vexations being done to them. And the Portuguese immediately built a handsome fortress in this city, which entirely commands the town and all its trade, as it was before. Much spoil was taken in this city, and great wealth from those who had fled. The ruler of Pam, the lord of a gold mine, on knowing that Malaca was in subjection to the King of Portugal, at once sent an ambassador to this Captain Major General, offering obedience to the King of Portugal. ARCHIPELAGO OF MALACA. In front of the before named island of Samatra across the Gulf of the Ganges, are five or six small islands, which have very good water and ports for ships, they are inhabited by Gentiles, poor people, they are called Niconbar,[315] and they find in them very good amber, which they carry thence to Malaca and other parts. ISLAND OF SAMATRA. Having passed these islands near the Cape of Malaca, about twenty leagues to the south[316] there is a large and very beautiful island which is called Samatara,[317] which has in circumference seven hundred leagues reckoned by the Moors, who have sailed all round it: and it has many seaports and kingdoms of Moors and Gentiles. The Moors live in the seaports, and the Gentiles in the interior of the country. The principal kingdom of the Moors is called Pedir.[318] Much very good pepper grows in it, which is not so strong or so fine as that of Malabar. Much silk is also grown there, but not so good as the silk of China. Another kingdom is called Birahem,[319] and another Paser,[320] and another Campar,[321] another Andraguide,[322] another Manancabo,[323] where much fine gold is collected, which is taken thence to Malaca, most of it in dust; and another kingdom called Haru, of Gentiles, who eat human flesh, and any person whom they can catch, they eat him without any mercy. And it also contains many other kingdoms of Gentiles in the interior of the country. In some parts of this island there grows much benjuy, pepper, and long pepper, camphor, and some ginger, and wax. Many ships sail to this island for these goods. Cloths and goods from Cambay are worth a good deal in it, and so also coral, quicksilver, rose-water, dried fish from Maldiu. These Moors are very disloyal, and often kill their kings and set up others who are more powerful. The King of Portugal has a fortress in this island, and trade. And having passed Samatara towards Java there is the island of Sunda,[324] in which there is much good pepper, and it has a king over it, who, they say, desires to serve the King of Portugal. They ship thence many slaves for China. JAVA MAJOR. Further on than this said island towards the western quarter and the south[325] there are many islands small and great, amongst which there is one very large which they call Java the Great;[326] it is one hundred and twenty leagues distant from the Cape of Malaca to the south south east, and it is inhabited by many Gentiles and Moors. And in its seaports there are many towns and villages and large settlements of Moors, with Moorish kings. But they are all obedient to the king of the island, who is a Gentile, and lives in the interior of the country, and is a great lord called Patevdara,[327] and sometimes some rebel against him, and afterwards he again subjugates them. Some of these Moorish rulers and inhabitants of Java desire to serve the King of Portugal, and others are ill affected towards him. They say that this island is the most abundant country in the world. There is in it much good rice, and various meats of all kinds, domestic and wild, they make in this place much dried and salted flesh for many parts. There grows in this island pepper, cinnamon, ginger, bamboos, cubebs, and gold. Its inhabitants are short and stout in stature with broad faces.[328] Most of them go bare from the waist upwards, others wear silk clothes down to the middle of the thigh, and their beards thin;[329] the hair shaven on the top and curled upwards, they wear nothing on their heads, and say that nothing must be on their heads, nor anything whatever, and if any person ware to put his hand upon their head they would kill him: and they do not build houses with stories, in order that they may not walk over each other's heads. They are very proud men, liars and treacherous; very ingenious as carpenters and masons, and very good artillerymen. They make in this country many guns and long muskets, and many other fireworks. And in all other parts they are much esteemed for this and as artillerymen. They have got many ships and great navigation, and many rowing galleys. They are great corsairs and mariners, and they make many kinds of arms of good temper and of good steel, wrought with very pretty inlaid work of gold and ivory: they are great sorcerers and necromancers, and they make arms in certain places and hours, and they say that those cannot die by steel who wear them, and that they kill by drawing blood: and others of which they say that those who bear them cannot be conquered. And they say that there are arms which they employ eight or ten years to complete, watching for places, hours and minutes, disposed for these effects: and the kings prize and take great care of these. They are great sportsmen and hunters, they have plenty of horses and many good hunting dogs, and birds of prey for the chase. When they go to hunt they take their wives with them in handsome carts with canopies and curtains; and the kings and great lords also go in those carts, which are drawn by horses when they go hunting. The ladies are white and very pretty in figure and of pleasing countenances though rather long; they sing well, are polished in manner, and are very industrious workwomen. JAVA MINOR. Further out to sea five leagues to the east of the said island of Java Major is another island also very well supplied with provisions of all kinds, inhabited by Gentiles, with a Gentile king, and a language of its own. A few Moors subjects of the Gentile king live in the seaports. This island is called amongst them Sumbava, and the Moors, Arabs, and Persians call it Java Minor.[330] And after passing the said island there is another small island called Oçare, and a fire always burns in the centre of it. They go much on horseback and are hunters, and the women take much care of the flocks. TIMOR. Having passed these islands of Java Major and Minor, forty-two leagues distant from Java Minor to the east south-east there are many other islands great and small, inhabited by Gentiles and by a few Moors, amongst which there is an island called Timor,[331] which has a Gentile king, and a language of its own. Much white sandal grows there, and those who go for it carry as goods to this island iron hatchets, large and small, knives and swords, stuffs from Cambay and Palecate, porcelain, small beads of all kinds, tin, quicksilver and lead. They also ship in this island honey, wax, slaves, and some silver which is found in these islands. ISLANDS OF BANDAN. Fifteen leagues more to the north-north-west there are five other islands almost close together, which make a pool between them into which ships enter. And they enter there on two sides, and these are called the Bandan Islands,[332] they are inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, and in three of them there grows much nutmeg and mace upon trees like laurels, whose fruit is the nutmeg, and upon the nutmeg is the mace like a flower, and above this there is another thick rind: and in these islands one quintal of mace is worth as much as seven of nutmeg, for there is such a quantity of the nutmeg that they burn it, so that it is almost worth nothing. And to purchase this mace and nutmeg the merchants carry the following goods: cotton and silk stuffs of all kinds from Cambay, drugs from Guzerat, copper, quicksilver, lead and tin; and some coloured caps[333] with long pile, which they bring from the Levant, and bells from Java which are worth each one of the large ones twenty bahars of mace, and each bahar is four quintals. From this island of Bandam to Maluco, which is towards the north, there are many islands inhabited and uninhabited, in these they keep as treasure very large metal bells; ivory, Cambay silk stuffs which they call patolas, and very fine porcelain. There is no king in these islands, nor do they obey any one: on some occasions they obey the King of Maluco. DANDON.[334] A hundred leagues further on to the north-east towards Maluco, there are many other islands peopled by Gentiles, they are called the Dandon islands, each one has a king and a language of its own. In these islands there are many rowing boats which go out to rob one another, and make prisoners, whom they kill, or ransom for Cambay stuffs, which are highly valued amongst them; and each man labours to obtain such a quantity of these cloths that when placed upon the ground the bundle would rise to the height of a man's stature; and those who have as much as that consider themselves as free, since the ransom of those who are captured is not greater than this quantity. ISLANDS OF MALUCO, WHICH ARE FIVE. Beyond these islands twenty-five leagues towards the north-east there are five islands one before the other, which are called the islands of Maluco,[335] in which all the cloves grow, and they are of Gentiles and Moors. Their kings are Moors, and the first of them is called Bachan, the second Maquian, which contains a very good harbour, the third is called Motil, the fourth Tidory, and the fifth Ternaty,[336] in which there is a Moorish king who is called Sultan Benarra Sorala. He was king of all these islands of cloves, and now all the four have revolted, and have each got a king of their own. The hills in these five islands are all of cloves, which grow on trees like laurel, which has its leaf like that of the arbutus, and it grows like the orange flower, which in the beginning is green and then turns white, and when it is ripe it turns coloured, and then they gather it by hand, the people going amongst the trees, and they put it to dry in the sun, where it turns brown, and if there is no sun they dry it with the smoke, and after it is very dry they sprinkle it with salt water for it not to crumble, and that it may preserve its virtue. And there are such quantities of these cloves that they never can finish gathering them, so that they let much of it be lost. And the trees from which they do not gather it for three years, after that become wild, so that their cloves are worth nothing. Every year the people of Malaca and Java come to these islands to ship cloves, and they bring as merchandise, quicksilver, vermilion, stuffs from Cambay, Bengal and Palecate, drugs from Cambay, some pepper, porcelain, large metal bells which are made in Java, dishes of copper and tin. The cloves are worth very little in these islands, so as to be almost for nothing. This King of Maluco is a Moor, and almost a Gentile; he has a Moorish wife, and three or four hundred Gentile damsels whom he keeps in his house, and he has of many of them Gentile sons and daughters, and only the children of the Moorish women become Moors. He is served by humpbacked women, whom he orders to have their spines bent from childhood, for state and show; and he may have eighty or a hundred of these, who always go with him and serve him as pages; some give him betel, others carry his sword, and they render all other services. In these islands there are many coloured parrots, of very splendid colours; they are tame, and the Moors call them nure,[337] and they are much valued amongst them. ISLAND OF CELEBE.[338] Having passed these islands of Maluco to the west of Motil and Machian, at a distance of a hundred and thirty leagues, there are other islands to the west, from which sometimes there come white people, naked from the waist upwards, and they wear cloths round them made of straw, and have a language of their own. They bring some ill made boats to ship cloves in the before mentioned islands, and copper, tin and Cambay stuffs. They bring for sale very long and broad swords of one edge and other manufactures of iron,[339] and much gold. These people eat human flesh, and if the King of Maluco has any person to execute they beg for him to eat him, just as one would ask for a pig, and the islands from whence they come are called Celebe.[340] BANGAYA.[341] At no great distance from this island to the west-south-west, at thirty-six leagues off, is another island of Gentiles which has a Gentile king over it. The inhabitants of it are accustomed to saw off their teeth at the roots of the gums. It is called Bangaya,[342] there is much iron in it, which they carry to all parts. SOLOR. Seventy-five leagues further on to the north-east in the direction of China is a very large island and well supplied with various provisions, which is called Solor,[343] it is inhabited by Gentiles, almost white men, and well made; they have a Gentile king and a language of their own. In this island there is much gold, which is found in the earth; and all round this island the Moors gather much seed pearl and fine pearls of perfect colour and not round. BORNEY. Beyond this island to the north more towards China is another island also very well supplied with provisions, inhabited by Gentiles, who have a Gentile king and a language of their own. In this island much camphor for eating is gathered, and the Indians value it highly. It is worth its weight in silver, and some of it even more. They bring it made into powder in tubes of cane; and it is worth a great deal in Narsinga, Malabar, and Decan.[344] This island is called Borney.[345] CHAMPA. Having passed this island thirty leagues to the west towards the country of Ansiam and China, there is another great island of Gentiles, which is called Champa,[346] which has a king and a language of its own; and many elephants which are bred there, and they carry them to many places. There also grows in it aloes wood which the Indians call eagle, and calambuco; it must be said that the very fine calambuco and the other eagle wood is worth at Calicut a thousand maravedis the pound.[347] Between these islands there are many other islands inhabited by gentiles, and others uninhabited amongst which there is one in which there are many diamonds which the people of the country collect and export for sale to many parts but they are not such nor so fine as those of Narsynga. CHINA. Leaving these islands which are many, almost unnumbered, of all of which the names are not known; and they are towards the north and in the direction of China, and there is not much information about them; it is only known that after passing the kingdom of Ansyam and other kingdoms, there is the kingdom of China, which they say is a very extensive dominion, both along the coast of the sea and in the interior of the country; it is a country of Gentiles, and it possesses many islands in the sea also inhabited by Gentiles, subject to it, in which the King of China keeps his governors and officers of his appointment. This king always resides in the interior of the country in very large and good cities. No foreigner enters within the kingdom, they can only trade in the sea ports, and in the islands; and if any ambassador from another kingdom comes to it by sea, he first gives information of it in order that he may enter, and afterwards the king bids him be conducted to where he is staying. The inhabitants of the country are white men, tall, well-made and gentlemen; and so likewise the women. They have got only one defect, that their eyes are very small, and on their chins they have three or four hairs and no more; the smaller their eyes are, so much the prettier they think them; and the same as regards the women. They are very smartly dressed, clothed in silk and cotton and woollen stuffs, and their costumes are like those of Germans; they are shod with soft leather boots[348] and shoes, like the people of a cold country. They have a language of their own, and the tone of it is like that of Germans. They eat on high tables like ourselves, with their napkins, and for as many as may be there to eat, they set before each one a plate, a small roll, and a knife, and a silver cup; they do not touch the food which they are going to eat with their hands, but eat it with little pinchers of silver or wood, and they hold in their left hand the dish or porcelain in which they eat, brought very close to the mouth, and with those pinchers they eat very quickly. They prepare various kinds of viands, and eat all meats, and wheaten bread. They drink several kinds of wine, and many times during their meals. They also eat the flesh of dogs which they hold to be good meat. They are men of truth and[349] good gentlemen: they are great merchants of all sorts of goods. They make much porcelain in the country, and very good, which is a great article of commerce for all parts. They make them of sea snail shells well ground and with the whites and shells of eggs, and of other materials, of which they make a dough, which they put under the earth to ripen and mature itself, for a space of eighty or a hundred years, and they leave this mass as a treasure and inheritance, because as the time approaches for working it so it becomes more valuable, and in this way they leave it to their sons and grandsons;[350] and after the time has arrived they work it into vases of all patterns, and after they are made they enamel and paint them. There also grows and is produced in this country of China much very good silk, of which they make a great quantity of stuffs; that is to say, damasks of all colours, satins of several kinds, and brocade. There is much rhubarb in this country, and much musk, very fine silver, seed pearl, and pearls that are not very round. They also make many other very pretty gilded things in this country; that is to say, very rich chests and trays of gilt wood, salt dishes, fans, and other delicate works of ingenious men. They are also great navigators in very large ships which they call jungos, of two masts, of a different make from ours, the sails are of matting, and so also the cordage. There are great corsairs and robbers amongst those islands and ports of China. They go with all these goods to Malaca, where they also carry much iron, saltpetre and many other things, and for the return voyage they ship there Samatra and Malabar pepper, of which they use a great deal in China, and drugs of Cambay, much anfiam, which we call opium, wormwood, Levant gall nuts, saffron, coral wrought and unwrought, stuffs from Cambay, Palecate and Bengal, vermilion, quicksilver, scarlet cloth, and many other things. In this country of China the pepper is worth fifteen ducats the quintal, and more according to the quantity they carry there, which pepper they buy in Malaca at four ducats the quintal. Many of these Chinese take their wives and children continually in the ships in which they live without possessing any other dwelling. This China borders on Tartary towards the north, and it is a thousand leagues distant to the north-north-west from the Malucos. LEQUEOS. Opposite this country of China there are many islands in the sea, and beyond them at a hundred and seventy-five leagues to the east there is one very large which they say is the mainland, from whence there come each year to Malaca three or four ships like those of the Chinese, of white people whom they describe as great and wealthy merchants. They bring much gold in bars, silver, silk and many very rich silk stuffs, much very good wheat, beautiful porcelain and other merchandise. And they ship pepper and other things which they carry away. These islands are called Lequeos,[351] the people of Malaca say that they are better men, and greater and wealthier merchants, and better dressed and adorned, and more honourable than the Chinese. There is not much information about these people up to the present time, because they have not come to India since the King of Portugal possesses it.[352] FINIS. An end was made of transferring this book from its original in the Portuguese language, translated into Castilian language, in Vitoria, the Emperor and King of Spain residing there, on the first day of March, of the year one thousand five hundred and twenty-four years, by Min. Cinturion,[353] Ambassador of the Community of Genoa, with the interpretation of Diego Ribero, Portuguese, Cosmographer of His Majesty, and Master of the Sailing charts. ACCOUNT OF THE RUBIES, WHERE THEY GROW, OF THEIR VARIETY, AND OF HOW THEY ARE SOLD IN THE MALABAR COUNTRY. Firstly, the rubies grow in the third India, and are for the most part gathered in a river which is called Peygu, and these are the best and the finest, which the Malabars call nir puco. Those which are sold for the prices written below must be very good, without any blemish: and in order to know their fineness the Indians put the point of their tongue upon them, and that which is the coldest and hardest is best: and in order to see its purity they take it up with wax by the finest point, and so look at it by the light, by which they see any blemish which it may have got. They are found in very deep caves which there are amongst the mountains. And in this river and country of Peygu they clean them, but do not work them, for they take them to other parts to be worked, principally in Palecate and the country of Narsynga. In Calicut and the whole Malabar country, eight fine rubies of the weight of one fanam are worth ten fanaes[354] x fs. 10 Four rubies of the said weight in perfection xx fanaes xx fs. 20 Two weighing one fanam xl fs. 40 One weighing one fanam l fs. 50 One weighing three quarters of a fanam xxx fs. 30 One weighing a fanam and a quarter lxxv fs. 75 One weighing a fanam and a half is worth c fs. 100 One which should weigh a fanam and three quarters cl fs. 150 A ruby which weighs two fanaes is worth cc fs. 200 One which should weigh two fanoes and a quarter ccl fs. 250 One of two and a half ccc fs. 300 One of two and three quarters and a half cccc fs. 400 One of three fanoes ccccl fs. 450 One of three fanoes and a quarter d fs. 500 One of three and a half dl fs. 550 One of three and three quarters dc fs. 600 One of three fanoes three quarters and a half dcxxx fs. 630 One of four fanoes dclx fs. 660 One of four fanoes and a quarter dcc fs. 700 One of four fanoes and a half dcccc fs. 900 One of five fanoes IU fs. 1,000 One of five fanoes and a half IUCC fs. 1,200 One of six fanoes IUd fs. 1,500 They are usually worth these prices if they are perfect, and those which should not be perfect, or may have any spots, or have not got a good colour are worth much less, according to the choice of the buyer. A fanam weighs something more than two carats of our parts, and eleven fanoes and a quarter are a mitigal,[355] and six mitigals and a half make an ounce, and each fanan is worth here a real of silver.[356] ACCOUNT OF THE SPINEL RUBIES. There is another kind of rubies which we call spinel rubies, and the Indians call them carapuch, which are produced in the same country of Peygu, where the fine rubies grow, and they find them in the mountains near the surface of the ground. These are not so fine nor of so bright a colour as the rubies, but they have rather the colour of scarlet: and those which are perfect in colour and pure, are worth half less than the rubies. ACCOUNT OF OTHER RUBIES OF CEYLON. In the second India there is an island called Ceylan, where many rubies are found, which the Indians call manica, most of these do not reach the perfection of the others in colour, because they are red, and pale, and ruddy.[357] They are very hard and very cold, and, those which are found in all their perfection of colour are very highly valued amongst them. And the king of that island has them found, and keeps the perfect ones for himself, which he sells with his own hand: and when the lapidaries clean them if they find one very white they put it by his orders into the fire for a certain number of hours, and if it endures the fire and comes out sound it remains of a brighter colour. Such a stone is of great value, and those of this kind which the King of Narsynga can get into his hands, he orders them to be bored with a very fine hole on the underneath side so that the hole reaches to the centre, and they do not pass it, because the stone can no longer leave the kingdom, and that it may be known that it has been tried in the fire. And so also these are worth more than those of Peygu. Their prices are the following if they are perfect in colour and purity:-- One which weighs a carat, which is half a fanam, is worth in Calicut thirty fanoes xxx fs. 30 One of two carats lxxv fs. 75[358] One of three carats cl fs. 150 One of three carats and a half cc fs. 200 One of four carats ccc fs. 300 One of four carats and a half cccl fs. 350 One of five carats cccc fs. 400 One of five carats and a half ccccl fs. 450 One of six carats dxxx fs. 530 One of six carats and a half dlx fs. 560 One of seven carats dcxxx fs. 630 One of seven carats and a half dcclx fs. 760 One of eight carats very good and tried in the fire is worth dccc fs. 800 Such a one of eight carats and a half dcccc fs. 900 Such a one of nine carats IUC fs. 1,100 Such a one of ten carats IUCCC fs. 1,300 One of eleven carats of this kind IUDC fs. 1,600 One of twelve carats nU fs. 2,000 One of fourteen carats mU fs. 3,000 One of sixteen carats VIU fs. 6,000 ACCOUNT OF THE BALASSES, WHERE THEY GROW AND WHAT THEY ARE WORTH IN CALICUT. These balasses are of the class of rubies but not so strong as them, their colour is rosy and some are almost white, they are found in Balaxayo[359] which is a kingdom of the mainland near Peygu and Bengal. The Moors bring them out of that country to all parts; that is to say, the good and picked ones, cut or uncut, they clean and work them in Calicut, and they are sold for the prices of spinel rubies. Those which are not good, and are bored, are bought by the Moors of Mekkah and Aden for the whole of Arabia, where they are accustomed to take them. ACCOUNT OF THE DIAMONDS OF THE OLD MINE. These diamonds are gathered in the first India in a kingdom of Moors called Decan, and they carry them thence to all parts. There are other diamonds which are not so good; some are white and are said to be of the new mine which is in the kingdom of Narsynga; these are worth less by a third in Calicut and the country of Malabar, than those of the old mine; and they are worked in the kingdom of Narsynga itself. And those of the old mine are not worked in India. They likewise make false diamonds in India with white rubies, topazes and sapphires, which look like fine gems and these are found in Ceylon, and they only differ from diamonds in the colour which they have by nature. And some of these stones are found half of which have the colour of the ruby and the other of the colour of the sapphire, and others of the colour of the topaze, and some of them have got all these colours mixed. They bore these stones with two or three very fine threads through them, and they remain as cats' eyes. And with the stones which turn out white they make a great quantity of small diamonds which cannot be distinguished from the other genuine ones, except by the touch[360] and by those who have much acquaintance with them. Eight fine diamonds which weigh a manjar[361] are worth xxv or xxx fs. 30 Six weighing one manjar xl fs. 40 Four weighing one manjar lx fs. 60 Two weighing one manjar lxxx fs. 80 One weighing one manjar c fs. 100 One weighing a manjar and a quarter clxv fs. 165 One of one and a half clxxx fs. 180 One of one and three quarters ccxx fs. 220 One of one and three quarters and a half cclx fs. 260 One of two manjars cccxx fs. 320 One of two and a quarter ccclx fs. 360 One of two and a half ccclxxx fs. 380 One of two and three quarters if in full perfection ccccxx fs. 420 One of this said perfection of three manjars ccccl fs. 450 One of three manjars and a half cccclxxx fs. 480 One of four manjars dl fs. 550 One of five manjars dccl fs. 750 One of six manjars dcccc fs. 900 One of seven manjars IUCC fs. 1,200 One of eight manjars IUCCCC fs. 1,400 These go on increasing in price in proportion, and each manjar weighs two taras and two-thirds, and two taras make a carat even weight, and four taras weigh a fanam. ACCOUNT OF THE SAPPHIRES. The best and most genuine sapphires are found in Ceylon, they are very strong and fine, and those which are in all perfection, and purity, and of a fine blue colour, are worth the following prices. One which weighs a carat two fanaes ii fs. 2 One weighing two vi fs. 6 One weighing three carats x fs. 10 One weighing four carats xv fs. 15 One weighing five carats xviii fs. 18 A weight of six xxv fs. 25 One of seven xxxv fs. 35 One of eight carats l fs. 50 One of nine lxv fs. 65 One of ten carats lxxv fs. 75 A sapphire weighing eleven carats is worth xc. fs. 90 One of twelve cxx fs. 120 One perfect in purity and colour weighing thirteen carats cxxxv fs. 135 One of fourteen carats clx fs. 160 One of sixteen two hundred fanoes cc fs. 200 One of eighteen ccl fs. 250 One of twenty ccc fs. 300 One weighing a mitical which is xi fanams and a quarter cccl fs. 350 There is also in Ceylam another kind of sapphires, which are not so strong, which they call quirin genilam,[362] and they are of a darker colour. These are worth much less, however good they may be, for one of the above-mentioned is worth as much as thirteen of these. In the kingdom of Narsynga in a mountain above Bancanor and Mangalor there is another kind of sapphires softer and inferior in colour, which they call cringanilan;[362] they are somewhat whitish; these are worth very little, so much so that the most perfect of them which weighs twenty carats will not be worth a ducat. Their colour is also somewhat yellow. There is another sort of sapphires which are found on the sea beach of the kingdom of Calicut in a place called Capucad,[363] the Indians call these carahatonilam, they are very blue and cloudy and do not glitter, except setting them in the light.[364] They are soft and break like glass. An opinion is held by some who say that in former times there was by the sea of this Capurad the house of a king and that its windows were of blue glass, and that the sea having covered it over the pieces of glass are thrown up ashore; but they are very large, and on the other hand they seem to be glass. These are worth very little among them. ACCOUNT OF THE TOPAZES AND OF THEIR PRICES IN CALICUT. The natural topazes are found in Ceylon which the Indians call pur ceraga, it is very hard stone and very cold and heavy like the ruby and sapphire, because all three are of one kind. Its perfect colour is yellow like beaten gold, and when their colour is perfect and pure, whether they be great or small, in Calicut they are worth their weight in fine gold, and this is their price usually; and if the colour is not so perfect they are worth their weight in gold of fanams which is less by half, and if it is almost white they are worth much less, and they make small diamonds of them. ACCOUNT OF THE TURQUOISES, AND OF THEIR PRICES IN MALABAR. The true turquoises are found in Niexer[365] and Quirimane,[366] country of Sheikh Ismail, in mines and dry ground,[367] and they are found upon black stones, and the Moors detach them there in small pieces, and bring them thence to Ormuz, whence they are sent out to many countries by sea. The Indians call them peyrosa. It is a soft stone and of little weight, and not very cold; and in order to know that it is good and true, by day it will seem to you of a blue colour, and at night by candle light it turns green; and those which are not so perfect, do not change from one appearance. If this stone is pure and of a fine colour, underneath at its base it will have brown stone upon which it grew, and if any little vein or point were to come out above the black stone itself, then it is known as very genuine indeed, and of greater value, because it is a sign of being a true turquoise, and for greater certainty putting upon it a little virgin lime, white and moistened like ointment, the lime will appear coloured. And when they have this perfection they are worth the following prices:-- If the turquoise is of the said perfection and weighs a carat, it will be worth in the Malabar country xv fs. 15 One of two carats xl fs. 40 One of four carats xc fs. 90 One of six carats cl fs. 150 One of eight carats cc fs. 200 One of ten carats ccc fs. 300 One of twelve carats ccccl fs. 450 One of xiiij carats dl fs. 550 They take no account of the larger ones, from their being light pieces of much bulk. The Moors and Guzuratys wear the large ones. ACCOUNT OF THE HYACINTHS. The hyacinths are produced in Ceylan, and are soft yellow stones, and those which are of a stronger colour are the best; most of them have within some grains which impair their beauty, and those which have not got them, and are pure, in perfection of this colour, are worth little in Calicut where they arrange them; one which weighs a fanam is not worth more than three fanams, and one of xviij fanams is not worth more than xvi fanams. There are also other gems, cat's eyes, chrysoliths, and amethists, of which no other distinction is made on account of their being of little value, and so also with regard to the jagonzas.[368] ACCOUNT OF THE EMERALDS. The emeralds are produced in the country of Babilonia, which the Indians call Maredeygua;[369] and they likewise grow in many other parts; they are green stones of a good colour and pretty; they are light and soft, and many counterfeits are made of them which resemble them, but looking at them in the light they show the counterfeit and some little globules such as all glass makes; and if they were genuine they would not show any. But the sight of them would give great satisfaction and the good ones shew rays inside them like of the sun, and being touched by a touchstone leaves on it a copper colour. And the real emerald is such that they are worth the same as diamonds in Calicut, and something more, not according to the weight but the size, because the diamond is much heavier than it. There are likewise other emeralds which are green stones, and these are not so much valued, but the Indians make use of them in jewellery. These do not leave a copper colour on the touchstone.[370] SUMMARY ACCOUNT OF THE SPICES, WHERE THEY GROW, AND WHAT THEY ARE WORTH IN CALICUT, AND WHERE THEY ARE EXPORTED TO. Pepper grows in all Malabar, firstly in the kingdom of Calicut, and there it is worth from two hundred to two hundred and thirty fanoes the bahal, which weighs four quintals of the old weight of Portugal at which all spice is sold in Lisbon: and they pay twelve fanoes per bahar duty for taking it out of the country to the King of Calicut; and those who buy it are used to take it to Cambay, Persia, Aden, Mekkah, from whence they also transport it to Cayro, and thence to Alexandria. And now they give it to the King of Portugal at the rate of iiijulx (4,060)[371] the bahar, with the duties, which are cxciij fanoes (193) and 1/4, on account of so great a variety of merchants no longer resorting there to buy it, and on account of the agreement which the King of Portugal made with the kings and Moors and merchants of the country of Malabar. Much pepper also grows in Sumatra which is an island near Malaca, and it is larger and better looking than that of the Malabar country: but this pepper is not so fine nor so strong as that. This pepper is carried to Bengal and China and Java, and some of it is carried to Mekkah without the knowledge of the Portuguese, who do not allow it to be taken. It is worth 400 to 600 maravedis the quintal of Portugal, in this case of the new weight. And between the new and the old one in Portugal there is a different of two ounces per pound. ACCOUNT OF THE CLOVES. The cloves grow in an island beyond Java called Maluco, and from thence they bring it to Malacca, and from there to Calicut and all the Malabar country. Each bahar is worth in Calicut 500 and 600 fanoes, and if it is clean of husks and sticks, at seven hundred fanoes, and xviiij fanoes per bahar are paid as export duty. At Maluco where it grows it is worth from one to two ducats the bahar; according to the multitude of buyers who go for it. In Malacca the bahar of these cloves is worth as much as fourteen ducats the bahar according to the demand of the merchants. CINNAMON. Good cinnamon grows in the island of Ceylam, and in the county of Malabar there grows a very inferior quality; the good sort is worth little in Ceylam, and in Calicut it is worth three hundred fanoes the bahar, new and very choice. BELEDYN GINGER. Beledyn[372] ginger grows at a distance of two or three leagues all round the city of Calicut, and the bahar is worth lx[373] fanoes, and sometimes fifty, they bring it to the city for sale, from the mountains and estates. The Indian merchants buy it in detail and collect it together, and then in the season for loading ships they sell it to the Moors at prices from ninety to a hundred and ten fanoes; its weight is the greater weight.[374] ELY GINGER. The Ely ginger grows in the mountain Dely as far as Cananor, and is smaller and not so white, nor so good. The bahar in Cananor is worth forty fanoes, and six fanoes duty is paid per bahar, and it is sold without being packed.[375] GREEN GINGER FOR CONSERVES. In Bengal there is also much ginger of the country and there they make with it a large quantity of preserves with sugar, very well made; and they bring it in Martaban jars to sell at Malabar, and the farazola, which is twenty-two pounds, is worth xiiij and xv or xv; fanoes. And that which is now preserved with sugar in Calicut is worth xxv fanoes the farazola on account of sugar being dear there. Green ginger for making preserves is worth three quarters of a fanam the farazola[376] in Calicut. ACCOUNT OF THE DRUGS AND SPICES IN CALICUT AND ALL THE MALABAR COUNTRY. Lac of Martaban, very good, is worth the farazola, which is twenty-two pounds and six ounces and a half of Portugal, of xvj ounces to the pound xviij fanoes 18 Lac of the country, the farazola xij fs. 12 Coarse camphor in loaves of lxx to eighty fanoes the farazola lxxx fs. 80 Very good borax[377] in large pieces at xxx, xl, or l fs. the farazola xl fs. 40 Camphor for anointing the idols at the rate of one fanam and a half the mitical, six and a half of which make an ounce i fm. & a half 1-1/2 Camphor for eating and for the eyes at iij fs. the mitical iij fs. 3 Eagle wood at cccl and cccc fs. the farazola ccclxxv fs. 375 Genuine aloe-wood, and very choice black and heavy is worth i fs. the farazola iu fs. 1,000 Musk in powder of good quality, the ounce xxxvi fs. xxxvi fs. 36 Benjuy each farazola lx and the very good lxx fs. lxv fs. 65 Fresh tamarinds at iij fs. the farazola iij fs. 3 Sweet flag[378] the farazola xij fs. 12 Indigo, coarse and heavy, which contains sand, seventeen to twenty-two fs. the farazola xx fs. 20 Encienzo the best when in grain is worth v fs. 5 Encienzo[379] in paste and inferior is worth iij fs. 3 Very good amber is worth ij to iij fs. the mitical iij fs. 3 Mirobolans in sugar conserve are worth from sixteen to xxv fs. the farazola xx fs. 20 Coloured sandal v and vi fs. the farazola vi fs. 6 Spikenard, fresh and good, from xxx to xl fs. the fa. xl fs. 40 White sandal, and of a lemon colour xl to lx fs. the farazola, it grows in an island called Timor 1 fs. 50 Nutmeg x and xi fs. the farazola, it comes from Bandam, where the bahar is worth viij or x fs. xi fs. 11 Mace from xxv to xxx fs. the farazola, this also comes from Bandan, where it is worth 1 fs. the bahar. xxx fs. 30 Good herb lonbreguera[380] at xv fs. the farazola xv fs. 15 Turbiti,[381] at xiij fs. the farazola xiij fanoes 13 Zerumba is worth the farazola ij fs. 2 Zedoary is worth the farazola i fm. 1 Serapine gum[382] is worth the farazola xx fs. 20 Socotra aloes are worth the farazola viij fs. 8 Cardamums in grain at xx fs. xx fs. 20 Rhubarb, there is much of it in the Malabar country, and what comes from China by Malaca is worth cccc to d fs. the farazola ccccl 450 Mirobolans, ynblicos, are worth, the farazola ij fs. 2 Mirobolans, belericos, are worth, the farazola i fm. 1 Mirobolans of a citron colour and quebulos which are one kind ij fs. 2 Mirobolans yndos, which are from the same trees as the citron coloured, are worth iij fs. 3 Tutty,[383] the farazola xxx fs. 30 China cubela,[384] which grows in Java, is given there at a low price without weight or measure, by eye. Opium is worth the farazola in Calicut, and comes from Aden, where they make it, it is worth from cclxxx to cccxx fs. ccc fs. 300 Another opium which is prepared in Cambay is worth from cc to ccl fs. the farazola ccxxv fs. 225 ACCOUNT OF THE WEIGHTS OF PORTUGAL AND OF THE INDIES. IN PORTUGAL. A pound of the old weight contains xiiij oz. A pound of the new weight contains xvi oz., eight quintals of the old weight make seven quintals of the new, and each quintal of the new weight is of cxxviij pounds of xv oz., each old quintal is three quarters and a half of a new quintal, and is of cxxviij pounds of xiiij oz. each. INDIES. A farazola is xxij pounds of xvi oz. and vi oz. 2/7 more. Twenty farazolas are one bahar. One bahar is four old quintals of Portugal.[385] All spices and drugs and anything which comes from India is sold in Portugal by old weight, at present all the rest[386] is sold by new weight. VOYAGE WHICH JUAN SERANO MADE WHEN HE FLED FROM MALACA, WITH THREE PORTUGUESE AND CRISTOVAL DE MORALES OF SEVILLE, IN A CARAVEL WHICH HE STOLE IN MALACA, IN WHICH HE PUT CERTAIN MALAY MARINERS, NATIVES OF MALACA, ABOUT THE YEAR OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND TWELVE YEARS.[387] In the name of God: we left the city of Malaca in a caravel with five Malay mariners and pilots; the captain was Fran^{co} Serano, with three other Christians, who in all were nine; the mariners, natives of Malaca; the Christians, three Portuguese and a Castilian. In the year one thousand five hundred and twelve we sailed to the city of Pegu, and this city is on the mainland, and not very far from the sea, more on this side of Malaca, east (and) west[388] of the island Care ca Faya, north (and) south, with the Malacca channel and island Quendan, it must be said, the river higher up towards the east passes close by it: this river is very large and clear, by it enters and goes forth the merchandise, which many Christians traffic with; these are clothed in camlets and bocasi.[389] They believe in one only true God. They are natives of these parts these married Christians. They trade with Upper and Lower India. The king of this country is an idolater; he uses another dress, which reaches from his head to his feet, full of gold rings and jewellery and seed pearl. These stones are brought from the kingdom of Pegu itself, about three days' journey inland. In this country, when the husbands die, their wives burn themselves and throw themselves into the fire. This King of Pegu is continually at war with some other powerful king, who may be the King of Camboja, Siam, or Conchin Chinan. Leaving Pegu and the bar of the river and continuing to the south-west, inclining to the south south-west,[390] we arrive at the island Samatra, for so is named a city of this northern part, as I will relate further on, at a port which is very large and called Pedir. It is near the extremity of the island, placed more to the north, which looks to the north west.[391] The harbour of Pedir is very large and the city very populous, the best of the island, which the Malay pilots said had a circuit of two hundred and fifty leagues, according as we can collect from their day's journey and our day's run.[392] We gathered from the position of the country and sayings of the pilots and ancient geographers that this island is Traprobana, in which there are four idolatrous kings. The wives of the natives of the country burn themselves when their husbands are dead, as in Pegu and in Malabaria. The people are white; they have wide foreheads, the eyes greyish and round, the hair long, the nose flat; they are small in stature. Much silk is produced in this island, and grows of itself on the mountains, in which there are many trees of storax and benjuy some way inland; and if it is not brought so much hither, the reason is that they use it there, for they all anoint themselves: many various kinds of lignum aloes grow in the mountains. Having left Pedir and gone down the northern[393] coast, I drew towards the south and south-east[394] direction, and reached to another country and city which is called Samatra, in which we saw many merchants; and in a single quarter we counted five hundred changers, besides other quarters where there were many others. There are innumerable silk workshops. The people are all dressed in cotton. They navigate with vessels made of a certain wood which looks like canes: they call them juncos in Malay language: they carry three masts and two helms: when they pass any stiff gulf, the wind being contrary they hoist other sails, and they are raised on the second mast, and so they make their voyage. The houses of this city of Samatra and its island, which are all named from it, as I said speaking of Pedir, are of stone and lime, low and covered with shells of tortoises or turtles. Each one of these shells covers as much as two or three bucklers; they are painted of their natural colour like ours. From here we stood to the east until the Bandan Islands, and we found near this, which gives name to the others, twenty islands. It is a dry country which bears fruit; some of these islands are inhabited, the people are like the peasants of Malabaria and Calicut, who are called poliares and gicanales,[395] they are of a low way of living, and coarse intelligence. A profitable commodity is found in Bandan, namely nutmeg, which grows here in great quantity and kinds. Thence we departed to other islands standing to the north-east and east-north-east[396] through many channels as far as the islands of Malut. In them grows much cloves, they are five in all, the largest of them is smaller than Bandan. The Maluquese people are very wretched, and worth little, they are very beastly, and of a brutal mode of living, they do not differ from animals in their customs but only in possessing the human face. They are whiter than other races of these islands. The cloves grow in another island which is smaller, and is called Tidory, the tree on which it grows is like the box or buxo. When the cloves are ripe on the trees they stretch cloaks or sheets on the ground and sweep the tree, and the inhabitants gather the most they can. The country is of earth clay and sand; it is so near the line that the north star cannot be seen, and then they sail by certain stars which the orientals are accustomed to. And having departed from here to another second isle, there we the four Christians and some Malays remained; and there the King of Maluco shewed great honour to Fran^{co} Serano, the before-named captain, and married him with honour to his daughter, and to the others who wished to go he gave permission to go and see the city and island of Java. On the road we found an island which is called Borney, which is fifty leagues from Maluco, and it is somewhat larger than Maluco, and much lower. Its people adore idols, they are rather white, and go dressed with shirts like those of sailors, and in face they are like the people of the city of Cayro: they dress in camlets. From this island we went to another and took other mariners. Tn this country there grows much camphor, because there are many trees in which it grows, and from there we set out to the island of Zaylon, at which we arrived in three days; and so the mariners whom we took in Borney carried a map for navigating, and they had a needle and loadstone, and a chart in which they had many lines and strokes at which we were greatly amazed[397], and spoke to them of it in the Malay language: and the north star having disappeared from us in those countries the mariners told us that they guided themselves throughout all that region by five stars, principally by one star opposite to the north to which they continue to navigate, and for this they always carry a needle and loadstone because that stone always follows the north, towards which they continue to sail, and it never turns away from the north, and they look on it on that account; and the mariners of Borneo told us that in that part of that island there was a people which used the contrary stars opposite to the north, for their navigation; and which seemed to be almost the antipodes of Tropia and Sarmatia, and that this people inhabited in the frigid zone near the antarctic pole, which appeared in that country not to have more than four hours of daylight; for the country is very cold to a wonderful degree, on account of the climate being like that which exists near the Arctic Pole. Having left this island, we went to the island of Java, in which we found four kinds of kings, who follow different rites, all idolators, who worship idols, others the sun, others the moon, and others worship the cows, and things to eat, and others worship the devil. There are other races which go dressed with cloaks and bornusses of silk and camlet. There are in this Java some who sell their parents when they see that they are old and decrepit, to another nation, who are called canibals or anthropophagi, who are pagans, and likewise brothers sell their brothers when they are sick: when their recovery is despaired of they bring them out into the market-place and sell them to those Caribs, saying that man's flesh is brought up with so much care and luxury, that it would not be in reason that the earth should consume it. NOTE TO pp. 228-229.--See pages 249-251 of _The Travels of Ludovico de Varthema_ Hakluyt Society, and notes, also Mr. R. Major's able Introduction to the _Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia_. This passage, written about five years later than when Varthema wrote, is a fuller statement than Varthema's: and taking the two together, there can be little doubt that the information they contain was based on actual knowledge of Australia. NOTE TO DESCRIPTION OF PRECIOUS STONES. I have read with great interest the passages of the manuscript relating to precious stones, and I have admired their conscientious appreciation and exactness in details. A doubt was raised with respect to stones of combined colours; they do exist, but are by no means valued in Europe. The proportions of the prices in regard to weights, are still very exact as to the Indian market, and uncut stones. Experiments similar to those here described have been made in Europe, and chiefly in Germany, to heighten the colour of gems, rubies especially, by exposing them to fire, but their success has been so hazardous, nay costly, that speculation has been unwilling to expose itself to so much risk. Jargon-corindon or circon was much used in the sixteenth century, and is now without value: it has the merit of possessing the hardness of the sapphire. HENRY CAPT, 17, Rue du Rhône, Geneva. Jeweller. NOTE TO PAGE 30. The Munich MS. No. 571, like the Barcelona MS., has: "y las naos de alli se enpeguen el dicho yncenso el qual le vale alli de ciento cinquenta [=mrs] el quintal." But the Munich MS. No. 570 has: "e las naos desta costa son _embreadas_ en el e vale el quintal de ciento o ciento y cinquenta reaes en la tierra en donde nace." So that the meaning of the passage is that the ships are caulked or pitched with this herb or gum. NOTE TO PAGE 35. The Munich MS. No. 571 is like the Barcelona MS., but the MS. No. 570 gives this list of places:--"Lefete, quesebey, tabla, beroho, cal, cor, juza, mohymacim, lima, horbaz, alguefa, carmoni, cohmobarque, conch, conga, ebrahemi, xenaa, menacio, xamyle, leytan, bamtani, doam, loram," and leaves out the words which in the other two MSS. follow after the names of _Quesebi_, _Carmoni_, and _Ebrahemi_. From this MS. No. 570 it is clear how _tabla_ got into the maps. NOTE TO PAGE 93. Devadachi, femmes des Pagodes, servantes des dieux. Chap. 17. Ce sont ordinairement les tisserants qui vouent leurs filles aux pagodes, les parents ne leur demandent pas pour cela leur consentement, ils n'attendent pas même qu'elles soient en age de le donner, puisqu'ils les destinent au service des dieux dès qu'elles commencent de naître: ils ont grand soin de les préparer à cet état par un continuel exercice de la danse, du chant, et des jeux; il y a un maître exprès de ces exercises, qui enseigne les jeunes filles que l'on a destinées et devouées aux pagodes, et qui les dirigent dans les cérémonies: lorsqu' elles sont devenues devadashi, c'est à dire servantes des dieux, lorsqu' elles ont atteint l'âge de 9 ou 10 ans, leurs pères vont convier toutes les castes de venir assister à la consécration de leurs filles. On les conduit solemnellement à la pagode, devant d'y entrer elles donnent à tout le monde des marques de leur habileté dans la danse, dans le chant, et dans le jeu, et selon qu'on est content d'elles on leur fait des présents, ensuite elles entrent dans la pagode, elles se prosternent devant les dieux. Les Brahames qui sont là présens, les font relever, allors le prêtre offre la fille aux dieux, en leur disant, Seigneurs voilà une fille que je vous offre, daignez la prendre pour votre servante. Le Brahame officiant met dans la main de la fille un peu de Tirouniron, et un peu de l'eau qui a servi à laver l'idole: elle delaye tout cela ensemble, et elle s'en met au front pour marquer qu'elle se devoue d'elle-même avec joye pour être toute sa vie la servante des dieux. Cette cérémonie suppose que c'est à la pagode de Siva qu'elle se devoue particulièrement, car si c'est à la pagode de Vishnou elle se met le tirounamam[398] et on lui fait boire un peu de l'eau dans laquelle il y a quelques feuilles de Toulachi qui est une espèce de basilic. Ensuite soit que ce soit dans l'une ou dans l'autre pagode, le Brahamme officiant delaye dans un bassin de cuivre un peu de sandale avec de l'eau qui a servi à l'idole, et il en jette avec les doigts sur la fille. Cela marque la consécration parfaite. Il met au col une guirlande qui a servi à l'idole pour luy témoigner qu'elle est agréable aux dieux et qu'ils l'ont prise sous leur protection: le Brahamme luy dit qu'elle est présentement Devadashi, et qu'il l'exhorte à se comporter en digne servante des dieux, après cela elle se prosterne devant l'idole: le Brahamme la fait relever et ordonne à ses parents de l'aller conduire dans une maison particulière qui est proche la pagode, les parents y donnent du Bethel aux conviez et regalent toutes les devadachis. Toutes celles qui sont ainsi consacrées aux pagodes ne peuvent jamais se marier, ny elles ne peuvent plus retourner à leurs familles, ny en hériter. Elles font profession d'etre publiques à tout le monde, et les malabares croyent qu'il y a du mérite d'habiter avec les servantes des dieux. Elles n'ont point parmy elles de supérieures; chacune fait son menage separément si elles veulent on tire leur subsistance des revenus de la pagode, mais ce n'est pas ce qui les enrichit beaucoup; le commerce charnel qu'elles entretiennent avec tout le monde leur est bien plus lucratif, et celles qui font ainsi fortune ont grand soin de se bien habiller et de s'orner de pendants d'oreilles, de colliers et d'anneaux d'or, et de cercles d'argent aux bras et aux pieds l'employ des Devadashis est d'aller trois fois le jour à la pagode, c'est à dire le matin vers le midi et le soir, qui sont les temps que ce font les sacrifices et les cérémonies de la pagode, elles y dansent et chantent, et font des jeux pour le divertissement des dieux; elles font la même chose aux processions, et aux mariages. "Tout est odieux et criminel dans la condition de ces Devadashis, la cruauté des pères qui forcent la liberté de leurs enfants, l'impiété des pères qui prostituent leurs filles." The above extract is taken from a manuscript in the Royal Library, Munich, No. 1165 (Gall. 666), called La Religion des Malabares; it is supposed to have been written between 1705 and 1720, and to have belonged to the Missions Etrangères; later it was presented by the Abbé Clément to the library of the Oratoire St. Honoré. The MS. contains 546 pages and three parts. The first is an exposition of Christian doctrine; the second of the Malabar religion; the third sets forth the doctrinal differences between the Christians and Hindus, and shows how to proceed in arguing with the latter. The whole tenour of the book is, however, chiefly an attack on the Jesuits, whom it accuses of laxity, and of having sought to multiply the number of Christians rather than to secure the truth. It reproaches them with allowing Christian Malabars to play musical instruments in the pagodas, and pagan Malabars to play their instruments in Christian churches, and with having allowed various idolatrous ceremonies to have become perpetuated under a fresh dedication. This tenour of the MS. is the cause stated in a manuscript note by Abbé Clément, for the book having been removed from the missions étrangères when the credit of the Jesuits prevailed, and caused the departure from that establishment of the missionaries who were hostile to that body. From this work marriage seems to have been more general amongst the Malabars than would be supposed from the account of the early Portuguese voyagers in which much stress is laid upon the absence of marriage amongst the nairs. This missionary in treating of divorce amongst the Malabars says the husband retains the children, if there are any, and the wife returns to the husband the _taly_ which she had round her neck (probably the jewel which has been mentioned in the text;) and she resumes her dower if she brought any at her marriage. Amongst other objectionable practices of the Jesuits, blamed in this work, is the having adopted the Malabar name of Sarounasouren (signifying Lord of all) for the True God, since Sarunasuren is properly applied to Siva because he is the first human form which Carsa (or the most subtle of the five elements) took on forming the world; whilst the True God is neither Carsa nor Siva, and Sarunasuren is the name of an idol. Carsa is further described as supreme intelligence, the soul of the universe, and the most subtle of the five elements, water, fire, earth, air, and wind, and is said to have taken a human form which he called Shiva; and as Shiva was to disappear into Sattyaloguen or the most perfect heaven, he transformed himself into another human figure which he named Roudra, and also in others called Vishnou and Broumha. Carsa filled these three persons with intelligence, in order that they might remain in the world with men. _Section de la divinité des Malabars et de leur fausse Trinité._ Maycereni, the name of the third person of the Indian trinity given in the text, does not appear in this work, and may be an epithet of Rudra. The following is one of the most remarkable passages in this manuscript, and is much in accordance with M. E. Burnouf's recent publications in the Revue des deux Mondes. "Et comme ils ne rendent en particulier aucun culte extérieur à Carsa, ils croyent le dédommager suffisament par celui qu'ils rendent à tous les dieux; on voit par là combien l'erreur aveugle l'esprit des hommes qui s'éloignent du vray Dieu. Il n'est personne qui ne convienne que la cause est plus noble que son effet. Si donc ils supposent que ces dieux sont les effets de la puissance de Carsa, pourquoi leurs rendent-ils plus de culte qu'à ce Dieu, qu'ils disent être le principe de toute chose. N'est-ce pas faire de Carsa un dieu chimérique?" p. 539. The reader may see in Mr. Frank's book on the Kabbala, with respect to the Adam Kadmon, how much Hindu ideas, and especially the Hindu theory of the formation of the world, had penetrated into Syria, and corrupted the Jews, before the Christian era. INDEX. Abyssinia, 19 Aden, 26 Afuni, 16 Albuquerque, 46 Amber, 165 Andavat, 58 Angoxe, 9 Ava, 186 Bacavar, 82 Bahrein Island, 37 Banda, 74 Bandan Islands, 192, 199 Banians' aversion to destroy life, 51 Barbesy, 63 Basalor, 82 Baticala, 79 Baxay, 68 Bengal, 178 Betel, 73 Bijanagur, 85; its just administration, 86 Bramans, their customs, 121 Brava, its republic, 15 Bueneo, 204 Buendari, 64 Burmah, 181 Calicut, 152 Camaran island, 26 Cambay, 55, 64 Cananor, 149, 150, 151 Cannibals, 190, 196 Celebes, 203 Ceylon, 166 Chalderan, battle of, 40 Champa, 204 Champaver, 57 Chaul, 69 China, 190, 192 Chittagong, 178 Cinnamon, 219 Cintacola, 78 Cloves, 184, 219 Coinage of Ormuz, 45; Baticala, 81; Narsinga, 86 Comorin Cape, its church, 163 Dabul, 71 Dalaqua, 18 Damda, 71 Decan, 69 Delhy, 98 Denvy, 68 Diquirmale mountain, 177 Diu, battle of, 61 Duels in Southern India, 80 Elephants, their price, 168; way of catching, 167 Erecanguy, 182; mode of selection of damsels by the king, 183 Fartak country, 28, 29 Gandos, hill tribes of Central India, 58 Guardafun, 16 Goa, 74 Goyari, 63 Guzerat, 50, 55 Hindu marriages, 54; Trinity, 53 Horses, their price, 76, 89; fed on dried fish, 49; on cooked grain, 90 Hussein, Admiral, 25, 62 Humpbacked maids of honour, 202 Idolatrous rites, 53 Ismail Shah, his rise and policy, 38, 39, 40 Java, 192 Jiddah, 26-27 Joghis, 99, 100, 101 Junks, 206 Keddah, 189 Kulam, 157, 172; king's guard of women, 173 Lapidaries, Ceylon, 169 Limadura, 66 Madagascar, 13, 14 Magadoxo, 16 Malabar, 101 Malaca, 190 Maldive islands, 164; division of by the king, 103; customs, 104; king's coronation oath, 107; his funeral ceremonies, 108; clerks and writing, 110; king's waiting women, 111; their festival on king's accession, _ib._; king's customs, 113; justice, 116 Malays, 191 Mandabad, 71 Manfia, 14 Mangalor, 82 Marepata, 177 Martaban, 185 Maylepur, encroachments of the sea, 174 Medina, 23 Mekkah, 23, 188 Melinda, 12, 13 Mokhah, 26 Moluccas, 192 Mombaza, 11, 12 Monomotapa, 6, 7 Mozambique, 9, 10 Musk, adulteration of it, 187 Nairs, 124; customs, 124 Narsinga, 84; council, 89; king's household, 87; punishment of high officers, 89; army, _ib._; vivandières, 90; enlistment, 91; king's method of carrying his subjects to the wars, 96 Nestorians, 162 Nicobar islands, 195 Onor, 79 Orissa, 98, 177 Ormuz, 32 _et seq._; council, 44; blind kings, 44; council put down by Albuquerque, 47 Pahang, 189 Palecate, 176 Pardan coins, 81 Patemshi, 58 Pearl fishery, 170 Pegu, 183 Pepper, its price, 207, 218 Porcelain manufacture, 185 Portuguese piracy, 46, 72, 76 Prester John, 19 Price of drugs, 220, 221, 222; eagle-wood, 221; elephants, 168; horses, 76, 89; pepper, 217, 218; rice, 82; rubies, 210; spices, 220, 221, 222 Quicksilver trade, 81, 174 Quilacare, self-immolation of its king, 172 Quiloa, 10, 11 Rajputs, 50 Ravel, 67 Rice, kinds of, 82 Rubies, 168, 169 Sael, 173 Self-torture by girls, 95 Shehir, 3, 4, 30 Siam, 188 Sinai, mount, 22 Socotra, its Christians, 29; its Amazons, 29 Sofala, 4; cotton cultivation, 6 Suez, 21 Sumatra, 195 Sunda, 196 Surat, 67 Suratimangalor, 59 Suttee, 91 Taborine, sacred stone worn by Joghis, 101 Tanasery, 188 Thomas, St., his miracles, 160, 161, 175; his death, 175; his Christians, 176 Tree which produces poison and the antidote, 101 Ucique islands, 3, 4, 5 Voyage of Francisco Serrano from Malacca, 224 Weights, Portuguese and Indian, 223 Zanzibar, 14 Zeyta, 17 Zimbao, 7 Zuama, 8 LONDON: T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET. FOOTNOTES: [1] I have been informed by Mr. Winter Jones that Diego Ribero drew up a map of the world in 1529, of which Sprengel wrote an account in 1795, called, Über J. Ribero's alteste Weltcharte. He gives the western hemisphere only, the eastern hemisphere has been published by the Vte. Santarem. This might be the means by which the orthography and errors of this work passed into the maps of Ortelius. [2] The Portuguese are scarcely justified in their censure of Magellan for serving Spain, after the neglect he had met with at the hands of the King of Portugal, since disnaturalisation was a custom of the country frequently practised at that period: and it is the necessary complement of naturalisation. [3] Here the Barcelona manuscript begins. [4] Insula Bocicas, 23 deg. S. lat., just N. of C. S. Sebastian, Homann's Atlas, Nuremberg, 1753. [5] Probably Bahrein. [6] Cujus rex Quitove, Atlas, 1753. Reg. Munica cujus rex Chicanga. [7] Cefala, Ortelius. [8] Lusiadas, Canto v, stanza 76. Ethiopes são todos, mas parece, Que com gente melhor communicavam: Palabra alguma Arabia se conhece Entre a linguagem sua, que fallavam: E com panno delgado, que se tece De algodão, as cabeças apertavam, Com outro, que de tint azul se tinge, Cada hum as vergonhosas partes cinge. [9] Zimbro, Ortelius, Zimbaon, Atlas, 1753. Sedes Regia. [10] Ajonjo (Agiongoli) plant with a viscous substance. Ajonjoli Sesame plant. Ajonjera, carlina aqualis bruised in water makes birdlime. [11] Zuama, Ortelius. [12] Vê do Benomotapa o grande imperio, De selvatica gente, negra e nua, Onde Gonçalo morte e vituperio Padecerá pela Fé sancta sua: Nasce por este incognito hemispherio O metal, porque mais a gente sua Vê que do lago, donde se derrama O Nilo, tambem vindo está Cuama, Camoens, Canto x, stanza 93. [13] The old maps have a kingdom of Mongale stretching N. from the R. Zuama. [14] Angoches, 16 deg. S. lat., Homann. [15] Mozambique, Ortelius. [16] Quiloa, Ortelius. [17] Mombaza, Ortelius. [18] Camoens confirms the author's statement of the flourishing condition of Mombaza, and of its devastation by the Portuguese. Canto x, stanzas 26, 27-- Ambos darâo com braço forte armado A Quiloa fertil aspero castigo, Fazendo nella Rei leal e humano, Deitado forá o perfido Tyranno. Tambem farâo Mombaça, que se arrea De casas sumptuosas e edificios, Co'o ferro e fogo seu queimada e fea Em pago dos passados maleficios. [19] Melinde, Ortelius. [20] Melinde hospicio gazalhoso e charo. Camoens, Canto x, stanza 96. [21] Lusiade, Canto x, stanza 137-- De Sâo-Lourenço vê a ilha affamada, Que Madagascar he d'alguns chamada. [22] Cabo dos Corrientes, Ortelius. [23] Yname, in Portuguese, Inhame. Root in the form of a gourd, composed of two bulbs, which grow one above the other, the larger one below the smaller one. It is cut into slices and eaten instead of bread. It throws out very large leaves, without fruit. The ancients erroneously called it Fava Ægyptia, others have called it Arum Egyptium, which Bahuino, in his Historia Universal das Plantas, does not approve of. Bluteau, Dict., Coimbra, 1713. ñame--Genus of monocotyledonous plants of the family of the dioscoreas. Dico. Encyclopedico, Madrid, 1855. The "maize" mentioned in the text must be a mistake of the author or of the translators: it should be yams. [24] Penda and Zenzibar, Ortelius. [25] Pato, Ortelius, Homann. [26] Lamon, Ortelius. [27] Brava, Ortelius. The German Atlas of 1753 adds Respubl. to the name of Brava. [28] The river of this place is called Mecadesso in the German Atlas, which shows the Arabic origin of the name; in Ortelius Magadazo. [29] Orfuni, in Atlas of 1753. [30] Guardafun, Ortelius. [31] Met, Ortelius, and the Atlas of 1753. [32] Barbara, Ortelius. [33] Zeila, Ortelius. [34] Dalacca, Ortelius. [35] Abyssinians, Habeshin in Arabic. [36] Saachem, Ortelius. [37] Berr Ajem. The spelling of this name is a proof that the Spanish j still had the value of the English j and the Arabic jim. [38] This refers to the Sawahily of Abyssinia, not to the people of Arabia, and applies to them. [39] Almalafa, a cloak, plaid, old Spanish, not in dictionaries, from Arabic. [40] "Estas cosen a sus hijas sus naturas quando son chiquitas dexandoles solamente un meadero y asi las traen cosidas fasta que son en hedad de casar y las entregan a sus maridos y estonces les cortan la carne questa soldada como sy nacieron asy." The Portuguese edition states that Barbosa knew this by experience. [41] Habeshy, Abyssinian. [42] Babel Mandel, Ortelius. [43] Zues, Ortelius. [44] Camoens thus describes the interruption by the Portuguese of the Indian voyages to the Red Sea. Canto ix, stanzas 3 and 4:-- Gidá se chama o porto, aonde o trato De todo o Roxo mar mais florecia, De que tinha proveito grande, e grato O Soldão, que esse reino possuïa. Daqui os Malabares, por contrato Dos infieis, formosa companhia De grandes naos pelo Indico Oceano Especiaria vem buscar cada anno. Por estas nãos os Mouros esperavam, Que, como fossem grandes e possantes, Aquellas, que o commercia lhe tomavam, Com flammas abrazassem crepitantes: Neste socorro tanto confiavam, Que já não querem mais dos navegantes, Senão que tanto tempo alli tardassem, Que da famosa Meca as naos chegassem. And Canto x, stanza 50:-- Barbará se teme Do mal, de que o emporio Zeila geme. [45] Hussein. [46] Eliobon, Atlas of Ortelius and Iambut or Yembo. [47] Voyages and Travels by R. Kerr, vol. ii, p. 512. Letter from merchants of Spain to their correspondents respecting a treaty of peace and league between the Kings of Portugal and Calicut. We have been informed by those who were on board the fleet which sailed from Lisbon to India in May, 1502, and returned on the 15th December, 1503, that the King of Calicut has concluded a peace with our Sovereign on the following conditions.... That our king, if so inclined, may build a fort at Calicut, and shall be supplied with a sufficient quantity of stones, lime, and timber for that purpose. [48] Probably Admiral Hussein had heard of Monçaide, the spy of Vasco de Gama, of whom Camoens says:-- Estava para dar ao Gama aviso E merecer por isso o Paraiso. Este, de quem se os Mouros naô guardavam, Por ser Mouro, como ellos, antes era Participante em quanto machinavam. Canto ix, stanzas 5 and 6. [49] The above anecdote of the fortitude and perseverance of Mir Hussein after his defeat, is new; and seems conclusive as to this MS. having remained unpublished, and almost unread; since, the _Panorama_ (or Spanish version of the _Univers Pittoresque_) _Historia de Portugal_, por M. Fernando Denis, Conservador de la Biblioteca de Santa Jenoveva: traducida por Una Sociedad Literaria, Barcelona, Imprenta del Fomento, 1845; says at p. 123:-- "This battle, as Simon Goulard relates it, brought the power of the Mussulmans of Egypt to an end, and so convinced of this was Melek-Jaz that he hastened to conclude a peace with the Portuguese. Mir-Hosein, who had manifested such distinguished valour and such profound knowledge in this struggle, fearing the inconstancy of Melek-Jaz, who might have given him up to Almeida, went off hurriedly to the kingdom of Cambay, and later removed himself to Upper Hindustan: but the historians lost his trace here and never again make any mention of the chief of the confederation of the Rumys." [50] Jizan. [51] Mocha. [52] Camaran, Ortelius. [53] Or Indians. [54] Alaquequa is an Indian stone which stops the flow of blood; alaquequas are glass beads. Dictionary of V. Salva, Paris, 1856. [55] The cocoa-nut shell is within a very thick husk, and so maybe called a kernel. [56] Lac. [57] Mangala, fortress of Sumatra, in the country of Lampong, on the shore of the Tulang-Buvang, nine leagues and two-thirds from the mouth of that river. _Geographical Dictionary_, Barcelona, 1832. [58] Dhafar. [59] Fartach, Ortelius, Fartaque, Atlas of 1753. [60] Greco y levante, N.E.E., Gregal, Grech, N.E. wind, still used in Catalan. [61] Mastro y Soroco, Mistral & Sirocco. [62] Marked with a cross thus in the MS. [63] Sangre de dragon. [64] Dolfar, Ortelius. [65] Shehir, one of the chief seaports of Hadramant. Zehar, Ortelius. [66] Enciencio, antient for ajenjo, Absinthe; perhaps the Kat or Katta, a very expensive leaf of a shrub. [67] This refers to the monsoon; if it is unfavourable the ships cannot get up the Red Sea. [68] This word is illegible, it reads _se enpegen_. [69] Probably an error of the pen for Ras al Gat. [70] Cape Mussendom, in Ortelius and the German Atlas of 1753 also Mocandon, here it is evident that the cedilla of the c has been forgotten, and the error has been perpetuated. Ç is often used for s in old manuscripts. [71] In the German Atlas there is a place called Kellat, and another close by called Calajute; Calata, Ortelius. [72] Curiate in Ortelius and the German Atlas. [73] This may be read Sar, or Sari. [74] Soar Ortelius, Sohar in the German Atlas (map of Persia). [75] Lebeche or leveche, S.W. wind. [76] In the German Atlas Corscan, there is also another place there inland a long way off called Orfacan, both these seem to be corruptions of the name in the text Khor Fakan. [77] Julphar or Giotoffar in the German Atlas. [78] Roccalima in the Atlas of Abraham Ortelius, Antwerp, 1570: the Ras el Khyma of Captain Felix Jones's Chart. [79] Probably Amulgowein of Captain F. Jones. [80] Calba, Ortelius. [81] Baha, Ortelius. [82] Iguir in Ortelius, 1570. [83] Naban, Ortelius, 1570. [84] Quesibi, Ortelius. [85] Berou, ibidem. [86] Moy Macina, Ortelius, 1570. [87] Lima, Ortelius. [88] Carmon, Ortelius. This list of towns is thus introduced without anything to connect it with the narrative; they would apparently be places on the Shat el Arab, between the sea and Basrah, but from the Atlas of Ortelius it is clear that they are intended to follow after Quesebi, from which word to "estuary" should be read in a parenthesis: from the entire absence of punctuation and capital letters in the MS. there is great difficulty in ascertaining always the correct meaning. This passage seems to show that those who made the early maps had had a copy of this MS. under their eyes. "Quesebi: y dende aqui adelante da vuelta la costa a maestro y tramontana hasta la boca del Rio eufrates y comiença en esa vuelta una tabla berohu caljar," et cetera. The word _tabla_ can hardly as here placed mean a list, and one of its meanings, dead water, or water without a current, in speaking of a river, seems here most applicable. Ortelius, however, followed by the German Atlas of 1753, has got _Tabla_ as a town between Quesibi and Berou, in which case the sense of comienza and una would be imperfect. As the word _tabla_ is Spanish, and in Portuguese is _tabula_, it would appear that this Spanish translation and not the Portuguese original has been made use of for the ancient atlases. This view is confirmed by there being no such place as Tabla in Captain F. Jones's Chart. Ramusio's edition has Tabla between Quesibi and Berohu. [89] Gues, Ortelius, on the Persian shore. [90] Gues, before named, re-appears as Cuez, Basida, Costaque, Conga, which are placed on the Arabian shore: Gonga also appears on the Persian shore in Ortelius's Atlas, 1570. [91] Braimu, Ortelius. [92] Denaze, ibid. [93] Doan, ibid., on Persian shore. [94] Laron, ibid. [95] Andrani, Ortelius. [96] Quaro, ibid. [97] Lar, ibid. [98] Coiar, ibid. [99] Tome, ibid. [100] Mulugan, ibid. [101] Quezimi, ibid. [102] Baharem, ibid. Besides these islands, Ortelius has got Gicolar and Ficor, which names might have been made out of the above list from this very MS. by reading differently the names which are written in italics. [103] Here there appears to be a gap in the MS. of three quarters of a line. [104] Shah Ismail, King of Persia, contemporary of the writer of this MS. and founder of the Shiah rite as at present existing. [105] Son-in-law. This account is like that of Ramusio and differs somewhat from the Portuguese. [106] The origin of the Kizilbashes. [107] Chalderan, 3rd Rejeb 920, or August 1514. Vicente Rocca, in his history of the Turks, printed at Valencia 1556, says that the corpses of many Persian women who had accompanied their husbands in disguise, were found after the battle, and that Sultan Selim ordered them to receive an honourable burial. [108] This embassy came to Albuquerque when he was at Ormuz the last time, the envoy sent by Albuquerque was Fernan Gomez. San Roman Hist. de la India, pp. 239, and 246-249. Valladolid, 1603. [109] Frat, with a Persian termination. [110] With respect to this geography of the four rivers of Paradise, see M. Renan's remarks on the Persian traditions, in his Hist. des Langues Semitiques, pp. 481-483. Paris, 1863. [111] Zircon or jargon, a stone of which false diamonds are made. [112] Reubarbaro. [113] Sarahueles, Serwal or Shalwar. [114] Almaizar. [115] Atauxsia, Moorish workmanship of inlaying metals. [116] This description of Persian customs is very exact. [117] The Jewish traveller Pedro Teixeira (or Teireira, according to Rodriquez de Castro, Biblica, Rabinica Esp.) at the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century, wrote a history of Persia, translated from Mirkhond, and a "Journey from the East Indies to Italy Overland," Antwerp, Jerome Verdassen. Teixeira wrote the first part of this work in Portuguese, and afterwards translated it into Spanish, adding the second part. Both were translated into French by C. Cotolendi in 1681, and printed at Paris under the title of "Voyages de Teixeira, ou l'Histoire des Rois de Perse." He died at Verona. Teixeira says: "It was a custom much in use, both formerly and in later times among the kings of Persia and Harmuz, in order to assure themselves of those whom they might have reason to fear, and who commonly were their relations. And even this day may be seen at Harmuz, on a hill near the hermitage of Santa Lucia, at a little more than a mile from the city, the ruins of some towers, in which the kings placed their relations who had been blinded for this reason. The method which they used for depriving them of sight was this: they took a brass basin, and heating it in the fire as much as possible, passed it two or three or more times before the eyes of the person they intended to blind; and without other lesion of the eyes they lost their sight, the optic nerves being injured by the fire, but the eyes remaining as limpid and clear as before." Amador de Los Rios, Estudios sobre los Judios de España, p. 557. Madrid, 1848. Ramusio has translated to blind "cavar gli occhi," which in this case would not apply. [118] This observation is owing to the Moorish coins of the Almohade dynasty having been square, which gave rise to the Spanish saying of spendthrifts: "My money rolls, as it is not Moorish." [119] The standard of modern Spanish silver coin is eleven dinars, or dineros. [120] The Portuguese force is said to have consisted of fifteen hundred Portuguese and six hundred Indian soldiers; this took place in 1514. Panorama or Univers Pittoresque. According to San Roman Hist. de la India Oriental in the beginning of 1515, Albuquerque's force consisted of 26 sail, 1500 Portuguese, and 600 Malabars. [121] This governor's name was Rais Hamid; one account says so many daggers were drawn against him that the Portuguese wounded one another's hands: the other governor mentioned later was named Rais Nordim, i.e., Nureddin. [122] In Ortelius's Map of Asia Dulcinda is some way up a river; in the German Atlas of 1753 no trace of it appears. [123] Ulcinde, Camoens, canto x, stanza 106. [124] Or hither. [125] Cogecillos. [126] Or gallery. [127] A la bastarda. [128] The Chaugan, Persian game of hockey on horseback. [129] Urdu perhaps is meant by the writer. [130] Campanero in Ramusio, Champanel in Portuguese edition. [131] Gandos, people of Hindustan, established in the mountainous parts of the province of Ganduana: they live by the chase and the produce of their flocks, and, contrary to the custom of other Indians, eat fowls and bury their dead. The women are obese, and stronger than the men; they wear a dress all of one piece, paint all their body, and become bald in the prime of life. Ganduana, between 17 deg. and 24 deg. N. lat. and 81 deg. and 88 deg. E. long. Diccionario Encic., Madrid, Gaspar y Roig, 1855. [132] Jagri. [133] Arrak. [134] This name might also be read Dvuxa or Dimxa. [135] Shehir. [136] This word alcatifa might also mean velvets, at least that is its meaning in Arabic and Wallachian; in modern Spanish it means a fine carpet. [137] Coast guards, watch boats. [138] Kind of artillery. [139] This passage seems to fix the date of this work as previous to 1515, since in that year the Portuguese made themselves masters of Diu, in which they built a fortress in 1536. (Diccion. Geog. Universal, Barcelona, 1831.) [140] Of Egypt. [141] This author seems to have confused the account of two naval battles, reducing them to one; the above account, as far as the description of the meeting of the hostile fleets, refers to the battle in 1507, in which the Portuguese, commanded by Lorenzo son of Francisco de Almeyda, were routed and Lorenzo slain. Melik Az saved twenty prisoners alive from Lorenzo's ship, which would not strike, treated them well, and wrote to condole with the father, Francisco de Almeyda, for the death of his son. Almeyda prepared a fleet of nineteen sail to avenge his son's death, when Albuquerque arrived to supersede him; he had been sent from Europe in 1506. In spite of this Almeyda sailed for Diu, where Emir Hussein, instead of waiting for him, put out to sea against the advice of Melik Az and was defeated. Vasco Pereyra, captain of the ship that carried Admiral Hussein's ship by boarding, was killed, and his lieutenant, Tavora, took Emir Hussein's ship, killing or capturing all those who did not save themselves by swimming ashore. The captured ships were richly laden, and Almeyda distributed all the spoil amongst his crews. (This action was fought on the 3rd February, 1509.) Melik Az sued for peace after this defeat. His proposals were received with arrogance and a demand for the surrender of Emir Hussein: this Melik Az refused, but gave up all his Portuguese prisoners. Almeyda accepted this, but cut the heads off all his Moorish prisoners in cool blood at Cananor. Panorama, India, pp. 358-360, Barcelona, 1845; Translation of the Univers Pittoresque. The same work in the volume on Portugal, speaking of the first battle of Diu, merely says, "Mir Hosein routed the Portuguese, and Don Lorenzo lost his life," p. 121. Camoens thus describes the second battle of Diu, in his 10th canto, stanzas 35, 36. E logo, entrando fero na enseada De Dio, illustre em cercos e batalhas, Fará espalhar a fraca e grande armada De Calecut, que remos tem por malhas: A de Melique Yaz acautelada, Co 'os pelouros que tu, Vulcano, espalhas, Fará ir ver o frio e fundo assento, Secreto leito do humido elemento. Mas a de Mir-Hocem, que, abalroando, A furia esperará dos vingadores, Verá bracos, e pernas ir nadando, Sem corpos, pelo mar, de seus senhores: Raios de fogo irão representando No cego ardor os bravos domadores: Quanto alli sentirão olhos, e ouvidos, He fumo, ferro, flammas e alaridos. The last speech of Don Lorenzo d'Almeida is given in the following words in a MS. belonging to the Duke of Gor, at Granada, which describes the voyages to India from 1497 to 1509; it differs a little from that given in the second decade: "Dom Lourenzo lhe disse Snõres companheiros e irmaos, minha vida he acabada que este mundo me tinha emprestada e minha alma ira dar conta ao Snõr Deos que a fez. En vos mando, e muito rogo que tomandonos Meliquiaz sobre si como diz aventureis as vidas em sua palavra, porque de o nõ fazerdes tao certas aqui tendes as mortes se Ds' nõ acodir cõ sua m[=i]a (misericordia) que lhe pezo que aja cõ minha alma, que em suas sanctas mãos encomendo: e deu a alma," f. 406 v. Don Lorenzo said to them: "Gentlemen, companions and brothers, my life which this world had lent me is ended, and my soul will go to give an account to the Lord God who made it. I charge you, and beg much of you, that as Melikiaz will take us on his own responsibility, as he says, that you adventure your lives upon his word, because if you do not do so, you have before you certain death, unless God succour you with his mercy: which I pray him to have with my soul, which I commend into his holy keeping." And he gave up his spirit. [142] Sambuks, Arab undecked boats. [143] This may have been intended for ivory of elephants, it would seem difficult to get an elephant into a sambuk. [144] _Pozos_, wells, hollows. [145] Guadamecil, _aluta celata_. [146] This word is very clearly _enyertan_, which is an old word meaning to freeze, to congeal, to make _yerto_--hard: so that this stone would be like the Chinese soap stone, which is soft and easily carved when first extracted. _Ensartan_ would apply, meaning to string beads, but the writing does not admit of it. [147] Ravel in Ortelius's map of India, 1570. [148] Axuar, the household furniture which a wife has to bring to her husband on her marriage. [149] The writer had forgotten that _aduana_ (custom-house) and _divan_ are the same word. [150] Or Denby. [151] Mezzo giorno, the Italian, instead of medio dia, a slip of the writer, the Genoese envoy. [152] Chaul, Ortelius, 1570. [153] Beatilla, bétille in French. [154] Dabul, Ortelius, 1570. [155] This was done by Don Francisco de Almeyda on his way to Diu in the beginning of 1509. [156] Llanten, _plantago_. The leaf is chewed, not eaten, and assists the digestion. [157] Munacem in Ramusio, and Muruary in the Portuguese edition. [158] _Rumys._ Turks are so called east of Turkey. These Turks may have served in the Egyptian fleet, but did not belong to the Ottoman forces, as Egypt was not united to the Ottoman Empire till later in 1517. Traz este vem Noronha, cujo auspicio De Dio os Rumes feros affugenta, Dio, que o peito e bellico exercicio De Antonio da Sylveira bem sustenta. Camoens, canto x, stanza 72. [159] February 25th, 1510, or on the 17th February according to San Roman; Albuquerque was driven out of Goa, and reconquered it on the 25th November 1510. [160] San Roman says that the revenue of Sabayo was five hundred thousand ducats; and that Goa produced much more in the hands of the King of Portugal (p. 183). [161] Aliga R., German Atlas, 1753. [162] Cintacola, Ortelius, 1570. [163] Bisinagar, Ortelius. [164] Cholmandel, Ortelius. [165] In the Italian and Portuguese editions Mergeo. [166] Onor, Ortelius. [167] Batticalla, Ortelius. [168] Quarter of a hundredweight. [169] Gomio, this word is intended, perhaps, for gumia, a kind of dagger, a Marocco word not Arabic; these words are neither of them to be found in the old dictionaries. The dagger is not mentioned in the Italian or Portuguese editions. [170] Pardao, an Indian coin worth 300 reis coined at Goa by the Portuguese, with the figure of King Sebastian. Dict. of P. Raphael Bluteau, Lisbon, 1720. [171] Bahar, an Indian weight varying from 4-1/2 quintals to 5 quintals 3-1/2 arrobas. [172] Or Jauibasal, these names are variously spelled in the Italian and Portuguese editions. [173] Bacanor and Barsalor, German Atlas. [174] Fanega--4 bushels or 84 lbs. French. [175] Mangalor, Ortelius. [176] Cape Comori, Ortelius. [177] The Nil Gau or Blue Cow. [178] Ramusio coincides with this MS. in writing giagonzas on a former occasion, and on this gegonzas. [179] The abbreviation is [=m] [=mrs]; this might stand for ccc or three hundred, the value given by Ramusio. [180] Filosañias, may be intended for physiognomy. It is so translated by Ramusio. [181] The Arab travellers of the ninth century mention this. [182] Tambarme in Ramusio. [183] This is the probable origin of the story in Sinbad the Sailor. The Arabian Nights are not entirely fiction, as is usually supposed: the story of Seif el Muluk refers to facts in the Malay Annals, and describes the people, country, and winds about Sumatra. [184] "Y sobre el dicho palo esta una piedra de altura de un cobdo y en el medio un agujero en el qual meten un palo agudo y arman las gradas paramentadas con paños de seda para que la gente de fuera no vea el secreto de dentro y la madre de la moza con algunas otras mugeres entran en aquel lugar despues de hechas muchas cerimonias y alli sobre aquel palo agudo rompen la moza su virginidad y deraman la sangre sobre aquella piedra." [185] Apparently Orissa. [186] Compare Plato's views on this subject:-- "But if a soldier highly distinguishes himself and gains himself credit, ought he not, think you, in the first place, while the army is still in the field, to be crowned with a garland by each of the youths and children in turn among his comrades in arms?" "Yes, I think so." "But I suppose you will hardly extend your approbation to my next proposition?" "What is that?" "That he should kiss and be kissed by them all." "Most certainly I do; and I would add to the law, that during the continuance of the campaign, no one whom he has a mind to kiss be permitted to refuse him the satisfaction; in order that, if any soldier happens to entertain an admiration for either a male or female comrade, he may be the more stimulated to carry off the meed of valour." "Good, I replied; and we have already said that a brave man will be allowed to enter into marriage relations more frequently than others will, and to exercise more than the usual liberty of choice in such matters, so that as many children as possible may be obtained from a father of this character."--Republic of Plato, book v, § 468, p. 201. Translation by Davies and Vaughan, Cambridge, 1858. [187] Orissa: in this MS. it is clearly a _t_, but _t_ and _r_ are easily confounded in the handwriting of this period. [188] Bragueros de laton. [189] Eyicianos. [190] Lo al, old expression for Lo demas. [191] The Chulias or people of Southern India do this always. [192] Or--these on being opened. [193] Baxana in Ramusio, and Braechagua in the Lisbon edition. [194] Nirabixi in Ramusio and Miralexy in Lisbon edition. [195] People in the East carry stones of this description, which are said to draw out the venom from the bite of a serpent. [196] Camoens addresses the King of Malabar as: "O nobre successor de Perimal" Canto viii, stanza 82. [197] This agrees with the account of the Arab travellers of the ninth century. Paris, Langles. [198] Cananor. [199] Called Zamorin in other works, and Samorim by Camoens. [200] Ramusio calls them Cunelanadyri, Benatederi, and Coletri; the Lisbon edition, Maly Couadary, Benatady, Cobertorim. [201] Mostasos: old word, before introduction of bigotes from the German soldiers, and still used in Majorca. [202] Repostero: a cloth marked with the arms of a grandee for putting over a beast of burden, or hanging in a doorway,--a portière. [203] No valen mas de que ser hijos de sus madres. [204] Sister of the king, apparently, from what follows. [205] Ramusio, Caimaes; Lisbon edition, Cahimal. [206] Atabal. [207] Cymbals. [208] Sistra. [209] Of a cross-bow shot. [210] Sygnadas. [211] Valedor. [212] Buxen, not in the dictionaries: buxeta, a small casket for perfumes to put in the pocket, so called because made of bux or box; Anglicè, box. [213] If the writer had been a Spaniard, especially from Catalonia, he would have added here, "in our fashion." This way of drinking extends into Roussillon, and this custom was not introduced by the Arabs. [214] Hidalgo por el Rey: an expression meaning a modern noble, not one whose origin is anterior to the Spanish monarchy: here it may imply official position only. Ramusio, Talassen; Lisbon edition, Talixe. [215] Albalá, from Alberat, Letters Patent, Brevet, Warrant, Letter for drawing Pay. This word is in little use in Castile, but is common in Valencia and Aragon. Spanish, Latin, and Arabic Dict., Fr. Francisco Cañes. Madrid, 1787. [216] This part is wanting in Ramusio, who says a little lower down, "Here several lines are wanting." [217] Or it may be read Ciessua; Ramusio, Cressuamengan; Lisbon edition, Cryuamergam. [218] That is, the first mass said by a new priest. [219] Como mayorazgo. [220] See Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures with regard to this subject, also the work of another Catholic author, where this Hindu doctrine is termed an _adumbration_. The Abbé Huc is opposed to the above-mentioned divines, and calls this a _counterfeit of Satan_. Unless his theory, or another alternative, be adopted, it must be assumed, since the Brahminical books were contemporary with David, perhaps with Moses, that the Hindus were more favoured than the Chosen People of Israel: which is impossible. "Il faut ajouter que la science brâhmanique n'a pas été étrangère au développement du génie grec, l'une des sources de notre civilisation, ni à la formation du christianisme, religion de tout l'Occident." M. Emile Burnouf, La Civilisation Chrétienne en Orient, Revue des deux Mondes, 1er Juin, 1865, pp. 632, 633; see also pp. 638, 639. [221] This may be estimated from the value of rice, 150 to 200 maravedis the 4 bushels or 90 lbs. See above. [222] The explanation of this ceremony is to be found in Plato:-- "We said, you remember, that the children ought to be the issue of parents who are still in their prime." "True." "And do you agree with me that the prime of life may be reasonably reckoned at a period of twenty years for a woman, and thirty for a man?" "Where do you place these years?" "I should make it the rule for a woman to bear children to the state from her twentieth to her fortieth year: and for a man, after getting over the sharpest burst in the race of life, thenceforward to beget children to the state until he is fifty-five years old." "Doubtless," he said, "in both sexes, this is the period of their prime both of body and mind." "If, then, a man who is either above or under this age shall meddle with the business of begetting children for the commonwealth, we shall declare his act to be an offence against religion and justice; inasmuch as he is raising up a child for the state, who, should detection be avoided, instead of having been begotten under the sanction of those sacrifices and prayers, which are to be offered up at every marriage ceremonial by priests and priestesses, and by the whole city, to the effect that the children to be born may ever be more virtuous and more useful than their virtuous and useful parents, will have been conceived under cover of darkness by aid of dire incontinence." "You are right." "The same law will hold should a man, who is still of an age to be a father, meddle with a woman, who is also of the proper age, _without the introduction of a magistrate; for we shall accuse him of raising up to the state an illegitimate, unsponsored, and unhallowed child_." "You are perfectly right." "But as soon as the women and the men are past the prescribed age, we shall allow the latter I imagine to associate freely with whomsoever they please, so that it be not a daughter, or mother, or daughter's child, or grandmother; and in like manner we shall permit the women to associate with any man, except a son or a father." Republic, book v, sect. 461. Davis and Vaughan's Translation, p. 190. "Explicemus jam tandem, quam nam florentem ætatem in utroque sexu existimemus, mulierem porro florenti esse ætate arbitramur, si a vigesimo ætatis suæ anno usque ad quadragesimum generationi incumbat, virum autem a trigesimo usque ad quinquagesimum quintum operam suam in gignendo civitati præbere præcipimus, in hoc enim annorum cursu et robur corporis, et prudentiæ vim sexus utriusque consistere certum est. Si quis igitur vel senior vel junior his generationes eas, quæ ad publicum civitatis commodum ordinatæ sunt, attigerit profanum et illegitimum hoc esse censebimus, quasi civitati foetum largiatur, qui si latuerit non sacrificiorum vel præcationum fiat inauguratione, quas tamen in singulis nuptiis cum universâ civitate peragent sacerdotes, ut ex bonis meliores et ex utilibus utiliores semper enascantur vota concipientes; sed id fiat sub tenebris ex vehementis cujusdam incontinentiæ libidine, eadem autem lex etiam erit servanda, si quis eorum qui et in ætate sunt apta ad matrimonium contrahendum, non assentiente tamen magistratu ad mulieres ætate nubiles accesserit, hunc enim statuemus edere civitati spurium profanum, et illegitimum partum; ubi vero et mulieres, et viri statutum generationi tempus pertransierint, _immunes a lege faciemus ut possint cum quacumque libuerit commisceri_; præter quam cum filia et matre et filiis filiarum ac matris ascendentibus; _et parem concedemus quoque libertatem mulieribus, ut possint cum quovis conjungi_, præter quam cum filio, vel patre, et ascendentibus, vel descendentibus ex his, quæ omnia, ubi mandaverimus curabimus, ne partus ullus omnino ex hujusmodi coitibus ortus in lucem proferatur, quod si proferetur sic expositus sit perinde ac quasi nulla ei adsint alimenta." Plato's Republic, book v. Translation of John Sozomenus, Venice, 1626. [223] Plato perhaps got this idea as well as others from India: "Consider, then, I continued, whether the following plan is the right one for their lives and their dwellings, if they are to be of the character I have described. In the first place no one should _possess any private property_, if it can possibly be avoided: secondly, _no one should have a dwelling or storehouse into which all who please may not enter_; whatever necessaries are required by temperate and courageous men who are trained to war, they should receive by regular appointment from their fellow-citizens, as wages for their services, and the amount should be such as to leave neither a surplus on the year's consumption nor a deficit...; but whenever they come to possess lands and houses and money of their own, they will be householders and cultivators instead of guardians, and will become hostile masters of their fellow-citizens rather than their allies." Republic, book iii, sect. 417. Davis and Vaughan's Translation, pp. 129, 130. "Itaque Adiutores communes habere filios et uxores summopere expedit, quæ et consentiunt omnino iis quæ superius a nobis dicta sunt, diximus enim _hos neque domos proprias habere debere; neque terram possidere, vel aliud quidpiam in bonis adnumerare_: sed a cæteris enutritos hanc quasi custodiæ mercedem accipere, quam et in communi positam consumant, si re vera custodes futuri sunt; ut et quæ prius a nobis dicta sunt, et quæ nunc etiam dicuntur efficiant ipsos veros custodes, et ne Rempublicam in partes dividant; sed ut uno potius animo de propriis judicantes, et ad id tendantes omnes, uno eodemque et doloris et voluptatis sensu afficiantur." Platonis de Rebuspublicis, liber quintus. A Joanne Sozomeno, Venetiis, 1626. "Etenim Plato cum multas Regiones lustrasset, et mores hominum varios inspexisset, ac sui temporis Respublicas contemplatus abundé fuisset, nec non antiquorum philosophorum ac legumlatorum monumenta studiosissime perquisivisset, senior tandem factus, politias quidem omnes nihil aliud esse intelligens, nisi concordem quandam in societate civili Regulam, ac ordinem quo eædem continerentur." Joannes Sozomenus Lectoribus. [224] Or it might be Pasicars. [225] Ramusio, _Sanguada_. Not in Lisbon edition. [226] Enbarbatadas. [227] That is 20 maravedis a day, about three times the peace allowance. See p. 124. Ramusio says 40 cas a day, which are 40 maravedis; the Lisbon edition has 4 taras a day. [228] Though the nairs were deprived of their fathers, it appears that they retained their own family relations: the "divine Plato!" however, goes beyond his Hindu teachers, and would have reduced men altogether to the condition of brutes. He says: "But how are they to distinguish fathers and daughters, and the relations you described just now?" "Not at all, I replied; only all the children that are born between the seventh and tenth month from the day on which one of their number was married, are to be called by him, if male, his sons, if female, his daughters; and they shall call him father, and their children he shall call his grandchildren; these again shall call him and his fellow-bridegrooms and brides, grandfathers and grandmothers; likewise all shall regard as brothers and sisters those that were born in the period during which their own fathers and mothers were bringing them into the world; and as we said just now, all these shall refrain from touching one another. But the law will allow intercourse between brothers and sisters, if the lot chances to fall that way, and if the Delphian priestess also gives it her sanction." Republic, book v, §461. Davies and Vaughan's Translation, p. 190. "At dices quomodo patres, et filiæ, ac cæteræ hujusmodi personæ, inter quas interdicta est conjunctio, cognoscent se invicem; siquidem, ut dictum superius est _post editos partus permiscendi sunt in ovili foetus omnes, ut neque mater, quæ genuit, vel proprium filium a ceteris dignoscat_? Verum tamen non est difficile hanc solvere difficultatem, etenim quicumque nascentur partus, a quo primum die quis sponsus factus fuerit post decimum mensem vel post septimum, hos omnes filios suos nominabit, et foeminas pari modo filias, et illi vice versa ipsum patrem appellabunt, eosque qui ex his nascentur filios filiorum vocabit; illi è contra hos et avos, et avias, eos verò omnes, qui eodem tempore nati fuerint, quo matres ipsorum generabant, sorores, ac fratres nuncupabunt; quæ servata regula quod modò dicebamus a mutuo hi concubitu abstinebunt; fratres autem ac sorores, si sors ita tulerit, et annuerit Pithiæ oraculum, lex cohabitare permittet: talis erit itaque nobis constituenda, inter custodes nostros communitas mulierum et filiorum." De Rebuspubl., liber quintus. [229] This legalised disorder appears to be exaggerated, but it is the natural consequence and result of the carrying out of Plato's theories with regard to the destruction of family among the nairs or military caste. It is singular that the author of such extravagant abominations should have found acceptance because he wrote in the Hellenic language. "Such are the main features of Plato's Republic, in reference to his Guardians. They afford a memorable example of that philosophical analysis, applied to the circumstances of man and society, which the Greek mind was the first to conceive and follow. Plato lays down his ends with great distinctness as well as the means whereby he proposes to attain them. Granting his ends, the means proposed are almost always suitable and appropriate, whether practicable or otherwise." Grote's Plato, vol. iii, p. 207. [230] "If one of the soldiers deserts his rank or throw away his arms, or is guilty of any such act of cowardice, must we not degrade him to the rank of an artisan, or an agricultural labourer?" "Decidedly." Republic, book v, sect. 468. Davis and Vaughan's Translation, p. 200. "Existimo autem imprimis ego eum, qui ordinem deseruevit, vel arma abjecerit, vel tale quid ex ignavia commiserit, in Opificum aut Agricolarum ordinem amandandum esse." Platonis de Rebuspubl., liber quintus. [231] Ramusio, Manantamar; Lisbon edition, Mainatos. [232] Plato explains the object of this regulation: "Itaque sacra deinceps connubia quam maxime fieri poterit efficiemus: erunt autem sacra constituenda, quæ utilissima fuerint, utilissima verò erunt, si lege marium cum feminis conjunctiones præscribantur, et tale quid in his conjunctionibus observetur, quale in propagatione ceterorum animalium ab iis observatum videmus, quibus id est propositum, ut quam generosi partus edantur, etenim licet sæpe sæpius animadvertere eos qui vel canes venatorios alunt, vel generosas aves enutriunt, et si generosas omnes existiment, eximias tamen ac præstantissimas quasdam e reliquarum numero eligere, ex quibus præcipue progenies suscipiatur." De Rebuspubl., liber quintus. * * * * * "Oportet enim ut ex hactenus dictis constitit optimos viros cum optimis mulieribus sæpissime congredi, deteriores verò cum deterioribus per raro, et illorum quidem editos partus nutrire, horum verò nequaquam: si modo præstantissimum sit futurum ovile." De Rebuspubl., liber quintus. "It follows from what has been already granted, that the best of both sexes ought to be brought together as often as possible, and the worst as seldom as possible, and that the issue of the former unions ought to be reared, and that of the latter abandoned, if the flock is to attain to first-rate excellence." Republic, bk. v, sect. 459. Davis and Vaughan's Translation, p. 187. [233] As no explanation of Zevil is given, it is possible that it is a slip of the pen for _e vil_ and vile. Ramusio, Tiberi; Lisbon edition calls them Tuias; in the Portuguese this caste is called tiar and _civel_ or rustic by antiphrasis, which has been mistaken by the translators for an Indian word. [234] Repeated thus in the manuscript. [235] Or hats. [236] Apretada or hard pressed. [237] Ramusio, Paneru; Lisbon edition, Panceni. [238] Ramusio, Revoler; Lisbon ed., Revoleens. [239] Ramusio, Puler; Lisbon, Poleas. [240] Ramusio, Pareas; Lisbon, Parcens. [241] Dañados de todo, this might be intended for dañosos, hurtful in every way; the word occurs before and is translated contaminated, but hurtful or noxious would make a better reading. [242] Ramusio, Cheliis; Lisbon, Chatis. [243] About two hundred tons. [244] Cubiertas. [245] Caña fistola. [246] Ramusio, Crecati; Munich MS. 571, Crecate. [247] Ramusio, Capogato; Lisbon ed., Quategatam. [248] Or ezerubs. [249] Root of ginger and other plants used in medicine. [250] Culebras de sombrero, a shade, canopy, hood, hat. [251] Ramusio, Pananie; Lisbon edit., Pananee; Munich MS. 570, Panane, 571, Pananx. [252] Ramusio, Catua; Lisbon, Chatua; Munich, 570 and 571, Chatua. [253] Caranganor, Ortelius: Cranganor, Homannus: it was taken by the Portuguese in 1505. [254] Beledy: Arabic word no longer in use. [255] Cuartillo, fourth part of an azumbre, equal to 2 litres and 016.618. [256] Notwithstanding the extreme value and utility of these trees, as here described, some thousands of them were lately cut down to make way for sugar canes, and in spite of the remonstrances of the inhabitants, by a European who had got the loan of some land for a term of years, in one of the Comoro Islands. The loss to the islands was still greater from the fact that they depend chiefly on their own resources, being out of the regular track of trading vessels. [257] Here Ramusio adds: "which the Christians of the country affirmed to me was described in their books, which they preserve with great veneration." Camoens puts this event, as well as the tomb of St. Thomas at Mailapur. Canto x, stanza 108. Olha que de Narsinga o senhorio Tem as reliquias santas, e bemditas Do corpo de Thomé, varão sagrado Que a Jesu Christo teve a mão no lado. 109. Aqui a cidade foy, que se chamava Meliapor, formosa, grande e rica: Os idolos antiguos adorava, Como inda agora faz a gente inica: Longe do mar naquelle tempo estava Quando a Fé, que no mundo se publica, Thomé vinha pregando, e ja passara Provincias mil do mundo, que ensinara. 110. Chegado aqui pregando, e junto dando A doentes saude, a mortos vida, A caso traz hum dia o mar vagando Hum lenho de grandeza desmedida: Deseja o Rei, que andava edificando, Fazer delle madeira, e não duvida Poder tira-lo a terra com possantes Forças d'homens, de engenhos, de elefantes. 111. Era tão grande o pezo do madeiro, Que, só para abalar-se, nada abasta; Mas o nuncio de Cristo verdadeiro Menos trabalho em tal negocio gasta: Ata o cordão, que traz por derradeiro No tronco, e facilmente o leva, e arrasta Para onde faça hum sumptuoso templo, Que ficasse aos futuros por exemplo. 112. Sabia bem que se com fé formada Mandar a hum monte surdo, que se mova, Que obedecerá logo á voz sagrada; Que assi lho ensinou Christo, e elle o prova: A gente ficou disto alvoroçada, Os Brãhmenes o tem por cousa nova Vendo os milagres, vendo a sanctidade, Hão medo de perder autoridade. 113. São estes sacerdotes dos gentios, Em quem mais penetrado tinha inveja, Buscam maneiras mil, buscam desvios, Com que Thomé, não se ouça, ou morto seja. O principal, que ao peito traz os fios, Hum caso horrendo faz, que o mundo veja, Que inimiga não ha tão dura, e fera, Como a virtude falsa da sincera. 114. Hum filho proprio mata, logo accusa De homicidio Thomé, que era innocente: Dà falsas testemunhas, como se usa, Condemnaram-no á morte brevemente: O Sancto, que não vê melhor escusa, Que appellar para o Padre Omnipotente, Quer diante do Rei, e dos senhores, Que se faça hum milagre dos maiores. 115. O corpo morto manda ser trazido, Que resuscite, e seja perguntado Quem foi seu matador, e será crido For testemunho o seu mais approvado: Viram todos o moço vivo erguido Em nome de Jesu crucificado: Da graças a Thomé, que lho deo vida, E descobre seu pai ser homicida. 116. Este milagre fez tamanho espanto, Que o Rei se banha logo na agua santa, E muitos após elle: hum beija o manto, Outro louvor do Deos de Thomé canta. Os Brahmenes se encheran de odio tanto, Com seu veneno os morde inveja tanta, Que, persuadindo a isso o povo rudo, Determinam mata-lo em fin de tudo. 117. Hum dia, que pregando ao povo estava, Fingiram entre a gente hum arruido: Ja Christo neste tempo lhe ordenava Que, padecendo, fosse ao ceo subido, A multidão das pedras, que voava, No Sancto dá já a tudo offerecido: Hum dos maos, por fartarse mais depressa, Com crua lança o peito lhe atravessa. 118. Choraram-te, Thomé, o Gange e o Indo; Chorou-te toda a terra, que pizaste; Mais te choram as almas, que vestindo Se hiam da sancta Fé que lhe ensinaste. [258] Mar Thomas is Syriac for St. Thomas; this word must have been introduced by the Nestorians or Armenians, as they are called here, though St. Thomas may have carried the word there himself in speaking of others, as of Mar Elias. [259] Ancient coin equal to two reals vellon or sixpence. [260] Mailapur, a league and two-thirds south of Madras, seat of a catholic bishop and two churches, was taken by the Portuguese in 1545 and by the French in 1672. [261] These were Nestorians, who call themselves in Mesopotamia Esky Chaldany, old Chaldæans. In 1599 Archbishop Alexander Menezes held a conference at Culam, for the purpose of uniting the Roman Catholics and Nestorians. [262] Blessed bread, is bread in little pieces distributed in churches on great feast days. [263] It is hardly necessary to state that this is absolutely opposed to catholic practice. [264] Selling the sacraments, canonically a great offence: it was condemned by the 48th Canon of the Council of Elvira, A.D. 305. [265] This passage is translated in the Lisbon edition from Ramusio; the next paragraph is not to be found in either of them. [266] It is vexatious that the date should be wanting; it is probable, however, that this was an Italian and an overland traveller, for if not he could not have been buried more than fifteen years, and a fresh tomb would have hardly called for notice from the writer. [267] This passage is not in the Italian or Portuguese edition of Barbosa. It is in the MS. No. 571 of the Munich Library, and the date is also wanting; in the Munich MS. No. 570 this paragraph is entirely wanting, as in Ramusio. [268] This group is called Maldivar in Ortelius, and is there stated to contain seven or eight thousand isles. One of the islands is called Y^a de Ilheos, or island of small islands, the second word being Portuguese and apparently not understood by the compiler of the atlas. [269] Muxama or mojama, preserved tunny fish. [270] "Vês corre a costa celebre Indiana Para o Sul até o cabo Comori, Já chamado Cori, que Taprobana (Que ora he Ceilão) defronte tem de si." Os Lusiadas, canto x, stanza 107. [271] There is something wrong here; for, from Cape Comorin to Maylepur is more than double fifty leagues; the direction of the compass and length of the channel, make it probable that the island of Manar was intended instead of Maylepur. [272] Jargon or Zircon is a stone having a superficial resemblance to a diamond. Milburn's Oriental Commerce, p. 361. Possibly this stone may be connected with the jarkna stein mentioned in the Edda, and supposed by Grimm to be the opal. In Ramusio the spelling is the same as in this MS. The whole of this passage is much shortened in the Lisbon edition. [273] "Olha em Ceylão, que o monte se alevanta Tanto, que as nuvens passa, ou a vista engana Os naturaes tem por cousa sancta, Por a pedra em que està á pegada humana." Lusiadas, canto x, 136. [274] The ascent is still performed in the same manner, and is difficult in windy weather. [275] Chilao in Ortelius's Map of Asia, the Portuguese way of writing Chilam. [276] Comp. Malay sampan. [277] Cael in Ortelius and Homannus, the cedilla has been omitted in another part of this work. [278] Maestros: this may also mean dealers. [279] Cholmandel, Ortelius. [280] This story is evidently of Hindu origin, since the peacock is respected by the Hindus. It also in some measure confirms the antiquity of the establishment of Christianity in India, which from this story must have been established before the arrival in India of any of the Nestorian priests: since they came from a country where the peacock is associated with the devil, especially amongst the devil-worshiping Yezidys, who have got a peacock for an idol, which was seen and described by Mr. Layard. Many of their superstitions come down from the Manichees of the second century. Besides this, I have seen an Arabic description of animals written in Syria, in which the peacock is described as the first creature expelled out of Paradise, on account of its pride. This idea and the Yezidy love for it, probably have a common origin. [281] Romeria: this word here translated pilgrimage, means a visit to a shrine or holy place, and is inferior to peregrinage: it implies a shorter distance, and is equivalent to ziaret. [282] Paleacate, Ortelius. [283] Guenga, Ortelius; it should be Gunga. "Ganges, no qual os seus habitadores Morrem banhados, tendo por certeza, Que inda que sejão grandes peccadores, Esta agua sancta os lava, e da pureza."--Lusiad. x, 121. [284] In Ortelius there is a place called Aralem, east of Bengala. [285] Bengala, Ortelius, and on the same spot in Homannus Chatigan; in our maps Chittagong, which name was changed by the Moghuls in 1666 to Islam Abad. "Vê Cathigão cidade das melhores De Bengala provincia; que se preza De abundante; mas olha, que está posta Para o Austro de aqui virada a costa."--Lusiad. x, stan. 121. [286] Abasis. [287] The employment of eunuchs was forbidden by the Prophet, since their employment induced people to supply the demand. Hidayah, vol. iv, p. 121. [288] Verma, Ortelius and Ramusio. [289] Aracangil, Lisbon edit. [290] Here Ramusio adds: "And they say that by this trial they know which of them are healthy and of a good temperament." [291] Pegu, Ortelius and Ramusio. [292] The Dicco. Geogo. Universal, Barcelona, states the distance at twelve leagues, as this work is chiefly translated from French authorities, these distances would agree, and the river deposit may have increased the distance. [293] This is also related by Nicolo Conti, India in the Fifteenth Century, Hakluyt Society. [294] Saddle between _à la gineta_, a high saddle and short stirrups, and _à la brida_, long stirrups and hardly any saddle at all. [295] Martabam, Ortelius. [296] Ava, Ortelius. [297] Capelan, Ortelius, near the mouth of the river Menam. [298] Sian, Ortelius. [299] Tanazaru, Ortelius. [300] Java frankincense, in Arabic. [301] Queda, Ortelius; Keddah, Malay State tributary to Siam, it derives its name from the Arabic, a cup. Ramusio and Lisbon edit., Quedaa. "Olha Tavay cidade, onde começa De Syão o largo imperio tão comprido Tenessary, Queda, que he so cabeça Das que pimienta aly tem produzido; Mays avante fareys que se conheça Malaca, por Emperio ennobrecido, Onde toda a província domar grande, Suas mercadorias ricas mande."--Lusiadas, x, stanza 123. [302] Paam, Ortelius; Pahang, now an independent Malay State. [303] Not in Ortelius; Salangore, an independent Malay State. [304] "Vé nos remotos montes outras gentes Que Gueos se chamão de selvages vidas; Humana carne comem, mas a sua Pintão com ferro ardente, usança crua." Lusiade, stanza 126. [305] "Mas na ponta da tierra Gingapura Veràs, onde o caminho às naos se estreyta, De aqui tornando a costa à Cynosura Se encurva, e para a Aurora se endereyta. Ves Pam, Patàne reynos, e alongura De Syão, que estes, e outros mays sogeyta. Olha o rio Menão, que se derrama Do grande lago, que Chiamay se chama." Lusiade, x, stanza 125. [306] The Lisbon edition has _sulia_, and explains the word in a note as translated above. [307] Encienço is the old word for ajenjo, absinthe, or it may be the old form of incenso, incense. [308] The English word to _fish_ a mast or fishing rod, comes from the Spanish word used here, fajar; anciently pronounced as the Catalan faixar, to wrap or wind a sash, to swathe. [309] Rattan. [310] Small coins, three ceutis make one blanca, an ancient coin. Escuela de leer letras Antiguas, p. 207: not in the dictionaries. [311] Kris. [312] This passage fixes the Hindu origin of running amok, which from this seems to have been connected with the worship of Shiva or Bhowani. Now it would be difficult to get any other explanation than that of _adet_, custom. [313] The Barcelona MS. has plainly Amuco, which is correct. Ramusio has Amulos, and the Lisbon edition Guanicio. [314] Thirty men according to other accounts. [315] Nicobar, Ortelius' map of Asia, and Nicovan in map of India; Ramusio, Navacar. [316] Medio _giorno_, Italian. [317] Samotra and Sumatra, Ortelius. [318] Pedir, Ortelius. [319] Biraen, Ortelius, on the north-west coast. [320] Pasem and Pazer, Ortelius; Passam, Homannus. [321] Camper, Ortelius and Homannus, between Siuk and Jambi. [322] Amdaragui, Ortelius; Andragari, Homannus; east coast. [323] Menancabo, Ortelius, south-west coast. [324] Sunda, Ortelius. [325] Ramusio has here translated south-east, the Lisbon edition has south-west. [326] Java Maior, Ortelius. It is still called Java Major by the Arabs. [327] Ramusio, Palevdora; Lisbon, Pateudru. [328] They look very like Crim Tatars. [329] Raydas. [330] Java Minor, Ortelius, now Bali, the inhabitants are still pagans; the island Sumbawa also in Ortelius is not the same as Java Minor, but apparently the one here called Oçare, as it contains a great volcano. Here Ramusio says some lines are wanting; he calls the island Oçare, Nucopora. [331] Timor, Ortelius:-- "Aly tambien Timor, que o lenho manda Sandalo salutifero, e cheyroso. Olha a Sunda tão larga, que humabanda Esconde para o Sul difficultuoso. A gente do sertão, que as torras anda, Hum rio diz que tem miraculoso, Que por onde elle so sem outro vae Converte em pedra o pao que nelle cae." Lusiad. x, stanza 134. [332] Bandan, Ortelius:-- "Olha do Bandá asilhas que se esmaltão Da varia cor, que pinta o rosco fruto, As aves, variadas, que aly saltão, Da verde Noz tomando seu tributo. Olha tambem Borneo, onde não faltaõ Lagrimas, no licor qualhado, e enxuto, Das arvores, que camphora he chamado Com que da ilha o nome he celebrado." Lusiad., 133. [333] Chapel is also the same as chapin, a slipper or sandal. [334] Ramusio, Ambon; Lisbon, Andam. [335] Molucos, Ortelius. [336] Bachian, Machian, Motir, Tidore, Tarenate, Ortelius; Bluteau's dictionary names them Bachan, Maquien, Moutel, Tidor, Ternate, and says they were anciently named Seque, Mara, Moutil, Duco, Gape. The only remaining possession of the Portuguese in the Malay Archipelago is Dili in the island of Timor. [337] Nury is the real name of Molucca parrots, which has been changed to loro and lori. Ramusio calls them mire, and the Lisbon ed. noire. [338] This section is not in the Lisbon MS. [339] The Bugis of Celebes still make the best krises. [340] Celebes, Ortelius. [341] This section is not in the Lisbon MS. [342] Ramusio and the Lisbon ed., Tendaya. Banguey island, north of Borneo, 7 deg. 13 min. N. lat. and 120 deg. 12 min. E. long.; 6-3/4 leagues long and 3-1/2 broad: it is desert. Geographical Dict., Barcelona, 1831. [343] The island now called Solor is in another direction E. of the island Flores, 8 deg. 30 min. S. lat. and 126 deg. 52 min. E. long. [344] Ramusio stops here and says several lines are wanting. [345] Borneo, Ortelius. [346] Champa, Ortelius and Homannus, the southern portion of Cochin China next to Cambodia; it is not an island as here stated. [347] Ramusio says three hundred maravedis, the Lisbon MS. says thirty or forty pardoes. [348] Borceguies--the Turkish mest. [349] There is a _no_, not, here in the manuscript, which seems to be put in by mistake; the Spanish idiom does not allow of adding another negative at the beginning of the sentence; the one negative alone makes nonsense, and is contrary to what has been said above. [350] A French missionary, quoted in the "Dictionnaire de la Conversation," does not believe this story, which he assumes to be invented for the sake of increasing the value of the porcelain. [351] The Liu Kiu Islands. Lequio major and minor, Y^{a.} Fermosa, and Reix magas, form a group in Ortelius: in Homannus Formosa is in its proper place, and the group is called Lequeyo or Riukiu Islands. [352] Here the Lisbon edition says that the manuscript of Duarte Barbosa ends, and that what follows about the precious stones has been translated from the Italian of Ramusio: this appendix about precious stones is wanting in the Munich MS. No. 570. [353] Martin Centurion according to the Munich MS. No. 571, where the name is given in full. [354] Fano, fanam, fanão--a weight for weighing rubies, according to Bluteau = 1 quilat or carat; according to the Dicco. Enciclopedico, Madrid, 1853, and the Encyclopedie of Diderot and D'Alembert = to 2 carats of Venice. Also a coin equal to two Spanish reals or twenty Portuguese reis, or ten of which made a cruzado. The author has said in another place that it is equal to thirty-six maravedis. The following table of coins will be useful with reference to the prices named in this work. Ducado = 375 maravedis. Dobla = 365 " Florin = 265 " Real = 34 " These maravedis were worth double those of the present time, in which a real contains 34 maravedis, so that a fanam would be worth 2 reals or half a peseta = 6d. The author of the Escuela de leer Letras Antiguas, from which these figures are taken, has added lists of prices at different times as guides to the value of coins. In 1348, law of Don John I. Fanega of wheat 15 maravedis. Ditto barley 10 " Ditto oats 8 " Cubit of French cloth 60 " Ditto Flanders or English cloth 50 " Day's wages from November to March 3 " Ditto ditto March to November 4 " Each yoke for ploughing all day 10 " A servant by the year 100 " A maid ditto 50 " For grinding a fanega of wheat 2 " A thousand tiles 60 " Ditto bricks 55 " A fanega of mortar 6 " Ditto lime 5 " An ox 200 " A calf 180 " A pound of mutton 2 " A hare 3 " A rabbit 2 " A fowl 4 " A goose 6 " A pigeon 3 " A partridge 5 " These maravedis were worth 22-1/2 actual maravedis, or about 2d. each. In 1524 the fanega of wheat was fixed at 70 maravedis. Ditto ditto of barley " 40 " These maravedis were worth two of the actual ones. 1865, a fanega of wheat = 50 reals. [355] A miskal. [356] A real de plata means two reals vellon, or actual reals of the present time. [357] Son bermejos y deslavados, y encarnados. [358] 65 in Ramusio. [359] Balassia in Ramusio. [360] Toque or proof. [361] Equal to a carat and a third. [362] These two names must be the same word Kringa-nila; blue stone, perhaps. In Ramusio, Quiniganilam. [363] Capucar in Ramusio. [364] A jour. [365] Exer in Ramusio. [366] Kerman. Chiraman, Ortelius. [367] In the MS. the passage reads _as mina y tierra seca_. [368] The _Times_ reviewer of Mr. Emmanuel's book _On Precious Stones_, April 5, 1866, is in error in saying that "the zircon is known in trade as the jacinth or hyacinth". The jargon, corindon or circon, which was much used in the xvi^{th} century, is not held in any estimation at the present time; it has the merit of possessing the hardness of the sapphire. [369] Mar Deignan in Ramusio. [370] I have been informed by Mr. Capt, jeweller, of Geneva, that the proportions of the prices of precious stones, according to their weight, are still very exact for uncut stones in the Indian market, and that the general accuracy of the details given in this MS. is very great. With respect to the doubts which had been expressed as to the stones of combined colours, they do exist, but are held in no estimation in Europe. Experiments have been made in Europe, and especially in Germany, for the purpose of deepening the colour of precious stones, particularly rubies, by the process here mentioned; but success was so hazardous, and so costly, that speculators would no longer incur the risks of it. [371] 6562 in Ramusio. [372] Beledin, of the country, local; Arabic. Ramusio has not translated it. [373] xl in Ramusio. [374] El peso del es el mayor. This may refer to the old and new weights, or it may mean that this ginger is heavier than the other ginger. [375] Syn enbarar. [376] Faratela, Indian weight equal to seven and a quarter pounds. Encicloped. Dict., Madrid, 1853. [377] Atincar, Anglicè tincal, when refined, borax. [378] Calamo aromático, also called acoro, a kind of aquatic plant used in medicine. [379] This may be either incense or wormwood. Incenso in Ramusio. [380] Lombriguera, southernwood, wormwood: Artemisia abrotanum. [381] Turbith, Convolvulus turpethum; its root is used as a purgative, and it comes from India and Ceylon. [382] Gum from the giant fennel: also called sagapeno, is known in commerce as yellowish white drops of a strong aromatic smell something like garlic; is used for diachylum. [383] Atulia, a sublimate of calamine. [384] Probably cubebs. [385] Or four hundredweight English. [386] Lo al, old Spanish. [387] This voyage is not in Ramusio nor in the Lisbon edition, and apparently has been hitherto unpublished. The Munich MS., No. 570, gives the date 1522, but 1512 is the correct reading. [388] Leste o este. [389] Surat glaized cotton stuff. [390] Sudueste and su sudueste, these terms have not been ever used in the body of the book. [391] Norueste. [392] Singaduras for Singladuras, Portuguese Singradura, derived by Bluteau from French Cingler, and that from the German Segelen. [393] Setentrional. [394] Del sur al sueste. [395] Or Colayres and giravales according to another reading. [396] Les nordeste. [397] This passage important. Los marineros q. tomamos en borney llevaban carta de marear e trayan una aguja y piedra yman e una carta en q. trayan muchas rayas e lineas de lo qual nos espantamos mucho. See the Pillars of Hercules, by D. Urquhart with respect to the Phenician compass. [398] Line across the forehead.