_IN THE EAST INDIBS. 113 
little time with the custom house officials; there is a 
great deal of red tape connected with traveling in 
Java, and also New Guinea, travelers being required to 
obtain special permission from the Governor-General, 
ete. Batavia is the hottest place we have been to yet, 
87 to 90 average temperature, and steady rain all the 
time, so that the heat was quite trying; but we were 
there for only three days and then we came up here. 
I wish you could see this place; it is so beautiful; 
there is a voleano right in front of us and the most 
superb vegetation between us and it, with a river 
running like everything in the valley below; the view 
is lovely; yesterday we went through a part of the 
gardens; they are so large that you could not begin 
to do them in a morning, but truly they are beyond 
description. When you walk into the main entrance 
there is a straight avenue as far as you can see of 
beautiful trees, simply covered with ferns, air plants 
and orchids. The hly pond was a mass of the most 
superb pink and white lilies you ever imagined, with 
leaves six feet across and more. The tree ferns (like 
Mrs. Gay’s) are twenty to thirty feet high, every leaf 
perfect, and such a variety of them. The orchids are 
simply beyond description, quantities and quantities 
of them, every color of the rainbow, from those no 
larger than pin heads to those over three or four feet. 
I collected a large bunch of them from the ground. 
The palms are very beautiful, small and large varie- 
ties, and a great many shades of green. We walked 
through avenues of flowering trees and they were 
alive with gorgeous butterflies and birds. 
Speaking of birds and entirely changing the sub- 
ject, give a guess what we have for pets : a parrot and 
