152 A COLLECTING TRIP 
tion — it smells like a skunk) for thirty cents, ete. 
Beasts the size of a squirrel cost me from four to six 
cents each. I can get skilled help in skinning, ete., 
for forty cents a day. Traveling only is very ex- 
pensive here, for we have often to go by post carriages 
and the hills are so steep we often need five ponies; 
they want to use buffaloes, but I would rather pay 
a little extra for more horses and thus save hours. We 
both speak Malay now reaily well and we ean get 
along very well without being compelled to ask Dutch- 
men to interpret for us. I have also acquired a little 
Dutch, which may come in useful some time, although 
the Colonial Dutch is quite unlike home Dutch. To- 
morrow at 5.46 we go to Djokjakarta, the old capital 
of the Hindu empire of Mataram which took in Java 
and some of the other islands before the Mahometan 
invasion about 1300, A. D. The greatest Buddhist 
ruins in the world are not in India or Burma, but 
here in the jungles of central Java. I have doubts 
as to our pictures of them, for our films are going bad 
in the hot moisture. I developed, as I wrote you, 
nearly a thousand negatives in the Moluccas and New 
Guinea, but I now have prints of many of them by 
the government photographer of the Department of 
Agriculture. They are simply wonderful, absolute 
successes and every one worth publishing. I have 
already had requests to be sure to do so from officials 
here. 
Major Ouwens and we have become great friends. 
As he is an intimate friend of the present Viceroy we 
were asked to the palace to a state ball and were very 
kindly treated by him. He walked around the great 
hall, meeting each person. We were placed almost at 
