IN THE EAST INDIES. Fes ed 
it; springs, the most innocent looking imaginable, 
were hot enough to cook eggs in. All the rock forma- 
tions about the crater were very interesting — pum- 
ice stone, sulphur crystals, alum, chalk, ete. I took 
specimens of each, which I will show you when I get 
back. The vegetation along the little path down the 
mountain was marvelous, I think the finest I have 
seen so far. There were tree ferns, such as Mrs. Gay 
has, fifty feet and more, growing everywhere by the 
thousands, and orchids. Just imagine Galvin’s win- 
dow on Tremont street filled with his finest varieties of 
orchids and ferns; this will convey only in a very 
poor way what the flowers and ferns were I saw this 
morning and that in enormous quantities. There were 
numerous lovely vetches and low bushes like our lo- 
belia, only pink and pale yellow, and then instead of 
having grass along the path it was covered with a 
beautiful pink flower like a kind of pansy; that fuzzy 
pale lavender aduratum you set out in the point 
every year was growing wild over everything, just 
like golden rod or asters. I picked a huge bunch of 
all the different flowers and have them now in my 
room. I only wish you could see them. 
Let me tell you what we have been doing since 
we left Buitenzorg. We went to a place called Ban- 
doeng for the first night — I sent you some postals 
from there — and the next morning at 5.30 took the 
train for Djocjakarta (considered the capital of Java 
by the natives) the seat of the old Javanese court. On 
the train we met a remarkable old American, seventy- 
three years old, who is globe trotting. His name is 
Severance and he is a cousin or uncle of Emily Sever- 
ance. We at once became friends and he travelled 
