14 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



to illustrate a part of his own writings. Wlien Hol- 

 land became a province of France, in 1811, and it was 

 designed to make Paris tlie centre of science and lit- 

 erature in Europe, it is said that this collection was 

 taken from Leyden to that city, and afterward re- 

 turned, and that during these two transfers a large 

 proportion of the specimens disappeared ; and that, 

 finally, what was left of this valuable collection was 

 scattered through the great museum at Leyden. It 

 was partly to restore Rumphius's specimens, and 

 partly to bring into our own country such a standard 

 collection, that I was going to search myself for the 

 shells figured in the " Kariteit Kamer," on the very 

 points and headlands, and in the very bays, where 

 Rumphius's specimens were found. 



As we neared the coast of Java, cocoa-nuts and 

 fragments of sea-washed palms, di'ifting by, indicated 

 our approach to a land very different at least from 

 the temperate shores we had left behind; and we 

 could in some degree experience Columbus's pleasure, 

 when he first saw the new branch and its vermilion 

 berries. Strange, indeed, must be this land to which 

 we are coming, for here we see snakes swimming on 

 the water, and occasionally fragments of rock drifting 

 over the sea. New birds also appear, now sailing 

 singly through the sky, and now hovering in flocks 

 over certain places, hoping to satisfy their hungry 

 maws on the small fishes that follow the floaiing drift- 

 wood. Here it must be that the old Dutch sailors 

 fabled could be seen the tree — then unknown — that 

 bore that strange fi'uit, the double cocoa-nut. They 

 always represented it as rising up from a great depth 



