A VEIL OF RAIN. 17 



ag-ain the thunders would crash and roar enousrh to 

 shake the very firmament. 



We are not alone. Six or eight vessels are also 

 detained here — for this Strait of Sunda is the great 

 gate through which pass out most of the valuable 

 teas and costly silks of China and Japan, and these 

 ships are carrying cotton goods to those lands to ex- 

 change in part for such luxui'ies. On the evening of 

 the sixth day a more favorable breeze took us slowly 

 up the channel past a group of large rocks, where 

 the unceasing swell of the ocean was breaking, and 

 making them sound in the quiet night like the howl- 

 ing and snarling of some fierce monster set to guard 

 the way and unable to prevent his expected prey 

 fi'om escaping. 



With the morning came a fine breeze, and, as we 

 sailed up the strait, several small showers passed 

 over the mountains, parallel to the shore, on the 

 Java side ; and once a long cloud rested its ends on 

 two mountains, and unfolded fi*om its dark mass a 

 thin veil of sparkling rain, through which we could 

 see quite distinctly all the outlines and the bright- 

 green foliage of the valley behind it. The highly- 

 cultivated lands near the water, and on the lower 

 declivities of the mountains, whose tops were one 

 dense mass of perennial green, made the whole vicAV 

 most enchanting to me ; but our captain (who was 

 a Cape Cod man) declared that the sand-hills on 

 the outer side of Cape Cod were vastly more chann- 

 ing to him. On the shallows, near the shore, the 

 clear sea-water took a beautiful tint of emerald 

 green in the bright sunlight, and here we passed 



2 



