450 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



herited it. Sucli was tlie humble appearance of the 

 English in the East two centuries and a half ago. 



Little probably could even the far-seeing queen 

 herself have imagined that one of her successors 

 should reign over the hundred and fifty millions of 

 Hindustan ; that her Eastern merchants would soon 

 give up the trade in pepper with Sumatra, and in 

 spices with the Moluccas, for the far more lucrative 

 commerce in silks and teas with China, and espe- 

 cially that to the then unexplored continent of Aus- 

 tralia citizens of her own kingdom would migrate, 

 and there lay the foundation of the most enterpris- 

 ing, flourishing, and, what promises to be within the 

 next century, the greatest power in all the East. 



When we started from Padang it was planned 

 that a man-of-war should come to Siboga and take us 

 back ; but we have been obliged to wait here ten days, 

 and now she has come only to take the Resident, and 

 go to Singkel, the farthest point up the coast held by 

 the Dutch. 



The captain of the steamer on which I came from 

 Surabaya to Batavia, however, has chanced to arrive 

 in a little prau, in which he has been visiting several 

 places along the coast for the purpose of ascertaining 

 the facilities for obtaining timber to be used in con- 

 structing some government buildings at Padang. 

 He is now on the point of sailing to the Batu Islands 

 and thence to Padang, and proposes that I share the 

 dangers of such a voyage in his little boat, an offer 

 which I gladly accept, but Mr. Terville, the inspector, 

 prefers to wait for the return of the steamship. Our 

 boat is about thii-ty feet long by eight broad, and in- 



