132 SUMBA1FA. [chap. 



siven us, and fortified with these and all the Dutch charts that we 

 could obtain — for the English surveys of this part of the world are 

 bat few — we felt prepared against all emergencies. I may here say 

 that these recommendations were of the greatest service, and that 

 we found the Dutch officials not only cultured and interesting 

 companions, but also the kindest and most obliging hosts. Every 

 facility appears to be given to naturalists \isiting the archipelago, 

 of whatever nationality they may be, but it is of the first import- 

 ance that they should obtain proper letters of introduction from 

 Batavia before starting. 



Cholera was very prevalent in the port at the time of our 

 arrival, and, as we heard in the following year on our return to 

 Singapore, it developed a little later into an unusually severe 

 epidemic, which carried off several of the Europeans. We were 

 anchored next to one of the guard-ships, an old hulk which was 

 no doubt in an insanitary condition, and, as eight or ten fresh 

 cases were occurring every day, she was paid off and broken up, 

 and we met her sailors on their way to new quarters a week later 

 as we returned from the beautiful hill station of Buitenzorg. We 

 called upon our Consul, and the conversation turned on the 

 epidemic. With a gesture he indicated an unconscious Javanese 

 who was busily engaged in uncorking a bottle of soda-water for 

 our benefit. "Tliis man," he quietly remarked, "is the third I 

 have had this week 1" 



The easterly monsoon was blowing fresh as we left Batavia, 

 and we hugged the coast as closely as possible in order to avoid it. 

 Passing between Raas and Sapudi Islands at the east end of 

 Madiu-a, we lay an E.S.E. course towards Bali. The mountains on 

 this part of the coast of Java are very fine ; the Kendang range, 

 close to the Bali Strait, attaining 11,000 feet. At daybreak on 

 the 9th of August we were close to Lombok. The height of the 

 Peak of Lombok is given as 12,460 feet in the charts, and a rough 

 sextant measurement that we took made it nearly the same, but it 

 seemed to us hardly to look its height, and it is certainly far less 



