186 VISIT THE RESIDENT. 



eyes, after the dull arid shores of North-western 

 Australia : and we gazed with intense pleasure on 

 the rich green spreading leaf of the banana and 

 other tropical fruit-trees, above which towered, the 

 graceful cocoa-nut. Is it possible, thought I, that 

 Timor and Australia, so different in the character 

 of their scenery, can be such near neighbours, that 

 these luxuriant valleys, nestling among the roots of 

 these gigantic hills, are only separated by a narrow 

 expanse of sea from those shores over which nature 

 has strewed, with so niggard a hand, a soil capable 

 of bearing the productions characteristic of the lati- 

 tudes within which they lie ? 



A meagre-looking apology for a soldier, leaning 

 against a tree, suggested to us that we must be near 

 the Resident's dwelling : — we were so. It soon ap- 

 peared that it was the last of the large houses before 

 mentioned, and that the soldier was the sentinel. 

 We were speedily ushered into the presence of D. T. 

 Vanden Dungen Gronovius. What sort of person, 

 reader, do you picture to yourself with such a name ? 

 Great of course ; and in truth such w^as he, not only 

 in height and bulk, but as he soon informed us, in 

 deeds likewise ; he talked fast, and smoked faster, 

 and possessed a general knowledge of all the recent 

 discoveries. We learned from him that the Zelee and 

 Astrolabe were laid on their beam ends for twenty- 

 four hours in the hurricane of last November, when 

 the Pelorus was lost at Port Essington. After listen- 

 ing to some strange and amusing stories about Bor- 



