FLORA OF INDONESIA. 



71 



whole of Malaysia, it often thunders every day for months together. So 

 accustomed does one grow to the continual peals echoing from height to height, 

 that the stillness of cloudless evening skies causes a feeling of surj^rise. But the 

 higher aerial spaces belong entirely to the zone of the south-eastern trades, which 

 sometimes rise, sometimes fall, and by clashing with the western monsoon 

 occasionally produce extremely violent local cyclones. But in the higher regions 

 they always predominate, as shown by the smoke from the lofty craters, which 

 invariably sets towards the west. No spectacle is more impressive than that of a 

 western monsoon driving hard towards the east, while the long streak of volcanic 

 vapours is seen through a break in the clouds to be setting in the opposite 

 direction across a background of blue skies. In these upper regions the 

 atmosphere is much drier and far less frequently disturbed than lower down. 



Analogous climatic changes take pl^ce in the direction from west to east. The 

 western parts of Java are more humid than the eastern, and these receive more 

 rain than Timor still farther east. The summer and winter temperatures also 

 become less equable in the same direction. In the Sunda Islands the variation 

 from month to month is less than 2*^ F., the extremes being greater between day 

 and night than between the hot and cool seasons. If the nights are colder and 

 the days warmer in the dry months, compensation is afforded by the rainy months, 

 when the temperature varies little throughout the twenty-four hours. At 

 Batavia the rise and fall of the glass rarely exceeds 18° F. during the course of 

 the year ; but in Timor the discrepancy is much greater, the eastern islands of 

 Indonesia already coming within the influence of the Australian climate.* 



Flora. 



The Indonesian flora, comprising over nine thousand flowering plants described 

 by Miguel, belongs to the same zone as that of India. But going eastwards it 

 becomes gradually modified, approaching more and more towards the Australian 

 types according as the atmosphere becomes drier and the climate less equable. 

 In Timor, for instance, the character of the vegetation is already far more 

 Australian than Indian. Here the eucalyptus, casuarina, and acacia predominate, 

 but instead of developing large forests they grow in open thickets, as on the 

 neighbouring continent. 



In the western regions of the archipelago vegetable life is extremely vigorous. 

 Despite the constant clearings and incessant struggle of the peasants against 



* Teraperatiu'es and rainfall in various parts of Indonesia according to observations varying from 

 five to thirteen years : — 



