174 JAVA. [chap. vii. 



the same species grown in our hothouses. This can easily 

 be explained. The plants can rarely be placed in natural 

 or very favourable conditions. The climate is either too 

 hot or too cool, too moist or too dry, for a large proportion 

 of them, and they seldom get the exact quantity of shade 

 or the right quality of soil to suit them. In our stoves 

 these varied conditions can be supplied to each individual 

 plant far better than in a large garden, where the fact that 

 the plants are most of them growing in or near their 

 native country is supposed to preclude the necessity of 

 giving them much individual attention. Still, however, 

 there is much to admire here. There are avenues of 

 stately palms, and clumps of bamboos of perhaps fifty 

 different kinds ; and an endless variety of tropical shrubs 

 and trees with strange and beautiful foliage. As a change 

 from the excessive heats of Batavia, Buitenzorg is a 

 delightful abode. It is just elevated enough to have 

 deliciously cool evenings and nights, but not so much as 

 to require any change of clothing ; and to a person long 

 resident in the hotter climate of the plains, the air is 

 always fresh and pleasant, and admits of walking at 

 almost any hour of the day. The vicinity is most pic- 

 turesque and luxuriant, and the great volcano of Gunung- 

 Salak, with its truncated and jagged summit, forms a 

 characteristic background to many of the landscapes. A 

 great mud eruption took place in 1699, since which date 

 the mountain has been entirely inactive. 



