IN THE COCOS-KEELING ISLANDS. 5 



will live longer in the sorrowful remembrance of the inhabitants 

 of the shores of the strait. The appalling catastrophe of 

 August the 27th, 1883, would, however, sink into insignifi- 

 cance, if compared with that which, while this was still an 

 undiscovered sea, must have withdrawn the foundations of the 

 land over which the strait now flows. 



On our right the Java coast lay in a series of beautiful 

 amphitheatre slopes, laid out in coffee-gardens and rice- 

 terraces ; on our left were the more distant Sumatra shores cut 

 into large and beautiful bays between long promontories, on the 

 easternmost of which stood out the high dome of Eaja-basa. 

 Rounding St. Nicholas Point, we sailed eastward among the 

 tree-capped Thousand Islands. The coast of Java, on our 

 right, presented a singular appearance, for, for miles into the 

 interior it seemed elevated above the level of the sea scarcely 

 more than the height of the trees that covered it. Nothing 

 could be seen save the sea fringe of vegetation in front of a 

 green plain, behind which rose the hills of Bantam and the 

 Blue Mountains, as the old mariners called the peaks of 

 Buitenzorg. 



Late in the afternoon of the 17th of November, the Celebes 

 dropped her anchor in Batavia Roads, one of the greatest centres 

 of commerce in all these seas, amid a fleet flying the flags 

 of all nations. I had reached my destination ; but, scan the 

 shore as I might, I failed to detect anything like a town or even 

 a village, only a low shore with a fringe of trees whose roots 

 the surf was lazily lapping. As we approached the land in 

 the steam tender, into which we were at length transferred, 

 the shore opened out, and disclosed the mouth of a canal, 

 leading to the town a long mile inland. A traveller, dropped 

 down here by chance, might, from these canals, make a very 

 good guess at the nationality of the dominant power in the 

 fsland, for these placid water-roads are as dear to the heart of 

 the Hollander as heather-hills to a Highlander. 



On stepping off the mail, I said good-bye to western life 

 and ways, and entered on others new and strange to me, 

 exciting my curiosity, full of fascination, even bewildering, 

 recalling the confused sensations of my first boyish visit to 

 the capital. Even in the canal, the first aspects of life were 

 intensely interesting. Here and there a fishing-boat passed 



