CHAPTEE I. 



SOJOURN AT GENTENG IN BANTAM. 



On the road — The Sundanese language — Kvery man a naturalist — Bird-life at 

 Grenteng — Weaver-birds' nests — A native rural bazaar — Forest devastation 

 — Geological structure of the district — A wonderful case of mimicry in a 

 spider. 



On my return to Juva from the Keeling Islands, I had the 

 good fortune to meet in Batavia with a countryman, Mr. 

 Alexander Fraser, one of the few freeholders of land in Java, 

 who though just starting for England, kindly offered me the 

 privilege of collecting over his vast property situated in the 

 western province of Bantam, and the hospitality of his house if I 

 should choose to stay there. This offer I was only too pleased 

 to accept, in order, while still within reach of civilisation, to 

 become acquainted with, and gain some practical experience 

 of, the necessities and modes of tropical life and camping, of 

 which the novitiate traveller has such crude ideas — for collect- 

 ing among tropical vegetation is very different from the ideas 

 formed of it from like operations conducted amidst the sparse 

 woods of our temperate climate ; — but principally to isolate 

 myself from all European-speaking people for the purpose of 

 acquiring, with the aid of a few books and chiefly with my 

 native servants, the Malay language as rapidly as possible. 

 In addition, the late Dr. Scheffer, the kind Director of the 

 Botanical Gardens in Buitenzorg, had recommended to me 

 Bantam as a profitable and by no means, botanically at least, 

 well investigated province to visit. 



Having hired a couple of cahars — a sort of spring-cart with 

 one horse, the general mode of conveyance when one travels as 

 I was about to do, off the main roads, — one for myself and one 

 for my baggage, I left Batavia at sunrise on the 12th of March, 

 by the western road along the low northern shore lands towards 



