IN JAVA. 53 



invasion of Java, has attained a wonderful development 

 throughout the whole of the lowlands in the western part of 

 the island. In these sawahs, as the natives call their wet rice 

 fields, the grain is cultivated in small square borders separated 

 by green, grass-ridged banks, kept constantly flooded with 

 water brought by a wonderful network of channels in which 

 an intricate system of sluices or valves distributes or cuts 

 off its flow wherever desired. The entire face of such low 

 hills as have a gentle slope, are thus laid out down to their 

 bases, and at the season when the young corn is in its fresh 

 green leaf the country is extremely pretty. 



Mr. Fraser's estate-house at Tjikandi-Udik, which I reached 

 late in the evening, I found to stand amid a rich and entirely 

 cultivated country, but as regards my pursuits a barren terri- 

 tory. After enjoying for a few days the hospitality of the 

 Administrator I moved south-westward to Genteng in the 

 higher region of Lebak, where I ^as told some forest was then 

 being felled. 



Here I built a bamboo-hut in an open spot with an exhila- 

 rating look-out on the high mountains, and alone with my 

 Malay boys began my initiation into the language of the 

 country, and into the nomadic joyous life of a field naturalist. 

 It is a life full of tiresome shifts, discomforts, and short 

 commons; but these are completely forgotten, and the days 

 seem never long enough amid that constant flash of delighted 

 surprise that accompanies the beholding for the first time 

 of beast or bird or thing unknown before, and the throb of 

 pleasure experienced, as each new morsel of knowledge amal- 

 gamates with one's self. 



Between myself and my boyn for a time the most ludicrously 

 comprehended sign-language was carried on, till their speech, 

 whose sentences to my unaccustomed ears seemed composed of 

 but one continuous word of innumerable uncouth syllables, 

 began to shape itself into distinguishable elements, when to 

 my amazement, as if some obstruction had been suddenly re- 

 moved from my ears, I comprehended them as if I had been 

 brought up among them. Before many weeks were over I 

 could converse in the Malay tongue with an amount of freedom 

 that surprised me. 



The language of the district, that is, of the Sundanese them- 



