IN JAVA. 75 



for 80 and sometimes 100 feet. Of the other stately trees 

 here, I noticed the Mangosteen {Garcinta mangostana) and 

 the Yernonia javanica, a member of a family, the Compositm, 

 that in our own country never attains any importance greater 

 than that of a moderate herb. 



The season, however, was a very unfortunate one for enlarging 

 my herbarium. Little over ten per cent, of all the forest trees 

 in 1879 produced either flower or fruit. During 1877 a great 

 scarcity of rain prevailed, while in 1878 almost an unbroken 

 drought existed during the East-monsoon. The parched sur- 

 face of the ground broke up into ravine-like cracks, which, ex- 

 tending from four to five feet in. depth and two to three in 

 breadth, destroyed great numbers of the forest-trees by en- 

 circling and snapping off their roots. Shrubs and small trees 

 in exposed places were simply burned up in broad patches. 

 Flowering was almost entirely suspended — so much so that the 

 wild bees could produce no honey, which in ordinary years is 

 one of the very abundant products of the forests. Crops of all 

 kinds failed, while devastating fires, whose origin could seldom 

 be traced, were so frequent in the forest and in the great alang- 

 alang fields, that the population lived in constant fear of 

 their villages and even of their lives and stock. It was in vain 

 that the natives, following their superstitious rites, carried their 

 cats in procession, to the sound of gongs and the clattering 

 of rice blocks, to the nearest streams to bathe and sprinkle 

 them ; the rain after such a ceremony ought to have come, 

 but it did not. 



The Batavia Handehhlad states the loss in Java, consequent 

 on the drought of 1878, to have been on coffee, ten millions 

 of guilders ; on sugar, seven ; on tobacco, five ; and on rice 

 fifteen — equal in all to a loss in English money of £3,000,000. 

 The West-monsoon (November to March) of 1878-9, memorable 

 for its excessive rain, was followed by an abnormally wet and 

 sunless dry season, which was almost as disastrous for the 

 cultures of the island as its predecessors had been from 

 drought. The coffee-trees produced abundance of flowers, but 

 as scarcely a bee was to be seen anywhere, very few of these 

 became fertilised or produced berries — so easily is the balance 

 of nature disturbed. Later in the season, however, the coffee 

 shrubs produced a second show of flowers, which in a multitude 



