14 BEAUTIFUL VIEW. 



but they were expected shortly ; and the master of 

 the hotel informed us, that there was sugar and 

 coffee enough now in the storehouses to load twenty 

 large ships. The shore was flat, and at low water 

 shewed extensive mud-flats, nearly dry, running in 

 each direction as far as we could see along the coast. 

 Both the strait of Sourabaya, indeed, and all the 

 Java shores hereabouts, are rapidly filling up with 

 mud. In some places near Sourabaya, the water 

 has shoaled as much as four feet in five years. 

 Twenty or thirty years ago large frigates entered 

 the strait, having a draught of water which would 

 make them now unable even to approach it. 

 From the pier, the view of the country in the 

 morning sunlight was very beautiful. Rows and 

 groves of cocoa-nuts, bananas, and other tropical 

 trees, shut out almost all the town except a few 

 white walls glimmering through their leaves. Still 

 loftier forest trees, with dark umbrageous foliage, 

 seemed to form an impervious wood behind them, 

 immediately over which rose a fine broken range of 

 mountains on the south-west, called the Teng'ger ; 

 towards the east another range as lofty, but more 

 distant, stretched away peak after peak till it was 

 lost in the haze of the rising sun ; while in the valley 

 between the two, clear in the cool morning air, rose 

 a noble volcanic cone, called the Lamongan. 



I was informed that many Madurese had come 

 over and were settled about Probolingo. Madura is 

 inferior in fertility to Java, and cannot always sup- 



