VISIT TO GRESIK. 135 



kind enough to drive out Captain Blackwood, Lieut. 

 Yule, and myself to Gresik. He called for us at 

 Mr. Fraser's, at half-past six in the morning, in a 

 kind of char-a-banc, Two spearmen, with small 

 penons on their lances, preceded us, and two others 

 followed. We passed through Sourabaya, and 

 changed horses and escort immediately beyond it. 

 We then proceeded along a straight-raised road or 

 causeway, through swamps and marshes, entirely 

 covered at high water, and with many deep channels 

 leading to the sea, which was generally half a mile 

 distant on our right hand. Between the road and 

 the sea were many large square ponds or tanks, in 

 which sea-fish were kept, and which were let out 

 by Government to individuals, principally Chinese, 

 for a considerable rent. Here and there among 

 these fish-ponds, and surrounded by mud flats and 

 mangrove swamps, were small hamlets or kampongs, 

 collections of small huts of reeds and bamboos, 

 perched on a block of raised ground, walled in with 

 a bamboo fence, and accessible by a narrow cause- 

 way. Having no trees about them, and being very 

 dirty, they had a most desolate and dreary appear- 

 ance, and must, I should think, be the very nestling 

 places of fever and malaria. 



We again changed horses at a wissel-post, half 

 way to Gresik, which is by the road nearly twelve 

 miles distant from Sourabaya, but our escort was 

 relieved about every three miles by other spearmen, 

 stationed at the roadside. 



