144 ASPECT OF MADURA. 



corn. These led us to the foot of a low range of 

 hills, running nearly east and west, parallel to the 

 shore, half-way up the ascent of which we stopped 

 to change horses. These hills were evidently 

 formed of the same recent limestone I had seen at 

 Gresik ; and on breaking open some blocks by the 

 way-side, I was gratified by finding, internally, 

 patches and bands of a cellular structure, distinctly 

 coralline, although all external forms and markings 

 were obliterated. It looked just as if, after masses 

 of coral had been matted together, they had been 

 partially decomposed or melted into one another, as 

 it were, destroying all the external structure, but 

 leaving more or less unaltered some of the inner 

 and central portions of each mass. 



After rising onto the hills we found the neigh- 

 bouring country an open plain, gently undulating, 

 broken here and there by lines and clusters of low 

 craggy hills, with detached belts or groves of wood 

 embosoming the villages, the rest being carefully 

 cultivated, apparently, with crops of Indian corn, 

 and other plants which I did not know, but with 

 little or no rice. The soil was brown, and even 

 barren-looking, after the black alluvial flats or rich 

 volcanic loams of Java. At one place the road 

 passed for nearly a mile through the plantations of 

 a village, and had then a very pretty aspect, as 

 rows of bamboos, springing from each side in clus- 

 ters, arched entirely over-head, and were backed by 

 cocoa-nuts, bananas, and other fruit trees. We saw 



