96 VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AND MALACCA. 



before. The water of sea was muddy here and had a whiteish 

 green colour. We cast anchor towards the evening on account 

 of the calm, and during the night I saw from time to time large 

 phosphorescent spots in the sea; sometimes they were stripes 

 about two hundred feet long and one and a half feet wide, which 

 consisted of innumerable small mackerels swimming in shoals, 

 and when they came so close to the ship that one could throw 

 something heavy at them, they all jumped above the water. 

 One must recog^nise our Creator's providence specially in the 

 circumstance that He has endowed all animals swimming in the 

 sea with this phosphorescent light so that in the lower depths of 

 their dark element theyshould be able to see whatever is near them. 



Towards evening a little swallow had flown into our cap- 

 tain's cabin. Captain Leith as well as his servants, who were 

 natives of Siam and the coasts of Malacca, declared it to be one of 

 those that build the celebrated nests, and that it was of the same 

 kind as those which had almost daily passed us, as they flew 

 deeper into the Straits 



18. — ^Ye continued our journey with fair wind along the 

 coast of Malacca. The wonderful aspect of the equal-sized trees 

 growing half in the sea water, and being quite unknown to me, 

 increased my wish and longings to study these trees, but in vain. 

 I had to content myself with looking at them through an ex- 

 cellent telescope, a present from the Duchess v. P. Sand. I also 

 saw some small shrubs here and there. My further occupation was 

 to stuff my swallow. The description I have given of these birds 

 only deviates from that of the others in so far as it had a rust 

 coloured throat, which near the breast changed into a sort of 

 dirty black, because there were some black feathers intermixed. 

 The abdomen is white and shiny and soft, the rest of the body is 

 black, on the back and head with a blue gloss over it The 

 feathers of the tail are twelve in number, the two middle ones 

 being the shortest and having no spots, the other feathers had 

 each one white spot on the inner edge near the end, the outer 

 feathers having the biggest spots; when the feathers lay to- 

 gether the spots formed a sort of band across them, which dis- 

 appeared at the end of the shortest feathers. The two outer 

 feathers were much longer than the others, and narrow at the 

 ends. The whole bird when I had killed it weighed zij Fij P.M. 

 We were three German miles distant from the shoie when 



