A NATmALJST'S WAmMSINQS 



bathed in simliglit, it-s little villages witli their olive groves 

 and vineyards slumbering at the mouth of chasm-like gorges, 

 winding away up amongst the mountains wliieh ruggedly 

 overshadow them. 



In crossing the Mediterranean, wo gave a lift to tired wag- 

 tails and swallows, to a goat-aiicker and a fly-catcher, and 

 carried them into Port Said. The squalor of that towTi, the 

 barrenness of the canal shores and the arid bareness of Aden 

 were a splendid offset to the verdure just ahead of us. In the 

 Indian Oeean our friendly yard-arms gave a rest to several 

 bee-eatera {Merops phiUppinm), to a chat and to little flocks of 

 swallows before we sighted tho Maldive and La<x;adive coral 

 Archipelagoes. Far ahead on the horizon their islets looked 

 like a group of lx>uquets set in marble-rimmed vases ; but as 

 we approached, the page rims changed into the surf of the sea 

 breaking on the leef to feed its builders, and the bouqnets 

 into clumps of cocoa-palms, iron-wood, and other trees which 

 the currents of the sea have washed together, and the passing 

 winds and wandering birds have carried thither to deck these 

 lone homes of the ocean fowl, which came fighting in our 

 wake for the scraps that fell from our floating table. 



Holding on east by southward for a few days more, a hazy 

 streak appeared on our horizon, and my eyes rested on the 

 first of the Malayan islands — on the distant peaks of Sumatra, 

 We anchored at Padang for a day, and, in sailing southward 

 along its coast, I could not admire sufficiently the magnificence 

 of that island— its great mountain chain runnin^r parallel 

 to the coast, and risiug into smokiug peaks, clad witii forest to 

 the very crater rims,— which later I found to be all that I had 

 pictured it from the sea, and more. 



On the morning of the second day, we entered the Sunda 

 Straits, that narrow water-pass by the opening of which between 

 Java and Sumatra, Nature has laid under grateful tribute all 

 Cape-coming and -going mariners through the J ava Sea to and 

 from the Archipelago or Chinese ports. Dotted about in this 

 narrow channel, were low picturesque islands and solitary cones 

 of burnt-out craters, towering sheer up to a height of from two 

 to three thousand feet, all clothed in vegetation. Prominent 

 among the latter stood out the sharp cone of Krakatoa, whose 

 name will scarcely be forgotten by our generation at least, and 



