400 ENTER STRAIT OF MADURA. 



a pigeon -house- shaped place, probably a look-out or 

 signal station, but bad no idea that Passarouan was 

 so considerable a place as we afterwards found it. 

 Lofty mountains rose at the back of it, the finest of 

 which is Arjuno, a conical mass, 11,900 feet in 

 height. We now stood to the north for the mouth 

 of the strait, out of which we saw a large Dutch 

 man-of-war steamer proceeding to the eastward, 

 probably in search of pirates. We received a pilot 

 from ^ one of the vessels, which were coming down 

 from Sourabaya to Passarouan to complete their 

 lading. He was a young half caste, but spoke Eng- 

 lish pretty well. Under his direction, we steered 

 N. by E, till within three miles of the Madura shore, 

 when, as it got dark, and we were in only 17 feet 

 water, we anchored for the night. The pilot said 

 there were some ** stones " farther on, for avoiding 

 which he could, not see the marks except by day- 

 light. 



October 19.— We weighed at daylight, but were 

 shortly obliged to anchor again till the tide rose, as 

 we stuck in the soft mud. We then floated quietly 

 up, but did not reach the roads till noon. The 

 Madura shore continued to shew the same charac- 

 ters as before, a belt of the richest tropical vegeta- 

 tion, with small white cliffs and perpendicular rocks 

 appearing over it here and there. The Java shore 

 was excessively flat, and bordered by extensive man- 

 grove swamps. As we approached the anchorage, 

 we saw rows of fishing-stakes, projecting often half- 



