4^ TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



— a pleasure I did not fancy at that time it would be 

 my good foi-tune to enjoy before I left tlie archipel- 

 ago. 



All day tlie sty was very Hazy, but we obtained 

 several grand views of high volcanoes, especially two 

 steep cones that can be seen in the west from the 

 road at Batavia. A light, but steady breeze came 

 from the east, for it was as yet only the eai'ly part 

 of the eastern monsoon. When the sun sank in the 

 west, the Ml moon rose in the east, and spread out 

 a broad band of silver over the sea. The aii' was 

 so soft and balmy, and the whole sky and sea so en- 

 chanting, that to recall it this day seems like fancy* 

 ing anew a part of some fascinating dream. 



This word monsoon is only a corruption of the 

 Arabic word mmim^ "season," which the Portu- 

 guese learned from the Arabian's and their de- 

 scendants, who were then navigating these seas. 

 It first occurs in the writings of Be Barros, where 

 he speaks of a famine that occmTed at Malacca, be- 

 cause the usual quantity of rice had not been brought 

 from Java ; and " the mu§So " being adverse, it was 

 not possible to obtain a sufficient supply. The Ma- 

 lays have a peculiar manner of always speaking of 

 any region to the west as being " above the wind," 

 and any region to the east as being "below the wind" 



Jmw Stk — ^Went on deck early this morning to 

 look at the mountains which we might be passing; 

 and, while I was absorbed in viewing a Une bead- 

 land, the captain asked me if I had seen that gigan- 

 tic peak, pointing upward, as he spoke, to a moun- 

 tain-top, rising out of such high clouds that I had not 



