258 REMINISCENCES OF A VOYAGE TO AND FROM CHINA. 
Island of Banca, the weather became exceedingly changeable, with 
frequent squalls and dreadful storms of thunder, lightning, and heavy 
rain. Here our collection on the poop required constant attention 
night and day; for with every change of weather, some change or other 
it was necessary to make in the covering of our floating greenhouse, 
either to protect it from a deluging rain, or fierce sunshine, or from 
destruction by the treading of the seamen. 
About the 3rd of April the whole fleet anchored within a small 
islet on the north-east coast of Sumatra. The former is called North 
Island, from its position with regard to the latter, and is a place 
usually touched at by homeward-bound East Indiamen, to replenish 
their empty butts and take in fire-wood, if necessary. We went on 
shore with the watering-party at this place, but met with nothing re¬ 
markable, or different from what we had formerly observed in the various 
places at which we landed in the Straits of Malacca. Like the other 
parts of this vast island, it is thick jungle almost to the water’s edge; 
a sandy beach, and a small space round the mouth of the rivulet where 
the fresh water is got, is all that is clear. A creeping convolvulus (C. 
hirtas ?) covers the loose sand thrown up by the waves, and the jungle 
is impenetrable to a stranger; and even where there are openings, it 
is dangerous to venture far, as the prowling Malays are always upon 
the watch for straggling Europeans, whom they will murder for the 
sake of robbing them of their clothes. The embassy touching here 
on the voyage out lost one of the artisans, who had stopped for a few 
minutes behind the party to bathe. 
Although we made no addition to our collection at this place, we 
had leisure enough to consider well the state of the plants, and to do 
every thing that was necessary to preserve or restore the sickly indivi¬ 
duals, by examining the state of their roots or changing their berths. 
Some were removed from the poop to the stern balcony, and others 
brought from thence to the poop; all were divested of dead or dying 
leaves and shoots, and every thing done to keep them under the most 
favourable circumstances of exposure, shade, and refreshings of water. 
But here first occurred to us the sickening apprehension that trans¬ 
porting Chinese plants in safety was not so easy an affair as we fondly 
imagined when we left Canton. Many were in an extremely exhausted 
state; and when we looked forward to the inclement clime of the 
stormy Cape, through which they had to pass, we trembled for the 
fate of many of our suffering favourites ! 
We were quite aware, however, of the cause or causes of their 
failure. We had several indices before our eyes, which plainly pointed 
to the defects of our management, or rather to the unfavourable cir- 
