140 
THE PLANT WORLD. 
much as a look. When I explained that I had no firearms or 
liquors but a great many kodak films, they looked wise and 
smiled, though they probably did not understand. Most of the 
Dutchmen in Java are said to “ understand English,” but the 
exact amount is not stated. 
While one would gladly spend some time along the coast, 
studying the mangrove vegetation, or put in a few days at Batavia, 
the capital of the Dutch East Indies, it is best to go at once to 
Buitenzorg. For in Buitenzorg are assembled all the plants to be 
found anywhere in the Java lowlands. 
There is, however, one preliminary which must not be for¬ 
gotten. The visitor first goes to the police in Batavia and gets 
a “ permit to live ” in the island. Without this permit he is 
subject to a fine for each day of continued existence. 
Buitenzorg is reached in an hour from Batavia. The train 
passes, now through dense jungle, now between vivid green rice 
fields, and again through plantations of tea and coffee and 
cocoa. How different is all this from the agricultural districts 
of our own land! I was much interested in a kind of tree that 
is planted for shade in the tea fields. Later I learned that it is 
the “ silk cotton tree,” Eriodendron anfractuosum; it is quite gen¬ 
erally planted throughout the tropics. With its awkward, hori¬ 
zontal branches it forms a striking feature of the landscape. 
Here and there, along the way to Buitenzorg, one sees the 
cheap huts of the natives, each with its grove of cocoanut palms 
and its banana patch; even from what appears impenetrable 
jungle these gaily dressed people peer out shyly at the passing 
train. The railway seems a very cosmopolitan institution. The 
conductors are Dutchmen, the engineer and other trainmen 
natives, the ticket sellers are invariably Chinamen. But the train 
goes quickly enough, and Buitenzorg is reached all too soon, long 
before one sees enough of the passing landscape. 
There is a good hotel in Buitenzorg near the entrance to the 
Botanical garden. The hotel grounds are planted with orna¬ 
mental shrubs and trees. At the time of my first visit the large 
Terminalia trees were losing their leaves. These, as they ripened 
off, showed the bright tints that we, in temperate regions, call 
