18 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
one portion of the region where there appears to be a 
natural deficiency of forest, due to peculiarities of climate 
caused by the vicinity of the heated interior of Australia. 
From the east end of Java throughout the Lesser Sunda 
Archipelago to Timor Laut, the dense forests which 
everywhere cover the other islands are the exception 
rather than the rule, occurring only in valleys and on 
the moister slopes of the mountains. The country for 
the most part consists of grassy plains, dotted with palms 
and thorny bushes, which latter often form dense and 
impenetrable thickets. During the prevalence of the 
south-east monsoon, from April to October, scarcely any 
rain falls in this area, and towards the latter end of this 
dry season the drought is so great that many small 
streams dry up, and most of the trees lose their leaves. 
The heat is then intense; and were it not that the 
nights are cool and a breeze always blowing, the climate 
would approach in severity that of Central Australia. 
As it is, the chief effect of this long-continued dryness of 
the atmosphere is that it is inimical to that luxuriant 
forest growth which elsewhere in the equatorial zones 
clothes the earth with perennial verdure, and affords a 
constant protection from the rays of the vertical sun. 
The only other parts of the archipelago where any extent of 
open country occurs are in Northern Borneo, in Southern 
Celebes, and some of the Philippine Islands, but in these 
cases it is probably due to human agency aided by the 
introduction of cattle which have become wild. The 
densely peopled plains of Java and the elevated plateaus 
of Sumatra are highly cultivated, and have been so long 
the seat of an ancient civilisation that the absence 
of forest is clearly not to be considered a natural 
feature. 
