surrounding country to catch insects, shoot birds, and spy out the
nakedness or fertility of the land. I was both astonished and delighted;
for as my visit to Java was some years later, I had never beheld so
beautiful and well cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly
undulating plain extends from the seacoast about ten or twelve miles
inland, where it is bounded by a wide range of wooded and cultivated
hills. Houses and villages, marked out by dense clumps of cocoa-nut
palms, tamarind and other fruit trees, are dotted about in every
direction; while between them extend luxuriant rice-grounds, watered by
an elaborate system of irrigation that would be the pride of the best
cultivated parts of Europe. The whole surface of the country is divided
into irregular patches, following the undulations of the ground, from
many acres to a few perches in extent, each of which is itself perfectly
level, but stands a few inches or several feet above or below those
adjacent to it. Every one of these patches can be flooded or drained at
will by means of a system of ditches and small channels, into which are
diverted the whole of the streams that descend from the mountains. Every
patch now bore crops in various stages of growth, some almost ready
for cutting, and all in the most flourishing condition and of the most
exquisite green tints.
The sides of the lanes and bridle roads were often edged with prickly
Cacti and a leafless Euphorbia, but the country being so highly
cultivated there was not much room for indigenous vegetation, except
upon the sea-beach. We saw plenty of the fine race of domestic cattle
descended from the Bos banteng of Java, driven by half naked boys, or
tethered in pasture-grounds. They are large and handsome animals, of a
light brown colour, with white legs, and a conspicuous oval patch behind
of the same colour. Wild cattle of the same race are said to be still
found in the mountains. In so well-cultivated a country it was not to
be expected that I could do much in natural history, and my ignorance
of how important a locality this was for the elucidation of the
geographical distribution of animals, caused me to neglect obtaining
some specimens which I never met with again. One of these was a weaver
bird with a bright yellow head, which built its bottle-shaped nests by
dozens on some trees near the beach. It was the Ploceus hypoxantha, a
native of Java; and here, at the extreme limits of its range westerly,
I shot and preserved specimens of a wagtail-thrush, an oriole, and some
starlings, all species found in Java, and some of them peculiar to that
island. I also obtained some beautiful butterflies, richly marked with
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