to illustrate a part of his own writings. When Holland
became a province of France, in 1811, an ^ ^f"8
designed to make Paris the centre of science and literature
in Europe, it is said that this collection was
taken from Leyden to that city, and afterward returned,
and that during these two transfers a large
proportion of the specimens disappeared; and that,
finally, what was left of this valuable collection was
scattered through the great museum at Leyden, g
was partly to restore Rumphius’s specimens, and
partly to bring into our own country such a standard
collection, that I was going to search myself for the
shells figured in the “ Rariteit Kamer,” on the very
points and headlands, and in the very bays, where
Rumphius’s specimens were found.
As we neared the coast of Java, cocoa-nuts and
fragments of sea-washed palms, drifting by, indicate
our approach to a land very different at least from
the temperate shores we had left behind; and we
could in some degree experience Columbus’s pleasure,
when he first saw the new branch and its vermilion
berries. Strange, indeed, must be this land to whicn
we are coming, for here we see snakes swimming on
the water, and occasionally fragments of rock drifting
over the sea. Hew birds also appear, now sailing
singly through the sky, and now hovering m. fiocks
over certain places, hoping to satisfy their hungry
maws on the small fishes that follow the floating driftwood.
Here it must be that the old Dutch sailors
fabled could be seen the tree—then unknown—that
bore that strange fruit, the double cocoa-nut. they
always represented it as rising up from a great depth
BALMY BREEZES OF THE EASTERN ISLES. 1 5
and spreading out its uppermost leaves on the surface
of the sea. It was guarded by a bird, that was not
bird but half beast; and when a ship came near,
she was always drawn irresistibly toward this spot,
and not one of her ill-fated crew ever escaped the
beak and formidable talons of this insatiable harpy.
But such wonders unfortunately fade away before
the light of advancing knowledge; and the prince
of Ceylon, who is said to have given a whole vessel
laden with spice for a single specimen, could have
satisfied his heart’s fullest desire if he had only known
it was not rare on the Seychelles, north of Mauritius.
The trades soon became light and baffling. Heavy
rain-squalls, with thunder and lightning, were frequent;
and three days after, as one of these cleared
away, the high mountain near Java Head appeared
fall a quarter of a degree above the horizon, its black
shoulders rising out of a beautiful mantle of the
ermine-white, fleecy clouds, called cumuli.
Although we were thirty-five miles from the shore,
yet large numbers of dragon-flies came round the
ship, and I quickly improvised a net and captured a
goodly number of them.
After sunset, there was a light air off-shore, which
carried us to within a few miles of the land, and at
midnight the captain called me on deck to enjoy
“ the balmy breezes of the Eastern isles; ” and certainly
to myself, as well as to the others, the air
seemed to have the rich fragrance of new-mown clover,
but far more spicy. At that hour it was quite clear,
but at sunrise a thick haze rose up from the ocean,