eight or ten miles from land. On hoth sides of the
Madura Strait the land is also low, and on the left
hand we passed many villages of native fishermen
who tend bamboo weirs that extend out a long way
from the shore.
Here, for the first time, I saw boats with outriggers.
Each had one such float on the leeward side,
while, on a kind of rack on the windward side, was
placed a canoe and every thing on board that was
movable. Each boat carries two triangular sails,
made of narrow, white cloths, with occasionally a red
or black one in the middle or on the margins by way
of ornament.
Just before entering the road of Surabaya we
passed Gresik, a small village of Chinese and other
foreigners, situated immediately on the beach. It is
an old site and famous in the early history of Java,
but the houses seemed mostly new, and their red-
tiled roofs contrasted prettily with their white ridgepoles
and gable-ends. It was here, according to the
Javanese historians, that the Mohammedan religion
was first established on their soil.
At Surabaya there appears to be much more business
than at Batavia, and we found a larger number
of vessels at anchor in the roads. At Batavia, the
anchorage is somewhat sheltered by the islands at the
mouth of the bay. At Samarang, the anchorage is
quite exposed during the western monsoon, and the
swell and surf are sometimes so great that boats cannot
land, but at Surabaya the shipping is perfectly
sheltered from all gales. There are, however, strong
tidal currents, on account of the size of the bay, at
the anchorage, and the narrow straits that connect it
with the sea. These straits, though narrow, are not
dangerous, and this may be said to be the only good
harbor that is frequented on the island of Java. On
the south coast, at Chilachap, there is a safe and well-
sheltered anchorage, but it has very little trade.
At evening, when the water is ebbing, flocks of
white herons range themselves in lines along its retreating
edge, and calmly await the approach of some
unlucky fish. Then the fishing-boats come up from the
east, spreading out their white sails, and forming a
counterpart to the lines of white herons along the
shore.
The natives, unable to walk to their huts on the
banks, have a most novel and rapid mode of navigating
these mud-flats. A board about two feet wide, five or
six feet long, and curved up at one end like the runner
of a sled, is placed on the soft mud, and the fisherman
rests the left knee on it while he kicks with
the right foot, in just the way that boys push themselves
on their sleds over ice or snow. In this way
they go as fast as a man would walk on solid ground.
Like Batavia and Samarang, Surabaya* is situated
on both sides of a small river, on low land,
but not in a morass, like the old city of Batavia,
and yet much nearer the shipping. This river has
been changed into a canal by walling in its banks.
Near its entrance it is lined on one side with nice
* The population of the Residency of Surabaya, which also includes
that of the city of the same name, is 1,278,600. Of these, 5,124 are Europeans,
1,261,271 are natives, 7,603 are Chinese, 1,477 are Arabs, and
3,125 are from other Eastern nations.