feelings. In accordance with your
wish, I brought nothing in the shape of documents or otherwise away with
me; so, having told you all that there is to tell, I will now go below,
and write a full account of the affair in my diary while everything is
fresh in my memory."

When the party assembled on deck after dinner that evening, somebody
suggested that, as there was now a good moon coming on, rendering the
nights light and beautiful, the remainder of the voyage should be
proceeded with on the surface of the sea, by night as well as by day,
for the sake of securing a full measure of enjoyment of the delightful
weather then prevailing. It was true that such a method of progression
would entail upon the men--or at least the four of them who understood
how to work the ship--the necessity to keep a watch; but they were
unanimous in declaring that this would be no hardship at all, but a
pleasure rather than otherwise, if only on account of the novelty of the
thing. The new arrangement was therefore adopted that same night. The
route chosen was through the Straits of Sunda, the Java Sea, the Straits
of Macassar, and the Sea of Celebes, into the Pacific, this route taking
them past many small islands, and perhaps affording them a few novel and
interesting sights. The speed was, under ordinary circumstances, to be
the exceedingly moderate one of fifteen knots.

Java Head (the westernmost of the three headlands so named) was sighted
shortly after noon on the following day; and the ship entered the
Straits--at that point about forty miles wide--as the party sat down to
lunch, which Sir Reginald had ordered to be served on deck. There were
several craft in sight, native and otherwise, under steam and sail, and
as the _Flying Fish_ drew farther into the Straits, and the waterway
narrowed, the scene became very animated. They passed Krakatoa, and
gazed with interest and amazement at the evidences of the awful havoc
and ruin that had been wrought by the terrific eruption of '83; and
emerged into open water again in time to witness a magnificent sunset
behind the mountain of Radja Bassa, on the island of Sumatra.

It took them sixty hours to traverse the Java Sea, the helm being
shifted for the passage through the Macassar Strait at sunrise on the
third morning out from the Straits of Sunda. The Balabalongan Islands
were safely passed that same evening, ere darkness fell; and twenty-four
hours later they emerged into the ope