was so favourable, that I resolved to apply
at once to Mr Scott to enable me to purchase her. He told me that the
people with whom I should have to deal would treat me honestly; and,
taking my acceptance, he generously advanced me money to pay for her. I
thus, in an unexpectedly short space of time, became the owner of a
vessel exactly suited to my purpose.

I must not forget Hassan and Kalong, or a personage of no little
importance in his own estimation, our friend Ungka, for the board and
lodging of whom I made arrangements till the schooner was ready to
receive them; as the two first had volunteered to accompany me, and as
the last had said nothing, we took his silence for his consent. Though
Captain Cloete might have claimed him, he had kindly looked upon him as
belonging still to the widow Van Deck and little Maria, and they had
made him over to me.

I accompanied Fairburn to look at the schooner. She was lying in a
basin near the dockyard; and, at first sight, from her want of paint,
and her dismantled state, I was much disappointed in her, and could not
help showing that I was so to my friend.

"She is better than she looks," he replied. "Wait a week or so, and you
will think very differently of her. Many a gay-looking bark may have
rotten timbers. Now I have narrowly examined hers, with an honest
ship's carpenter, and I find them all thoroughly sound."

I felt the truth of his remarks, and was satisfied. She measured about
a hundred and fifty tons, and gave promise of being both a good sea
boat, and a fast sailer. I shall have to speak by and by of her
armament and interior arrangements. She was built by the Spanish in
Manilla; but being bought by some Americans, was employed as an opium
smuggler, and captured by the Dutch. She was sold by the Government to
some merchants who failed, and from whose creditors I bought her, not
two years after she was launched. She was thus as strong as if new, and
proved not unworthy of the good opinion formed of her by Fairburn.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Java is one of the oldest possessions of the Dutch in the East. It was
captured from them by the English during the late war, and held by us
from 1812 to 1816, during which time it was placed under the government
of the justly celebrated Sir Stamford Raffles, a truly philanthropic and
enlightened man. Java, from what I saw and heard of it, is one of the
most fertile islands in the world; and Sir Stamford, wit