ed onward by the scented breeze in that eternal search
for perfection destined to remain unsatisfied where every step marks a
higher ideal than the one already attained, the pilgrim pursues his
endless quest, for human aspiration has never yet touched the goal of
desires and dreams. The cocoanut woods of Ceylon and her equatorial
vegetation lead fancy further afield, for the glassy straits of Malacca
beckon the wanderer down their watery highways to mysterious Java,
where vast forests of waving palms, blue chains of volcanic mountains,
and mighty ruins of a vanished civilisation, loom before the
imagination and invest the tropical paradise with ideal attractions.
The island, seven hundred miles long, and described by Marianne North
as "one magnificent garden of tropical luxuriance," has not yet become
a popular resort of the average tourist, but though lacking some of
those comforts and luxuries found under the British flag, it offers
many compensations in the wealth of beauty and interest afforded by
scenery, architecture, and people. The two days' passage from Singapore
lies through a green chain of countless islets, once the refuge of
those pirates who thronged the Southern seas until suppressed by
European power. The cliffs of Banka, honeycombed with tin quarries, and
the flat green shores of Eastern Sumatra, stretching away to the purple
mountains of the interior, flank the silvery straits, populous with
native _proas_, coasting steamers, _sampans_, and the hollowed log or
"dug-out" which serves as the Malayan canoe. Patched sails of scarlet
and yellow, shaped like bats' wings, suggest gigantic butterflies
afloat upon the tranquil sea. The red roofs of whitewashed towns, and
the tall shafts of white lighthouses emphasise the rich verdure between
the silvery azure of sky and water. The little voyage ends at Tandjon
Priok, nine miles from Batavia, for a volcanic eruption of Mount Salak
in 1699 filled up the ancient harbour, and necessitated the removal of
shipping to a deep bay, as the old city was landed high and dry through
the mass of mud, lava, and volcanic sand, which dammed up the lower
reaches of the Tjiligong river, and destroyed connection with the sea.
The present model harbour, erected at tremendous cost, permits ships of
heavy burden to discharge passengers and cargo with comfort and safety
at a long wharf, without that unpleasant interlude of rocking _sampans_
and reckless boatmen common to Eastern travel.