is in native sailing vessels. The chief exports are a peculiar kind of bird's nests, tortoise shell, wax, sandalwood, and cinnamon. The nests are found in caves; they are lined and stuck together with the saliva of the birds. They are all shipped to China, where the natives boil them and make from them a clear soup of which they are very fond.

Still farther west we coast Sumbawa (soom-bä'wa), noted for its volcanoes. The word "Sumbawa" means the land of fire, and this island seems well named, for we can see the steam rising in great clouds from some of its peaks. The crater of Mount Tambora is more than seven miles wide, and so large that a good-sized city might be dropped into it without touching the edges. The crater was caused by an eruption in 1815 when the whole top of the mountain, a mass higher and thicker than Mount Washington, was blown into the air. Before that time Tambora was thirteen thousand feet high. This eruption tore off about eight thousand feet, making so great an explosion that it was heard in Sumatra, a thousand miles away, and also on Ternate, nine hundred miles off in another direction.

Our captain tells us that when the eruption of Tambora occurred, the ocean for miles about was covered with floating timber. Ashes so coated the water that ships could hardly make their way through them, and they so filled the air that it was pitch dark in the daytime for hours after the explosion occurred. At the same time the whirlwinds lashed the sea to a foam; they tore up the largest trees by the roots and carried men, horses, and cattle for miles through the air. A town lying at the foot of Tambora was swallowed up, for the shore sank, and the sea

came in and covered the earth to a depth of eight feet, and there it is to this day.

Notwithstanding this, there are still people living on Sumbawa. It has towns and villages, and the natives

work away as though

they were not in con

stant danger of another eruption.

"-with volcanoes in sight all the way."

As we sail farther westward, we pass Lombok and Bali, other volcanic islands more

thickly populated, and

thence go on by Ma

dura, an island where

great quantities of salt

are evaporated from sea water, and then along the north coast of Java with volcanoes in sight

all the way, until at last we come to the port for Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies.

WE

E are walking along the wide canal which runs. through the principal street of Batavia. On each side of us quaint houses, with white walls and overhanging roofs of red tiles, look down upon and mirror themselves in the water. The buildings are like those in Dutch pic

tures, and were it not for the palm trees, the orchids, the groves of bananas, and the little brown natives we see everywhere, we might imagine ourselves in one of the cities of Holland.

And so we are!

Batavia represents Holland. It is the capital of the Dutch East Indies, a territory about sixty times as large as Holland itself. Away out here near the Equator the Dutch

government has built up a town, almost European, which is largely inhabited by Dutch officials and merchants, and from

here the vast population of this East Indian empire is governed.

Sado.

We reach Batavia by train, for it lies a few miles back from the sea. At the station we take sados, little two

wheeled vehicles drawn by ponies, and ride along the canal to the upper part of the city. Our brown-skinned, turbaned drivers sit crosslegged at the front, and we have seats behind with our legs hanging down over the back, so that we get good views as we dash through the city. We pass many little stores owned by Chinese merchants, then go by better buildings, and at last reach Weltevreden (wel'te-vrā-den), where are the big hotels and where the most of the officials and Dutch merchants have their homes.

How beautiful it is! The houses are low, white structures painted to represent marble, each having a great veranda upheld by Grecian columns. There are people sitting on the verandas. The front doors are open, and we can see that the rooms are wide, airy, and comfortably furnished. Nearly every house has a garden about it. Here the drive is lined with royal palms, and there it is shaded by trees so gigantic and beautiful that you will not see their like outside of Java.

There is a store! Great plants stand on its porch and in the garden before it. Next door is the Hotel des Indes, shape of an L with banyan trees

a vast structure in the and palm trees in its court. We pass the Royal Museum and its bronze elephant given by the king of Siam, and drive on through the beautiful parks for which Batavia is noted. As we go, we see that the city has electric lights, street cars, and all other modern improvements. There is a boy crying the newspapers. That building farther on is a college; we are again in a land of telephones, telegraphs, and schools. We enter the stores. They have all sorts of goods such as are kept in our stores at home. Most

of the clerks can speak English or German, and we have no trouble in supplying our wants.

Java is the most valuable of Holland's possessions in the East Indies. The Dutch have governed it since the beginning of the seventeenth century, and under them it has become one of the most prosperous countries of the world. It has a great commerce. Batavia, where we now

are, is one of the principal ports, and Surabaya in eastern Java is another, while there are smaller cities on the north and south coast. Surabaya is larger than Batavia, its trade being with Europe and Asia and all the islands of this archipelago.

Java is very thickly populated. It is only a little larger than Luzon, but it has more than twenty-five million inhabitants. Of these all are Malayans, with the exception