so I set out for this place at about seven this morning, performing thirty-six miles in two hours and fifty minutes, in a comfortable carriage drawn by six ponies, changed every five miles.  I need hardly say that we always went at full gallop.  The country was not very interesting, being chiefly low and rice-bearing, nor did I see the cheerful firm-looking maidens who struck me so much at Manila.  This island is exploite entirely for the Government and dominant race, and with no little success, for I am told that the surplus revenue last year was L6,000,000, L4,000,000 of which were remitted to Holland.  I shall end by thinking that we are the worst colonisers in the Eastern world, as we neither make ourselves rich, nor the governed happy.

[Sidenote:  Botanic Garden.] [Sidenote:  Monument to Lady Raffles.]

February 9th.—­I took a drive at six this morning, and then a walk through the botanic garden, which is attached to this house and has a great reputation.  I am no judge, as you know, but everything seems in beautiful order, and it is of great extent.  After a light repast I got a carriage to take me down to a spacious swimming-bath, paved with marble and shaded by magnificent trees, in which I felt rather tempted to spend the day.  I should mention that, before dinner yesterday, when the rain slackened, I went into the garden, and was arrested as I wandered along the paths musingly, by a monument with an English inscription.  It is to the wife of Sir Stamford Raffles, who died here in 1814, while the colony was in our hands; died here, that is, at Buitenzorg, for this inscription has taught me the name of the place, which I had not been able to catch before.  I see little of my host.  We dined at half-past six; nobody but his staff and daughter and my rather numerous following, who are not, I fear, all as well dressed as he approves of; a short seance after dinner, and then to our private apartments.  Today we met in the same stiff way at twelve, for breakfast.  I have not seen a book or a paper in the house, but that may be because I am not admitted to the parts of the mansion where they are to be found.  An expedition has been organised for me, and I start tomorrow morning.  It will occupy four days, but it would be absurd to come to such a place as this, and to leave it without seeing anything.  The Governor-General has spent thirty-one years of his life here, but for a time (six years) he was colonial minister in Holland.  His daughter’s husband was killed by a native running a’muck (this is a Javanese expression) some years ago.  She seems a gentle person, and has a daughter eight years old.  We all speak French, which is an improvement on my Manila experiences.

They started at six on the morning of the 10th, in three carriages-and-six, and slept the first night at a place called Chipana, where they ’were to have ascended’ a mountain 9,000 feet high, but were prevented by the ‘rain.’  The next day’s journey brought them to the high table-land of Bantong.