Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/161

Rh, met our gaze on every side. The large leafed ferns, called, by the Javanese, pakis, which are mere dwarfs in the lowlands, grow here to the height of thirty and forty feet, stretching out their feathery branches with all the elegance of the datetree.

The next station was Coothookan. Here we engaged new coolies, paid off the old ones, and mounting fresh horses, pursued our hilly course.

"We had not, however, gone far before the clouds began to lower, and the air to grow cold and chilly, presages which were speedily followed by one of those Eastern showers that fall so suddenly in drenching torrents. We were at first on the point of retracing our way to the station, as there was evidently no shelter near, our road now lving; between high banks, beyond which the country seemed wild and barren. As we were anxious, however, to arrive as soon as possible at our journey's end, all thought of going back was