Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/22

4 bushy marine plants; beyond it the country, as far as the eye can reach, is quite flat, and but for the diversity of tropical foliage seen everywhere, would present the appearance of "a weary waste expanding to the skies."

Leaving the Padang, we entered a small boat, with an enormous mat sail, which, notwithstanding its dimensions, the crew were not long in raising, apparently with ease, before the favourable breeze.

Half an hour's sail brought us to the mouth of the canal, from which the town of Batavia is about two miles distant. This canal is from thirty to forty feet in width, with low walls about five feet high on each side, to protect the channel from being choked up with sand and mud.

After some time the men lowered our sail, and commenced pulling, for we were now threading our way through numbers of fishing and trading boats, and consequently could not maintain the speed with which we had started. Beyond the