Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/35

Rh sheep, buffaloes, and ponies, and the natives then as now wore the sarong. On the 21st they left for Java, meeting “the Dutch packet-boat” on their way, which sounds up-to-date, and on the 16th October we find them at Batavia, going out to dinner with a Scotsman, Mr. Leith, the only Briton in Java. As they did not shoot him he “dressed for dinner,” indeed, was probably not more likely to be undressed, to judge from the way they live there now. Even then Batavia had its beautiful houses extending for miles into the country, and Captain Cook remarks that the lawyers or judges are very partial in dealing out justice, and you get in that line what you pay for. I remember a charming Dutch lady, daughter Batavian judge, when visiting my Scottish home, asking quite innocently how much we paid the judge when we wanted to win a case, and she evidently thought it a foolish arrangement that our judges could not be bribed. Captain Cook was disturbed about the Mohawks, those Malays who ran “amuck” when they were drunk with opium, killing every one they met—quite a usual thing. He tells us too, that the people believed that when a woman gave birth to a child she also gave birth to a crocodile, which was put in the river, but its twin brother or sister had throughout life to go daily and feed it. The sudaras, as they called these crocodiles were different from others and had golden rings on their toes and rings in their nose, and even on their ears, though they haven't got any.There are still sudaras. Things don't change much in the East Indies, and Captain Cook would be quite at home there yet, if all tales are true.

At Cooktown there was such a gale blowing and such a heavy sea on that there was no going ashore. The officer in command of the boat