dinner at six, for all which there is a moderate charge per day.

I went by coach to Buitenzorg, forty miles inland and about a
thousand feet above the sea, celebrated for its delicious climate
and its Botanical Gardens. With the latter I was somewhat
disappointed. The walks were all of loose pebbles, making any
lengthened wanderings about them very tiring and painful under a
tropical sun. The gardens are no doubt wonderfully rich in
tropical and especially in Malayan plants, but there is a great
absence of skillful laying-out; there are not enough men to keep
the place thoroughly in order, and the plants themselves are
seldom to be compared for luxuriance and beauty to the same
species grown in our hothouses. This can easily be explained. The
plants can rarely be placed in natural or very favourable
conditions. The climate is either too hot or too cool, too moist
or too dry, for a large proportion of them, and they seldom get
the exact quantity of shade or the right quality of soil to suit
them. In our stoves these varied conditions can be supplied to
each individual plant far better than in a large garden, where
the fact that the plants are most of them growing in or near
their native country is supposed to preclude, the necessity of
giving them much individual attention. Still, however, there is
much to admire here. There are avenues of stately palms, and
clumps of bamboos of perhaps fifty different kinds; and an
endless variety of tropical shrubs and trees with strange and
beautiful foliage. As a change from the excessive heat of
Batavia, Buitenzorg is a delightful abode. It is just elevated
enough to have deliciously cool evenings and nights, but not so
much as to require any change of clothing; and to a person long
resident in the hotter climate of the plains, the air is always