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The milk is made into ghee, or clarified butter, and large quantities are sent down to the towns by country boats. When we want to get up a hunt, we generally send to the nearest batan for khubber, i.e. news, information. The Batanea, or proprietor of the establishment, is well posted up.

Here the captain is again ordered to look out for signals, and he is told that sentinels will be posted, not only on that cape, but likewise in Catanduanas, Butusan, Birriborongo, and on the island of Batan.

Perhaps the greatest of the Arabian astronomers was Mohammed ben Jabir Albategnius, or El-batani, who was born at Batan, in Mesopotamia, about the year 850 A.D., and died in 929. Albategnius was a student of the Ptolemaic astronomy, but he was also a practical observer. He made the important discovery of the motion of the solar apogee.

There are three missions in Batan, each settlement having its cathedral and officiating priests. The natives, who are a distinct race, are well-proportioned, of a copper colour, and medium stature. They are very ugly: their hair is black, and cut short.

This small colony, in the midst of the universal jungle covering the country for miles round, is called a batan. At earliest dawn the buffaloes are milked, and then with their attendant herdsmen they wend their way to the jungle, where they spend the day, and return again to the batan at night, when they are again milked.

A long line of cattle were wending their way homeward to the batan, and the tinkle of the big copper bell fell pleasingly on our ears. In the distance, we could see the white canvas of the tents gleaming in the rays of the setting sun.

Many parents might draw a lesson from this tragedy, and anybody who feels inclined may write a novel upon it; it must not, however, bear the same title as the Chinese one translated by Governor Davis, which is styled the "Fortunate Union." In ten days we completed the survey of the island, and sailed for Batan, where we arrived on the 7th of February.

In reward for this intelligence, we gave him, and others of the same place, a passage to Manilla, taking care, however, that they should be smuggled on board. Sailed for Manilla, staid there a few days, and then went to Batan, from thence to Hong Kong, where we arrived on the 1st of April, and found the Iris and Castor in the harbour.

Every herdsman as he comes in at night tells what animals he has seen through the day, and thus at the batan you hear where tiger, and pig, and deer are to be met with; where an unlucky cow has been killed; in what ravine is the thickest jungle; where the path is free from clay, or quicksand; what fords are safest; and, in short, you get complete information on every point connected with the jungle and its wild inhabitants.

After a weary beat of nineteen days, we arrived at Batan, the capital of the Bashee islands; but I have already described this place. We remained here eight days, anxiously expecting the Royalist, but she did not make her appearance, and we concluded that she must have received some injury in the gale, and had borne up for Manilla. We sailed for that place, and arrived there on the 2d of December.