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He thought of the trip to Lombok for ponies that first important transaction confided to him by Hudig; then he reviewed the more important affairs: the quiet deal in opium; the illegal traffic in gunpowder; the great affair of smuggled firearms, the difficult business of the Rajah of Goak.
Ennis, a highly credible traveller that in Bali and Lombok, two islands lying eastward of Java, the females do all the buying and selling, even to the amount of thousands of dollars. "This probably gives" he says, "to the whole race of people a portion of that boldness and energy for which they are a little distinguished."
We had been two weeks at sea, having experienced chiefly calms and light winds, when one morning at daybreak, while on the right of the island of Lombok, the lofty cone of its volcano rising blue and distinct against the sky, a square-rigged vessel was descried in the north-east quarter.
"I have been cruising in these seas for some years, and though the Frenchmen didn't let us know whereabouts we were, if I could once get sight of Bali or Lombok, or for that matter any of the islands to the eastward of Java, I should soon find my way," answered Robson.
Looking down to the south-east of Java, we shall find the small island of Bali. It is divided from the east part of the island of Lombok by a narrow strait, where the water is very deep, showing, as I have said, that the separation must have taken place at an early period of the world's existence. Now in Bali we find woodpeckers, fruit-thrushes, barbets, and other Asiatic birds.
It is believed that the terrace-building culture of the Asiatic islands for the production of mountain rice by irrigation during the dry season has drawn its inspiration from one source, and that such terraces where found to-day in Java, Lombok, Luzon, Formosa, and Japan are a survival of very early culture which spread from the nest of the primitive Malayan stock and left its marks along the way doubtless in other islands besides these cited.
"It must be off Sourabaya, or Lombok, or perhaps as far away as Bali," remarked Fairburn, listening attentively. "Sometimes I fancy it comes from the eastward, and may be away at Combobo, or Floris. Over a calm sea sounds travel a great distance." "I cannot help thinking that there must be some engagement on shore between the Dutch troops and the natives of some of those islands.
Crossing this narrow strait to Lombok, the birds I have mentioned are no longer to be found; but instead of them there are brush-turkeys, cockatoos, honey-suckers, and other Australian birds. These birds again are not to be found in Java or any region to the west. Crossing from Borneo to Celebes, there is a very great difference in the animals.
From the bow of our ship there stretched out on one hand and on the other, far beyond the horizon, Borneo, Celebes, Banka and Billiton; the Little Sunda Islands Bali and Lombok, Simbawa, Flores and Timor; the China Sea, the Philippines, and farther and greater than them all, the mainland of Asia. While we were still intent on Java Head there came once more the cry, "Sail ho!"
It is extremely likely, that a large portion of the rice of Bally and Lombok, the pepper of Borneo, and the béche-de-mer of Celebes, will be carried direct to China in European vessels, instead of passing, as hitherto, through the hands of the Singapore merchants.
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