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Why, Sir, said he, to be short, because time is precious, the matter is this: You know well enough that you was with the ship at Sumatra, when your Captain was murdered by the Malayans, with three of his sailors; and that either you, or some who were on board you, ran away with the ship, and are since turned pirates at sea.
It was unknown to fame, as are hundreds of other gems of glorious vegetation set in tropical waters. It was not inhabited, but the natives from the surrounding shores of Sumatra and Java used occasionally to draw their canoes up on its beach, while they roamed through the jungle in search of the wild fruits that there abounded.
The hospital ship 'Sumatra' lay close to our moorings, and as soon as it was light I visited her to look for friends, and found, alas! several in a sorry plight. All seemed to be as well as the tenderest care and the most lavish expenditure of money could make them.
Situations are uniformly colder in proportion to their height above the level of the sea, unless where local circumstances, such as the neighbourhood of sandy plains, contribute to produce a contrary effect; but in Sumatra the coolness of the air is promoted by the quality of the soil, which is clayey, and the constant and strong verdure that prevails, which, by absorbing the sun's rays, prevents the effect of their reflection.
The great Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, described Java from hearsay as being the largest island in the world, and the Portuguese finding this to be incorrect, as far as their knowledge of Java proper was concerned, but finding nevertheless, this "largest island in the world" to the south-east of Java, in fact, approximately in the longitudes and latitudes described by Polo; the Portuguese, I say, did the best thing they could both for Marco Polo's sake and their own, when they marked it on their charts where it was said to be, and with the name given to it by Polo, for he calls it Java Major to distinguish it from Sumatra, which island he named Java Minor.
We shall, therefore, expect a strong similarity, almost amounting to a complete identity, to exist between the animals and plants of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo and those of Southern India, Burmah, and the Malay Peninsular. Such, according to Mr. Wallace, is the fact.
A woman married under the beena form lives in the house or immediate neighbourhood of her parents, and if so married she has the right of inheritance along with her brothers; but if married in deega she goes to live in her husband’s house and village and loses her rights in her own family. Marsden, History of Sumatra, pp. 225-227. Forbes, Eleven Years in Ceylon, Vol. I, p. 333.
A succession of enormous waves, emanating from Krakatoa, traversed the sea, and swept the coast bordering the Straits of Sunda with such force as to destroy many villages on the low-lying shores in Java, Sumatra and other islands. Some buildings at a height of fifty feet above sea-level were washed away, and in some places the water rose higher, in one place reaching the height of 115 feet.
"I will tell you all if you can tell me what was the printed paper, contained in the last letter that General Simon wrote you from Sumatra." "It was a cutting from a French newspaper." "Did it announce good or bad news for the general?"
The tiger, it is true, is found in Sumatra and Java, but not in Borneo. But as this animal is known to swim well, it may have found its way across the Straits of Sunda, or it may have inhabited Java before it was separated from the mainland, and from some unknown cause have ceased to exist in Borneo.
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