From Toeal we went on to Banda, where we spent a day of pouring rain, a great pity, for a walk through the nutmeg woods of Banda is one of the pleasantest excursions in the islands, and a day later we dropped anchor in the harbour of Amboina.

It will be fitting to remark here that on the outward journey from Java to New Guinea and on our return from the Mimika to Amboina, the members of the expedition were the guests of the Netherlands Government. The thanks of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs have been conveyed to the captains of the ships and to the other officials, who helped the expedition in a hundred different ways.

At Amboina, where we waited a few days for the arrival of a steamer to Singapore, we parted with Cramer, who was prevented by a sharp attack of fever from coming with us. He was the one other man, beside Rawling, Marshall and myself, who remained with the expedition from the beginning to the end, and it is not paying him an empty compliment to say that few other people would have managed more successfully than he did to live with a party of foreigners in circumstances, which were often exceedingly difficult.

We sailed from Amboina on April 17th in the mail steamer Van Riebeeck, and amongst our fellow-passengers we found Captain Van der Bie and Lieut. Van der Wenn (Netherlands Navy), both of whom were returning to Java invalided from the expedition to the Island River in New Guinea. The expedition had penetrated a long way into the interior of the country, but all the Europeans fell ill and the expedition was withdrawn a few months later.

After calling at Macassar we went South past the Postilion Islands to the little known island of Sumbawa, where we went ashore for a few hours at Sumbawa Pesar. It looked a pretty country with well-wooded hills and level cultivated plains. We were much struck by the appearance of the natives, who have a longer type of face and a much fairer skin than any other of the Malay races I have seen. The men all go armed with a kris, and they smoke cigars of an incredible length.

ISLAND OF BALI

From Sumbawa we steamed along the Northern shore of Lombok, from whose Peak (12,000 feet), the clouds rolled off magnificently at sunset, and early the next morning we came into the harbour of Buleling in the island of Bali. There we took a native carriage (sado), and drove a few miles out into the country to see a very interesting Hindu temple, where there are some remarkable good stone carvings, which shew signs of being carefully tended. The Hindu religion still survives, though it cannot be said to flourish, both in this island and in Lombok. The native villages that we saw have quite characteristic features of their own; they are surrounded by a high mud wall with a brick coping and are guarded by a swarm of fiercely barking dogs. Inside the wall, if you are bold enough to enter, you find a neatly swept compound, round the sides of which are well-made dwelling-houses, and in the middle are granaries of rice; both the houses and the granaries are raised on posts several feet above the ground and all are neatly thatched with rice straw. In the corner of the compound is a place set apart for a number of little stone shrines, some of them very elaborately carved, in which votive offerings of flowers and fruit are placed.

The Balinese seem to be a sturdy and industrious people; they have a free and independent appearance, very different from that of their somewhat grovelling neighbours, the Javanese. The roads are picturesquely lined with shady trees, and a very pleasant feature of them is the number of little mouse-coloured ponies, which carry panniers on a high-peaked saddle and are the coolies of Bali; most of them have an elaborate leather harness and many carry a large number of little bells, which make a pretty music along the roads. They appear to be hungry little animals, and they have the rare and valuable faculty of being able to eat out of a basket tied round their necks as they walk along. The country, what little we saw of it, looks extremely prosperous, and the beauty of the cultivated lands, interrupted here and there by groves of trees and backed by mountains, is beyond dispute.

From Bali to Java is only a few hours’ steaming, and from Batavia another ship brought us to Singapore, where we arrived on May 2nd. A month later we landed in England and the English Expedition to Dutch New Guinea, 1910-11, was a thing of the past.

THE END