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More Praise for How You Learn Is How You Live

“As a leadership development coach and continual learner, I loved this

book! The authors expertly demonstrate the importance of maximiz-
ing our potential through recognizing and developing our personal
learning styles. They stress how critical this process is for navigating
modern, complex, and ever-changing environments. This book offers
assistance through a compelling blend of science, reflective exercises,
and real-life examples. I highly recommend it for you, your clients,
family, and friends.”
—Sandy Carter, MSW, MBA, PhD, Professional Certified Coach

“Many thanks to Kay Peterson and David Kolb for advancing the impor-
tant discussion of approaching our learning from a place of intention.
Their new book, How You Learn Is How You Live, is a valuable blend
of theory and practice, providing research-based depth to their asser-
tions while also bridging to practical examples that meet the needs of
a world that looks for immediate application and results. In my work
with leaders, I find that the most successful leaders are those who are
open to their own learning. This new work from Peterson and Kolb
would be a worthy addition to any leadership library and provides a
rich addition to the field of adult learning.”
—Mindy Hall, PhD, President and CEO, Peak Development Consulting,
LLC

“This is a terrific, practical book about an expanded version of the

Kolb learning model. I thought the stories, examples of application,
and application tips were practical and at the right degree of detail to
help people at all levels and in all functions see how the Kolb learn-
ing model can help them grow as individuals and help teams realize
their potential.”
—Anne Litwin, PhD, President, Anne Litwin and Associates

“How You Learn Is How You Live is a practical guide grounded in theo-
retical research. A useful quick read to identify one’s preferred style
and provide insight in building human capacity in learning and living.”
—Lisa Massarweh, MSN, RN, Director, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals,
and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow
(2006–2009)
“I strongly recommend this book to learners who seek to progress in
life, who might be by choice or unexpectedly in transition, or who feel
there is more to life than just finding your niche of happiness through
pure strengths. Knowing your strengths is imperative, yet having the
vision to expand your strengths is inspiring.”
—Nancy White, founder and CEO, Workshop AZ

“How You Learn Is How You Live portrays a straightforward, clear, and
comprehensive approach that helps readers discover and appreciate
how their learning style impacts how they experience life. The book
is one that you want to reread again and again—something you want
to experience again, each time mindfully approaching living and re-
lating to oneself, to others, and to one’s contribution to our world’s
conscious evolution. This is most definitely an impactful book for indi-
viduals, for couples, for teams, for organizations—and for the world.”
—Philip R. Belzunce, PhD, and Lalei E. Gutierrez, PhD, holistic
psychologists, life-relational coaches, and diversity facilitators

“In their book, How You Learn Is How You Live, Kay Peterson and David
Kolb have gifted us with a highly understandable and eminently prac-
tical guidebook on experiential learning and its importance to every-
thing we do in life. In our pressured world of skill shortages and talent
gaps, this book is recommended reading for every employer, teacher,
guidance counselor, workforce developer, and economic developer
concerned about creating the workforce of the future. Learning by do-
ing has eclipsed traditional educational and training and development
strategies because it works far better. Learning is a leading source of
competitive advantage in today’s fast-changing global economy.”
—Don Iannone, President, Donald T. Iannone & Associates

“If you have ever wondered how you learn or why others around you
may not be adapting and changing, this book will enlighten you.
Read it, absorb it, and you will never talk to your children, colleagues,
students, patients, or clients the same way!”
—Richard Boyatzis, PhD, Distinguished University Professor, Departments
of Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Organizational Behavior, Case
Western Reserve University
 How You Learn
Is How You Live
This page intentionally left blank
 How You Learn
Is How You Live

Using Nine Ways of Learning

to Transform Your Life
Kay Peterson
Institute for Experiential Learning

David A. Kolb
Experience Based Learning Systems
How You Learn Is How You Live
Copyright © 2017 by Kay Peterson and David A. Kolb
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distrib-
uted, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying,
recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior writ-
ten permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted
by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed
“Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

1333 Broadway, Suite 1000
Oakland, CA 94612-1921
Tel: (510) 817-2277, Fax: (510) 817-2278
www.bkconnection.com

Ordering information for print editions

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Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most
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Berrett-Koehler and the BK logo are registered trademarks of Berrett-Koehler

Publishers, Inc.

First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-62656-870-9
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-871-6
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-872-3

2017-1

Cover Design: Susan Malikowski/DesignLeaf Studio

Cover Image: Getty Images and 123rf

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Book Production: Adept Content Solutions

For Carl, Sarah, Adam, and Alec

for Alice
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Foreword xiii

Introduction xvii

Chapter One The Learning Way 1

Chapter Two I Am a Learner 11
Chapter Three My Learning Style, My Life Path 33
Chapter Four Building Style Flexibility 77
Chapter Five Learning Flexibility and 103
the Road Ahead
Chapter Six What’s Next? 121
Deliberate Learning for Life

Notes 137

References 141

Appendix A 149
The KLSI, The Kolb Learning Style Inventory:
Why You Should Take the Inventory to Define
Your Style

Appendix B 155
The Style Sheets: The Nine Styles of Learning
at a Glance

ix
x How You Learn Is How You Live

Index 195

About the Authors 207

 List of Tables and Figures

Figure 2.1 The Learning Cycle 18

Figure 2.2 The Experiential Learning Cycle and
Regions of the Cerebral Cortex 21
Figure 3.1 The Nine Learning Styles 35
Table 3.1 Identifying Your Learning Style 37
Table 3.2 Communication Preferences by
Learning Style 59
Figure 3.2 Learning Styles as Steps in the
Learning Cycle Process 63
Figure 3.3 Lisa’s Team Map of Learning Styles 66
Table 3.3 Learning Styles to Guide Shared
Leadership on Teams 70
Table 4.1 The Nine Styles of Learning and Their
Associated Capabilities 81
Table 4.2 Questions to Guide Adoption of
Learning Styles 95

xi
This page intentionally left blank
 Foreword

How You Learn Is How You Live provides a life-enriching for-

mula: become a more attuned learner and you will be better
for it. In your career, family, and personal life, a better under-
standing of the learning process and your learning prefer-
ences is the key to a better life.
Kay Peterson and David Kolb provide an engaging look
at how to renew your natural ability to learn. Kay and David
remind us how exciting and enriching learning can be. By
taking what the authors term “the learning way,” you can
learn more than you ever imagined.
Since the first time I read David Kolb’s classic book
Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning
and Development, I have been hooked on the power of its
message: we all learn from experience, and by engaging in
the four-phase learning cycle, we can learn almost anything.
The ideas and practices associated with learning from expe-
rience have informed me professionally and personally. Since
being introduced to experiential learning twenty years ago,
I have regularly looked for ways to integrate experiential
learning into my life, my teaching, and my research. By read-
ing this book and following the learning way, your life will
be enriched as well.
If this book marks your first introduction to experiential
learning, then you are in for a life-altering experience. The
notion that we learn from our experience grew out of the

xiii
xiv How You Learn Is How You Live

ideas of philosophers and psychologists. David Kolb found a

common theme in the diverse thinking on the topic of expe-
riential learning. His work on experiential learning cycle is
among the most influential approaches to learning. In col-
leges, business, and school systems, it is impossible to talk
about learning without the mention of David Kolb.
David also introduced the concept of learning style nearly
fifty years ago. Learning style describes an individual’s unique
preference for learning in different ways. As the author of The
Learning Style Inventory, now in its fourth iteration, David
transformed the experiential learning cycle into a hands-on
exercise of self-discovery. The learning style inventory has
helped hundreds of thousands of individuals realize their
potential as learners.
In How You Learn Is How You Live, David has partnered
with Kay Peterson, an innovative thinker and sought-after
consultant. Kay has seen firsthand the power of experiential
learning in transforming lives and careers. In her consulting
practice, she has implemented organizational and individual
change using the underlying values and ideas of experien-
tial learning. Kay’s work has proven that experiential learn-
ing should be on the agenda of every organizational change
effort and on the reading list of anyone looking to enact per-
sonal change.
This partnership between Kay and David has resulted
in an extraordinary book. As you will see, the book builds
on David’s work, making it practical and personal. Kay and
David provide step-by-step instructions on how to live the
ideas of experiential learning.
If you have already discovered Kay and David’s work on
experiential learning, you will find new insights in this book.
Experiential learning is made more accessible than ever.
 Foreword xv

Even the avid follower of experiential learning will find new

applications of a tried-and-true formula.
One of the key insights I gained from this book is the
power of learning flexibility. Learning flexibility describes
our potential to change and adapt. Many of us find change
difficult, and this difficulty at change can be traced to our
learning style preference. We can get stuck and rely only on
a limited set of learning tools. This book describes how to
embrace change and move beyond our comfort zone. Luckily,
Kay and David provide hands-on exercises and descriptive
examples of how to overcome our limits and build upon our
strengths by embracing learning flexibility.
Just before reading this book for the first time, I was
watching a full moon shining over the Maryland Chesapeake
Bay. This wonderful experience was cut short. My thoughts
turned to a documentary I had watched earlier in the week
about the engineering and psychological challenges of land-
ing the first people on the moon. Experiential learning pro-
vides a formula for understanding both the experience of the
moon shining and the concepts behind the moon shot. For
me, understanding the moon from different perspectives, for
example, through my direct experience and through abstract
concepts, I am able to see the world in a much richer way.
This is the power of experiential learning, to be able to learn
from different angles. The ultimate promise of this book is
that you, too, will learn how to enrich your life, experience
events more deeply, and understand situations with greater
clarity.

D. Christopher Kayes,
Professor and Chair, Department of Management,
George Washington University
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

How You Learn Is How You Live is a guide to awakening the

power of learning that lies within us—to show how we can
increase our capability to learn from experience throughout
our lives, in each and every moment. To say that experience is
the best teacher is an understatement—it is our only teacher.
We are totally enveloped by our experience like a fish is by
water. We awake each day to swim in our stream of conscious
experience, surrounded once again by the ongoing story of
our lives: the trials and tragedies, hopes and dreams, family,
friends, and coworkers who make up our world. How we
make sense of it all to find meaning, purpose, and direction
in our lives is called learning from experience, or experiential
learning.
Experiential learning has been studied extensively in the
twentieth century by some of the greatest thinkers of our
time, including John Dewey, William James, Carl Rogers,
and Jean Piaget. David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory
has integrated the ideas of these scholars into a model of
learning from experience that is uniquely suited to the learn-
ing challenges of the twenty-first century. Since the turn of
the century, research studies on the model have more than
quadrupled. The current experiential learning theory bibli-
ography includes over four thousand entries from 1971 to
2016. In the field of management alone, a 2013 review of
management education research showed that 27 percent of

xvii
xviii How You Learn Is How You Live

the most cited articles in management education journals

were about experiential learning and learning styles.1
In over forty-five years of research on the theory by schol-
ars and practitioners all over the world, the principles and
practices of experiential learning have been used to develop
and deliver programs in K–12 education, undergraduate edu-
cation, and professional education. In the workplace, training
and development activities and executive coaching practices
are based on experiential learning concepts. Practices that
are based on experiential learning include service learning,
problem-based learning, action learning, adventure educa-
tion, and simulation and gaming. These practices make use
of community service, adventure, and gaming to help people
become aware of how they process information and apply that
awareness to their personal and professional development.
Like the many people who have been introduced to expe-
riential learning through universities or our organizational
programs, you can use the approach deliberately to recreate
and transform yourself. Experiential learning gives you the
tools to take charge of your life. This process can help you
improve your performance, learn something new, and achieve
your goals. In this book, you will see how understanding the
learning process and your own approach to learning is the
key to self-transformation and growth.
The first chapter describes the learning way of living, sug-
gesting how giving learning a top priority in your life can
bring great satisfaction and fulfillment of your potential. The
learning way is an approach to living that requires deep trust
in your own experience and a healthy skepticism about infor-
mation. It demands both the perspective of quiet reflection
and a passionate commitment to action in the face of uncer-
tainty. The learning way begins with the awareness that learn-
ing is present in every life experience and is an invitation for
 Introduction xix

us to be engaged in each one. We become aware that we are

learning, how we are learning, and—perhaps most impor-
tantly—what we are learning.
The second chapter, “I Am a Learner,” introduces two
important first steps on the learning way journey: embracing
a learning identity and learning how to learn. The starting
point for learning from experience is the belief that you can
learn and develop from your life experiences. Many people
think of themselves as having a fixed identity, believing that
they are incapable of changing. At the extreme, if you do not
believe that you can learn, you won’t.
To thrive on the learning way requires knowing how to
learn. The experiential learning cycle is a learning process
initiated by a concrete experience, which demands reflective
observation about the experience in a search for meaning that
engages abstract thinking, leading to a decision to engage in
active experimentation. This cycle is so simple and natural
that people engage in it without being aware that they are
learning. It goes on almost effortlessly all the time and is
constantly transforming our lives, but we can learn to employ
this process actively and take control of our transformation.
Chapter three, “My Learning Style, My Life Path” invites
you to examine your own unique approach to learning, your
learning style, and its consequences for the path you have
taken in your life. You will explore nine ways of living and
learning, each of which brings its own joys and satisfac-
tions, presents its own challenges, and brings the learner
to a different place. You will probably relate to one way of
learning. Other ways will remind you of people you know,
friends, family, and coworkers. Understanding your unique
way of learning and your learning style will shed light on the
path you have taken in your life. It can help you assess your
strengths and weaknesses and understand your preferences.
xx How You Learn Is How You Live

Because each of the learning styles has an upside and down-

side, it’s important to identify the learning styles you use and
those you avoid. Recognizing the different paths of learning
and living that others are on can illuminate the communica-
tion problems that arise when someone you know is coming
from a different place. It can bring the team synergy that
occurs when a partner’s strengths cover your weaknesses and
vice versa. You can also model yourself after those with styles
different from your own and expand your capabilities.
In chapter four, “Building Learning Style Flexibility,” you
will think of one thing you would like to change in yourself
that is most critical for your success—just one, no matter
how small. This may be a quality or capability that you would
like to acquire. It may be a strength that is overplayed or
a weakness that holds you back. This will be a goal that
increases your flexibility to use a learning style that is not
as familiar to you. This one step will be the beginning of a
lifelong quest to increase your ability to use all nine styles of
learning. Being aware of your preferences and broadening
your comfort zone will help you avoid getting stuck in a rut.
Instead, you can create a path of your own by seeing all the
possibilities instead of just one style.
Chapter five, “Learning Flexibility and the Road Ahead,”
shows how, with learning flexibility, you can use the full
learning cycle to master whatever challenges you may face
on the road ahead: perfecting your special skills, rising to
greater responsibility, changing your career, finding work/life
balance, or serving a greater purpose.
Finally, chapter six, “What’s Next? Deliberate Learning
for Life,” offers checklists that support the application of the
learning way in your life so that you can master the chal-
lenges of continuous, lifelong learning.
 Chapter One

The Learning Way

For he had learned some of the things that everyman must

find out for himself, and he had found out about them as one
has to find out, through errors and through trial, through
fantasy and delusion, through falsehood and his own damn
foolishness, through being mistaken and wrong and an idiot
and egotistical and aspiring and hopeful and believing and
confused. As he lay there he had gone back over his life, and bit
by bit, had extracted from it some of the hard lessons of expe-
rience. Each thing he learned was so simple and so obvious
once he grasped it, that he wondered why he had not always
known it. Altogether, they wove into a kind of leading thread,
trailing backward through his past and out into the future.
And he thought now, perhaps he could begin to shape his life to
mastery, for he felt a sense of new direction deep within him,
but whither it would take him he could not say.

Thomas Wolfe

There are many ways to live your life. Each of us is unique,

and the life path we choose reflects this uniqueness, amplified

1
2 How You Learn Is How You Live

for better or worse by luck and circumstance. Stop and think

about where you are now at this moment in your life and
reflect on the path you have taken to arrive here. You have
likely made many good choices with consequences that have
brought you happiness and success. There are also probably
bad times, bad choices, and unpredictable and uncontrolla-
ble events that have challenged you greatly. Through it all
you have learned from your experience and have acquired
life lessons that guide you on your way. Some of these lessons
serve you well, but others, often emotional beliefs born out
of disappointment and pain, offer poor advice for living. As
Mark Twain advised, “We should be careful to get out of an
experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest
we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will
never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but
also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”
Living each life experience with a learning attitude can
help us extract the right lessons from that experience. The
learning way is not the easiest way to approach life, but in
the long run it is the wisest. Other ways of living tempt us
with immediate gratification at our peril. The way of dogma,
the way of denial, the way of addiction, the way of submis-
sion, and the way of habit; all offer relief from uncertainty
and pain at the cost of entrapment on a path that winds out
of our control. The learning way requires deliberate effort to
create new knowledge in the face of uncertainty and failure,
but this process opens the way to new, broader, and deeper
horizons of experience.
The learning process itself is intrinsically rewarding and
empowering, bringing new avenues of experience and new
realms of mastery. The key is to use the process of learning as a
guide. Oprah Winfrey says it well: “I am a woman in process.
 The Learning Way 3

I’m just trying like everybody else. I try to take every con-
flict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull.”1
Oprah’s ability to learn from experience cannot be denied:
from a young girl in rural Mississippi in the 1950s to talk
show host, media entrepreneur, and actress, Oprah keeps
learning as she follows her ever-expanding interests.
The lessons we learn from our past experiences are not
fixed rules for living but must be open to revision. Each new
experience is like no other and must be experienced fully to
reap its wisdom. In a life of learning the rules of the game,
the rules are always changing, and our process of experienc-
ing is the guiding star.

Experiencing as the Gateway to Learning

Without new experiences there can be no real learning. We
only recombine and reiterate what we already know. Opening
ourselves to new experiences and living those experiences
fully with awareness in the moment is necessary for learn-
ing, renewal, and growth. Yet our habits and beliefs tend to
engage automatically, turning a new experience into an old
pattern of response. Ironically, what we think we know can
be the greatest barrier to our learning.
The Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman
says that we actually have two selves—an experiencing self
and a remembered thinking self. Our experiencing self
perceives and registers our feelings and reactions to every
moment of our lives. For the experiencing self, life is a suc-
cession of momentary experiences—happiness, sadness,
amazement, boredom, curiosity, love, pain—that exist only
in the present and are soon replaced by another feeling. In
ancient Theraveda Buddhism this succession of experiences
is depicted as a string of pearls. Kahneman similarly thought
4 How You Learn Is How You Live

of this succession of experiences as a string of moments. He

took a mathematical approach, calculating the duration of
each of these moments:

... each of these moments of psychological present may last up

to 3 seconds, suggesting that people experience some 20,000
moments in a waking day, and upwards of 500 million
moments in a 70 year life. Each moment can be given a
rich multidimensional description. …What happens to these
moments? The answer is straightforward: with very few
exceptions, they simply disappear.2

The remembered thinking self is like the string that holds

together the pearls of our experiences. The pearls and the
string together form the story of our lives—what we think
and feel and who we are. We base all our choices on this life
story, but our life story is not always the best basis for decision
making. The way that we remember our experiences is very
different than the active process of experiencing—our minds
create illusions that impact how we remember experiences.
For example, we often give more weight to our most
recent experience. This can cause us to remember an event
that ended well as a positive event, even if it was filled with
painful experiences. A study on vacations found a substantial
difference between the vacationers’ recalled enjoyment and
their actual experienced enjoyment. Their recalled enjoyment,
not their actual experienced enjoyment, led them to desire to
repeat the vacation. Another study found that people predict
they will be happier on their birthday, but their actual experi-
ence of happiness is the same as other days. Studies like these
emphasize the importance of being in touch with both the
experiencing and remembered thinking selves when making
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Although we gather from the records of Western nations these

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78; but Mr. Crawfurd says that “they are incontestable fabrications,
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 The people who came from India on these early voyages were
probably of the same Talagu or Telugu nation as those now called by
the Malays “Klings” or “Kalings,” a word evidently derived from
Kalinga, the Sanscrit name for the northern part of the coast of
Coromandel. They have always continued to trade with the
peninsula, and I met them on the coast of Sumatra. Barbosa, who
saw them at Malacca when the Portuguese first arrived at that city,
thus describes them:[5] “There are many great merchants here, Moor
as well as Gentile strangers, but chiefly of the Chetis, who are of the
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(junks). Unlike the irregular winds that must have greatly
discouraged the early Greeks and Phœnicians from long voyages
over the Euxine and the Mediterranean, the steady monsoons of the
Bay of Bengal invited those people out to sea, and by their regular
changes promised to bring them within a year safely back to their
homes.
The United States steamship Iroquois was then lying in the roads,
and our consular agent at this port invited Captain Rodgers, our
consul from Batavia, who was there on business, and myself, to take
a ride with him out to a sugar-plantation that was under his care. In
those hot countries it is the custom to start early on pleasure
excursions, in order to avoid the scorching heat of the noonday sun.
We were therefore astir at six. Our friend had obtained a large post-
coach giving ample room for four persons, but, like all such carriages
in Java, it was so heavy and clumsy that both the driver and a
footman, who was perched up in a high box behind, had to
constantly lash our four little ponies to keep them up to even a
moderate rate of speed. Our ride of ten miles was over a well-graded
road, beautifully shaded for most of the way with tamarind-trees.
Parallel with the carriage-roads, in Java, there is always one for
buffaloes and carts, and in this manner the former are almost always
kept in prime order. Such a great double highway begins at Angir, on
the Strait of Sunda, and extends throughout the whole length of the
island to Banyuwangi, on the Strait of Bali. It passes near Bantam
and Batavia, and thence along the low lands near the north coast to
Cheribon and Samarang, thence south of Mount Japara and so
eastward. This, I was informed, was made by Marshal Daendals,
who governed Java under the French rule in 1809. There is also a
military road from Samarang to Surakarta and Jokyokarta, where the
two native princes now reside. Java also enjoys a very complete
system of telegraphic communication. On the 23d of October, 1856,
the first line, between Batavia (Weltevreden) and Buitenzorg, was
finished. Immediately after, it was so rapidly extended that, in 1859,
1,670 English miles were completed. A telegraphic cable was also
laid in that year from Batavia up the Straits of Banca and Rhio to
Singapore; but, unfortunately, it was broken in a short time, probably
by the anchor of some vessel in those shallow straits. After it had
been repaired it was immediately broken a second time, and in 1861
the enterprise was given up, but now they are laying another cable
across the Strait of Sunda, from Angir to the district of Lampong;
thence it will extend up the west coast to Bencoolen and Padang,
and, passing across the Padang plateau, through Fort de Rock and
Paya Kombo, come to the Strait of Malacca, and be laid directly
across to Singapore.
These Javanese ponies go well on a level or down-hill, but when
the road becomes steep they frequently stop altogether. In the hilly
parts of Java, therefore, the natives are obliged to fasten their
buffaloes to your carriage, and you must patiently wait for those
sluggish animals to take you up to the crest of the elevation.
Our road that morning led over a low country, which was devoted
wholly to rice and sugar-cane. Some of these rice-fields stretched
away on either hand as far as the eye could see, and appeared as
boundless as the ocean. Numbers of natives were scattered through
these wide fields, selecting out the ripened blades, which their
religion requires them to cut off one by one. It appears an endless
task thus to gather in all the blades over a wide plain. These are
clipped off near the top, and the rice in this state, with the hull still on,
is called “paddy.” The remaining part of the stalks is left in the fields
to enrich the soil. After each crop the ground is spaded or dug up
with a large hoe, or ploughed with a buffalo, and afterward harrowed
with a huge rake; and to aid in breaking up the clods, water to the
depth of four or five inches is let in. This is retained by dikes which
cross the fields at right angles, dividing them up into little beds from
fifty to one hundred feet square. The seed is sown thickly in small
plats at the beginning of the rainy monsoon. When the plants are
four or five inches high they are transferred to the larger beds, which
are still kept overflowed for some time. They come to maturity about
this time (June 14th), the first part of the eastern monsoon, or dry
season. Such low lands that can be thus flooded are called sawas.
Although the Javanese have built magnificent temples, they have
never invented or adopted any apparatus that has come into
common use for raising water for their rice-fields, not even the
simple means employed by the ancient Egyptians along the hill, and
which the slabs from the palaces at Nineveh show us were also used
along the Euphrates.
Only one crop is usually taken from the soil each year, unless the
fields can be readily irrigated. Manure is rarely or never used, and
yet the sawas appear as fertile as ever. The sugar-cane, however,
quickly exhausts the soil. One cause of this probably is that the
whole of every cane is taken from the field except the top and root,
while only the upper part of the rice-stalks are carried away, and the
rest is burned or allowed to decay on the ground. On this account
only one-third of a plantation is devoted to its culture at any one time,
the remaining two-thirds being planted with rice, for the sustenance
of the natives that work on that plantation. These crops are kept
rotating so that the same fields are liable to an extra drain from
sugar-cane only once in three years. On each plantation is a village
of Javanese, and several of these villages are under the immediate
management of a controleur. It is his duty to see that a certain
number of natives are at work every day, that they prepare the
ground, and put in the seed at the proper season, and take due care
of it till harvest-time.[6]
The name of the plantation we were to see was “Seroenie.” As we
neared it, several long, low, white buildings came into view, and two
or three high chimneys, pouring out dense volumes of black smoke.
By the road was a dwelling-house, and the “fabrik” was in the rear.
The canes are cut in the field and bound into bundles, each
containing twenty-five. They are then hauled to the factory in clumsy,
two-wheeled carts called pedatis, with a yoke of sapis. On this
plantation alone there are two hundred such carts. The mode
adopted here of obtaining the sugar from the cane is the same as in
our country. It is partially clarified by pouring over it, while yet in the
earthen pots in which it cools and crystallizes, a quantity of clay,
mixed with water, to the consistency of cream. The water, filtering
through, washes the crystals and makes the sugar, which up to this
time is of a dark brown, almost as white as if it had been refined.
This simple process is said to have been introduced by some one
who noticed that wherever the birds stepped on the brown sugar with
their muddy feet, in those places it became strangely white. After all
the sugar has been obtained that is possible, the cheap and impure
molasses that drains off is fermented with a small quantity of rice.
Palm-wine is then added, and from this mixture is distilled the liquor
known as “arrack,” which consequently differs little from rum. It is
considered, and no doubt rightly, the most destructive stimulant that
can be placed in the human stomach, in these hot regions. From
Java large quantities are shipped to the cold regions of Sweden and
Norway, where, if it is as injurious, its manufacturers are, at least, not
obliged to witness its poisonous effects.
After the sugar has been dried in the sun it is packed in large
cylindrical baskets of bamboo, and is ready to be taken to market
and shipped abroad.[7]
Three species of the sugar-cane are recognized by botanists: the
Saccharum sinensis of China; the Saccharum officinarum of India,
which was introduced by the Arabs into Southern Europe, and
thence transported to our own country[8] and the West Indies; and
the Saccharum violaceum of Tahiti, of which the cane of the Malay
Archipelago is probably only a variety. This view of the last species is
strengthened by the similarity of the names for it in Malaysia and
Polynesia. The Malays call it tabu; the inhabitants of the Philippines,
tubu; the Kayans of Borneo, turo; the natives of Floris, between Java
and Timur, and of Tongatabu, in Polynesia, tau; the people of Tahiti
and the Marquesas, to; and the Sandwich Islanders, ko.
 It is either a native of the archipelago or was introduced in the
remotest times. The Malays used to cultivate it then as they do now,
not for the purpose of making sugar, but for its sweet juice, and great
quantities of it are seen at this time of year in all the markets, usually
cut up into short pieces and the outer layers or rind removed. These
people appear also to have been wholly ignorant of the mode of
making sugar from it, and all the sugar, or more properly molasses,
that was used, was obtained then as it is now in the Eastern islands,
namely, by boiling down the sap of the gomuti-palm (Borassus
gomuti).[9]
Sugar from cane was first brought to Europe by the Arabs, who, as
we know from the Chinese annals, frequently visited Canpu, a port
on Hanchow Bay, a short distance south of Shanghai. Dioscorides,
who lived in the early part of the first century, appears to be the
earliest writer in the West who has mentioned it. He calls it
saccharon, and says that “in consistence it was like salt.” Pliny, who
lived a little later in the same century, thus describes the article seen
in the Roman markets in his day: “Saccharon is a honey which forms
on reeds, white like gum, which crumbles under the teeth, and of
which the largest pieces are of the size of a filbert.” (Book xii., chap.
8.)
This is a perfect description of the sugar or rock-candy that I found
the Chinese manufacturing over the southern and central parts of
China during my long journeyings through that empire, and at the
same time it is not in the least applicable to the dark-brown, crushed
sugar made in India.
 CHAPTER III.
THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF THE TROPICAL
EAST.

June 15th.—At 8 a. m. we left our anchorage off Surabaya, and

steamed down the Madura Strait for Macassar, the capital of
Celebes. Along the shores of the strait were many villages of
fishermen, and bamboo weirs extending out to a distance of five or
six miles from both the Java and Madura shores, and showing well
how shallow the water must be so far from land. During the forenoon
it was nearly calm, but the motion of the steamer supplied a pleasant
air. In the afternoon the wind rose to a light breeze from the east. At
noon we passed Pulo Kambing (“Goat Island”), a small, low coral
island off the south coast of Madura. Near by was a fleet of small
fishing-boats, each containing two men, who were only protected
from the broiling sun by a hat and a narrow cloth about the loins.
These boats and other larger ones farther out to sea were extremely
narrow, and provided with outriggers.
Madura receives its name from a Hindu legend, which makes it the
abode of the demigod, Baladewa. It has but one mountain-range,
and that crosses it from north to south. It is, therefore, not well
watered, and unsuitable for raising rice; and many of its people have
been obliged to migrate to the adjoining fertile shores of Java. The
coffee-tree is raised on this island, but the land is best adapted for
pasturage of the sapi, which is similar in its habits to our own neat-
cattle, and never wallows in mires and morasses like the buffalo. In
the mountains on the western part of Java, a wild species, the
banteng (Bos sondaicus), is still found. It is not regarded as the
source of the sapi, but a fertile cross is obtained from the two, and
this intermediate breed is said to be the one used on Bali and
Lombok. The sapi is found on all the islands to and including Timur,
on Borneo, Celebes, and the Spice Islands, and has been introduced
into the Philippines since their discovery, and now lives in a wild
state on Luzon, just as the cattle of the pampas in South America,
which have also descended from the domesticated breeds imported
by the Spaniards.
On the eastern end of the island, which is quite low, great
quantities of salt are obtained by evaporating water in “pans,” or
small areas enclosed with low dikes, like rice-fields. It is also
manufactured in a similar manner at several places on the north
coast of Java and on the western shore of Luzon, in the province of
Pangasinan. Generally the coasts of the islands throughout the
archipelago are either too high, or so low as to form merely muddy
morasses, which are mostly covered with a dense growth of
mangroves. In some places on the south coast of Java, sea-water is
sprinkled over sand. When this water has evaporated, the process is
repeated. The sand is then gathered, and water filtered through it
and evaporated by artificial heat. In Borneo, and among some of the
Philippines, marine plants are burned, and the lye made from their
ashes is evaporated for the sake of the salt contained in the
residuum. All through the interior, and among the mountains, houses
are built for storing it, and officials are appointed to dispose of it to
the natives. The quantity yearly manufactured for the government at
all the various places is about 40,000 koyangs, or 80,000 tons; but it
is not allowed to be shipped and used until it is five years old, and a
supply of 200,000 koyangs, or 400,000 tons, is therefore constantly
kept on hand. It is deposited in the government store-houses by
individuals at one-third of a guilder per picul. It is then transported
and sold at a great profit by the government, which monopolizes the
traffic in this necessary condiment, and obtains a large portion of its
revenue in this manner.[10]
In the afternoon we were abreast the high Tenger (i. e., wide or
spacious) mountains. Here is the famous “Sandy Sea,” a strange
thing on an island covered with such luxuriant vegetation as
everywhere appears in Java. To reach it one has to climb an old
volcano to a height of about 7,500 feet above the sea, when he
suddenly finds himself on the rim of an old crater of an irregular
elliptical form, with a minor axis of three and a half and a major axis
of four and a half miles. It is the largest crater in Java, and one of the
largest in the world. Its bottom is a level floor of sand, which in some
places is drifted by the wind like the sea, and is properly named in
Malay the Laut Pasar, or “Sandy Sea.” From this sandy floor rise four
cones, where the eruptive force has successively found vent for a
time, the greatest being evidently the oldest, and the smallest the
present active Bromo, or Brama, from the Sanscrit Brama, the god of
fire. The position and relation of this Bromo, as compared to the
surrounding crater, is entirely analogous to those that exist between
Vesuvius and Monte Somma. The outer walls of this old mountain
are of trachytic lava, and Dr. Junghuhn thinks its history may be
summed up thus: first, a period when the trachyte was formed; this
was followed by a period of trachytic lavas, then of obsidian; fourth,
of obsidian and pumice-stone; fifth, the sand period, during which an
enormous quantity of sand was thrown out, and the present sandy
floor formed with the cones rising from it; and sixth, the present ash-
period, during which only fine ashes are thrown out from time to
time, and steam and sulphurous acid gas are constantly emitted.
The earliest descriptions of this crater represent it nearly as it is
seen at the present day; but great eruptions, similar to the one
supposed to have occurred, have been witnessed by Europeans
since they first came to Java. In the year 1772 the volcano
Papandayang, which is near the south coast of Java, and about in
Long. 108° E., threw out such an immense quantity of scoriæ and
ashes, that Dr. Junghuhn thinks a layer nearly fifty feet thick was
spread over an area within a radius of seven miles; and yet all this
was thrown out during a single night. Forty native villages were
buried beneath it, and about three thousand souls are supposed to
have perished between this single setting and rising of the sun. Dr.
Horsfield, who drew up an account of this terrible phenomenon from
the stories of the natives, wrongly supposed that “an extent of
ground, of the mountain and its environs, fifteen miles long, and full
six broad, was by this commotion swallowed up within the bowels of
the earth.”
On the 8th of July, 1822, Mount Galunggong, an old volcano, but a
few miles northeast of Papandayang, suffered a far more terrible and
destructive eruption. At noon on that day not a cloud could be seen
in the sky. The wild beasts gladly sought the friendly shades of the
dense forest; the hum of myriads of insects was hushed, and not a
sound was to be heard over the highly-cultivated declivities of this
mountain, or over the rich adjoining plain, but the dull creaking of
some native cart drawn by the sluggish buffalo. The natives, under
shelter of their rude huts, were giving themselves up to indolent
repose, when suddenly a frightful thundering was heard in the earth;
and from the top of this old volcano a dark, dense mass was seen
rising higher and higher into the air, and spreading itself out over the
clear sky with such an appalling rapidity that in a few moments the
whole landscape was shrouded in the darkness of night.
Through this thick darkness flashes of lightning gleamed in a
hundred lines, and many natives were instantly struck down to the
earth by stones falling from the sky. Then a deluge of hot water and
flowing mud rose over the rim of the old crater, and poured down the
mountain-sides, sweeping away trees and beasts and human bodies
in its seething mass. At the same moment, stones and ashes and
sand were projected to an enormous height into the air, and, as they
fell, destroyed nearly every thing within a radius of more than twenty
miles. A few villages, that were situated on high hills on the lower
declivities of the mountain, strangely escaped the surrounding
destruction by being above the streams of hot water and flowing
mud, while most of the stones and ashes and sand that were thrown
out passed completely over them, and destroyed many villages that
were farther removed from the centre of this great eruption.
The thundering was first heard at half-past one o’clock. At four the
extreme violence of the eruption was past; at five the sky began to
grow clear once more, and the same sun that at noon had shed his
life-giving light over this rich landscape, at evening was casting his
rays over the same spot then changed into a scene of utter
desolation. A second eruption followed within five days, and by that
time more than twenty thousand persons had lost their lives.
When the mountain could be ascended, a great valley was found,
which Dr. Junghuhn considers analogous to the “Val del Bove” on
the flanks of Ætna, except that a great depression among these
movable materials could not have such high, precipitous walls as are
seen in that deep gulf. This eruption was quite like that of
Papandayang, except that there was a lake in the bottom of this
crater which supplied the hot water and the mud, while all the
materials thrown out by the former volcano were in a dry state. In a
similar way it is supposed the great crater and the “Sandy Sea” of
the Tenger Mountains were formed in ancient times. On these
Tenger Mountains live a peculiar people, who speak a dialect of the
Javanese, and, despite the zealous efforts of the Mohammedan
priests, still retain their ancient Hindu religion.
In the evening, fires appeared on the hills near the sea. This was
the last we saw of Java, which, though but one-sixth of the area of
Borneo, and one-third that of Sumatra, is by far the most important
island in the archipelago. It is to the East Indies what Cuba is to the
West Indies. In each there is a great central chain of mountains.
Both shores of Cuba are opposite small bodies of water, and are
continuously low and swampy for miles, but in Java only the north
coast borders on a small sea. This shore is low, but the southern
coast, on the margin of the wide Indian Ocean that stretches away to
the Antarctic lands, is high and bold, an exception which is in
accordance with the rule that the higher elevations are opposite the
greater oceans, or, more properly, that they stand along the borders
of the ocean-beds or greatest depressions on the surface of our
globe. In Java, where the coast is rocky, the rocks are hard volcanic
basalts and trachytes, which resist the action of the sea, and the
shore-line is therefore quite regular; but in Cuba there is a fringing of
soft coral rock, which the waves quickly wear away into hundreds of
little projecting headlands and bays, and on the map the island has a
ragged border. In its geological structure, Cuba, with its central axis
of mica slates, granitic rocks, serpentines, and marbles, has a more
perfect analogue in Sumatra; for in Java the mountains, instead of
being formed by elevations of preëxisting strata, are merely heaps of
scoriæ, ashes, sand, and rock, once fluid, which have all been
ejected out of separate and distinct vents. The area of Java is
estimated at 38,250 square geographical miles; that of Cuba at
about 45,000. The length of Java is 575 geographical or 666 statute
miles; that of Cuba 750 statute miles. But while the total population
of Cuba is estimated only at a million and a half, the total population
of Java and Madura is now (1865), according to official statements,
13,917,368.[11] In 1755, after fifteen years of civil war, the total
population of Java and Madura was but 2,001,911. In a single
century, therefore, it has increased more than sixfold. This is one of
the beneficial effects of a government that can put down rebellions
and all internal wars, and encourage industry. In Cuba, of a total
area of thirty million acres, it was estimated, in 1857, that only
48,572 were under cultivation, or, including pasturage, 218,161
acres. In Java and Madura, last year (1864), the cultivated fields and
the groves of cocoa-nut palms covered an area of 2,437,037 acres.
In Cuba, from 1853 to 1858, the yearly exports were from
27,000,000 to 32,000,000 of dollars, and the imports of about the
same value. In Java, last year, the imports amounted to 66,846,412
guilders (26,738,565 dollars); and the exports to the enormous sum
of 123,094,798 guilders (49,237,919 dollars). During 1864 twenty-
four ships arrived from the United States, of 12,610 tons’ capacity,
and three sailed for our country, of a united capacity of 2,258 tons.
[12]

Both of these great islands abound in forests, that yield large

quantities of valuable timber. Java furnishes the indestructible teak,
from which the Malays and Javanese fitted out a fleet of three
hundred vessels that besieged Malacca, two years after it had fallen
into the hands of the Portuguese. In like manner the Spaniards,
between 1724 and 1796, built with timber from the forests of Cuba
an armada that numbered one hundred and fourteen vessels,
carrying more than four thousand guns. From the Cuban forests
come the indestructible lignum-vitæ, and the beautiful mahogany.
Those jungles shelter no wild animals larger than dogs, but these in
Java are the haunts of wild oxen, tigers, one large and two small
species of leopard, the rhinoceros, two wild species of hog, and five
species of weasel. Two of the latter yield musk; and one, the Viverra
musanga, of the size of a cat, is also found in the Philippines. Six
species of deer are found on this island, and two of them, the Cervus
rufa and Cervus mantjac, are sometimes domesticated.[13] The
elephant is not found in Java, though it lives in Sumatra, Borneo, and
the peninsula. Also the wild horse of Sumatra or Celebes does not
exist in Java.
Among the more noticeable birds of Java is a beautiful species of
peacock, the Pavo spicifer. It was represented to me as quite
abundant in some places along the south coast. The natives make
very beautiful cigar-holders from fine strips of its quills. In Sumatra it
is not found, but is represented by an allied species. Of pigeons,
Java has no less than ten species. The web-footed birds are
remarkably few in species and numbers. A single duck, a teal, and
two pelicans, are said to comprise the whole number. The white
heron has already been noticed, and besides this, ten other species
have been described. One of the smallest birds in Java, and yet,
perhaps, the most important, from its great numbers, is the rice-
eater, Fringilla oryzivora, a kind of sparrow. Great flocks of these
birds are continually annoying the Malays as soon as the rice is
nearly grown. The natives have a very simple and effective mode of
driving them away. In the midst of a field a little bamboo house,
sufficient to shelter its occupant from the rain and scorching
sunshine, is perched high up on poles above the rice-stalks. Around
each field are placed rows of tall, flexible stakes, which are
connected together by a string. Many radiating lines of such stakes
extend from the house to those along the borders, and the child or
old person on watch has simply to pull any set of these lines in order
to frighten away the birds from any part of the field. There are seven
species of owls, and when the hooting of one is heard near any
house, many of the natives believe that sickness or some other
misfortune will certainly come to the inmates of that dwelling. Of
eagles and falcons, or kites, eight species are mentioned. One of the
kites is very abundant at all the anchorages, and so tame as to light
on the rigging of a ship quite near where the sailors are working.
When it has caught any offal in its long talons, it does not fly away at
once to a perch to consume the delicious morsel at its leisure, like
many birds of prey, but is so extremely greedy that it tears off pieces
with its beak and swallows them as it slowly sails along in the air.
When we begin to examine the luxuriant flora of these tropical
islands, almost the first tree that we notice by the shore is the tall,
graceful cocoa-nut palm. Occasionally it is found in small clumps, far
from the abode of man, for instead of being reared by his care, it
often comes to maturity alone, and then invites him to take up his
abode beneath its shade, by offering him at the same time its fruit for
food, and its leaves as ample thatching for the only kind of a hut
which he thinks he needs in an unchanging, tropical climate.
As it stands along the shore, it invariably inclines toward its parent,
the sea, for borne on the waves came the nut from which it sprang,
and now fully grown, it seeks to make a due return to its ancestor by
leaning over the shore and dropping into the ocean’s bosom rich
clusters of its golden fruit. Here, buoyed up by a thick husk which is
covered with a water-tight skin, the living kernel safely floats over the
calm and the stormy sea, until some friendly wave casts it high up on
a distant beach. The hot sun then quickly enables it to thrust out its
rootlets into the genial soil of coral sand and fragments of shells, and
in a few years it too is seen tossing its crest of plumes high over the
white surf, which in these sunny climes everywhere forms the margin
of the deep-blue ocean.
When the nut is young, the shell is soft and not separate from the
husk. In a short time it turns from a pale green to a light yellow. The
shell is now formed, and on its inner side is a thin layer, so soft that it
can be cut with a spoon. The natives now call it klapa muda, or the
young cocoa-nut, and they rarely eat it except in this condition. As it
grows older, the exterior becomes of a wood-color, the husk is dry,
and the shell hard and surrounded on the inside with a thick, tough,
oily, and most indigestible layer, popularly known as “the meat” of the
nut. This is the condition in which it is brought to our markets, but the
Malays seldom or never think of eating it in this condition, and only
value it for its oil. To obtain this the nut is broken, and the meat
scraped out with a knife. This pulp is then boiled in a large pan,
when the oil separates, floats on the top, and is skimmed off. This oil
is almost the only substance used for lighting in the East, where far
more lights are kept burning, in proportion to the foreign population,
than in our own temperate zone, notwithstanding our long winter
evenings, it being the custom there for each man to light his house
and veranda very brilliantly every evening; and, if it is a festive
occasion, rows of lamps must be placed throughout his grounds.
The natives also are fond of such display. The common lamp
which they have for burning cocoa-nut oil is nothing but a glass
tumbler. This is partly filled with water, a small quantity of oil is then
poured in, and on this float two small splints that support a piece of
pith in a vertical position for a wick. When the oil is first made, it has
a sweet, rich taste, but in such a hot climate it soon becomes
extremely rancid, and that used for cooking should not be more than
two or three days old. The cool, clear water which the young nuts
contain is a most refreshing drink in those hot climates, far
preferable, according to my taste, to the warm, muddy water usually
found in all low lands within the tropics. Especially can one
appreciate it when, exposed to the burning sun on a low coral island,
he longs for a single draught from the cold sparkling streams among
his native New-England hills. He looks around him and realizes that
he is surrounded by the salt waters of the ocean—then one of his
dark attendants, divining his desire, climbs the smooth trunk of a
lofty palm, and brings down, apparently from the sky, a nectar
delicious enough for the gods.
This tree is of such importance to the natives that the Dutch
officials are required to ascertain as nearly as possible the number of
them in their several districts. In 1861 there were in Java and
Madura nearly twenty millions of these trees, or more than three to
every two natives.
Near the cocoa-nut grows the Pandanus, or “screw-pine,” which
may be correctly described as a trunk with branches at both ends.
There are two species of it widely distributed over the archipelago.
The flowers of one, the P. odoratissimus, are very fragrant and highly
prized among the Malays. In some places mats and baskets are
made from its leaves. Its woody fruit is of a spherical form, from four
to six inches in diameter, and its surface is divided with geometrical
precision by projections of a pointed pyramidal or diamond shape.
On the low lands, back from the shore, where the soil has been
enriched with vegetable mould, the banana thrives. Unlike the
cocoa-nut tree, it is seldom seen where it has not been planted by
the hand of man. The traveller, therefore, who is worn out with his
long wanderings through the thick, almost impassable, jungles,
beholds with delight the long, green, drooping leaves of this tree. He
knows that he is near some native hut where he can find a shelter
from the hot sun, and slake his thirst with the water of the cocoa-nut,
and appease his hunger on bananas and boiled rice, a simple and
literally a frugal meal. Out of the midst of these drooping leaves
hangs down the top of the main stem, with its fruit decreasing in size
to the end. Some near the base are already changing from a dark
green to a bright golden yellow. Those are filled with delicious juices,
and they melt in your mouth like a delicately-flavored cream. Such
bananas as can be purchased in our markets have been so bruised,
and taste so little like this fruit at its home in the tropics, or at least in
the East Indian islands, that they scarcely serve to remind one of
what he has been accustomed to enjoy. The number of the varieties
of bananas and the difference between them is as great as among
apples in our own land.
Botanists call this tree the Musa paradisiaca, for its fruit is so
constantly ripening throughout the year, and is such a common
article of food, that it corresponds well to “the tree that yielded her
fruit every month,” and whose “leaves were for the healing of the
nations.”
Besides these plants, there are also seen on the low lands
Aroideæ, Amaranthaceæ, papilionaceous or leguminous plants, and
poisonous Euphorbiaceæ. The papaw (Carica papaya) thrives
luxuriantly on most soils. The natives are always fond of it, and I
found it a most palatable fruit, but the Europeans in the East
generally consider it a too coarse or common fruit to be placed on
the table. It was evidently introduced by the Portuguese and Spanish
from the West Indies, and the Malay name papaya comes from the
Spanish papayo.
At the height of one thousand feet ferns appear in very
considerable numbers, and here also the useful bamboo grows in
abundance, though it is found all the way down to the level of the
sea. Practically this is a tree, but botanically it is grass, though it
sometimes attains a height of seventy or eighty feet. It is used by the
natives for the walls of their huts. For this purpose it is split open and
pressed out flat, and other perpendicular and horizontal pieces hold
it in place. It is also used for masts, spear-handles, baskets, vessels
of all kinds, and for so many other necessary articles, that it seems
almost indispensable to them. Its outer surface becomes so hard
when partially burned, that it will take a sharp, almost cutting edge,
and the weapons of the natives were probably all made in this
manner previous to the introduction of iron. At the present time
sharpened stakes, ranjaus, of this kind are driven into the ground in
the tall grass surrounding a ladang or garden, so that any native with
naked feet (except the owner) will spear himself in attempting to
approach. I saw one man, on the island of Bum, who had received a
frightful, ragged wound in this way.
Above one thousand feet the palms, bananas, and papilionaceous
plants become fewer, and are replaced by the lofty fig or waringin,
which, with its high top and long branches, rivals the magnificent
palms by the sea-shore. The liquidambar also accompanies the fig.
Orchidaceous plants of the most wonderful forms appear on the
forest-trees, and are fastened to them so closely, that they seem to
be parts of them. Here the ferns also are seen in great variety.
Loranthaceæ and Melanostomaceæ are found in this zone. To this
region belongs the beautiful cotton-wood tree. Its trunk is seldom
more than ten or twelve inches in diameter, and rises up almost
perpendicularly thirty feet. The bark is of a light olive-green, and
remarkably smooth and fair. The limbs shoot out in whorls at right
angles to the trunk, and, as they are separated by a considerable
space, their open foliage is in strong contrast to the dark, dense
jungle out of which they usually rise. They thrive well also along the
banks of rivers. In Java these trees are frequently used as telegraph-
posts—a purpose for which they are admirably adapted on account
of their regularity. Besides, any thing but a living post would quickly
decay in these tropical lands. The fruit is a pod, and the fibrous
substance it yields is quite like cotton. I found it very suitable for
stuffing birds.
 Over this region of the fig comes that of oaks and laurels.
Orchidaceous plants and melastomas are more abundant here.
Above five or six thousand feet are Rubiaceæ, heaths, and cone-
bearing trees; and from this region we pass up into one where small
ferns abound, and lichens and mosses cover the rocks and hang
from the trees. The tropical world is now beneath us, and we are in
the temperate zone.
The tops of all those volcanic mountains that are still in a state of
eruption are usually bare; and in others so large a quantity of the
sulphur they produce is washed down their sides by the rains that
the vegetation is frequently destroyed for some distance below their
summits.
One of the great privileges of a residence in the tropics is to enjoy
the delicious fruits of those regions in all their perfection. Of all those
fruits, in my opinion, the mangostin ought unquestionably to be
considered the first. This tree, a Garcinia, is about the size of a pear-
tree. Its Malay name is manggusta, whence our own, but it is more
generally known in the archipelago by the Javanese name manggis.
It flourishes in most of the islands from the south coast of Java to
Mindanao, the southernmost of the Philippines. On the continent it
yields well as far up the Peninsula of Malacca as Bankok, in Siam,
and in the interior to 16° N., but on the coast of the Bay of Bengal
only to 14° N. The attempts to introduce it into India have failed, but
the fruit is sometimes sent from Singapore after it has been carefully
coated with wax to exclude the air. In Ceylon they have only partially
succeeded in cultivating it. All the trials to raise it in the West Indies
have proved unsuccessful, so that this, the best of all tropical fruits,
is never seen on our continent. Its limited geographical range is the
more remarkable, for it is frequently seen flourishing in the East
Indian islands on all kinds of soils, and there is reason to suppose
that it has been introduced into the Philippines within a
comparatively late period, for in 1685 Dampier did not notice it on
Mindanao. The fruit is of a spherical form, and a reddish-brown color.
The outer part is a thick, tough covering containing a white, opaque
centre an inch or more in diameter. This is divided into four or five
parts, each of which usually contains a small seed. This white part
has a slightly-sweet taste, and a rich yet delicate flavor, which is
entirely peculiar to itself. It tastes perhaps more like the white interior
of a checkerberry than any other fruit in our temperate climate. The
thick covering is dried by the natives and used for an astringent.

FRUIT MARKET.
 Several fruits claim the second place in this scale. Some
Europeans would place the rambutan next the mangostin, and
others would prefer the mango or the duku. The rambutan
(Nephelium lappaceum) is nearly as large as an apple-tree. The fruit
is globular in form, and an inch or an inch and a half in diameter. The
outside is a bright-red rind, ornamented with coarse, scattered
bristles. Within is a semi-transparent pulp, of a slightly acid taste,
surrounding the seed. This tree, like the durian and the mangostin, is
wholly confined to the archipelago, and its acid fruit is most
refreshing in those hot lands. At Batavia it is so abundant in February
and March, that great quantities almost line the streets in the market
parts of the city, and small boats are seen filled to overflowing with
this bright, strawberry-colored fruit.
The mango-tree (Mangifera indica) is a large, thickly-branching
tree, with bright-green leaves. Its fruit is of an elliptical form, and
contains a flat stone of the same shape. Before it is ripe it is so
keenly acid, that it needs only to be preserved in salt water to be a
nice pickle for the table, especially with the universal curry. As it
ripens, the interior changes from green to white, and then to a bright
yellow. A tough outer skin being removed, there is seen a soft,
almost pulpy, but somewhat fibrous mass within. Some of these
fruits are extremely rich, and quite aromatic, while others have a
sharp smack of turpentine. They even vary greatly in two localities,
which may be but a few miles apart. Rumphius informs us that it was
introduced into the moluccas by the Dutch in 1655. It has also been
introduced into Zanzibar and Madagascar. When the Spaniards first
visited the Philippines it was not noticed, but now it is very common
in those islands, and considerable quantities of it are shipped to
China, where I was frequently assured it was very delicious; but
those who have tasted this or any other tropical fruit from only one
locality are by no means competent judges. At Singapore I found
some very nice ones that had been brought down from Siam. It also
flourishes in India, and Mr. Crawfurd thinks, from the fact that the
Malay and Javanese names are evidently only corruptions of the old
Sanscrit, that it was originally brought into the archipelago from the
continent, and should not be regarded as indigenous.