is to say, they had horses given them to
ride, but as the animals, though small, were frisky and untrained, they
were sent very frequently sprawling into the dust, and were much oftener
on their feet than in their saddles. Our force, as we advanced,
certainly presented a very unmilitary appearance, though we made clatter
enough for a dozen regiments of dragoons. We were in search of the
military chest said to be with the fugitives. We fell in with a large
party, who, however, having had fighting enough, sent forward a flag of
truce and capitulated. We got possession, however, of some waggon-loads
of ingots, but they were ingots of copper, and were said to be of so
little value in the country as to have been fired as grape-shot from
Cornells. The moon shone brightly forth for the first part of the
march, but no sooner did it become obscured than a considerable number
of the marines were seized with a temporary defective vision very common
within the tropics, called, "Nyctalopia," or night blindness. The
attack was sudden; the vision seldom became totally obscured, but so
indistinct that the shape of objects could not be distinguished. While
in this state the sufferers had to be led by their comrades. With some
it lasted more than an hour, with others not more than twenty minutes,
and on the approach of day all traces of it had disappeared.

On our march, during the heat of the day, we passed through a wood,
every tree in which seemed to have been blasted by lightning. Not a
branch nor leaf remained to afford us shelter from the scorching rays of
the sun. Had I not known that the story of the noxious effects produced
by the upas-tree was a fiction, I might have supposed that the
destruction had been caused by a blast passing amid the boughs of one of
those so-called death-dealing trees in the neighbourhood. Probably the
forest had been destroyed partly by lightning and partly by the
conflagration it had caused.

On returning to Cheribon, I found that my friend Van Deck was anxious to
proceed to Batavia, and I was fortunate in being able to procure him a
passage on board the _Phoebe_, which was going there at once.

"Well, Braithwaite, I shall never despair of your turning up safe!"
exclaimed Captain Hassall, shaking my hand warmly as I stepped on the
deck of the _Barbara_. "You saved the ship and cargo by your
promptness, for had I not got your message by young Jack there I should
have been captured to a ce