adder had bitten me, and begged the master of the house to let me sit elsewhere than beside that man. He complied with my request, at the same time remarking, with a smile, that I should hear similar things of many, but that they were Europeans, and jolly fellows, and their conduct had been blameless since their residence in Java." In such a state of society, the best plan was to abstain from inquiries and intimacies. So the doctor found, and after a while, was able to eat the excellent Javan dinners, and sip his Medoc and Hochheimer, without asking or caring whether his fellow-feeders would not have been more in their places in an Amsterdam Zuchthaus, than in an honest man's company. Dr. Selberg was at Batavia during the wet season, when torrents of rain, of whose abundance and volume Europeans can form no idea, alternate with a sun-heat that cracks the earth and pumps up pestilence from the low marshy ground upon which this fever-nest is built. He had abundant opportunity to investigate the causes and symptoms of the fevers and other prevalent maladies. His zeal in the cause of science led him into serious peril, by inducing him to pass a night in the city, at a time when that unlucky portion of the inhabitants whom poverty or other causes prevent from leaving it, were dying like flies from the effects of the noxious exhalations. The quality of the air was so bad as sensibly to affect the lungs and olfactories, and impede respiration; and, though exposed to it but a very few hours, he experienced various unpleasant symptoms, only to be dissipated by recourse to his medicine chest. Hence some idea may be formed of the terrible effect of that corrupt atmosphere upon those who continually breathe it. The plague of mosquitoes, who find their natural element in the marsh-vapour, also contributes to render Batavia an intolerable sleeping-place. One very singular phenomenon observed by Dr. Selberg, but for which he does not attempt to account, is the strong odour of musk constantly perceptible in the city and its environs.