This was a problem some of my emigrant friends had been discussing, and which I longed to see solved. After losing sight of the coast of New Holland, we had to keep a bright look-out, as we were in the supposed neighbourhood of certain islands which some navigators, it was reported, had seen, but no land appeared. One clear night we found ourselves suddenly, it seemed, floating in an ocean of milk, or more properly, perhaps, a thick solution of chalk in water. The surface was quite unruffled, nor was there the slightest mixture of that phosphoric appearance often seen on a dark night when the sea is agitated. The air was still, though it was not quite a calm, and the sky was perfectly clear. It took us some hours to slip through it. We drew up some in buckets, and found it to contain a small, scarcely perceptible, portion of a fine filamentous substance, quite transparent, such as I have occasionally seen where seaweed is abundant. Whether this was the cause of the milky appearance of the sea or not we could not determine. We were now sailing almost due north, for the Straits of Bally, as the passage is called between that small island and the east end of the magnificent island of Java. About the middle of August, early in the morning, again land was seen from the mast-head, and in a few hours we entered the Straits I have just mentioned. We could see the shores on both sides, that of Bally somewhat abrupt, while the Java shore, agreeably diversified by clumps of cocoa-nut trees and hills clothed with verdure, looked green and smiling, contrasting agreeably with that of New Holland, which we had so lately left. A large number of small boats or canoes were moving about in all directions, those under sail going at great speed. They were painted white, had one sail, and were fitted with outriggers. We had to keep a bright look-out lest we should run suddenly into the jaws of any French or Dutch man-of-war, which, escaping from our cruisers, might be pleased to snap up a richly-laden merchantman like the _Barbara_. We could not tell at the time whether the proposed expedition had arrived, or, if it had, whether it had been successful.