M. Hasskarl left Sandia with these plants in June, 1854, but they were not placed in Wardian cases at the port of Islay until August, and on the 27th of that month he finally left the coast of Peru in a sailing vessel, and shaped his course direct for Java.[101] He arrived at Batavia with twenty Wardian cases on December 13th, but all his plants have since died except two.[102] On his arrival M. Hasskarl was intrusted with the cultivation of chinchona-plants in Java, with the rank of Assistant-Resident, and was made a Knight of the Netherlands Lion, and Commander of the Order of the Oaken Crown.[103] Besides the plants brought by M. Hasskarl, a plant of _C. Calisaya_, raised in Paris from seeds sent home by Dr. Weddell, had arrived in Java; as well as plants raised from seeds previously sent from Peru, and seeds of _C. lancifolia_ sent by Dr. Karsten from New Granada, through the Governor of Curaçoa; and thus the experimental chinchona cultivation in Java was commenced. Although through various circumstances the mission to South America was not very successful, yet M. Hasskarl deserves the greatest credit for the zeal and determination displayed by him in his journeys, during which he was surrounded by no ordinary amount of difficulties and dangers. He certainly proved himself to be a most indefatigable and courageous traveller. M. Hasskarl, and his associate M. Teysmann, selected the site for the first chinchona plantation, at a place called Tjibodas, thirty miles south of Batavia, on the northern slope of the volcanic range which traverses Java from east to west, and 4400 feet above the sea. Ground was also prepared at Tjipannas, half a mile above Tjibodas, and 4700 feet above the sea. These sites were covered with rasamala-trees of immense size (_Liquidambar Altingia_,[104] _Blume_), which had to be felled. The superintendents, deceived by the sight of such large trees, imagined that the soil was deep and good, but in reality it was not more than six inches deep, and underneath there was a formation completely impenetrable to roots, called _tjadas_, composed of sand and small stones of trachytic origin, strongly cemented together by crater slime, the whole being as hard as rock. Not one of the huge rasamala-trees in reality pierced this _tjadas_ with their roots, but ran along its surface horizontally for hundreds of feet. In these localities the chinchona-plants continued to languish during the year 1855, and in the end of that year the experiment presented a most hopeless appearance.