The temples at Brambanan are quite | sarong, the large cloth worn as a pettias interesting as those at Boroboedar, coat by the Malays, and by Dutch and are most conveniently visited by ladies, can be obtained here at from an excursion of half an hour by rail twenty to fifty guilders each. From from Djokjokarta. There is no hotel Soerakarta we travelled straight through at Brambanan, and no refreshment of to Soerabaja, a twelve hours' railway any kind can be obtained there; so the journey, and a weary time we found it best plan is to bring a luncheon-basket in spite of the beautiful scenery. and spend a happy day among the tem- Soerabaja was extremely hot, quite as ples, returning to Djokjokarta in the bad if not worse than Batavia, and evening. Brambanan has two distinct without the advantage of having an groups of temples, known respectively airy and well-arranged hotel. The as Loro Jongram, and Chandi Siwa or city is the Liverpool of Java, and durthe thousand temples. Both groups ing July and August, the season of are of Hindu character. The former is sugar export, the small harbor is full considered by Fergusson to be the of shipping. The streets are broad older, about the ninth century, and and shady, but the place contains no consists of six large temples surrounded object of special interest. We left it by fourteen smaller cells, now com- the day after arrival, going by rail pletely in ruins. The buildings and their enclosure walls are crowded with sculptures, including some grotesque figures of animals. The other group, known as Chandi Siwa, is of later date, but is the more interesting. It consists of a great central temple raised on a richly ornamented square base, and is surrounded by a multitude of smaller temples, two hundred and thirty-eight in number. Fergusson writes:

Both the groups of temples are within a walk of the Brambanan railway station, but it is advisable to take a guide, as it is quite possible to miss the ruins in the jungle that has grown up about them.

From Djokjokarta we went by railway to Soerakarta (called Solo in the time-tables), a large town with a fort and military garrison. A native prince resides here, who still maintains some semblance of royalty, and possesses a palace which is shown to visitors. Beautiful specimens of the national

(three hours) to Passoeroewan, a pretty town with a much cooler climate, on the coast opposite the island of Madura. An excursion can be made from here to a waterfall known as Blancoe water, with a Hindu temple near it. Miss North describes the place as pretty and worth seeing, but we were unable to visit it.

The next morning at 7 A.M. we started for Tosari and the Bromo volcano. A drive of two hours through the low country, presenting the scenery characteristic of the ever-fertile Javan plains, brought us to the village of Paserpan at the foot of the hills, where we exchanged our carriage for a sadoh.1 After another hour's drive uphill we arrived at Poespo, the present end of the road, where we procured riding and baggage ponies for the remainder of the journey. During the ascent frequent views are obtained of the straits of Madura and of the island. The deep blue of the sea, the vivid green of the rice-fields, the foliage of the trees and palms, and the grey clouds that hung in long bars across the sky, combined to form pictures of tropical beauty such as we had seldom seen even in Java. Immediately after leaving Poespo the forest is entered, and the rough pathway ascends through it by steep zigzags. Coffee-bushes,

1 The cab of Java, seen everywhere; drawn by one or two ponies.

covered with their pretty red berries | and went to bed till they woke about and white flowers, commenced at about four o'clock for the afternoon tea. The four thousand feet elevation, and con- view from the hotel garden over the tinued, mixed with occasional forest-forest-clad spurs running steeply down trees, until we reached nearly the level to the plains, with the blue sea and its of Tosari. The forest was extremely islands, was superb, but could only be picturesque, and contained the usual enjoyed by the early riser. We made temperate forms of vegetation, but several delightful rambles over the with fewer and smaller tree-ferns than hills, and met among the flowers many in western Java. Among the trees old friends of the Himalaya, and even was a Casuarina with fine dark foliage, of distant England. The temperate the beef-wood of Australian colonists, character of the mountain flora in the crowning the hilltops like pine woods tropics suggests questions regarding in temperate latitudes. An Engel- the geographical range of plants that hardtia, a tree allied to our walnut, was do not concern us here; but it was also common, and remarkable for its pleasant to see wild strawberries, St. pendent spikes of fruit, sometimes John's worts, stitchworts, and many more than a foot long, with pretty other familiar plants, growing by the pink-colored bracts. The trunks and wayside in eight degrees south of the branches of these trees were often equator. During our few days' stay completely covered with a thick growth here I amused myself by making a list of orchids, ferns, and a lichen (Usnea) of the Himalayan flowers which I that formed long grey streamers. recognized, and it amounted to over Occasional teak-trees were scattered sixty species. about the forest, of insignificant size as compared with those in Burmah, but bearing beautiful panicles of flowers. After riding about three hours, we came out on open hills where the forest had been cleared to make way for fields of potatoes, cabbages, and Indian corn, and in half an hour more we arrived at the Tosari Hotel. This place is six thousand feet above the sea, and is much resorted to during the dry season by the families of the Dutch merchants and officials at Soerabaja. In this respect it answers to our hill-stations in the Himalaya; but the visitors all live at the hotel, and one misses the well-kept roads and trim cottages of Mussoorie or Darjeeling.

Tosari certainly possesses the advantage of being cool, but otherwise the climate is disagreeable. The mornings, and occasionally the evenings, were fine; but about noon dense clouds of cold wet mist, usually accompanied by storms of driving rain, swept up the valleys, and rendered life somewhat of a burden. These conditions, however, affected the Dutch to a less degree than ourselves, as, like their countrymen throughout Java, every one disappeared soon after the midday "rice-table,"

One fiue morning, on climbing to the top of a ridge, we caught sight for the first time of the truncated cone of a huge volcano, towering above the sea of clouds that shrouded its flanks. This was the famous Smeroë, twelve thousand feet high, and only about fifteen miles distant from us in a direct line. The air was so clear that it seemed as if we could see every stone on the crater's edge. We were watching this scene, and speculating how long it would be before the summit became hidden by the clouds, when suddenly an immense column of steam and black ashes was shot up into the blue sky, and, spreading out like a flat cloud, drifted away to leeward. We afterwards discovered that these sudden eruptions occurred periodically at irregular intervals, varying from ten to forty-five minutes, and were visible from a distance of over fifty miles. The explosions resemble those of a geyser, and, like them, are probably due to subterranean accumulations of steam. The ascent of Smeroë is quite practicable; but as the expedition required five days from Tosari there and back, and involved a good deal of rough climbing, we did not attempt it, but

contented ourselves with a visit to and the sides are streaked with bands Bromo. The crater of this volcano, of yellow sulphur. Over the lower like that of Kilauea in Hawaii, con- slopes of Bromo large, amorphous sists of an irregularly shaped outer lumps of vesiculated scoriæ are scatcrater, in this instance about twenty tered that appear to have exuded from miles round, with smaller and more cracks, and masses of similar material, recent craters situated at one end. It of a roughly spherical shape, occur on is probable that the outer crater may the surface of the "Sea of Sand." be due to subsidence rather than to The sandy plain is almost devoid of explosion, but either theory seems to fit the facts. The floor of that at Bromo is covered with ash in the form of coarse sand, instead of with lava as in Hawaii.

vegetation, except a polygonum and some grasses and sedges; but the cracks and furrows on Bromo are already tenanted by ferns, a vine, a bramble, vaccinium bushes, and other stragglers from the surrounding forest.

We started for Bromo at half past five in the morning, and two hours' The scene from the top of Bromo is ride over a good track brought us to grandly weird, and not even the lake of the edge (7,320 feet) of the outer surging lava at Kilauea impressed me crater, where a wonderful view is ob- with an equal sense of the forces pent tained of the so-called "Sea of Sand" up within the apparently solid globe on (Dasa), with the singular extinct cone which we live. I know of no scientific of Batuk rising from its midst. The description in the English language of crater, which is now active, is distin- the wonderful system of craters, overguished as Bromo (7,080 feet), but it is lapping each other like those in the hidden from view at this point by the moon, to be seen at this spot; but a slopes of Batuk. The descent to the Dutch friend was kind enough to transsandy floor is about five hundred feet, late for me portions of a work1 on the and is very steep. It affords some in-plants and volcanoes of this district, teresting sections of the crater wall, which appeared to be very well done. composed of nearly vertical sheets of From the hotel to the Bromo crater lava and scoriæ, that must have been is a walk of about four hours, and the ejected from volcanic vents existing in whole excursion is of the greatest inthis vicinity ages before the present terest. system of craters was formed. From We left Tosari at seven o'clock the the bottom of the descent the route next morning, and rode to Djaboeng, a crosses the sandy plain, which resem-village at the foot of the hills, where bles the bed of a dried-up lake, and passes close under Batuk, whose steep sides have been cut by the raiu into deep, vertical furrows, and are now covered with bushes. The summit must originally have been much higher than at present, and the denudation it has suffered is shown by the irregular talus formed round the base of the

we arrived at 2 P.M., and got sados for the drive to Malang. The path, except for a few rough places, is good. It passes at first through the lower hills, then traverses a characteristic Javan forest with tree-ferns and waterfalls, and for the last few miles lies through coffee plantations. Here we saw the berries being picked; the girls and boys climbing into the bushes, and the old women gathering berries on the ground. It was a very busy and pretty scene. At Djaboeng we took shelter in the verandah of a government coffee storehouse, thronged with natives bringing their quotas of berries, which the officials weighed and paid for. The

1 Java. Zune gedante, zun plantentooi, en inwendige bonw-door. Fraus Junghunh. 2 Deel

cultivation of coffee in Java is a gov- can be ridden nearly the whole way. ernment monopoly, and like certain The scenery is most beautiful, but preother valuable products, such as tea, sents no particular features that have cinnamon, pepper, etc., the cultivators not been already described. The house are obliged to sow at least one-fifth of is on a plateau, close under the Ardtheir holdings with the prescribed crop, joeno peak, and was built about ten the product being paid for at fixed years ago by a Scotch sugar-planter rates. The advantages of this system who has since left Java. A small appear questionable; but Mr. Boys, an charge is made for its occupation, and experienced observer, who paid partic- there is sufficient furniture in it, but ular attention to the subject, considers the visitor has to bring food and bedthat, on the whole, the results are ben- ding. The ascent to the crater of eficial. The coffee used by the Dutch Ardjoeno is a three hours' rough scramresidents is prepared as an extract with ble through forest and over blocks of cold water, which is run off into small lava, and presents no difficulties for a decanters and served with sugar and good walker. The descent takes two hot milk. A very little of the extract hours. The Welirang crater requires goes a long way; but the beverage four hours there and back. Both these thus prepared possesses an aroma and volcanoes are now extinct, but in the freshness of flavor that is superior to latter sulphur fumes still rise and dethe coffee one gets even in France or posit crystals on planks which are Egypt. placed for the purpose over the crevMalang is a large town with a mili-ices. The masses of crystals thus obtary garrison, and is the terminus of tained sometimes attain a length of the railway running south from Soera- nearly two feet; and we met several baja. It is situated in the fertile valley of the Brantas River, and commands fine views of the volcanic ranges enclosing the valley on the east and west. An excursion should be made from Malang to Singosari (half an hour by rail) to see a Hindu temple and some curious statues, assigned by Fergusson to the tenth century.

natives carrying baskets of them down to the plains for sale. The Ardjoeno flora contains the temperate plants usually found at similar elevations, with some additions not observed before, among which was a small geranium (G. ardjoense), closely related to an Australian species, and remarkable as the only geranium found in the Malay archipelago.

The visit to Prigen brought our Javan tour to an end, and we left the hotel at 5 A.M. in sados, arrived at the Porong railway station at half past six, and reached Soerabaja at nine o'clock. The same evening we sailed in a Dutch steamer for Batavia, calling en route at the small island of Bawejan, where we stayed a few hours. This is of volcanic origin, and its hills are covered with dense forest, giving place on the lower slopes to sugarcane and other culti

From Malang we went by rail (one and a half hour) to Soekaredjo, a roadside station, whence we drove (in two hours) to Prigen, a small sanitarium possessing a delightful climate, and beautifully placed on the elevated plateau which gives rise to the volcanic peaks of Ardjoeno and Penanggoengan. Many pleasant walks and rides may be taken in this neighborhood, but the principal attraction is the excursion to Lalidjiwa, a small house eight thousand feet above the sea, from whence the ascent of Ardjoeno, and of its sister vated crops. On the third day we crater, Welirang, may be accomplished. | landed at Batavia, whence we sailed in We left Prigen on ponies at 7 A.M., the weekly steamer to Singapore, arrivand arrived at Lalidjiwa at half past ing there on 12th June.

ten. The path is very steep, but ponies

H. COLLETT.

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