The controleur also showed me a quantity of the edible birds’-nests obtained in the neighboring cliffs, that were considered of a superior quality, that is, by Chinese palates, for, if the Celestials had not taken a fancy that these should be regarded as dainties, I do not believe that Europeans would have ever thought of tasting them.
February 25th.—At eight o’clock rode back with the controleur up the crater wall, by the way I came down yesterday. The road is built on the spur or projecting ridge that forms the boundary between the two craters on the east side, and zigzags to the right and left in such a manner that, when viewed from beneath, it reminds one of the way, usually pictured, that the people of Babel climbed their lofty tower. To shorten the distance, we went over a number of steep places, instead of going round by the road. The clay and wet grass, however, were so slippery that such climbing was exceedingly dangerous; but the rider had the satisfaction of knowing that, if his horse did lose his footing altogether, they would both go down so many hundred feet that neither would suffer pain for many moments after their descent was ended.
The heavy rain of yesterday had wholly cleared away, and when we reached the crater rim we enjoyed a perfect view of this enormous gulf, six miles long and four miles broad, and more than two thousand feet deep. Apparently the crater had ceased its action a long time ago, and now the hot springs on the borders of the lake are the only reminders of the causes that formed it ages and ages ago. As we looked down from our high point, clouds were seen floating beneath us, and on the opposite wall of the crater long, narrow, vertical strips of naked earth marked the places where land-slides had come down its precipitous declivities.
Soon after we reached Matua, the inspector arrived from Fort de Kock, and we went on together toward the northwest. The road was exceedingly rough, and, after riding five miles, our little pony became so worn out that I got out and walked to Palimbayang, the next station, a distance of nine miles, in the scorching, tropical sun. The road from Matua is built on the side of the Barizan chain, and we had on our right a deep valley, in the bottom of which coursed the stream that we had previously crossed in the deep cañons near Fort de Kock. Several small streams came down from the mountains on our left, and in the side valleys, where those streams entered the main one, the natives had formed many terraces.
A number of these smaller valleys had the form of an ellipse, cut in two at its minor axis. In the distance they looked like immense amphitheatres, the horizontal terraces forming the seats for the imaginary spectators—amphitheatres of such ample dimensions that, in comparison with them, even the great Coliseum at Rome dwindles into insignificance.
The height of this point is a little less than that at Matua, and all the way from Fort de Kock to this place I have been able to keep in sight the remains of the plateau which begins on the south with the col between the Singalang and Mérapi. The horizontal layers, that once filled the whole valley west of us, have been carried away by the streams until only a narrow margin is left on the Barizan, and its parallel chain; it forcibly reminds me of the terraces seen along the upper part of some of our own New-England rivers—for instance, those in the upper part of the Connecticut Valley.
Here, at Palimbayang, I have had the first opportunity of enjoying a view of that magnificent mountain, Ophir, nine thousand seven hundred and seventy feet in height. Its truncated summit indicates that its highest parts are the ruins of an old crater, and this thought reminds us of the volcanic action to which the mountain owes its birth. The name of this mountain is not of native origin, but was given it by the Portuguese, because they fancied that at last they had found the place where the ships of Solomon obtained the enormous quantities of gold that he used in adorning the magnificent temple of Jerusalem. The same name they also gave to another, but a much smaller mountain, on the Malay Peninsula, forty miles north of the city of Malacca.
A SCENE IN THE INTERIOR OF SUMATRA.