The three-domed summit of the mountain is visited now by Siva worshipers, who make offerings and burn incense to the destroying god who manifests himself there, and the region is one to tempt a scientist across the seas to exploit it, and should soon invite the attention of the exploring parties which Mr. Morris K. Jesup has enlisted in the search for proofs of early Asiatic and American contact.
XX
DJOKJAKARTA
As the heat of Solo was but little less than that of Batavia, and we had only worse accounts and solemn warnings given of the sickening, unendurable heat of Soerabaya, where fever and cholera most often abide, it seemed wisest to give up the visit to that east end of the island, to forego that torrid shore where first the Arabs landed and conquered the Hindu rulers of Majapahit, to be succeeded in their turn by the Portuguese, and then the Dutch. The ruins of Majapahit, and the tombs of its princes, and the graves of the Arab priests who were the first rulers of the conquered empire are attractions in Soerabaya’s neighborhood; but the great object was the Mount Bromo of the Tengger plateau, where the exhausted residents may take refuge from the steaming plain and breathe again. Tosari, the great sanatorium, on one of the sharp spurs of the Tengger, is over five thousand feet in air, and commands one of the most famous views in Java, with the plains, the sea, and groups of islands in one direction, and the great Bromo, smoking splendidly, in another. The great crater of the Bromo, with several smoking cones rising from a level of rippling, wind-swept “sandy sea,” is three miles in diameter, and is claimed, despite Kilauea, as the largest crater in the world, as it is certainly the largest in Java. A colony of Siva worshipers, who fled to the Tengger that they might pursue their religion unmolested by Arab rulers, live there in long communal houses, tend the sacred fire once brought from India, and sacrifice regularly to Brama, the “God of Fire,” at his smoking temple. In this modern day living sacrifices are not offered, save of fowl; and priests and people content themselves with offerings of fruit and foods, and make other great ceremonies of burning lumps of fragrant benzoin, the “Java frankincense,” at the crater’s edge.
The most serious sacrifices in the Bromo’s neighborhood are of those unfortunate natives who are seized by tigers as they work in clearings or walk mountain paths alone. The briefest stay at Tosari equips a visitor with tiger stories fit for tropical regions; and my envy was roused when some Tosari tourists told of having seen a child who had been seized and slightly mangled by a tiger, but a day before, on a road near the village, over which they themselves had passed.
The short railway ride back from Solo to Djokja, past the familiar ground of Brambanam, was a morning’s delight. We could see from the train that the railway did run close past the temple courts; and with the brief glimpse of the ruined pyramids, we viewed our exploit of walking to Loro Jonggran’s fane at midday, and clambering over the temples through the long afternoon, with great complacency—a feat that nothing could induce us to repeat, however.
THE BRAMBANAM BABY.