DESCENT OF THE BATANG LOEPAR—A BORNEAN WATERFALL—THE FRONTIER PASSED—SIMANGANG—PARTING—ON BOARD THE FIREFLY—A SARAWAK FORT—AT KOETSHIN—ON BOARD THE RAINBOW—AT SINGAPORE—DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.
When the travellers awoke in the morning and the mist had been dispersed by the first rays of the sun a magnificent view rose before their eyes. The southern slope of the mountain which they had ascended the previous day was covered with high woods. The summit which they had surmounted was clothed with magnificent specimens of the intertropical flora of the higher zone. When, however, they approached the edge of the northern slope it appeared as if the luxuriant vegetation hitherto seen had suddenly departed in order to exhibit nature in her wildest and most fantastic form. Wild was the true word wherewith to describe the country in which they had arrived. All around were piles of gigantic rocks which threatened to interrupt all progress. Through these obstacles, however, they found tunnels cut and passages hewn out which barely offered standing room. Yawning around them were dangerous precipices and fathomless abysses beneath which mountain torrents roared like thunder, though the eye could not distinguish them through the vast depths. At [[362]]other places rocks rose almost perpendicularly into the sky as if threatening death and destruction to the passer-by. And yet amid this chaos formed by the terrible forces of nature our travellers occasionally came upon verdant oases, gentle slopes crowned with short, fine grass, from out of which arose plumed cedar trees, forming a lovely picture that carried back the Swiss to the memories of their Alpenweide with its firs and pine trees.
On entering one of these oases the travellers noticed a cascade falling from an adjacent cliff. With insatiable delight the Swiss looked up at the dark-blue diorite of the rock whose edges were sharply defined against the soft azure of the skies. They watched the falling torrent—a fluttering robe which the water-nymph sent floating in the expanse. The soengei Oendoep, as this stream was called, arrested in its course by huge masses of rock, threw its water from a height of about four hundred feet. Beautifully shaded in greenish-blue, its principal branch would have reached the bottom of the valley over the perpendicular wall of the mountain like a crystalline stream, but half-way down its course was arrested by a projecting mass of stone upon which it descended with the noise of thunder; then beaten into foam it rushed downwards on its way to the valley—a milk-white ribbon, silvery bright. The other branches of the Oendoep wildly separated themselves from the edge of the cliff; the torrents were speedily met by stony crags and rocky pinnacles to which they seemed to cling for a moment; then they broke into millions of bubbles which shone like fire under the rays of the tropical sun and disappeared forever.
The four friends with Hamadoe approached as near to the fall [[363]]as was possible, and as if by instinct chose for their point of observation the spot where they could observe the magnificent rainbows formed everywhere around by the reflection of the sun’s rays. They drew yet nearer and each became surrounded by a double rainbow, which while they remained in its immediate neighborhood seemed to move with them backwards and forwards and to follow every change in their position. Their hair, skin and garments became covered with minute particles of water, each of which, like a diamond, shone with the incomparable brilliancy of prismatic coloring.
“Beautiful! Magnificent!” the young wife exclaimed, “are such scenes also met with in your country?”
“This is undoubtedly very grand,” replied her husband; “but Switzerland can also boast of her cascades. We have the Rhinefel at Laufen, the Staubbach in the valley of Lauterbrunnen and the Giesbach near Lake Brienz.”
“Where the whitefaces amuse themselves by painting the waterfall. Is it not so?” remarked Johannes jokingly.
“What do you mean by painting?” Schlickeisen asked.
“Have I not read somewhere that nature in your country is found too poor and requires Bengal fire to make your waterfalls attractive?”
“Well, they do certainly illuminate the Giesbach; and whenever you come to Europe, if you find yourself in Switzerland, just go to that same fall and pay your six francs to see it at night.”