2o8 Voyage of the Novara. 



stretch upwards to the very flanks of its once dreaded sum- 

 mit. To the left of Gunung Salak, and in appearance and 

 elevation far more imposing, stands out the Gedee Range. 

 Its highest point is the tapering regular cone of Gunung 

 Pangerango, still farther to the left of which rises, almost 

 equal in height, the bare rocky wall of the still active crater 

 of Gunung Gedeh, from the abyss of which there occasion- 

 ally issued light clouds of vapour. But this exquisite land- 

 scape unveils itself to the ravished view of the beholder 

 only during the early hours of morning. By 10 a.m. thin 

 vapours have gathered round those lofty summits, which 

 gradually accumulate as noon approaches, until by 3 p.m. 

 there is almost invariably a dense mass of clouds resting over 

 the entire range, which very frequently dissolve with fearful 

 violence in the shape of tremendous tropical thunder-storms. 

 The annual rain-fall at Buitenzorg would seem to be higher 

 than at any other spot on the face of the earth. During 

 some years it occasionally attains the depth of 200 inches 

 (English), which is far beyond the utmost known in Central 

 or Southern America.* 



* Dr. Junghuhn, in his admirable work upon Java, describes the rainy season — 

 which usually has fairly set in by the month of January, when the westerly and 

 north-westerly winds are driving the rain-clouds before them — in the following 

 spirited language : — " The floods stream from the clouds often for foui'-and-twenty 

 hours at a stretch without the slightest interruption, and with such violence that 

 the noise of the plash of the falling element drowns the voices of the inhabitants, 

 compelled as they are to keep to their houses. Every brook and river overflows 

 its banks, covering with a tide of muddy brown water the alluvial soil wrested 

 from the bed of ocean, while the frogs croak incessantly day and night, and the 

 lizards and snakes emerge from their holes, and creep into every corner of the dwell- 



