248 Voyage of the Novara. 



occasionally happened that the traveller, while treading some 

 of these funnel-shaped, narrow, tremendous defiles, miexpect- 

 edly found himself at some sudden tm*n face to face with 

 one of these gigantic animals, and that, with a precipice on 

 one hand and a wall of rock on the other, there was no visi- 

 ble means of escaping. Under such circumstances there was 

 nothing for it but to fight for life and death, until the stronger 

 marched over the corpse of the weaker. At present an excel- 

 lent bridle-path leads from Lembang to the summit of the 

 mountain, for the construction of which the community is 

 indebted to Dr. Junghuhn. 



" On the morning of 18tli May we set out from Lembang 

 for the summit of Tangkuban Prahu, in company with Dr. 

 de Vrij. The Regent of Bandong had sent us capital horses 

 of the pure Macassar race, and, followed by a crowd of well- 

 disciplined Sundanese, we at length after a two hours' ride 

 stood at the edge of the crater. 



" Dense clouds of va23our filled the abyss below, from which 

 at a considerable depth and in various directions issued tlie 

 most appalling sounds, as though hundreds of steam engines 

 were sobbing at work far beneath us, or like the broken sound 

 of water falling in spray from a great height upon the rocks. 

 Some dead trees standing on the brink of the ab3^ss had a 

 blackened appearance as though they had been charred, which 

 we ascribed to the sulphureous vapours, that must be evolved 

 with most destructive power when the crater is in fidl activity. 

 Into this hideous abyss we now prepared to descend, by a 



