Official Travelling in Java. — Defile of the Tjitarum. 255 



'^ No fewer than tliirty-eiglit mounted Sundanese, all gaily- 

 dressed in their national costume, being in fact the chiefs 

 and magistrates of the district, had attached themselves to 

 us with all their retinue, besides a number of porters to at- 

 tend upon the cavalcade, by all of whom we were cordially 

 welcomed. Towards evening we entered amid music and 

 dancing into the village, which it had been arranged was to 

 be our quarters for the night, and amid more music, and a 

 general gathering of the population, we once more, in the 

 grey dawn of the next morning, mounted our horses. Such 

 is the mode of travel in Java when a Junghuhn prescribes 

 the route, when a Dutch Government official issues the re- 

 quisite orders, and when a native Regent carries them out. 



" On the 19th May we set off in an easterly direction 

 from Bandong for the river Tjitarum. Our object was to 

 explore the beautifid natural defile which is presented by 

 the deep chasm which forms the bed of that stream, where 

 it has forced a passage in a northerly dii'ection through a 

 round-backed range of green-stone and porj)hyritic moun- 

 tains which spring from the table-land of Bandong, forming 

 in this part of its course the beautifril water-falls of Tjm^uk- 

 Kapek, Tjuruk-Lanong, and Tjuruk-Djombong. In close 

 proximity to the very oldest volcanic formations of Java, one 

 sees here, laid bare by the river, lofty walls of the latest 

 fresh-water strata of the plateau of Bandong. We now rode 

 through the porphyritic ridge to the rocky cone of Batu- 

 Susun, on the flank of the Gunung Bulut, formed of vast 



