IN SUMATRA. 211 



every passing cloud. We had sat thus for perhaps ten to 

 twelve minutes when I noted that tlie centre of tlie white basin 

 had become intensely black, and scored with dark streaks. 

 , This area gradually increased. By steady scrutiny with my 

 glass, for it was difficult to make out what was silently 

 and slowly transpiring, I at last discovered that the black- 

 ness marked the sides of a chasm that had formed in — what I 

 now perceived the white burnished mirror to be — a lake of 

 seething mud. The blackness increased. Tlie lake was being 

 engulphed ! A few minutes later a dull sullen roar was heard, 

 and I had just time to conjecture within myself whence it 

 proceeded, when the whole lake heaved, and rose in the air for 

 some hundreds of feet, not as if violently ejected, but with 

 calm majestic upheaval ; and then fell back on itself with an 

 -awesome roar, which reverberated round and round the vast 

 cauldron, and echoed from rocky wall to rocky wall like the 

 surge of an angry sea ; and the immense volume of steam, let 

 loose from its prison-house, dissipated itself into the air. The 

 wave circles died aw^ay on the margin of the lake, which 

 resumed its burnished face and again reflected the blue sky; 

 and silence reigned again until the geyser had gathered force 

 for another expiration. The roar of the coming explosion was 

 so awesome that such of my porters who had followed me, and 

 had never been to the top before, looked the picture of ternn- ; 

 and when the lake rose they took to their heels and fled in a 

 body. Thus all day long the lake was swallowed up and 

 vomited forth, once in every fifteen to twenty minutes. That 

 it was not always so quiet even as now, the stones on the Sawali 

 and the scoria) on the sides of the cone testified. Once irt about 

 every three years, and in some decades oftener, the natives 

 told me, the crops of coiFee, bananas and rice were quite 

 destroyed by "sulphur-rain," which covered everything for 



miles round tlie crater. 



On its eastern side, where the rim rises to its highest eleva- 

 tion, I made a hypsometrical observation ; but it required all 

 my endurance to complete it, for, though a cold wind was 

 blowing and the thermometer registered only 63^ i\, th 



\ 



f* 



sun's rays seemed to possess more than their ordinary power, 

 I could feel, with acute pain, my hands, face and neck being 

 scorched the moment they came into the sunshine. I sue- 



