Mud Volcanoes. 267 



drop of Diud that spurted on to my finger scalded like boiling- 

 water. A short distance off there was a flat bare surface of 

 rock, as smooth and hot as an oven floor, which was evidently 

 an old mud-pool dried up and hardened. For hundreds of 

 yards round, where there Avere banks of reddish and white 

 clay used for whitewash, it was still so hot close to the surface 

 that the hand could hardly bear to be held in cracks a few 

 inches deep, and from which arose a strong sulphureous vapor. 

 I was informed that some years back a French gentleman who 

 visited these springs ventured too near the liquid mud, when the 

 crust gave way and he was engulfed in the horrible caldron. 



This evidence of intense heat so near the surface over a 

 large tract of countiy was very imiDressive, and I could hardly 

 divest myself of the notion that some terrible catastrophe 

 might at any moment devastate the country. Yet it is prob- 

 able that all these apertures are really safety-valves, and that 

 the inequaUties of the resistance of various parts of the earth's 

 crust wiU always prevent such an accumulation of force as 

 would be required to upheave and overwhelm any extensive 

 area. About seven miles west of this is a volcano which was 

 in eruption about thirty years before my visit, presenting a 

 magnificent appearance and covering the surrounding country 

 with showers of ashes. The plains around the lake formed 

 by the intermingling and decomposition of volcanic products 

 are of amazing fertility, and with a little management in the 

 rotation of crops might be kept in continual cultivation. Rice 

 is now grown on them for three or four years in succession, 

 when they are left fallow for the same period, after which rice 

 or maize can be again grown. Good rice produces thirty-fold, 

 and cofEee-trees continue bearing abundantly for ten or fifteen 

 years without any manure and with scarcely any cultivation. 



I was delayed a day by incessant rain, and then pi'oceeded 

 to Panghu, which I reached just before the daily rain began 

 at 1 1 A.M. After leaving the summit level of the lake basin, the 

 road is carried along the slope of a fine forest ravine. The 

 descent is a long one, so that I estimated the village to be not 

 more than 1,500 feet above the sea, yet I found the morning 

 temperature often 69°, the same as at Tondano, at least 600 

 or 700 feet higher. I was pleased with the appearance of the 

 place, which had a good deal of forest and wild country around 



