I.] ASCENT OF A VOLCANO. 17 



the foxes runs up trees!" The dragon guarding Jack's golden 

 apples was, I need hardly say, a Pteropus or Mymg Fox, — one of the 

 large frugivorous bats so abundant throughout the Malay Islands. 



One of our excursions was to the summit of a small volcano on 

 the west side of the island. Our path led through the coconut 

 plantation, where, if we chose to stand and watch steadily the 

 crowns of the palms some forty feet or more above our heads, the 

 restless movements of numbers of brilliant little sun- birds could be 

 noticed, their dark forms changing momentarily into a flash of 

 metallic violet as they passed from beneath the shadow of the 

 fronds. They were all of one species, Antliothreptes malaccensis, 

 a common bird which, with slight variations in plumage, is found 

 throughout the greater part of Malaysia. The hill — for being only 

 400 feet in height, the volcano cannot be dignified by any more 

 imposing title — rises gently in the form of an abruptly-truncated 

 cone, and bears evidence of tolerably recent formation, for its 

 slopes were covered by the bright green lalang grass only, and the 

 jungle had not as yet succeeded in obtaining a footing. In 

 countries farther removed from the equator the traces of volcanic 

 eruptions may remain almost unaltered for centuries, but in these 

 lands of perpetual summer the combined action of a powerful sun 

 and heavy rain rapidly disintegrates the lavas, and prepares a 

 surface soil for the reception of seeds. Ere long the sea of tropical 

 vegetation has closed over the spot, and the smaller size of the 

 jungle trees alone reveals it to the traveller's eye. Some months 

 later, while in the island of Sumbawa, we came across a well- 

 marked instance of this kind on the slopes of the huge Tambora 

 volcano, whose terrific eruption in April, 1815, caused the death of 

 12,000 people. The wavy course of a lava-stream, though doubtless 

 unrecognisable on the spot itself, could be traced with the greatest 

 ease from the ship. Nature's wound had no doubt skinned over 

 rapidly enough, but the scar still remained. 



Arriving at the summit we found an evenly-shaped crater 

 nearly 100 feet in depth, its sides clothed with trees of no great 

 VOL. II. c 



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