110 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGEAPHY AND TEAYEL 



is perfectly level, in one part sanely and barren, but else- 

 %yhere covered with prairie and other grasses, and from 

 its centre rises a little group of small peaks. The cliief 

 of these (600 feet in height), known to the natives as 

 Bromo (Brahma), is in a state of constant activity, and 

 having been in past times a sacred mountain to those 

 professing the Hindu rehgion, is still held in awe by the 

 Javanese. Tenger is connected by a high ridge with 

 Semeru, whose summit hes about eight miles south of it. 

 The latter ejected in 1885 a stream of lava of considerable 

 volume. 



Although the earthquakes occurring in Java are 

 neither so frequent nor so terribly destructive as those of 

 the Philippine Islands, they are nevertheless far from 

 uncommon. The most celebrated is that of 5 th January 

 1699, on the occasion of the eruption of Salak akeady 

 referred to, when 208 considerable shocks were felt, and 

 many houses in Bata^da destroyed. Again, in 1867, a 

 violent earthquake occurred in central Java, which caused 

 great havoc and killed numbers of people. In the 

 capital of Jokjokarta alone a thousand are said to have 

 perished. 



In a country so eminently volcanic as Java, the 

 occurrence of the rarer phenomena owing their existence 

 to the agency of volcanic forces might be expected, and 

 accordingly we find not only an abundance of hot springs, 

 solfataras, and the like, but various manifestations of the 

 great subterranean fires w^hich are not so frequently seen. 

 The wondrous tales of the deadly " Poison Yalley " — the 

 celebrated Guwa Upas — have long ago been proved to be 

 mythical, as has been already stated, but they may 

 perhaps have been confused with hearsay accounts of 

 Pajagalon, a valley near the lake of Talaga Bodas, where 

 the ground emits carbonic acid gas in sufficient quantities 



