Botanical Notices from Java. 465 
fectly held together by a little earth and moss ; not unfrequently they 
rolled away from under our feet and struck those who were climb- 
ing lower down. We were soon obliged to descend in the deep bed of 
the torrent itself, the rocky bottom of which is frequently so steep 
and smooth, that, although with naked feet, we often lost our footing 
and slid down for many yards. ‘The mountain became gradually 
more naked, barren and steep; the little shrubs were more and more 
scattered and apart; and soon the ash-gray naked mountain wall 
lay before us, sterile and destitute of all verdure, and interrupted 
only by green fissures. Only Gaultheria repens and climbing Lyco- 
podia accompanied us still higher up; the above-mentioned lichens, 
some mosses, and the Polypodium vulcanicum reach in fact to the rim 
of the crater. 
Ascent of the Mud-Volcano Galungung. 
On the flatter and smoother tract spread out between the hills and 
the foot of the mountain, commences a frightful jungle. Everything, 
as far as the eye can reach, is covered with Saccharum Klaga, a jun- 
caceous species of grass, which reaches a height of fifteen feet, and 
the stalk of which is so thick that it is only possible to make a way 
through it with the greatest effort. ‘Ihe intermediate spaces are 
filled up with a species of Hquisetum, which rises ten feet high, and in 
the midst of which some species of Vanilla and other Orchidee 
unfold their blossoms. At the same time all the ground is soaked 
with moisture, so that at every moment one steps into little puddles 
or black channels of mud, which diffuse a mouldy smell, or into 
brooks and little ditches, which with a depth of severai feet are often 
scarcely a foot wide, and which cross the jungle in all directions. 
These communicate with larger rivulets, which wind slowly, and 
often quite hidden by the jungle, through this lower tract, and are 
only discovered by their noise. They quickly overflow their banks, 
when more water falls down the mountains after a heavy rain than 
can flow off in a short time from the slightly inclined rush-covered 
soil, which moreover is shut in by some low hills in front. 
An idea may be formed of the impenetrability of such a thicket, 
from the fact, that since yesterday more than three hundred Japanese 
have been engaged in cutting a small path for us, not wider than 
one or two feet. We here found a fresh proof of what we had al- 
ready previously experienced, that such jungles in Java are much 
more impassable than the thickest primitive forests. At one time we 
were obliged to make our way along little furrows or ditches, filled 
with water; at another, to wade through deep rivulets covered with 
loose masses of rock ; at another, to wade through boggy parts, which 
were only covered with spongy layers of klaga; again, at another 
time, we had to follow the path just before hewn out, where we ran 
the risk, from an insecure footing, of being impaled on the sharp 
cut-off stems of the klaga. 
The little paths which had been formed by the tigers and rhino- 
ceroses in the klaga were very serviceable to us, so that towards 
eleven o'clock we had passed the most wearisome and boggy portion 
of the thicket, and came to a more open tract, where we were most 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Vol. xvi. Suppl. 2L 
