JAVA. 159 



are closed at both extremities, the water which accumulates during the wet 

 monsoon escaping through underground hucangs, or channels, seawards. The 

 Grunong Sewu district is described by Junghuhn as the loveliest in Java, its 

 shady avenues, gently sloping hills, grassy dells and villages surrounded by 

 gardens recalling the sylvan beauties of more temperate lands. 



North-east of the Grunong Sewu and of a more elevated semicircle of other 

 sedimentary hills, the Gunong Lavvu rises in nearly isolated majesty to an 

 altitude of 10,800 feet. The three domes of this volcano, which was formerly 

 venerated by the worshippers of Siva, are not pierced by craters ; but vapours still 

 escape from the deep crevasses on the south side. The Gunong Willis (8,500 feet), 

 some 50 miles beyond Lawu in the same igneous range, no longer presents the 

 form of a volcano. The supreme cone was probably blown away during some 

 prehistoric explosion, and now nothing remains except a long, irregular, and 

 craterless eminence. Thermal springs and solfataras, however, still attest the 

 existence of underground forces, both here and in the smaller Mount Pandan 

 (3,000 feet), which stands out on the plains to the north of Willis. 



South of Surabaya and its fluvial delta, Java is occupied by a transverse system 

 of other volcanoes, of which the Gunong Kelut (5,750 feet), lying nearest of 

 Willis, is the most dreaded by the natives. Its crater, at least 650 feet deep, is 

 flooded by a fresh-water tarn, whose contents were estimated by Junghuhn in 

 1844 at 2,000 millions of cubic feet. During eruptions, when the igneous outlet 

 lies below the lake, the liquid mass is converted into steam, which rises in dense 

 volumes emitting flashes of light and then falling on the slopes in tremendous 

 downj)ours of water mixed with the sands ejected by the volcano. Channels of 

 trachytic scoriae furrowing the flanks of the mountain from summit to base recall 

 the rush of these sudden torrents, which deluge the surrounding plains, sweeping 

 away the crops, uprooting forest trees, and razing the villages to the ground. 

 In 1848 the regular detonation of the gases which changed the lake into clouds of 

 vapour, produced an uproar that was heard throughout nearly the whole of 

 Indonesia. The Macassar people in Celebes, 500 miles off and under the lee of 

 the explosion, were terrified by what seemed like the roar of artillery, and 

 despatched vessels to scour the neighbouring seas. 



The other volcanoes of this system are extinct, or at least have retained but a 

 feeble remnant of their former energy. The triple-crested Kawi, whose highest 

 peak, the Butak, attains an altitude of 9,500 feet, has preserved no solfataras, and 

 only a solitary thermal spring ; the mighty Arjuno (11,000 feet), where the 

 Sivaites formerly offered sacrifices, emits vapours only from one fissure, while 

 Penanggungan (5,500 feet), last of the chain south of Surabaya, appears to be 

 completely quiescent, Nevertheless, in the main axis of the system, some 12 

 miles from Surabaya, two mud volcanoes have made their appearance, which are 

 about 30 feet high, and which are usually active at the turn of the tide. From 

 one are ejected fragments of bricks, which must come from the Hindu structures 

 of the ancient city of Mojo-Pahit, which formerly stood much farther to the 

 west. 



