BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON- WOODS. 563 



10,105 feet above the level of the sea and 8 miles distant from 

 Ringit. The road passes over the lava and tufa deposits between 

 the two mountains. It is not so rugged as one would expect. 

 The country around is desolate jungle and much infested with wild 

 animals, tigers, leopards and panthers being especially abundant. 

 The first part of the road 7 miles distant from Situ Bondo to 

 Pragekan, is exceedingly interesting by the banks of the river 

 which runs with a rapid torrent over a rocky bed. From thence 

 to Bondo Wosso (19 miles) four populous villages are passed; 

 namely, Klabang, Tapan, Wonosari and Tangsit. These are mere 

 villages or cam pongs, but Bondo Wosso is a large town quite 

 as large as Situ Bondo, if not larger. Between Bondo Wosso and 

 Besuki, there are only the campongs of Poler 3J miles, Wringin 

 distant 4^ miles, and Budawan 6 miles. 



Ringit is a mountain which has been quite recently in activity. 

 A most destructive eruption took place from it in the year 1586, 

 on which occasion the whole of an area near the sea coast nearly 

 50 square miles in extent fell in, engulphing whole villages and 

 their inhabitants. My own opinion is that there were no villages 

 there at the period mentioned, for there is pretty good evidence of 

 an old crater having existed before the historical eruption took 

 place. But there are many unequivocal signs of an enormous 

 subsidence, which has left a wide ring of jagged walls, as abrupt 

 and broken as can be well imagined. The pinnacles and high 

 isolated needles of tufa bear silent testimony to the extent and 

 violence of the disturbance. An immense number of people perished. 

 From the inclination of the beds of ash that remain on the sides, 

 I should think it would be quite easy to calculate the former 

 height of the mountain, which probably was fully 10,000 or 

 11,000 feet. At present the highest part of the walls does not 

 exceed 4,095 feet, though Crawfurd gives it as 4,200. The walls 

 are riven into such precipitous detached peaks that scarcely any 

 jungle grows upon the barren heights, which are in most cases 

 quite inaccessible. The volcanic fires seem quite extinguished, 

 and this, tradition says, has been the case since the last eruption, 

 but there are no authentic records. It is a somewhat curious fact 

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