590 GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES IN MALAYSIA AND ASIA, 



can have any difficulty iu seeing that it cannot be so long ago 

 since the sand sea was a seething mass of lava. This extinct outer 

 crater or sand sea is almost 5 miles long by a mile and a- 

 half or perhaps more at its widest part. It is probably a crater of 

 subsidence, as the broken strata of the cliffs all round would seem 

 to testify. To any one who would give the necessary expenditure 

 of time, measurements would easily show what has been the 

 former height and form of the cone. 



We skirted round the hill or cone which occupies the centre of 

 the sand sea, evidently a crater built up by a hasty and violent 

 eruption. It is somewhat thickly clothed with wild oak, chestnut, 

 and other trees, but in places the loose gi'ey ash has been rather 

 deeply scored by the rains. I should say that the hill was almost 

 inaccessible, though Mr. Weld-Blundell offered to scale it within 

 six hours if we would wait for him. Our guides assured us that 

 no one had been on the top. It can, however, be scarcely over 

 1,000 feet above the level of the sand sea. 



Having passed two-thirds round tliis cone we came to a wt.ll- 

 built temporaiy attap tent, with a shed of the same material close 

 by. Both of these were covered with half-withered adornments 

 of flowers, coloured paper, red calico, <fec. There were marks too 

 of a rather extensive encampment. These weie the remains of 

 the annual festival held by the mountaineers in honour of tlie 

 god Brama, after whom the mountain is named. Flowers, fruit, 

 and wine are offered on the mountain, and then thrown into the 

 crater as a peace offering. Music with various other festivities 

 keep up the celebration for two or three days. They say that 

 10,000 people and more assemble in the sand sea on these occa- 

 sions, including, strangely enough, many Mahometan Javanese, 

 whose creed utterly condemns such rites. 



Rising in a slope a short distance from this old camp were 

 slopes and hillocks of grey ash. having much the appearance of 

 hills of blown sand by the side of the ocean. Scattered over them 

 irregularly were nodules of ])umice and scoriae, seldom larger than. 

 2 inches in diameter. Some of these had been quite recently 



