-592 GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES IN MALAYSIA AND ASIA, 



would end before we were half way to the top. At length we 

 stood upon the perilous brink, where a very necessary handrail 

 a few yards long has been left by the considerate mountaineers. 

 The sight at first is enough to make one dizzy. One looks down a 

 funnel-shaped chasm about 500 feet deep, with an awfully steep 

 incline. The sides are encrusted with yellow sulphur, and various 

 huge stains of red, white and black. One sees also that much of 

 what seems like smoke is in reality steam, for there are constant 

 runnels of water flowing down the ash bank into the basin, and 

 scoring the sides in every conceivable way. At the summit it is 

 about one-third of a mile across ; at the bottom about a third of 

 that, or less. One i)art of the bottom is merely mud, from which 

 steam bubbles rise. On the side beneath us there is a deep wide 

 chasm, in which the smoke, ash, and steam conceal all but the 

 blackened and sulphur-encrusted rim. From this comes the hoarse, 

 deafening roar, which is really quite appalling. As the steam 

 rises, much of the ash falls back from the cloud, giving the sides a 

 weeping or combed-out appearance like a fountain of spray. All 

 round the outlet the mud has formed a rim, which has spread from 

 time to time, and then been cut down by the streams of condensed 

 water. We tried to throw stones down into the pit. There were 

 plenty of large fragments of scorise to hand, but the ash was so 

 tine and loose that, after rolling a short distance amid clouds of 

 dust, the stones buried themselves and became immovable. Once 

 or twice we fancied that we managed to sling a small stone into 

 the opening and that the roar became louder ; but we could not be 

 sure of this, for nothing could be seen. The ash looks solid enough, 

 but oue sinks ankle deep into it, and every now and then it slides 

 away from under the feet. 



The opposite side to where we stood is much higher and forms 

 a kind of peak, and then stretches away to form the sides of a 

 larger but extinct crater to the south, Widaderen, or the abode 

 of celestial nymphs. Like the other extinct cone (Butak, or the 

 bald, though it is not bald now), neither of these cones has been 

 in activity within historic times. I tried to walk round the rim 

 of the crater to Widaderen, but had to give up the attempt. The 



