BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT. 29 



upper margin of the bank, the ground sloped gently 

 in every direction, and was covered with a long green 

 grass with a very broad leaf called alang alang. To- 

 wards the south, was a green and fertile-looking plain, 

 beautifully patched with dark woods. This sloped 

 gently towards the southern sea, which could be 

 seen gleaming in the horizon at a distance of fifteen 

 or twenty miles, with a large shadowy-looking island 

 on the left, called Nusa Baron. Almost behind the 

 spectator, rose the Lamongan, from which a long 

 green slope stretched off into the distance on his 

 left, while some twenty miles on his right front, 

 abruptly rising from a crested ridge near the sea, 

 shot up the noble pile of the Semiru, the loftiest, 

 most perfect, and majestic-looking cone we had yet 

 seen, or indeed ever saw in Java. Its height, ac- 

 cording to the Dutch almanack, is 12,292 feet, or 

 rather more than that of the peak of Teneriffe. 

 From the base of this mass, a long irregular 

 ridge of mountains stretched to the north, called 

 the Teng'ger, in which is the volcano of the 

 Bromo. In this direction, the foreground was also 

 broken into abrupt hills of no great elevation, but 

 with lovely green slopes and woody crests ; and 

 over all the country near at hand was a beautiful 

 variety of cultivated fields and patches of wood, and 

 untouched slopes of alang alang, with here and there 

 a native kampong, half concealed by its groves of 

 fruit-trees. Everything was lovely in form and 

 colour and glittered in the hot sunshine ; while a 



