STRUCTURE OF THE HOUSE. 39 



valley was about a quarter of a mile wide, one entire 

 meadow of the most beautiful green grass.* The 

 banks of this valley were steep green slopes, about 

 thirty or forty feet in height, with broken skirts of 

 wood. Over this beautiful foreground rose the 

 noble and symmetrical cone of the Semiru, smoking 

 away occasionally in grand style, with a lower but 

 still lofty and rugged range of mountains stretching 

 away to the north-west, and another broken ridge 

 sloping to the sea on the south. The house was 

 raised on a wooden platform, and built entirely of 

 bamboo, except the beams, floors, and corner posts, 

 the workmanship being remarkably neat and strong. 

 The central room was open at both ends, from the 

 front verandah to the back, but could be closed at 

 pleasure by cane mats or blinds, that were kept 

 rolled up under the eaves of the roof.t Over the 

 brook, in front of the house, was a small bamboo 

 shed for a bathing house. The water was shallow, 

 very rapid, running over a bed of lava pebbles, and 

 its temperature was only 72°, which appeared in- 

 tensely cold to our feelings, the air now being 85°. 

 It must come very rapidly from the mountains be- 



* The rich greenness of the grass in the interior of Java quite 

 equalling that of England, is a rarity in a tropical country, and 

 it was peculiarly grateful to our eyes after being accustomed for 

 two years to the living hay of Australia. 



t There is a great analogy between this kind of house, or the 

 open pandopo of the Javanese, and the houses of the Tonga 

 Islanders, as described by Mariner. (See Vol. ii. p. 250.) 



