66 CRATER OF THE BROMO. 



climbed a grassy knoll, on the side of which we 

 had stopped to admire it. We now found ourselves 

 on the bank of a curvilinear precipice, 1,000 or 

 1,200 feet deep, the wall of an ancient crater. This 

 wall, which was nearly circular, embraced a space 

 of fully five miles in diameter, in the centre of 

 which rose a mound, composed of an agglomeration 

 of small cones and craters, 600 or 800 feet high. 

 One of these orifices was still active, though only 

 giving forth smoke at the present moment. 



The space around this central mass, between it 

 and the wall on which we stood, was a smooth sur- 

 face of dark brown sand, and is called " laut pasir," 

 or " the sandy sea." On our right, or towards the 

 north, the great bounding wall was broken down 

 over a considerable space, the remaining fragment 

 not being more than 200 feet high ; but towards the 

 left, it swept round for several miles, with a height 

 of nowhere less than 1000 feet, and appeared to 

 form on the inside an absolutely perpendicular pre- 

 cipice. Its top was rugged and broken, and often 

 very narrow, the grassy slope on the outside being 

 excessively steep, generally too much so for any one 

 to climb up it. We stood on nearly the highest 

 point of this narrow ridge, at a height above the 

 sea of 8,241 feet, according to my observation. This 

 point is called the Ider-Ider. The active volcano 

 in the centre is called the Bromo, # which name is 



* Bromo is the ceremonial Javanese word for " fire/* the ordi- 

 nary word being " guni." 



