39°2 ALASS STRAIT. 



and all kinds of refreshments were in abundance ; 

 that they traded freely for muskets and cloth, and 

 that the vessels took away 180 excellent small horses 

 or ponies. This happened in 1842. 



Having left Sandalwood Island, we had light 

 winds for the two following days, but about noon of 

 the 14th, we entered the Strait of Alass. As we 

 approached it we could see the high land of 

 Sumbawa on our right, almost entirely enveloped 

 in clouds, while on our left was the lower and nearly 

 level land of Lombock. The south-east end of the 

 latter island is bounded by small perpendicular cliffs, 

 behind which the land is gently undulating, rising 

 into ridges of about four or five hundred feet above 

 the sea. The cliffs are white at the base, capped 

 by a stratum of brownish rock ; in the white part, 

 the stratification was not perceptible, but its upper 

 surface was level and horizontal, and the brown 

 rock upon it was regularly and horizontally strati- 

 fied in thin beds. It looked just like gravel or 

 crag resting upon chalk. The opposite coast of 

 Sumbawa rose in steep and broken precipices to a 

 height of at least 2,000 feet ; still loftier hills in the 

 interior, peering dimly out here and there through 

 the clouds that lowered about them. Narrow and 

 abrupt ravines traversed these rugged-looking hills; 

 but even here all the rocks appeared to be regularly 

 stratified, and the sides of the ravines shewed a con- 

 tinuous and conformable thickness of beds from top 

 to bottom, inclined generally at no great angle, 



