394 PEAK OF LOMBOCK. 



and gently undulating, till we approached the 

 northern end of the strait, when it gradually rose, 

 and with a regular bold curve swelled upwards on 

 all sides into a noble pile of mountain, the shoulders 

 of which were completely hidden by a dense curtain 

 of cloud. Immediately behind the beach was a line 

 of feathery cocoa-nuts, over which green -topped 

 knolls began to appear rising out of thick woods ; 

 and the broad slope beyond was chequered with dark 

 forests and large green open spaces like cultivated 

 fields. At a height of some four thousand feet, this 

 beautiful slope disappeared in the clouds that 

 stretched out from it over our heads in broad level 

 sheets, with a perfectly smooth surface beneath, but 

 undulating above, so as here to be thick and heavy, 

 there light and thin, or altogether broken through. 

 From these holes in the clouds, spots of sunlight 

 fell here and there upon the slope, varying frequently 

 in form and position, and every variety of shadow 

 was cast upon the ground, as the clouds above 

 slowly shifted their places and wheeled around the 

 mountain* This scene was so very beautiful, that I 

 could hardly think of anything else ; but when we 

 got fairly out of the strait to the northward, I 

 looked out for the famous volcano of Tomboro, about 

 sixty miles to the eastward, but it was too hazy in 

 that direction to allow it to be visible. This was 

 about five o'clock in the afternoon ; and as the sun 

 sank towards the horizon, the clouds about Lombock 

 Peak likewise descended, and we had shortly the 



