BY THE REV. J. E. TEXISON-WOODS. 



125 



us to a height which looker! great even to us, elevated as we were. 

 It seemed about 14 miles away. While we were gazing at its 

 outlines a sudden eruption burst from its summit. First came a 

 volume of black smoke, which rolled over and over like a turban 

 as it rose up into the sky. As this spread a tierce fountain of ash 

 and stones shot up underneath it and soon beyond it, making a 

 grey and black canopy to the cone. So furious was the outburst 

 that in a few seconds it was more than 3,000 feet above the 

 summit "With our glasses we could easily discern the grey or 

 white ash slipping in refts and avalanches down the side of the 

 mountain peak caused either by the fall of stones or by the 

 unceasing rain of pumice. This became thicker and thicker as the 

 eruption went on, and soon a thick curt ain of ash and smoke hung 

 between us and the magnificent outline of Semeru. We listened 

 for some distant thundcrings from this fiery outbreak, but all was 

 merged in the hoarse roaring and bubbling of Bromo in the valley 

 below. I never shall forget the sublimity of the scene of the first 

 explosion. The clear outline of the mountain, so bright in the 

 early morning, its grand height and graceful proportions, and then 

 the sudden disturbance of its calm repose by outbreak of ash, 

 smoke, and fire until all was submerged in cloud, made it surely 

 one of the grandest of natural phenomena. 



The sight of this eruption rendered us more anxious to have a 

 better view of the active crater near. We descended into the 

 sand sea as already related. When we arrived on the level our 

 state from dust and ash was rather ludicrous. The land beneath 

 our feet was nearly of the uniform black hue which our faces, 

 hands, and clothes had very soon assumed. But it was now a level 

 plain that we were upon, and our course towards Bromo was easy 

 and rapid. We were in a perfect amphitheatre of large dimensions. 

 The walls around us were generally 500 and sometimes 1,000 feet 

 high, apparently quite rugged and precipitous, except in one or 

 two places. Their rough irregular outline, their varieties of colour, 

 such as an old furnace wall or kiln might present, made them 

 picturesque but wild and savage in aspect. It is in fact just like 

 the walls of an immense smoked and blackened cauldron. No one 



