IN SUMATRA. 



213 



me, picking our way in the dark over the atones and among 

 the bushes. We hatl hardly set out when a dense mist began 

 to envelop its flanks and summit, which np to this time had 

 stood ont against the sky with perfect sharpness. Before we 

 were able to reach the crest we could see that the sun had 

 already come up, from the lighter glow of the mist in the east; 

 but no view anywhere, however, could be obtained. It was 

 very cold and damp, and the thermometer did not register up 

 to seven o'clock more than 4S'5{f F., and even at half-past 

 seven it had fallen again to 45"50' F. Hoping that the mist 

 would clear, we seated ourselves behind a rock out of the wind to 

 watch the geyser below us; and beside one of the small 

 enclosures, or low barricades of stone a few feet in length, 

 which were dotted all along the ridge, the sleeping places, thus 

 roughly sheltered from the wind, of the devotees who come to 

 inquire of the Dewa of the mountain in times of difiiculty or, 

 as my guide said, in hope of finding near them in the morning 

 some charm whose possession would protect them against harm 

 or enable them to prevail over their enemies, or to attain some 

 dear object of their desire or ambition ; ** but they often," he 

 added, ** experience nothing but the cold/' 



As the sun rose a little higher and stronger, I observed on 

 the margin of the crater opposite to us a curious horseshoe- 

 shaped rainljinv, and for some moments I was not aware that I 

 was witnessing a display of the Spectre of the Bro^hen. Each 

 person's shadow thrown on the mist was surrounded by a bright 

 halo outside which was a band of mist, and the whole enclosed 

 in the distinct horseshoe-shaped rainWw, At length the mist 

 entirely cleared ofT the moimtains, and we stood gazing on a 

 wonderful scene half land and half sea, from the highest peak 

 within the sweep of the eye; but any attempt to convey a 

 picture of such varied elements can be at best but mere dis- 

 juinted suggestions. 



Looking awny south-east, the eye, passing over the plain of 

 Passumah Ulu Jrunna, laid out in rice*fieida in their first 

 fresh greenness of ^lay, and d€>tted with grovo-environed 

 villages, falls on the white surf of the distant (jcean fur to tlui 

 south of the to^vn of Manna, and follows it northward by its 

 forest-clad margin, on which I could even discern the tide 

 gently heaving, to beyond Bencoolen, until the meeting of 



