JAVA COMPARED WITH CUBA. 



77 



^tna, except tliat a gi*eat depression among these 

 movable materials could not have such high, precipi- 

 tous walls as ai'e seen in that deep gul£ This enip- 

 tion was quite like that of Papandayang, except that 

 there waa a lake in the bottom of this crater which 

 supplied the hot water and the mud, while all the 

 materials thrown out by the former volcano were in 

 a dry state. In a similar way it is supposed the 

 great crater and the "Sandy Sea" of the Tenger 

 Mountains were formed in ancient times. On these 

 Tenger Mountains live a peculiar people, who speak 

 a dialect of the Javanese, and, despite the zealous 

 efforts of the Mohammedan piiest^, still retain their 

 ancient Hindu religion. 



In the evening, fires appeared on the hills near 

 the sea. This was the last we saw of Java, which, 

 though but one-sixth of tlie area of Borneo, and one- 

 third that of Sumatra, is by far the most important 

 island in the archipelago. It is to the East Indies 

 what Cuba is to the West Indies. In each there is 

 a gi'eat central chain of mountains. Both shores of 

 Cuba are opposite small bodies of water, and are con- 

 tinuously low and swampy for miles, but in Java 

 only the north coast borders on a small sea. This 

 shore is low, but the southem coast, on the margin 

 of the wide Indian Ocean that stretches away to 

 the Antarctic lands, is high and bold, an exception 

 which is in accordance vrith the rule that the higher 

 elevations are opposite the greater oceans, or, more 

 properly, that they stand along the borders of the 

 ocean-beds or greatest depressions on the sui^face 

 of our globe. In Java, where the coast is rocky, 



