404 TRAFELS IN THB BAST IXDIAN AEGHIPELAGO. 



The lieight of this point is a little less than that 

 at Matua, and all the way from Fort de Kock to this 

 place I have been aide to keep in sight the remains 

 of the plateau which begins on the south ^vith 

 the col between the Singalang and Mt^rapi. The 

 horizontal layers, that once filled the whole valley 

 west of usj have been C4irried away by the streams 

 until only a narrow margin is left on the Baiizan, 

 and its parallel chain; it forcibly i-eminds me of the 

 ten-aces seen along the upper part of some of our 

 own New-England rivers — for instance, those in the 

 upper part of the Connecticut Yalley. 



Here, at Palimbayang, I have had the first oppor- 

 tunity of enjoying a view of that magnificent moun- 

 tain, Ophir, nine thousand seven hundred and sev- 

 enty feet in height. Its truncated summit indicates 

 that its highest parts are the rniiis of an old crater, 

 and this thought reminds us of the volcanic action 

 to which the mountain owes its biitli. The name of 

 this mountain is not of native origin, but ^vas given 

 it by the Portuguese, because they fancied that at 

 last they had found the place where the ships of 

 Solomon obtained the enormous quiintities of gold 

 that he used in adorning the magnificent temple of 

 Jerusalem, Tlie same name they also gave to an- 

 other, but a much smaller moiintajn^n the Malay 

 Peninsula, forty miles of the ^^"of Malacca, 



In the vicinity of both of these mountains much 

 gold had been obtained for centuries before Euro- 

 peans ever came to this region. The idea enter- 

 tained by the Portuguese, that a part of the gold 

 which reached Jerusalem came from this island and 



