58 
BANDA— GUNUNG API, 
surface with nutmeg-trees. As though to form 
an offset to this luxuriance and fertility, towers 
the terrible fire-mountain Gunung Api, which 
reeks eternally from its shapely cone, like a 
fierce guardian of these gardens of Paradise. 
A sulphureous smoke ever rises from its bare 
and scarred summit, but its base and flanks 
are green with trees, amid whose shade a white 
dwelling here and there peeps out, heedless of 
the internal fires that blister the smouldering 
cone. Plow strange it was to lean on the ships 
rail, and gaze down into the tranquil harbour, 
whose waters are so transparent that living 
corals, and even the minutest objects, are 
plainly seen on the volcanic sand at a depth of 
seven or eight fathoms ; then to lift the eyes to 
the smoking mountain, and picture the terrible 
tumult in tbe fiery caverns within ! 
Passing from the shore, along which runs a 
row of clean -looking whitewashed houses, the 
steep shady path to the left leads to the 
gardens; keeping to the right, you ascend to 
the town. Following one street and then 
another, having on each side Arab, Chinese, 
and Malay shops, where all necessities, such as 
food, clothing, and coffins, are displayed for 
purchase, you emerge on a green level bordered 
