498 TOUR FROM SOURAB.4YA, THAO UGH KEDIRI, &C. 
nor ceased till they had sated the cravings of their sharp ap¬ 
petites, which had been whetted for the occasion by a long 
morning’s ride, and had to be blunted preparatory to a more 
arduous mountain excursion. The village worthies an4 offi¬ 
cials being seated on the mats around, in earnest conclave, 
while waiting for breakfast, a good opportunity was offered 
for enquiring into the history of an extraordinary being who 
died on Gunong Kawi about the year 1833 or 1834. This 
person always went by the name of Eang Romo—Eang sig¬ 
nifying ‘of the olden time” and Romo being a honorific de¬ 
signation of “Father, ” As a young man he is said to have 
been born and brought up at the dessa of Wagu, east from 
the town of Kediri, of mean parents however, having no pre¬ 
tensions to nobility. He in the first instance became hermit 
upon the Gunong Wilis, but appears to have been of little note 
till he removed from that mountain to the Kawi, which took 
place at the time of the rebellion of Raden Ronggo and which 
must consequently have been in November or December 1819, 
as at that period this prince absconded from the Court of Juggo- 
kerto and endeavoured to raise a rebellion in Madion From 
this he was soon afterwards driven by the troops of the Sultan 
aided by a few Dutch auxiliaries, and on the 17th December 
met his death in an action near K_erto Soho* Eang Romo was 
considered to be perfect in his “Ajaran,” or works of penance 
and mortification, he never eat of anything that had drawn 
the breath of life, subsisting on rice and vegetables, in the 
use of which even he was most abstemious. He used to pre¬ 
tend that he never slept but only occasionally dosed a little, 
and to check himself in which as much as possible, he had a 
peculiar kind of seat prepared in which he placed himself when 
drowsy, and which was so constructed as to rouse him, when 
from incipient sleep, he lost his equilibrium. Mr William 
Stavers relates that he once had the curiosity to visit this old 
man on the Kawi, and curious to test his power of refrainin 0 " 
from sleep watched^ him all night. Only on one occasion he 
fancied he caught him napping and immediately springing to 
his feet taxed him with the same. The old man, however, 
without losing his composure, quietly rolled round his head 
and answered Rhoten !—it is not so. Year after year he 
kept moving his station higher up the Kawi, near the top of 
which he had arrived at the time of his death. By his own 
strict order and wish, the mortal remains of Eang Romo were 
not committed to the earth, but consumed on a pile of wood, 
a . thing probably unheard of in Java for some hundred years, 
since the introduction of Mahometanism; the ashes are re- 
