Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/173

Rh astonishment, then, when Herr Van Rhée told us it would take a quarter of an hour or more to accomplish the descent, as we were now about eight or nine hundred feet above it!

The mountain we were on forms one of a chain, which, rising in irregular bold ridges, surrounds the whole extinct crater.

Straight before us, but at a distance of fully two miles from the foot of the Mungal, is a cluster of mountains, which, rising about the centre of the crater, bisect it from right to left. The foremost of these is the Batok, or Butak, meaning bald; probably so called from its being bare of herbage at the summit, while the lower parts are covered with it. It is conically shaped, with deep grooves, or hollows, running regularly down the sides to the base, the result undoubtedly of a constant and rapid overflow of lava during the period of its activity as a volcano many years ago. To the right, a little