Page:Life in Java Volume 1.djvu/177

Rh masses, or mounds of mud and sand, coated with a cake of baked clay like red lava. Some of these mounds have been wasted away by rain, leaving deep broad fissures in the Sand Sea, like the beds of dried-up rivers; while others, still supplied with liquid substance from the volcano, are advancing on the Dasar, covering that part of it in the immediate proximity of the crater. Imbedded in these mounds are large blocks of lime and ironstone, also huge black stones veined like marble and shining like granite. These, with the light stones which, from their burnt appearance, resemble cinder, are seen scattered about in all directions, and are supposed to have been ejected at the last eruption of the Bromok, which Herr Van Rhée informed us took place a few years ago, the ashes coming as far as the gardens at Tosari.

We rode over some of the mounds to the foot of a series of dilapidated-looking steps, once protected by railings, which are now of little use, as,