Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/338

258 1772, it is said 4000 people and 40 villages were destroyed. Guntur—the Mountain of Thunder— is always up to mischief and doing damage; it is 7362 feet high. Then in 1822 Galunggung, a quite placid apparently extinct mountain, 7313 feet high, without the slightest warning suddenly gave vent to a thunderous roar and a dense cloud of smoke poured forth, whilst hot water, stones, and mud flowed down, destroying everything, and stones and ashes covered a radius of twenty miles. Not content with this it repeated the performance, half the mountain was blown away, large stones thrown seven miles, the country covered with many feet of greenish-blue mud, 114 villages and 4000 people destroyed. There are also many mud geysers and such things. The rivers, though small, are many. At least a hundred bad thunderstorms take place annually.

No one can call this a dull land, or one without interest, with all this activity around. Apparently you cannot sit down quietly for a moment with everything popping off in this manner without a word of warning.

A great part of this lively island is covered with forest, but much of it is really a garden. There are splendid trees, and the teak is famous. Rice, coffee, chinchona, all sorts of fruit—in fact, everything grows. Two hundred and forty species of birds are known, of which forty are peculiar to Java: there are wild peacock, jungle fowl, pigeon, quail, and tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses, wild dogs, and wild pigs; monkeys, wild oxen, and deer add to its attractions, to say nothing of the durian, which does not allow itself to be overlooked.

The Javanese are noted as being very truthful and straightforward, are very docile, industrious, and sober, and are also attractive in looks. They are excellent workmen, good weavers and agri-