Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/287

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DJOKJAKARTA

S the heat of Solo was but little less than that of Batavia, and we had only worse accounts and solemn warnings given of the sickening, unendurable heat of Soerabaya, where fever and cholera most often abide, it seemed wisest to give up the visit to that east end of the island, to forego that torrid shore where first the Arabs landed and conquered the Hindu rulers of Majapahit, to be succeeded in their turn by the Portuguese, and then the Dutch. The ruins of Majapahit, and the tombs of its princes, and the graves of the Arab priests who were the first rulers of the conquered empire are attractions in Soerabaya's neighborhood; but the great object was the Mount Bromo of the Tengger plateau, where the exhausted residents may take refuge from the steaming plain and breathe again. Tosari, the great sanatorium, on one of the sharp spurs of the Tengger, is over five thousand feet in air, and commands one of the most famous views in Java, with the plains, the sea, and groups of islands in one direction, and the great Bromo, smoking splen- 265