Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/331

Rh tourist's whole duty to specialties of strange places for that one day, buying the monster nanas in most generous provision; and we made up for all previous denials and lost pineapple opportunities as we tore off the ripe diamonds of pulp in streaming sections that melted on the tongue; nor did we feel any sinking at heart nor dread of the future for such indulgence. Then, at Tissak Malaya, we bought strings of mangosteens through the car-windows. But after the light, evanescent, six-o'clock breakfast of the country, these noonday feasts of juicy fruits did not satisfy one for long, and soon we hungered again.

At Tjipeundeui, in the shadow of the great volcanic range that walls the west, a local chief, or village head man, was foremost on the station platform, that was crowded with cheerful, chattering groups of natives, hung over with bundles as if come from a fair. With great excitement the chief announced that the Goenoeng Galoengoeng, or "Great Gong Mountain," was in eruption again. Two weeks before it had rumbled, as its name indicates it has a habit of doing, and sent out a shower of stones that ruined a large coffee–plantation, scorching and half burying the budding trees in the hot rocks, pebbles, and sand. It had begun rumbling and shaking again, the village wells had emptied, and the people had fled, remembering too well the eruption of 1822, when one hundred and fifteen villages were destroyed, twenty thousand people were killed, and plantations ruined for twenty miles around by the rain of hot stones and ashes, and the hot water and mud overflowing from the blown-out crater. But such a gentle, happy, cheerful, chattering lot of