t green. A lake of azure crystal mirrors a thick fringe of the
great fronds, and on every parapet of the ruddy cliffs the living
emerald of the lanceolated foliage glows in vivid contrast with the
splintered crags. Sindanglaya is the refuge of fever-stricken Europeans
from malarial coast or inland swamp, but the hotel is now empty of
invalids. The kind proprietor lavishes time and care on English guests,
and the attentive Malay "room-boys," squatting on the verandah outside
our doors, fear to lose sight of their charges for a moment, lest some
need of native help should arise. They watch hand and eye like faithful
dogs, for their language is unintelligible to us as ours to them, and
the only attempt at speech is "_Chow-chow, mister!_" when the
dinner-bell rings, the mystic words accompanied by a realistic
pantomime of mouth and fingers.

The following morning dawns like an ideal day of June, and we start in
chairs, carried by four coolies, for the beautiful Falls of Tjibereum.
A mountain road winds through rice-fields and tree-ferns towards fold
upon fold of lilac peaks, until we reach the mountain garden of
Tjibodas, the beautiful supplement of incomparable Buitenzorg. A
strange sense of remoteness belongs to this lonely pleasaunce of the
upper world, on a sheltered slope of ever-burning Gedeh, quiescent now
save for the blue curl of sulphurous smoke, which gives perpetual
warning of those smouldering forces ever ready to devastate the
surrounding country. Subterranean activity increases during the rainy
season, and tremors of earthquake occasionally startle the equanimity
of those unused to the perils of existence on this thin crust of Mother
Earth, for Java's teeming soil and population rest upon an ominous
fissure of the globe's surface, and twelve of the forty-five volcanos
on this island of terror and beauty are still moderately active,
sometimes displaying sudden outbursts of energy. The green lawns and
towering camphor trees of Tjibodas suggest the spellbound beauty of
some enchanted spot, unprofaned by human foot. A glassy lake mirrors
the tall bamboos and feathery tamarinds, their slender and sensitive
foliage motionless in the still air of the dewy dawn. Huge coleas
accentuate the spring verdure with heavy masses of bronze and crimson,
and magnolias exhale intoxicating odours from snowy chalices. Blue
lilies and flaxen pampas grass grow in thickets upon the emerald
slopes, and the ordered loveliness of the mo