This Is A Vast Semicircular Chasm, Bounded By Black
Perpendicular Walls Of Rock, And Surrounded By Miles Of Rugged
Scoria-Covered Slopes.
The crater itself is not very deep.
It
exhibits patches of sulphur and variously-coloured volcanic
products, and emits from several vents continual streams of smoke
and vapour. The extinct cone of Pangerango was to me more
interesting. The summit is an irregular undulating plain with a
low bordering ridge, and one deep lateral chasm. Unfortunately,
there was perpetual mist and rain either above or below us all
the time I was on the mountain; so that I never once saw the
plain below, or had a glimpse of the magnificent view which in
fine weather is to be obtained from its summit. Notwithstanding
this drawback I enjoyed the excursion exceedingly, for it was the
first time I had been high enough on a mountain near the Equator
to watch the change from a tropical to a temperate flora. I will
now briefly sketch these changes as I observed them in Java.
On ascending the mountain, we first meet with temperate forms of
herbaceous plants, so low as 3,000 feet, where strawberries and
violets begin to grow, but the former are tasteless, and the
latter have very small and pale flowers. Weedy composites also
begin to give a European aspect to the wayside herbage. It is
between 2,000 and 5,000 feet that the forests and ravines exhibit
the utmost development of tropical luxuriance and beauty. The
abundance of noble Tree-ferns, sometimes fifty feet high,
contributes greatly to the general effect, since of all the forms
of tropical vegetation they are certainly the most striking and
beautiful. Some of the deep ravines which have been cleared of
large timber are full of them from top to bottom; and where the
road crosses one of these valleys, the view of their feathery
crowns, in varied positions above and below the eye, offers a
spectacle of picturesque beauty never to be forgotten. The
splendid foliage of the broad-leaved Musceae and Zingiberaceae,
with their curious and brilliant flowers; and the elegant and
varied forms of plants allied to Begonia and Melastoma,
continually attract the attention in this region. Filling in the
spaces between the trees and larger plants, on every trunk and
stump and branch, are hosts of Orchids, Ferns and Lycopods, which
wave and hang and intertwine in ever-varying complexity. At about
5,000 feet I first saw horsetails (Equisetum), very like our own
species. At 6,000 feet, raspberries abound, and thence to the
summit of the mountain there are three species of eatable Rubus.
At 7,000 feet Cypresses appear, and the forest trees become
reduced in size, and more covered with mosses and lichens. From
this point upward these rapidly increase, so that the blocks of
rock and scoria that form the mountain slope are completely
hidden in a mossy vegetation. At about 5,000 feet European forms
of plants become abundant.
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