The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

220 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.the little town, with its neat red-tiled white houses and thethatched cottages of the natives, bounded on one side by the oldPortuguese fort. Beyond, about half a mile distant, lies thelarger island in the shape of a horseshoe, formed of a range ofabrupt hills covered Avith fine forest and nutmeg gardens ; whileclose opjDosite the town is the volcano, forming a nearly perfectcone, the lower part only covered with a light green bushyvegetation. On its north side the outline is more uneven, andthere is a slight hollow or chasm about one-fifth of the waydown, from which constantly issue two columns of Smoke, whichalso rises less abundantly from the rugged surface around andfrom some spots nearer the summit. A white efilorescence,probably sulphur, is thickly spread over the upper part of themountain, marked by the narrow black vertical lines of watergullies. The smoke unites as it rises, and forms a dense cloud,which in calm damp weather spreads out into a wide canopyhiding the toj) of the mountain. At night and early morning itoften rises up straight and leaves the whole outline cleai'.It is only when actually gazing on an active volcano that onecan fully realize its awfulness and grandeur. Whence comesthat inexhaustible fire whose dense and sulphureous smoke forever issues from this bare and desolate peak? Whence themighty forces that produced that peak, and still from time totime exhibit themselves in the earthquakes that always occur inthe \dcinity of volcanic vents ? The knowledge from childhood,of tlie fact that volcanoes and earthquakes exist, lias taken awaysomewhat of the strange and exceptional character that reallybelongs to them. Tlie inhabitant of most parts of northernEurope sees in the earth the emblem of stability and repose.His whole life-experience, and that of all his age and generation,teaches him that the earth is solid and firm, that its massiverocks may contain water in abundance but never fire ; andthese essential characteristics of the earth are manifest in everymountain his country contains. A volcano is a fact opposed toall this mass of experience, a fact of so awful a character that,if it were the rule instead of the exception, it would make theeartli uninhabitable ; a fact so strange and unaccountable thatwe may be sure it would not be believed on any human testimony,if presented to us now for the first time, as a naturalphenomenon happening in a distant country.The summit of the small island is composed of a highly crystallinebasalt ; lower down I found a hard stratified slaty sandstone,wliile on the beach are huge blocks of lava, and scattered massesof white coralline limestone. The larger island has coral rock toa height of three or four hundred feet, while above is lava andbasalt. It seems probable, therefore, that this little group offour islands is the fragment of a larger district which was perhapsonce connected with Ceram, but which was separated andbroken up by the same forces which formed the volcanic cone.When I \'isited the larger island on another occasion, I saw a