[Sidenote:  Bantong.] [Sidenote:  Javanese soiree.]

February 11th.—­Bantong.—­About 120 miles from Batavia, on a plain about 3,000 feet above the level of the sea.  The weather comparatively cool, though this is the hot season.  I have just (10 P.M.) returned from a Javanese soiree.  The Regent (a sort of native lord- lieutenant) invited me to his house to see some dancing.  This Regent is very rich, about L12,000 a year, which he receives from a tithe paid to him by all producers in his regency.  The dancing was performed by four girls wearing strange helmet-shaped head-dresses, and garments of a close-fitting stiff character reaching to the ground.  They swayed their bodies to and fro in a melancholy way to a very monotonous plaintive sort of music, but their chief art consisted in the wonderful success with which they twisted their arms and fingers.  In a second dance they carried bows and arrows, and went through a kind of pantomimic fight.  After this was over, as I had expressed a wish to see more of his house, I was taken across a court to another ground- floor room, and was startled by finding myself suddenly introduced to Madame la Regente, an odd little woman, with a wizened face, and mouth and teeth blackened by betel nut.  I was rather put into a difficulty in finding conversation for her, for I did not know whether she would like being complimented on the ballet we had just seen.  I then went to look at the musicians and their instruments, the latter consisting chiefly of coffee canes struck by a sort of gong-sticks.  The sound at a distance was bell-like and not unpleasing.  I was informed that the Regent had paid L500 for his set of instruments.  After this I returned to my inn in my carriage.  How I got to this place I shall tell later.  I must now go to bed, as we start at 5 A.M. on an expedition to see an active crater.

[Sidenote:  A crater.]

February 12th.—­Six P.M.—­We started nearly as early as was proposed.  Two hours of carriage work along a road made heavy by rain, and about two hours more of riding up a steep mountain side, covered with tall trees sinking under a load of creepers and orchideous plants, not so wild and bold as the mountain scenery of Jamaica, but with somewhat of the same character.  We ascended about 4,300 feet from our starting-point, so that when we reached our goal we were 6,500 feet above the sea.  Our goal was a covered shed overlooking a crater, not in a very active state, but puffing sulphurous smoke from numerous chinks and chasms.  Beyond this first crater was a second very similar to it; and beyond both, far below, the plain of Bantong, where we now are, lay green and smiling.  We could not see a great extent of it, for the heavy clouds were already mustering for the rain which at this season falls always in the afternoon. (It is now pouring, with thunder and lightning.) But the scene was very striking, and the clouds added