第119章

THE Dutch mail steamer in which I travelled from Macassar to Banda and Amboyna was a roomy and comfortable vessel, although it would only go six miles an hour in the finest weather. As there were but three passengers besides myself, we had abundance of room, and I was able to enjoy a voyage more than I had ever done before. The arrangements are somewhat different from those on board English or Indian steamers. There are no cabin servants, as every cabin passenger invariably brings his own, and the ship's stewards attend only to the saloon and the eating department. At six A.M. a cup of tea or coffee is provided for those who like it. At seven to eight there is a light breakfast of tea, eggs, sardines, etc. At ten, Madeira, Gin and bitters are brought on deck as a whet for the substantial eleven o'clock breakfast, which differs from a dinner only in the absence of soup. Cups of tea and coffee are brought around at three P.M.; bitters, etc. again at five, a good dinner with beer and claret at half-past six, concluded by tea and coffee at eight. Between whiles, beer and sodawater are supplied when called for, so there is no lack of little gastronomical excitements to while away the tedium of a sea voyage.

Our first stopping place was Coupang, at the west end of the large island of Timor. We then coasted along that island for several hundred miles, having always a view of hilly ranges covered with scanty vegetation, rising ridge behind ridge to the height of six or seven thousand feet. Turning off towards Banda we passed Pulo-Cambing, Wetter, and Roma, all of which are desolate and barren volcanic islands, almost as uninviting as Aden, and offering a strange contrast to the usual verdure and luxuriance of the Archipelago. In two days more we reached the volcanic group of Banda, covered with an unusually dense and brilliant green vegetation, indicating that we had passed beyond the range of the hot dry winds from the plains of Central Australia. Banda is a lovely little spot, its three islands enclosing a secure harbour from whence no outlet is visible, and with water so transparent, that living corals and even the minutest objects are plainly seen on the volcanic sand at a depth of seven or eight fathoms. The ever smoking volcano rears its bare cone on one side, while the two larger islands are clothed with vegetation to the summit of the hills.

Going on shore, I walked up a pretty path which leads to the highest point of the island on which the town is situated, where there is a telegraph station and a magnificent view. Below lies the little town, with its neat red-tiled white houses and the thatched cottages of the natives, bounded on one side by the old Portuguese fort. Beyond, about half a mile distant, lies the larger island in the shape of a horseshoe, formed of a range of abrupt hills covered with fine forest and nutmeg gardens; while close opposite the town is the volcano, forming a nearly perfect cone, the lower part only covered with a light green bushy vegetation. On its north side the outline is more uneven, and there is a slight hollow or chasm about one-fifth of the way down, from which constantly issue two columns of smoke, as well as a good deal from the rugged surface around and from some spots nearer the summit. A white efflorescence, probably sulphur, is thickly spread over the upper part of the mountain, marked by the narrow black vertical lines of water gullies. The smoke unites as it rises, and forms a dense cloud, which in calm, damp weather spreads out into a wide canopy hiding the top of the mountain. At night and early morning, it often rises up straight and leaves the whole outline clear.

It is only when actually gazing on an active volcano that one can fully realize its awfulness and grandeur. Whence comes that inexhaustible fire whose dense and sulphurous smoke forever issues from this bare and desolate peak? Whence the mighty forces that produced that peak, and still from time to time exhibit themselves in the earthquakes that always occur in the vicinity of volcanic vents? The knowledge from childhood of the fact that volcanoes and earthquakes exist, has taken away somewhat of the strange and exceptional character that really belongs to them.

The inhabitant of most parts of northern Europe 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 massive rocks may contain water in abundance, but never fire; and these essential characteristics of the earth are manifest in every mountain his country contains. A volcano is a fact opposed to all this mass of experience, a fact of so awful a character that, if it were the rule instead of the exception, it would make the earth uninhabitable a fact so strange and unaccountable that we may be sure it would not be believed on any human testimony, if presented to us now for the first time, as a natural phenomenon happening in a distant country.