But the conversation soon flagged, and one was thrown back upon one's own thoughts. And as the road once again shaped for another crater-like ravine, plunged in inkier darkness and shrouded in solemn stillness, thoughts surged rapidly through one's mind. The first thing that had attracted our attention as we mounted our pony was the delicious smell of roses in the grounds of the Tosari Hotel. Since nothing could be learned from the syce, nothing could be seen, nothing could be heard except the occasional bark of a dog from a remote hut on the hillside or the tuneful tingle of a bell on the neck of the uneasy occupant of an unseen cow-shed, one tried to learn something by the sense of smell. At first, the morning air was snell and sharp; there was an earthy aroma which suggested nothing but decaying vegetable matter, but soon it was succeeded by a pungent penetrating odour which made one wonder whence its source. This pungency remained for the remainder of the morning's ride, almost to the top of the mountain pass, some 9000 feet above sea-level, and we ascertained on our return that it proceeded from the enormous cabbages grown by the mountaineers for the markets on the plains of East Java. As we plunged deeper into the forest, it was impossible to make out more than a dull outline of a white jacket and the white shoulder of our piebald pony. Had we not known that the guide was there, we might have wondered how the wonderful jacket succeeded in floating through space. The pony had no head to our sight; the reins we held in our hand might have been dispensed with so far as they acted as a guide to the pony, who picked his own foothold and followed the white jacket. With painful persistence, he picked the edge of the precipitous declivity which was lost in the bottomless abyss.