From Joomprit on, it was pretty steep climbing to a point where, at a sudden turn, I beheld the lowlands, far beneath the clouds gathering round me, fair plains resting under their hazy veil of midday repose, calm and undisturbed. Drinking deep of the invigorating mountain air, I noticed the red cheeks of the women and girls who returned from market in little groups. After descending to the tea-plantations of Tambi, the clambering up began again, pretty hard for my pony, to which I gave an occasional rest, looking back over hills and valleys as they dissolved in soft-melting tints, impressing the beholder with a sense of eternal light in limitless space. Wonder akin to awe seized me when, panorama-like, a landscape of silent grandeur, quite different from the graceful majesty of the rose-gardens of Wonosobo and the palm-groves of Temanggoong, unfolded itself. I was on the Diëng plateau. Notwithstanding the late hour, my admiration of the scenery having made my progress slow, I could not resist the temptation to dismount and follow the trail which led me down to the source of the Serayu beside the road, and pay my compliments to the shade of stalwart Bimo by way of introduction to the regions resounding in its temples with his exploits and those of other worthies sung in the _Brata Yuda_.[24] Nor indeed only in its temples: this same delightful retreat commemorates Bimo’s prowess according to a legend which in its astonishing account of his supernatural virility cannot be repeated. Enough to say that Arjuno, making him dig up the _toog_ Bimo, on the advice of Samār, the wily, was the first, by determining the course of the Serayu, to direct the water from the mountains of Central Java to the sea, therewith obtaining the realm of Ngastino. And whoever takes a bath, alone and at night, in the water springing from mother earth under the _pohoon chemeti_, the weeping willow of Bimo’s fountain, will have no occasion for certain elixirs largely advertised in daily and weekly papers, will retain youthful vigour into hoariest age.