knowing more about this miraculous growth of a hieroglyphic inscription than their artlessness implied. For all their stolid mien, the natives are exceedingly fond of a joke and what greater sport can be imagined than to get the wise men of Batavia and of European centres of erudition by the ears, inciting them to raise always more learned dust in their efforts to decipher the undecipherable characters of an impossible language, each being cocksure of the infallibility of his individual interpretation? If, however, we have not to do with Kromo or Wongso his mark, the ghost of the Batu Tulis must be held responsible for, among the incorporeal inhabitants of the many caves in this neighbourhood, the dweller beneath the monkey-stone is of greatest occult potency and the good people who come from the adjoining lowland districts, even from Surakarta and Jogjakarta, to hear and translate the voices of the Diëng, repair hither, after partaking of good advice in the Bimo temple, to _sembah_ (make their salutation) before the entrance and ask _slamat_ (blessing and success) on their foreshadowed undertakings. Nocturnal devotions inside the cave of the Watu Ketèq on a lucky, right lucky, carefully calculated night, means untold wealth, and whoever dares to brave the resident sprite of darkness with that desire in his heart, as very few do, and still remains a poor devil, has doubtless skipped a word of power in muttering his incantations or disregarded some other essential observance. To the lover of mountain scenery it is far more profitable to wait for dawn near the triangulation pillar and point of junction of four residencies: Samarang, Pekalongan, Banyumas and the Bagelen, with a fifth, the Kadu, only a few paces off, when the Eye of Day rises to divide the waters behind the mountains and the rack of clouds, and, to the north and the south of the island, the sea begins to glimmer in the azure and orange tints sent before to meet the melting gray of vanquished darkness. Following its course in all-compassing space, the soul enters into silent communion with nature, the divine creation of the supremely divine which teaches feeble men how to worship. Such moments bring a wholesome chastening of the flesh and as we descend, goaded by the fierce darts of the conqueror overhead who makes the earth wrap herself in her vapoury robe of protection, veiling the grand vision,--as we descend where the runnels descend that feed the Serayu and the Tulis winding its way to the Kawah Kidang, we find the plain with the _chandis_ one immense temple of adoration. The Vedic subtle body yearns to enter the sheath of prayer, to be moulded by its creator into the form fit for union with the spirit of the world; respiration becomes aspiration to the beatitude of manifest truth, of final rest in extinction of sin and shame and sorrow. So pass the hours in purification, in desire of a spark of the thought which breathes life into mortification of self.