A VALLEY OF DEATH.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3592, 16 January 1883, Page 4

A VALLEY OF DEATH.

A valley surpassing in reality of horrors the fabled region of the upas-tiw has been discovered in the Island of Java. This island is volcanic, and in one spot the emanations from the interior of the earth are so deadly that the place is called the Valley of Death. As the traveller approaches it he is attacked by nausea and giddiness. Me also notices a siitio.-ating smell. As he advances these symptoms disappear, so that, after pass-ing through the belt of fetid air which guards the valley, the visitor is able to examine with less risk the spectacle before him. A recent traveller describes the valley as being an oval, about one mile in circumference and from 30f' t to ■10ft below the level of the surrounding land. The Jloor of the valley is flat, dry, without any vegetation, and scattered all over it are the skeletons of men, tigers.

wild boars, bird-, and stajrs lying among large blocks of stone. No steam or smoke is to be seen, nor is any crevice apparent in the earth, which appears to be as hard as rock. The hills -which hem in this A'alley of Desolation are clothed from base to summit, with healthy trees and bushes. The traveller whom we have already quoted descended the side of one hill, with the aid of a bamboo .-tick, to about ISft from the bottom, and he compelled a doe-to o down to the plain. Tn five seconds the animal fell ou it< side motionless, although it continued to breath I.- for eighteen minutes. Another dog died in ten minutes : and a fowl only resisted the deadly air for a minute and a-half, and was dead before he reached the bottom. It is believed that the human skeletons are those of malefactors who have sought refuge here, ignorant of the fatal influence of the air they came to breathe. The neighboring mountains arc volcanic, but neither emit sulphurous odors nor do they present any indications of recent eruption.