flame. They thus rose to an enormous height; and then, their summits uniting in one, they seemed to contend with each other, twisting and intertwining together, till their crests broke into a mass of fiery foam, and expanded over the heavens. Now and then a still larger quantity of flame would burst forth, and darting upwards for many thousand feet, would fall in burning streams to the earth. Other streams, also, burst forth, and flowed down the sides of the mountain, till the whole side towards us seemed one mass of liquid fire.

Although we were some miles distant, the light from the burning mountain cast a lurid glare on the hull and rigging of the schooner; and as we looked at each other, our faces shone as if formed of some red hot metal, rather than of flesh; while the whole expanse of sea between us, and the land, seemed a mass of molten copper. An artist would have delighted to paint the wondering countenances of the seamen, some still full of doubts and fears-the various attitudes in which they stood transfixed-the many tints of their skins, from the dark hues of the Javanese and Malays, in their picturesque costumes, to the fair color of the Europeans, in the ordinary dress, in which English and American seamen delight, now blended into one hue.

All this time the loud reports continued to be heard; but knowing their cause they no longer appeared to us like those of cannon. Almost as suddenly as the awful spectacle had been exhibited to our eyes, it was once more obscured by the dense masses of cinders, and even of stone, which filled the sky and fell around us.

The wind returned, as before, from the east; and, to avoid the fiery shower, we stood away to the northward. It was in vain to hope to escape it altogether. The

stones which fell, decreased in size, but the ashes came as thick as before, and the explosions continued at intervals. To what had at first appeared so terrific, we had now got accustomed; and the fears, even of the most superstitious of the seamen, subsided; but, still the Javanese were not to be dissuaded from the belief that some wonderful change was to take place in the affairs of their country. We got an awning over the deck, to shelter ourselves somewhat from the ashes; but the finer portion drove under it, and filled every crevice, while we kept the people constantly employed in shovelling them overboard. Thus hours passed on, till we began to think that we should never again see the bright light of the sun.

CHAPTER XXI.

Showers of Ashes.-Approach Tomboro.-Floating Islands.Destruction of Crops. -Starvation of People.-Land in Timor. -A Portuguese Governor and his Troops.—Dutch Settlement of Company.-Island of Kessa.-Christian Inhabitants.-A Chief in a Court Dress.-The Arru Islands.-Their Productions. -A Feast on board.-Fright of the Chiefs at sound of Guns.-A strange Brig appears.-Sends her Boat on Shore.Is she the Emu ?-We chase her.

FOR a whole night longer we lay exposed to the shower of ashes; and though we were standing away from their source, they in no perceptible way diminished in density. At length, at the hour the sun should appear once more in the east, a light gleamed forth, the ashes grew less dense, and daylight once more gladdened our eyes. On examining the ashes, they had the appearance of calcined pumice-stone, nearly of the colour of wood ashes. In many places on the deck they lay a foot thick. They were perfectly tasteless, and had no smell of sulphur, though there was a slight burnt odour from them. We now stood back towards Sumbawa, as, with the wind from the eastward, it was the only course we could steer. As we approached it, we saw right ahead a shoal several miles in length, with several black rocks on it.

"I never

Van Graoul was puzzled in the extreme. heard of that shoal before," he observed; and, on examining the chart, none was marked down.

We

The lead gave us no bottom where we then were. The shoal, we agreed, must have been thrown up by the earthquake. We stood on till we were within half a mile of it, and then Fairburn lowered a boat and went to examine it. He pulled on till the boat, instead of grounding as we expected, went into the midst of it. It proved to be a complete mass of pumice-stone floating on the sea, some inches in depth, with great numbers of trees and logs, which had the appearance of having been burnt and shivered by lightning. passed several similar floating islands, and on one occasion got so completely surrounded by a mass of ashes that we had no little difficulty in forcing our way through it, fearful every instant of encountering some log which might injure the vessel. At last the Tomboro mountain hove in sight. We passed it about six miles off. The summit was not visible, being enveloped in clouds of smoke and ashes. The sides were, in several places, still smoking, evidently from the lava which had flowed down them not yet having cooled, and one large stream was discernible from the smoke arising from it, and which had reached all the way from the summit to the sea. Beating along the coast, we entered a bay where there was good anchorage, and on going on shore we heard sad accounts of the ruin the eruption had caused. The whirlwind had destroyed whole villages, rooted up trees, and thrown the vessels and prahus at anchor in the harbour on the shore, aided by the sea, which rose at the same time; while the ashes had ruined the crops, and the stones and rocks, and

streams of lava had killed many thousands of the inhabitants. Afterwards, I learned that the explosions had been heard at Sumatra, 970 miles from Tomboro, and that the ashes had fallen thickly near Macasa, 217 miles from the mountain. The unfortunate inhabitants of the island suffered afterwards greatly from famine, their yearly supply of food being totally lost.

The wind coming more from the northward, we shaped our course for Dilli, in Timor, on the chance of there hearing of the Emu. We kept a constant lookout night and day for her, but not a sail hove in sight. In five days we reached Dilli, which is a Portuguese settlement on the north-west coast of Timor. A Portuguese naval officer boarded us in the outer roads, and piloted us through a narrow channel to the inner roads. It is a wretched-looking place'; and the houses, small, dirty, and ruinous, were scattered without any order or symmetry, in all directions. Van Graoul, who could speak Portuguese, landed with me, as I wished to pay my respects to the Governor. On each side of the town were two half ruinous forts, on which were mounted some old iron guns of small calibre. The sentinels were but a quarter clothed, and certainly not in uniform, for, not two were alike. The only point in which most agreed, was in being destitute of shoes. Some had one shoe and a boot, others had sandals, and others wore whisps of straw wrapped round their feet, but the greater number stood on their bare soles. Many were without jackets, some had no trowsers, a sort of kilt serving the purpose, made of every variety of material. Military hats or caps were a rarity. Some left their bare heads exposed to the sun, others covered them with handkerchiefs, straw hats, or mere turbans of