50 DEEP-SEA SOUNDING. 



women were seen floating on the water, and here and 

 there the swollen carcass of a drowned animal. 



In the afternoon we sighted a man-of-war standing 

 towards us, and at 4.45 p.m. stopped to communicate with 

 the Prins Hendrick, a Dutch iron-clad, Captain McLeod, 

 in answer to a signal flying from her masthead. We 

 were told by the boarding officer that on the 27th of 

 August — only a week before our arrival — there had )een 

 a great earthquake and eruption of the Island of Krakatoa, 

 two-thirds of which had disappeared ; that a tidal w^ave 

 had destroyed Anjer and all the villages on both sides of 

 the straits ; that Bezee Channel, through which I had in- 

 tended to pass, was blocked up by newly-formed islands ; 

 that the coast line of the straits had been somewhat 

 changed ; that thousands upon thousands of people had 

 been drowned ; that all the light-houses in the neighbor- 

 hood had been destroyed or seriously injured, and that 

 all lights were extinguished, including that of Flat Cape, 

 "which had not yet been relighted. No wonder, there- 

 fore, that we had not seen the light though well within 

 the radius of its usual illumination. And it was well that 

 the vessel was headed off shore in time, for, had we con- 

 tinued ten miles farther towards Flat Cape in search of 

 the light, our cruise might have ended there. This officer 

 ;also told us that the pumice-stone was so thick on the 

 Sumatra side of the straits — the wind having driven vast 

 quantities cf it to that side — that it was impossible to 

 communicate with the shore. This appalling news ac- 



