xil] the ER UPTION OF KB A KA TA U. 275 



house at Monokware, which had been accidentally destroyed by fire, 

 was being rebuilt in all its former hideousness and indecency. 



Mr. Van Hasselt was eager to learn what news we could give 

 of the civilised world. We had little enough to tell, with the 

 exception of the eruption of Krakatau. Of the appalling amount 

 of destruction it had caused we were at the time unaware, but 

 we gave him the few particulars which had reached Gorontalo. 

 He at once told us, greatly to our astonishment, that the noise of the 

 explosions had been audible at Dorei, and going into the next room 

 brought his diary, in which, under date of August 27th, an entry 

 had been made to the effect that sounds as of distant cannonading, 

 which they had imagined to proceed from some volcanic eruption, 

 had been heard on that day. The natives, we were told, had also 

 noticed it on the previous day — when, in fact, the outburst was 

 at its height. By the missionaries the volcano at Ternate or 

 in some part of the Moluccas was supposed to be in action. It 

 enables one partially to realise the terrific nature of the eruption 

 when the map shows Dorei to be distant 1710 miles from Krakatau. 

 It seems almost incredible that explosions proceeding from Hecla 

 could be audible in Eome, or that if a volcano were suddenly to 

 make its appearance in Timbuctoo we might be conscious of the 

 fact in England.^ 



We spent a good deal of our time in Dorei Bay in trading and 

 visiting the houses of the natives, and each day our decks were 

 crowded with dozens of mop -headed and nearly naked savages, 

 anxious to obtain our cloth and other goods in exchange for spears, 

 bows and arrows, live lories and cockatoos, and little carved wooden 

 gods. The arrows are unfeathered, but the little boys, who are 

 constantly practising with miniature bows and arrows, make some 

 attempt at feathering the latter — which are constructed from the 

 mid-rib of a palm frond— by leaving some of the leaf at the base. 

 No poison is used, except among the Arfak tribes. The arrow- 



•^ When at Salwatti Island at a later period of our voyage we learnt that the 

 eruption had been very plainly heard there also. 



