324 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



archipelago. It was here that the Trinidad and the 

 Victoria, the two vessels of Magellan's squadron, were 

 so hospitably received, and obtained their cargoes of 

 cloves, the first brought from the islands by a European 

 ship. The peak of Tidor is about 5900 feet in height, 

 and of exceedingly graceful shape. Although there are 

 hot springs at its base, it is now extinct, and there are 

 no records of any eruption. The Dutch have a few 

 soldiers upon the island, but no civil authority. The 

 population is about 8000. 



Mar^, known as Potbakker's Island, from the useful 

 clays found on it, is not otherwise of importance. Motir, 

 with a peak 2800 feet in height, which was the scene of 

 an eruption in the last century, has also few inhabitants. 

 The next island, Makian, at one time most productive in 

 cloves, is at present chiefly given over to the cultivation 

 of tobacco, and is thickly populated. Its cone was for- 

 merly thought to be extinct, but in 1646 a great erup- 

 tion blew it up, leaving a vast crater, with a huge rugged 

 chasm on one side of it, and destroying the greater part 

 of the population. Then for two centuries it was quiet, 

 the people who had escaped came back, houses were 

 built, and twelve villages were formed on its shores. 

 But on 29th December, 1862, it again burst forth with 

 as great violence as before, and destroyed nearly the 

 whole population. Over 4000 perished, the greater 

 number from drowning, overcrowding the praus in their 

 frantic efforts to escape. The sand and ashes thrown up 

 by the volcano reached Ternate, thirty miles off, the next 

 day, and formed a cloud so dense as to darken the air, 

 and make it necessary to light lamps at midday. They 

 fell to the thickness of three or four inches over that 

 island, and even to a distance of fifty miles, destroying all 

 the crops, and doing great injury to shrubs and fruit-trees. 



