14 ERUPTION Of 



cation with the East. It has been tried by various 

 government steamers, the engineers of which pronounce 

 it to be of the finest quality, superior to that imported 

 to Singapore from England, and in all its properties 



of epidemic disease which was beginning to prevail. This was 

 especially the case at Batavia, where, for two or three days pre- 

 ceding the rain, many persons were attacked with fever. As it 

 was, however, no material injury was felt beyond the districts of 

 Banyuwangi. The cultivators everywhere took the precaution to 

 shake off the ashes from the growing padi as they fell, and the 

 timely rain removed an apprehension very generally entertained, 

 that insects would have been generated by the long continuance 

 of the ashes at the root of the plant. In Rembang, where the 

 rain did not fall till the 17th, and the ashes had been con- 

 siderable, the crops were somewhat injured ; but in Banyuwangi, 

 the part of the island on which the cloud of ashes spent its force, 

 the injury was more extensive. A large quantity of padi was 

 totally destroyed, and all the plantations more or less injured. 

 One hundred and twenty-six horses and eighty-six head of cattle 

 also perished, chiefly for want of forage, during a month from the 

 time of the eruption. 



" ' From Sumbawa to the part of Sumatra where the sound was 

 noticed, is about 970 geographical miles in a direct line. From 

 Sumbawa to Teniate is a distance of about 720 miles. The 

 distance also to which the cloud of ashes was carried, so quickly 

 as to produce utter darkness, was clearly pointed out to have 

 been the island of Celebes and the districts of Gresik on Java : 

 the former is 217 nautical miles distant from the seat of the 

 volcano ; the latter, in a direct line, more than 300 geographical 

 miles.' 



" The following is an extract from the reports of Lieutenant 

 Owen Phillips, dated at Bima on the island of Sumbawa. ' On 

 my trip towards the western part of the island, I passed through 

 nearly the whole of Dompo and a considerable part of Bima. The 

 extreme misery to which the inhabitants have been reduced is 

 shocking to behold. There were still on the roadside the remains 

 of several corpses, and the marks of where many others had 



