NATURAL COLONISATION METHODS 291 



relic of Krakatiia : it is not so clean or Avhite, and it is found 

 farther inland from the present sea beaches. This is most 

 probably the pumice set adrift in the April of 1815, when 

 the unparalleled eruption of Tomboro — the great volcano of 

 Sumbawa — took place. 



It is difficult to-day to form any conception of the vastness 

 of these eruptions, for tropical vegetation is so quick to ob- 

 literate the traces of destruction. Half a dozen times have I 

 sailed under the towering height of Krakatua, and failed to 

 see, in the jungle-clad coast-line of the Straits, the evidences 

 of the great tragedy that buried the town of Anjer and all its 

 inhabitants for ever. On July 9, 1883, Dr. H. 0. Forbes 

 steamed past the mountain, and described its " blazing crater." 

 But little more than a month after, it had buried Anjer, slain 

 an incalculable number of people, swept vast coast-lines with 

 an all-devouring tidal wave, and altered its own appearance so 

 profoundly that a hundred fathoms of water marked the site 

 of part of a previously towering island. The crater has ceased 

 to blaze, and the wonderful luxuriance of tropical vegetation 

 has healed over all the dreadful destruction of twenty years 

 ago. Krakatua is now a slumbering giant that towers above a 

 peaceful stretch of water. Terrible as was the eruption of Kra- 

 katua, it was trivial compared with that of Tomboro, although 

 time has almost effaced that event from short-lived Eastern 

 memory. At Bangoewanghie, in the eastern end of Java, the 

 ashes covered all the land to a depth of eight inches, although 

 that beautiful Javanese town is two hundred and forty miles 

 distant from the volcano. For twelve days Tomboro was 

 active, and in that short time 12,000 persons were buried 

 beneath the burning ashes, and 200,000 more fell victims to 

 starvation and exposure. 



The blocks of pumice set adrift by these eruptions have 

 been navigating the Eastern seas ever since ; they have visited 

 many shores in the course of their travels, and have consti- 

 tuted a mighty fleet of passenger vessels for the use of Nature's 

 colonists. 



A floating thing more strange than pumice is coral — coral 



