254 LOMBOCK. [chap. x. 



Ampanam. One evening I heard a strange rumbling 

 noise, and at the same time the house shook slightly. 

 Thinking it might he thunder, I asked, " What is that ? " 

 " It is an earthquake," answered Inchi Daud, my host ; 

 and he then told me that slight shocks were occasionally 

 felt there, hut he had never known them severe. This 

 happened on the day of the last quarter of the moon, and 

 consequently when the tides were low and the surf usually 

 at its weakest. On inquiry afterwards at Ampanam, I 

 found that no earthquake had been noticed, but that on 

 one night there had been a very heavy surf, which shook 

 the house, and the next day there was a very high tide, 

 the water having flooded Mr. Carter's premises, higher 

 than he had ever known it before. These unusual tides 

 occur every now and then, and are not thought much of ; 

 but by careful inquiry I ascertained that the surf had 

 occurred on the very night I had felt the earthquake at 

 Labuan Tring, nearly twenty miles off. This would seem 

 to indicate, that although the ordinary heavy surf may be 

 due to the swell of the great Southern Ocean confined in 

 a narrow channel, combined with a peculiar form of bottom 

 near the shore, yet the sudden heavy surfs and high tides 

 that occur occasionally in perfectly calm weather, may be 

 due to slight upheavals of the ocean-bed in this eminently 

 volcanic region. 



