ZAMBOANGA. 
131 
gathered from a Spanish resident on the island, who had watched the formation of the 
volcano from the beginning, the following details. It appears the birth of this, probably 
the youngest of existing mountains, dates from the 1st of May, 1871, and it was therefore at 
the time of our visit not yet four years old. After a number of earthquakes, which lasted over 
six months and were felt as far as Zebu, an eruption took place at a level spot not far from 
the sea shore, and at the foot of the old volcanoes of the island. The earthquakes then 
ceased, and successive eruptions of more or less magnitude, since the above date, resulted in 
the accumulation of the huge cone which stood before us. The consequences to the unfortunate 
inhabitants of the island, previously noted for its fertility and its large production of Manilla 
hemp, sugar, and tobacco, were most disastrous. The population, said to have amounted to 
25,000, we found reduced to about 1000. The capital city, Catarman—-formerly situated to the 
southward of the site of the new volcano, and boasting a population of 11,000 inhabitants— 
had disappeared, with the exception of some fragments of masonry. Lately, the mountain had 
made further additions to its bulk in the same direction, and was just then invading the 
cemetery of the old capital. The once fertile fields were deserted, and falling back into a 
state of jungle ; while for miles on either side of the volcano, and in the path of the monsoons, 
the trees were blighted and the vegetation destroyed by the sulphurous exhalations. The 
volumes of steam emitted by the volcano are largest in the early morning, when the air is 
cooler, and the condensation, on that account, more rapid. When, towards nightfall, we 
retreated from this scene of one of Nature’s most terrible visitations, the red gleam of the 
volcanic fires could be distinctly seen in the clefts of the mountain. 
The last days of the month of January found H.M.S. “Challenger” at her old anchorage 
off Zamboanga. On the 3rd of February we crossed the strait to Puerto Isabella on Basilan 
Island to renew our store of coal, returning to Zamboanga on the 4th. Adjoining the southern 
shore of the channel, between the above-named Spanish settlement and the island of Malamani, 
is the lake-village, inhabited by Moros, of which I present a coloured sketch. The numerous 
flagstaffs, without which the dwelling of a Moro would not be complete, all displayed their 
bunting in honour of a wedding, and the bridal boat, which showed a large white and red 
standard, and bearing the bride sheltered under a white canopy, was just crossing to the 
village, as I transferred the scene to paper, from the Fuerte de Santa Isabella. 
On the 5th February we left Zamboanga, and bade farewell for a time to what is 
conventionally called the civilised world. We were now shaping our course towards regions 
where ships, large or small, are seldom met with, and the geography of which is far from 
being completed, our charts showing sundry islands and shoals that were not to be found, 
while such as exist proved to have been incorrectly laid down. Happily the corrections which 
the “Challenger” had an opportunity of making did not, as has often been the case, entail the 
loss of the ship or of the lives of any of its inmates. Passing southward of the wide bay which 
separates the two large peninsulas of Mindanao, we entered, on the 9th, the strait which 
divides the south-eastern extremity of Mindanao from the group of the Sarangani Islands, 
the latter rising from the sea with steep precipitous shores, though of no great elevation, the 
