324 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGKAPHY AND TPtAVEL 
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. 
Mare, 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. 
