The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-06-29
Effects of n Wave.

Tourists that visit Batavia nowadays
are quite out of the fashion if they fail
TO make the passage through Sunda
strait and see all that is left of Krakatua
and the vestiges of the ruin wrought by
the terrible eruption of 1882. If they
push up the Bay of Lampong, on the
Sumatra side of the channel, they are
likely to land on the low shores occu-
pied by the village of Telokh-Betong,
and hire carts for a short jaunt into the
interior; and when they have gone about
two miles they will pause to take in the
curious scene presented; for here is seen
one of the most interesting results of the
great wave of Krakatau.
There was just one man amid all that
wild scene of death and devastation who
was not overwhelmed in the common
ruin. He escaped while 40, 900 persisted.
He was the lighthouse keeper, who lived
alone on an isolated rock in the strait
1t was broad daylight when Krakatau
burst asunder, but in a few moments
the heavens were so densely shrouded by
dust. mud and smoke that the darkness
of midnight covered all the channel
The guardian of the lighthouse was in
the lantern 1870 feet above the sea level
Here he remained safe and sound in the
midst of the terrible commotion.
He felt the trembling of the light
house, but it was so dark that he could
not see the threatened danger He did
not know that tremendous wave had
almost overwhelmed the lighthouse,
and that its crest had nearly touched
the base of the lantern. He did not hear
it because he was deafened by the awful
defamation of Krakatua.
In few moments the wave, over
hundred feet in height, had swept along
a coast line of a hundred miles on both
sides of the channel.
Scores ofpopulous villages were buried
deep beneath the avalanche of water.
Great groves of cocoanut palms were
leveled to the ground. Promontories
were carried away. New bays We're dug
out of the yielding lttoral Every work
of human hands except that lighthouse
was destroyed and 10000 persons per-
ished in the deluge that mounted from
the sea or beneath the rain of mud that
filled the heavens.
A little sidewheel steamboat was borne
on the top Of that wave through forests
and Jungle, over two miles into the coun-
try, and was left as the wave receded.
1t will be remembered that for weeks
before the final cataclysm at Krakatau,
the volcano was in state of eruption.
Pleasure parties were made up at Ba-
tavia to visit the volcano. Not a few
people landed on the island, little dream
ing that in the twinkling of an eye two
thirds of it was to be blown into the air
as though shot from gun. They wished
to get as near as they thought they might
safely venture to the growing, steaming
crater.
This little steamboat, on the day be-
fore the explosion, carried one of these
parties to the island. There were only
twenty on board besides the crew. They
spent couple of hours around the is
land and then steamed up the deep and
narrow Bay of Lampong, and it is sup
posed they anchored for the night in
which was one of the largest settlements
on the south coast of Sumatra.
The i'll fated pleasure party was never
heard of again. 1t is supposed that the
boat was turned over and over like al
eggshell in the surf. 1t had every ap
pearance of such rough usage when il
was found some months later. The ma
chinery and furniture were badly broker
and were strewn about in the greatest
confusion. But the vessel held together
and was finally set down in good shape
erect ON her keel.
Only two bodies were found in the
vessel. They were, of course, below
deck. AS it was morning when she was
picked up by the wave it is supposed
that nearly everybody was on shore
Not vestige remains of the villages
that lined the water edge. But the hull
of this little boat still stands, battered
and broken, though as erect as whel
she plowed the channel, and she is thu
most curious and interesting relic of tn,
greatest volcanic eruption of modern
times.-Ne,o York Sun.