Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1892-06-07
THE END OF
Swept from the Earth In the Space
Of a Moment.
An Island on the Sumatra Coast Depopu-
lated by the Great Tidal Wave OF
16a3-0nly One Survivor Out OF
Forty Thousand People.


Tourists who 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 Kraka-
all and the vestiges of the ruin wrought
by the terrible eruption of 1858. If they
push up the bay of Lampong, on the
Slmatra side of the channel, they arc
likely to and on the low shores occa-
pied by the village of Telokh-Bctong
and hire carts for a short jaunt into the
Interior, and when they have gone
about two miles they will pause to take
III the curious scene presented in this
picture, for here is seen one of the most
interesting results still visible of the
great wave of Kraltatau.
There was just one man, says the
Chicago Herald, amid all that wild
scene of death and devastation who was
not overwhelmed in the common ruin.
He escaped, while forty thousand per-
iShed. He was the lighthouse-lieepcr,
who lived alone on an isolated rock in
the strait. 1t was broad daylight when
krakatau burst %aSundcr, but in a few
moments the heavens were SO dCnscly
shrouded by dust, mud and smoke that
the darkness of midnight covered ali
the channel. The guardian of the light
house was in the lantern one hundred
and thirty fcCt above the sea level.
Here he remain ii safe and sound in the
midst of the terrible commotion.
lie felt the trembling of his light
house, but it VI as 50 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 lar@"rn. He had not heard
it because he WAS dcafencd by the awful
defamation of i~,r&l;atau. d.
In a few moments, however, the
wave, over y hundred feet in height, had
swept along Il l5tal coast line of nearly
u hundred mites on both sides of the
channel.
Scores of papulous villages were
buried deep beneath the avalanche of
water. Great groves Of cocOanut palms
were lcvelcG tOI.lc ground. promon-
tories were Carried away. New bays
were dug Il Of the yielding ~littoral.
Every work of Phuman hands, except
that liGhI Aou"c, was destroyed and
forty thousand persons persisted in the
dcluge tat mo2ltcd from the sea or
beneath the MI that filled the heavens.
a little sidcwE@cl steamboat was borne
CT the top OF that wave through forests
;r&l jungle over two miles into the coun-
t"y, md va left there as the wave re-
coded. 1t will be remembered hat for
weeks before the tina cata@ylsm at Kra-
l:atau The volcano was IN Il state Of
eruption. Pleasure parties were made
up ut batavia to visit the volcano. Not
IL fcw people landed on the island, little
dreaming that in the twinllling of an
eye two-thirds of it was to be blown
into the air rs though shot from Il gun.
"hcy wished to get as near rs they
thought they might safely venture
t. the growing, steaming crater.
|his little steamboat, on the
day before the explosion, car
ricl IL of these parties to the
i5land, There were only twenty on
lizard besides the crew. They spent a
couple of hours around the island, and
then steamed up the deep and narrow
by Of Lampong, and it is supposed
thry anchored for the night in front of
the big town of Telokh-Betong, which
Va one OF the largest settlements on
TIC soutl, coast of Sumatra.
The Inflated pleasure party was never
lizard of again. 1t is supposed that the
l. ut was turned over and over like an
egg shell In the surf. 1t had every APP
L2arancc Of such rough usage when it
las found some months later. The ma
c~lincry and furniture were badly
blD,;al and were strewn about in the
ic"Cavcst confusion. But the vessel held
t1Ecthcr> and was finally set down in
!">od shape, erect on her keel.
only two bodies were found in the
vessel. They were, of course, below
'c"k. As it was morning when she was
licked up by the wave, it IS supposed
itat nearly everybody was on shore,
iot u vestige remains Of the villages
mat lined the water edge. But tbs
5u'l1 OF this little boat still stands, bat.
\ rcd and broken, though as eject us