Emma-Haven, the little port of Padang, twenty minutes by train from the
palm-girt Sumatran capital, scarcely mars the beauty of the secluded
inlet with the red and white warehouses standing against the sylvan
verdure which fringes the blue arc of the deep bay. Cloud upon cloud,
the spectral vision of distant mountains gleams through the vanishing
veil of mist melting in the sunrise, and the departing steamer, hugging
the shore, but halting for cargo at sundry barbaric _campongs_, affords
numerous glimpses of native life. Passengers are forbidden to land at
these rural ports of call, for a herd of twenty frolicsome elephants
battered down one brown village of palm-thatched bamboo only a week
ago, and although the ruined architecture possesses the advantage of
being as easily restored as destroyed, the unpleasant proximity of the
dark jungle suggests the need of prudence. At another point of the
little voyage, we anchor for a cargo of rattan before a thatched shed
on a shell-strewn beach, but even here a solitary elephant, disturbed
in bathing, has lately attacked a woman, rescued with difficulty from
formidable tusks and lashing trunk. A tribe of coolies come on board
from the pepper plantation on a terraced hill, covered with the vivid
green of the festooning creeper, twined round long poles, and
resembling hop-vines in growth and foliage. The landing of this
contingent involves a call at Anjer, the northern extremity of Java,
distinguished by the white column of the colossal Pharos on the green
headland. A halt at nightfall outside a bristling reef, in consequence
of a Malay lighthouse-keeper omitting to trim his lamp, after the
fashion of his unthinking kind, secures the compensation of steaming
within sight of world-famous Krakatau, the volcanic cone, which in 1883
was split in half by the stupendous eruption affecting in various
degrees the whole of the world. The successive waves of atmospherical
disturbance, travelling with the velocity of sound, were traced three
times completely round the globe. Krakatau, though uninhabited, was the
occasional resort of fishermen who plied their calling in the Sunda
Straits. A Dutch record exists of a violent eruption in 1680, but the
Krakatau volcano was afterwards considered extinct, and until the
spring of 1883 no signs of activity occurred. At this date, smoke,
pumice, and cinders, fell without intermission. For eight weeks
Krakatau blazed and thundered, the explosions being audible at Batavia,
eighty miles off. As the fatal dawn of an August morning broke with
lurid light, the culminating shock of an appalling detonation,
described as "the very crack and crash of doom," echoed across the
ocean, and was heard even in India and Australia, two thousand miles
away. Gigantic tidal waves swept the Sundanese shores, destroying the
adjacent villages, 36,000 people being either washed away or buried
under the boiling rain of mud, fire, and ashes. The Royal Society
estimated the altitude of the vast black and crimson column of flame
and smoke, mounting from the volcano, at seventeen miles. The ashes
fell at Singapore and on the Cocos Isles, respectively five and eight
hundred miles away, the ejection of volcanic matter being computed at
more than four cubic miles in extent. Krakatau, reduced from thirteen
to six square miles, from the northern portion of the symmetrical
pyramid being completely blown away by the volcanic fires, retains the
conical peak of Mount Radaka, nearly three thousand feet high. Some of
the contiguous islands sank beneath the waves, others changed their
shape, and the formation of various banks and shoals added fresh
difficulties to the intricate navigation of reef-bound seas. Thrilling
stories are told of the enveloping pall of smoke and ashes, which
shrouded Java in midnight gloom, amid the continuous roar of violent
explosions which led up to the awful climax of the final catastrophe.
Red-hot stones and burning cinders fired the ships, the weight of
pumice sinking _praus_ and fishing smacks as it fell into the hissing
sea, and a 600-ton schooner, thrown by the force of the world-shaking
concussion into a mountain cleft of the opposite coast, still lies
wedged between the black walls of rock. The floating pumice, which
filled the harbour of Batavia with layers so deep that planks resting
upon it made a safe bridge over a mile in length, drifted even to
Zanzibar and Madagascar. The fine dust, expelled into the upper air,
painted the sunset heavens with these translucent green and violet
tints which enhanced the pageantry of cloudland throughout the world
for many months after the fiery forces had expended themselves. Smoke
still issues from Krakatau, though the vast rent in the cloven pyramid
must materially diminish the power of any future eruption, and Nature's
busy hand already covers the torn side of the precipitous cone with a
green veil of sparse vegetation. A curious marine growth of weed and
moss rooted itself on Krakatau three years after the phenomenal
eruption, from seeds floating on the tide or carried by the wind. The
thin soil formed by these decaying plants, and enriched by the chemical
ingredients of disintegrating volcanic ash, in time produced a more
luxuriant verdure, and in the interval elapsing since the threefold
ravages of fire, flood, and earthquake, caused by Krakatau, convulsed
the East with terror, the dread mountain has become wreathed with
flower and fruit, for orchards and gardens, tended by the Malays from
the surrounding islands, now flourish at the foot of the quiescent
peak. Javanese colonists, who experienced the terrors of the
overwhelming catastrophe, assert that no similes drawn from the most
appalling thunderstorm, or from the roar of the heaviest artillery,
could convey an adequate idea of the stupendous detonation which seemed
to shatter earth and sky, as the pent-up fires burst forth in the final
explosion, which tore the mountain asunder and poured forth the
devastating forces of the abysmal depths over land and sea. Crimson
lava-flood and burning hail, blackened heaven and rocking earth,
roaring sea and clamouring volcano, represented an Apocalyptic vision
of Divine wrath, but probably no survivor remained to record the actual
sight of the unprecedented phenomenon, transcending every terrestrial
convulsion recorded in the chronicles of scientists. Only a slender
feather of grey steam now issues from the lofty crater. Leaves and
grasses flutter in the soft breeze, and a shower of white petals drifts
upon the iron boulders, once incandescent amid the red torrents of
rushing fire. A sheer precipice remained as the severed half of the
shattered cone, when the rent cliffs shivered into fragments, and
toppled over into the sea. Nature again breathes "peace and safety," as
she did before "the sudden destruction" gave the lie to her mocking
voice, and as the ruined pyramid of terrible Krakatau sinks below the
horizon, and the good ship speeds on her way, a weight of awe seems
lifted from the mind, oppressed by imagination and association with the
ghastly tragedy of those untameable forces which defy calculation or
comprehension.
History has often proved the truth of the assertion that Time turns
memories into dreams, but in the presence of Krakatau's smoking crater,
the memories looming over the haunted volcano translate themselves into
a nightmare of horror, for the shadows of doom still cling to the
monumental pyramid, a menacing witness to the existence of those occult
laws which baffle human investigation with their insoluble problems,
and compel the defeated scientist to acknowledge himself a mere
chronicler of inexplicable mysteries. The extent of the volcanic zone
encircling the Malay Archipelago minimises the risk of catastrophe by
numerous safety valves for the imprisoned forces of Earth's fiery
abyss. In isolated Krakatau only one outlet existed for the vast
accumulations of destructive agencies, gathering irresistible impetus
through the protracted period of condensation and suppression which
heated this mighty furnace of Nature's subterranean laboratory with
sevenfold power. A generation has grown up since the hell of devouring
fire swept across land and sea from this solitary mountain peak;
villages have been rebuilt on their ancient sites, and the activities
of life go on from year to year undisturbed. The story of Krakatau,
told under the drooping boughs of dusky waringen-trees in the evening
hour of leisure, seems veiled in the mists of legendary lore to youth
and maiden, listening to the oft-told tale. Poverty clings to familiar
soil, and in the deep groove of a narrow existence the popular mind
takes little thought for the future. The realities of life are bounded
by the daily needs, and the shadow of Krakatau fails to destroy the
present peace of the simple folk, who, like children gathering flowers
on the edge of a precipice, heed none of the grim possibilities of a
perilous environment.