The height of the sea-waves that devastated the neighbouring shores, being variously estimated at from 50 to 135 feet, is sufficiently accounted for by the intervention of islands and headlands, etc., which, of course, tended to diminish the force, height, and volume of waves in varying degrees.

These, like the air-waves, were also registered—­by self-acting tide-gauges and by personal observation—­all over the world, and the observations coincided as to date with the great eruptions of the 26th and 27th of August.  The influence of the sea-waves was observed and noted in the Java sea—­which is shallow and where there are innumerable obstructions—­as far as 450 miles, but to the west they swept over the deep waters of the Indian Ocean on to Cape Horn, and even, it is said, to the English Channel.

The unusual disturbance of ocean in various places was sufficiently striking.  At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the 27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port.  The last of these was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that small boats at their anchorage were left aground—­a thing that had never been seen before.  The period of recession was only one-and-a-half minutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and, beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest high-water mark in less than two minutes, thus marking a difference of 8 feet 10 inches instead of the ordinary 2 feet.

At one place there was an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, within half-an-hour.  At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground, was washed away, so that according to the observer “it appeared as if the dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nut garden!” Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten or twelve times—­in one case even twenty times—­on the 27th.

At Trincomalee the sea receded three times and returned with singular force, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fish struggling in the mud.  The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at once made manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashed into the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest, when—­alas for the poor fishermen!—­the sea rushed in again and drove them all away.

In the Mauritius, however, the fishers were more fortunate, for when their beach was exposed in a similar manner, they succeeded in capturing a good many fish before the water returned.

Even sharks were disturbed in their sinister and slimy habits of life by this outburst of Krakatoa—­and no wonder, when it is recorded that in some places “the sea looked like water boiling heavily in a pot,” and that “the boats which were afloat were swinging in all directions.”  At one place several of these monsters were flung out of their native home into pools, where they were left struggling till their enemy man terminated their career.