CHAPTER IX.

DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES.

There is unquestionably a class of men—­especially Englishmen—­who are deeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our world in particular, has been created with a view to afford them what they call fun.

“It would be great fun,” said an English commercial man to a friend who sat beside him, “to go and have a look at this eruption.  They say it is Krakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as it has been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold on for some time longer.  What would you say to charter a steamer and have a grand excursion to the volcano?”

The friend said he thought it would indeed be “capital fun!”

We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but they must have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, for they at once set to work and organised an excursion.

The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia.  Although that city was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa, the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of the volcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling of doors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated that the eruption, even in that eruptive region, was of unusual violence.  They little imagined to what mighty throes the solid rocks of Krakatoa were yet to be subjected before those volcanic fires could find a vent.  Meanwhile, as we have said, there was enough of the unusual in it to warrant our merchants in their anticipation of a considerable amount of fun.

A steamer was got ready; a number of sightseeing enthusiasts were collected, and they set forth on the morning of the 26th of May.  Among these excursionists was our friend Captain David Roy—­not that he was addicted to running about in search of “fun,” but, being unavoidably thrown idle at the time, and having a poetical turn of mind—­derived from his wife—­he thought he could not do better than take a run to the volcano and see how his son was getting along.

The party reached the scene of the eruption on the morning of the 27th, having witnessed during the night several tolerably strong explosions, which were accompanied by earthquake shocks.  It was found that Krakatoa and all the adjoining islands were covered with a fine white dust, like snow, and that the trees on the northern part of the former island and Varlaten had been to a great extent deprived of their leaves and branches by falling pumice, while those on Lang Island and Polish Hat, as well as those on the Peak of Rakata, had to a great extent escaped—­no doubt owing to the prevailing direction of the wind.