decreased in size, but the
ashes came as thick as before, and the explosions continued at
intervals. To what had at first appeared so terrific, we had now got
accustomed, and the fears even of the most superstitious of the seamen
subsided; but still the Javanese were not to be dissuaded from the
belief that some wonderful change was to take place in the affairs of
their country. We put an awning over the deck to shelter ourselves
somewhat from the ashes; but the finer portion drove under it, and
filled every crevice, while we kept the people constantly employed in
shovelling them overboard. Thus hours passed on, till we began to think
that we should never again see the bright light of the sun.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

For a whole night longer we lay exposed to the shower of ashes; and
though we were standing away from their source, they in no perceptible
way diminished in density. At length, at the hour the sun should appear
once more in the east, a light gleamed forth, the ashes grew less dense,
and daylight once more gladdened our eyes. On examining the ashes, they
had the appearance of calcined pumice-stone, nearly of the colour of
wood ashes. In many places on the deck they lay a foot thick. They
were perfectly tasteless, and had no smell of sulphur, though there was
a slight burnt odour from them. We now stood back towards Sumbawa, as,
with the wind from the eastward, it was the only course we could steer.
As we approached it, we saw right ahead a shoal several miles in length,
with several black rocks on it.

Van Graoul was puzzled in the extreme. "I never heard of that shoal
before," he observed; and, on examining the chart, none was marked down.

The lead gave us no bottom where we then were. The shoal, we agreed,
must have been thrown up by the earthquake. We stood on till we were
within half a mile of it, and then Fairburn lowered a boat and went to
examine it. He pulled on till the boat, instead of grounding as we
expected, went into the midst of it. It proved to be a complete mass of
pumice-stone floating on the sea, some inches in depth, with great
numbers of trees and logs, which had the appearance of having been burnt
and shivered by lightning. We passed several similar floating islands;
and on one occasion got so completely surrounded by a mass of ashes,
that we had no little difficulty in forcing our way through it, fearful
every instant of encountering some log which might injure the