hich happened at the time to be a
considerable distance off. It lightened and thundered, the sea was
disturbed, and many boats were sunk or hurled up on land. The next day
the island fell in and was swallowed up by the sea, only a few
fragments of it being left. Thereupon a huge wave, 100 feet high, poured
over the neighbouring coasts of Sumatra and Java, washing away towns and
villages, woods and railway lines, and when it retreated the country was
swept bare, and corpses of men and animals lay all around. This wave was
so tremendous that it was propagated as far as the coasts of Africa and
America, and it was thus possible to calculate the speed with which it
had traversed the oceans. The noise produced by the eruption was so
great that it was heard even in Ceylon and Australia, at a distance of
2000 miles. If this outburst had taken place in Vienna, it would have
been heard all over Europe and a considerable distance beyond its
limits. Loose ashes ejected from the volcano fell over the earth,
covering an area considerably larger than France, and 40,000 persons
perished.

PENANG AND SINGAPORE

The _Delhi_ holds her course for Penang, a town on a small island close
to the coast of the Malay Peninsula. At length land is sighted straight
ahead, and the letter-writers make haste to get their correspondence
ready. We glide into a beautiful sound, the anchor rattles out, and we
are at once surrounded by a swarm of curious boats which come to
establish communication between the vessel and the town.

The main street of Penang--with its large buildings, hotels, banks,
clubs, and commercial houses--presents much the same appearance as
almost always meets the eye in the port towns on the south coast of
Asia. The small single-seated "ricksha" is drawn by a Chinaman in a
loose blue blouse, bare-legged, and with a pointed straw hat on his
head. We go out to the Botanical Gardens, and find them really
wonderful. There are trees and plants from India, the Sunda Islands, and
Australia, all labelled with their English and scientific names. Monkeys
climb actively among the trees, and sit swinging on the boughs, and a
high waterfall tumbles down a cliff surrounded by dense luxuriant
vegetation.

Darkness falls suddenly, as always in the tropics, and is accompanied by
pelting rain. In a few moments all the roads are under water. The rain
pours down, not in drops but in long streams of water, and we are wet
through long before we re