h it. In the port of
Sang'ir, adjoining Tomboro, its effects were much more violent--tearing
up by the roots the largest trees, and carrying them into the air,
together with men, horses, cattle, and whatever else came within its
influence. This will account for the immense number of floating trees
seen at sea. The sea rose nearly twelve feet higher than it had ever
been known to do before, and completely spoiled the only spots of
rice-land in Sang'ir--sweeping away houses and everything within its
reach. The whirlwind lasted about an hour. No explosions were heard
till the whirlwind had ceased, at about 11 P.M. From midnight till the
evening of the 11th, they continued without intermission. After that
time their violence moderated, and they were heard only at intervals;
but the explosions did not cease entirely until the 15th of July. Of all
the villages of Tomboro, Tempo, containing about forty inhabitants,
is the only one remaining. In Pekate no vestige of a house is left;
twenty-six of the people, who were at Sumbawa at the time, are the whole
of the population who have escaped. From the most particular inquiries
I have been able to make, there were certainly no fewer than 12,000
individuals in Tomboro and Pekate at the time of the eruption, of whom
only five or six survive. The trees and herbage of every description,
along the whole of the north and west sides of the peninsula, have been
completely destroyed, with the exception of those on a high point of
land, near the spot where the village of Tomboro stood."

Tomboro village was not only invaded by the sea on this occasion, but
its site permanently subsided; so that there is now eighteen feet of
water where there was formerly dry land.

THE VOLCANOES OF JAPAN

The Japanese archipelago, as stated in an earlier chapter, is abundantly
supplied with volcanoes, a number of them being active. Of these the
best known to travelers is Asamayama, a mountain 8,500 feet high, of
which there are several recorded eruptions. The first of these was in
1650; after which the volcano remained feebly active till 1783, when it
broke out in a very severe eruption. In 1870 there was another of some
severity, accompanied by violent shocks of earthquake felt at Yokohama.
The crater is very deep, with irregular rocky walls of a sulphurous
character.

Far the most famous of all the Japanese mountains, however, is that
named Fuji-san, but commonly termed in English Fujiyama or Fusiy