The steamer then returned to Batavia, and I went to reside at Anjer. From my villa on the hillside a mile inland, I could see Krakatoa, thirty miles away, belching out its never-ending eruption. We supposed that it would go on till it burned itself out, and that then it would become quiet again. But in this we were mistaken.
On Sunday morning, the 12th of August, nearly three months later, I was sitting on the veranda of my house taking my morning cup of tea. I saw the fishing boats lying at anchor in the bay, the fishermen themselves being on shore at rest. As my gaze rested on the boats, I suddenly became aware that they were all beginning to move rapidly in one direction. Then in an instant, to my intense surprise, they all disappeared.
I ran farther up the hillside to get a better view, and looked far out to sea. Instantly a great glare of fire right in the midst of the sea caught my eye. All the way across the bay and the strait, in a line of flame reaching to Krakatoa itself, the bottom of the sea seemed to have cracked open so that the subterraneous fires were belching forth. On either side the waters were pouring into this gulf with a tremendous noise, but the fire was not extinguished.
The hissing roar brought out the people of Anjer in excited crowds. My eyes were turned away for a moment as I beckoned to some one, and during that moment came a terrible, deafening explosion. It stunned me; and when I was able again to turn my eyes toward the bay, I could see nothing. The whole scene was shrouded in darkness, from amid which came cries and groans, the creaking of breaking beams in the houses, and, above all, the roar of the breakers on the shore. The city of Anjer, with its sixty thousand people, had been engulfed!
I afterwards found that the water was one hundred feet deep where the city of Anjer had been, and that the coast line had moved one and a half miles inland. A big island in the strait had been split in two, with a wide passage between its parts. An island to the northwest of Krakatoa had wholly disappeared. The air was filled with minute particles of dust, which after some weeks spread even to Europe and America. What the causes of such a tremendous convulsion may have been, it is quite impossible accurately to say.
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The foregoing narrative was written by J. T. Van Gestel, who was at the time residing in the island of Java. Compare his description of this event with those of the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii, given in "School Reading by Grades—Fifth Year." Read also the younger Pliny's description of the eruption of Vesuvius. It may be found in Church and Brodribb's translation of selections from Pliny's Letters. Other interesting readings about volcanoes may be found in "Volcanoes, Past and Present," by Edward Hull, and in "Volcanoes and Earthquakes," by Dr. George Hartwig.