after mile, amid the most melancholy surroundings of death and destruction, had to be traversed before we reached our first halting-place at Merak. And very weary miles they were. It is most unusual in any part of Java for a European to be seen walking beneath the rays of the fierce tropical sun, but on this occasion there was no help for it. We must either walk or remain behind. Driving was, of course, quite out of the question; riding was equally impracticable, on account of the fallen débris; and even walking was a most difficult and fatiguing task.
Java — within six degrees of the equator — is no place for pedestrian exercise after the sun has risen, and, though thinly clad, we had soon had enough of it. However, we still scrambled on as best we could. At one time we were clambering over the trunks of several fallen palm-trees, torn up by the roots and jammed together in one inextricable mass by the rushing torrent. At another, we found our progress barred by the huge blocks of coral rock, which had to be scaled in spite of their rough surface and meagre foothold. Then, again, we reached some heavy, swampy ground many inches in depth, caused by the dense fall of grey ash having been turned into mud by the wave. Throughout our route lay the overthrown cottages and their scattered contents. Here a broken doorway, there a smashed bedstead; clothing, crockery, and furniture lying on all sides in hopeless confusion. Most of the least injured domestic articles had been already carried away by the natives, and this only served to make the scene of destruction seem more complete.
Such was the spectacle which met our eyes the whole of the distance towards Merak. Now and again a few feet of the old roadway could be traced, but for the most part it had completely disappeared, and the natives walking to and fro in their work of recovering the dead must have formed an entirely new track. At intervals we passed a few solitary Malays working amidst the ruin, but considering the large district we traversed there were comparatively very few about. Without a single exception, the whole of the cocoanut palm-trees had been thrown down. Not one was left standing on the low ground near the coast, and it was not until the higher country was reached, several miles inland, that we found any trees which had escaped. The palm-trees have no depth of root, and consequently they offered but little resistance to the rushing waters. Stronger trees, however, on the rising ground, such as the Java waringin, were not so easily destroyed, and many of these had their trunks snapped off about twenty feet from the ground. The value of the timber and fruit destroyed was immense.
At length the first stage of our weary walk was coming to an end. We were now in sight of all that was left of the flourishing town and district of Merak. A few weeks before it had been the centre of teeming life and activity, and now not a single habitation remained. A solitary tent — pitched on an adjacent hill, with the Dutch tricolored flag floating above — was the only sign of life, and this was the temporary home of one of the few surviving Soenda Straits pilots. This man had fortunately been engaged in piloting a vessel to Batavia at the time of the eruption, and had thus escaped the effects of the volcanic wave on shore. It was in the Merak district that the greatest loss of life had occurred. Thousands upon thousands had here perished, and as many as three thousand bodies had actually been recovered in the neighborhood, in spite of the receding waters which carried all before them. To account for this immense loss of life it must be remembered that the island of Java is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. In calculating the average number of inhabitants to a square mile, there is only one country, I believe, which exceeds it. The following figures, published officially by the Dutch government, will give some idea of the immense population and of its mixed character. Leaving out the Europeans and Chinese, there is in Java, at the present time, a native population of over twenty millions. Next come the Chinese with two hundred and twenty thousand, the Dutch with thirty-seven thousand, the Arabs with ten thousand, and last, as well as least, the English community of not more than one hundred and twenty persons, all told.