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As it was the first time I had ever seen a skyscraper lift itself above the clouds, so it naturally reminded me of the first time I had seen a mountaintop above the clouds. This was Krakatoa Island, a conical mountain rising from the sea in the Straits of Sunda, but since submerged in the Java earthquake.
On the 14th of July four transports, under the command of Lieutenant Shortland, sailed for England; they intended going to the northward, and passing through the streights of Macassar and Sunda, the season being too early either to attempt going round Van Diemen's land, and to endeavour to get to the westward by that tract, or to go to the eastward by Cape Horn.
It was just at the time of the establishment of the Mohammedan power that the first Europeans made their way to the island. Portuguese writers say that their people, after the conquest of Malacca in 1511, entered into relations with the inhabitants of Bantam, through Samian, a prince of Sunda, who had formerly lived at Malacca.
Most providentially, we had a succession of the finest weather and the fairest winds we could have wished, from the time we left the streights of Sunda until our arrival at the Isle of France; and another great consolation was, that the vessel was perfectly tight.
Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was tearing up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale soon raised into raging billows. The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged.
A messenger from Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, arrives, who has followed them from Mithila, and comes to demand Sita as a wife for his master. They are further disturbed by Taraka, a female fiend, the daughter of Suketu, wife of Sunda and mother of Maricha. Rama, by command of Viswamitra slays her.
This I did not think was so safe a Passage as to go to the South of Java and thro' the Straits of Sunda, the way I propose to myself to go.
Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa, which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to prevent, as it were, premature explosion.
As the ship passed the Straits of Sunda, we intended to lower as many boats as should be necessary, arm ourselves, place provisions and water in the boats, and abandon the ship. We felt confident that if most of the men did not go with us, they would not oppose us.
Beginning at the time when the whole of the Java sea, the Gulf of Siam, and the Straits of Malacca were dry land, forming with Borneo, Sumatra, and Java, a vast southern prolongation of the Asiatic continent, the first movement would be the sinking down of the Java sea, and the Straits of Sunda, consequent on the activity of the Javanese volcanoes along the southern extremity of the land, and leading to the complete separation of that island.
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