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Updated: June 28, 2025
Nearly in a right line to the eastward of Java lies the Island of Sumbawa, in which stands the volcano of Tomboro, the most violent in its eruptions of any in the world. One of the most remarkable occurred in the year 1815, beginning on the 5th of April and continuing till the middle of July.
To this, however, there is one important exception in the island of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which there is absolutely no forest such as exists in the other islands, and this character extends in a lesser degree to Flores, Sumbawa, Lombock, and Bali.
Of these, the most familiar to us for its classic fame and its restless activity is Mount Vesuvius, which stands alone in its grandeur on the continent of Europe. The most violent in its activity is Tomboro, in the island of Sumbawa. The highest is Cotopaxi, in the range of the Andes, which rises far into the region of perpetual snow. Its height is 16,800 feet above the level of the sea.
On examining the ashes, they had the appearance of calcined pumice-stone, nearly of the colour of wood ashes. In many places on the deck they lay a foot thick. They were perfectly tasteless, and had no smell of sulphur, though there was a slight burnt odour from them. We now stood back towards Sumbawa, as, with the wind from the eastward, it was the only course we could steer.
I told him that I had heard in Palembang that the Neptun was on duty down about Flores and Sumbawa. Quite out of his way. He expressed his satisfaction. "You know," he went on, "that fellow, when he gets on the Borneo coast, amuses himself by knocking down my beacons. I have had to put up a few to help me in and out of the rivers.
In like manner Sir John proceeds to describe an eruption of Mount Tomboro, in the island of Sumbawa, the influence of which was felt to a distance of 1000 miles from its centre, in strange tremulous motions of the earth, and in the clash and clang of loud explosions.
The younger sons and relations of many a native ruler traversed the seas of the Archipelago, visited the innumerable and little-known islands, and the then practically unknown shores of New Guinea; every spot where European trade had not penetrated from Aru to Atjeh, from Sumbawa to Palawan.
A tribe of Sumbawa,* who call themselves the Danga people, have a custom worth mentioning. They are the only tribe on that island not Mahomedans, and worship the evil spirit, to appease whom they frequently leave a roasted pig, with rice, at a well near a tree, a species of wild mango; the priest, of course, reaps the benefit of this pious offering.
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.
Great as it was, it has been much surpassed. Professor Judd says that the great eruptions of Papapandayang, in Java, in 1772, of Skaptur Jokull, in Iceland, in 1783, and of Tamboro, in Sumbawa, in 1815, were marked by the extrusion of much larger quantities of material.
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