re: About Krakatoa: first person reports

First there were the initial explosions and lava, etc. That was followed by a couple of years of smoldering.

A young man working in the area was sent to the island to see what it would take to survey the island after that activity. He created the map above and concluded that it was too dangerous to send a survey crew to the island which was not that active when he visited it.
Two weeks and a day later, the blew off the face of the earth. He was the last man ever to walk on it. That map is the only map of the island before the big one.