The ruin and desolation accompanying a hurricane can scarcely be
described. Like fire, its resistless force rapidly consumes everything
in its track. It is generally preceded by an awful stillness of the
elements, and a closeness and mistiness in the atmosphere, which make
the sun appear red, and the stars of more than an ordinary magnitude.
But a dreadful reverse succeeding, the sky is suddenly overcast and
wild; the sea rises at once from a profound calm into mountains; the
wind rages and roars like the noise of cannon; the rain descends in a
deluge; a dismal obscurity envelops the earth with darkness; and the
superior regions appear rent with lightning and thunder. The earth, on
these occasions, often does, and always seems to tremble, while terror
and consternation distract all nature: birds are carried from the woods
into the ocean; and those whose element is the sea, fly for refuge to
the land. The affrighted animals in the fields assemble together, and
are almost suffocated by the impetuosity of the wind, in searching for
shelter, which, when found, serves them only for destruction. The roofs
of houses are carried to vast distances from their walls, which are
beaten to the ground, burying their inmates beneath them. Large trees
are torn up by the roots, and huge branches shivered off, and driven
through the air in every direction, with immense velocity. Every tree
and shrub that withstands the shock, is stripped of its boughs and
foliage. Plants and grass are laid flat to the earth. Luxuriant spring
is in a moment changed to dreary winter. This direful tragedy ended,
when it happens in a town, the devastation is surveyed with accumulated
horror: the harbor is covered with wrecks of boats and vessels; and the
shore has not a vestige of its former state remaining. Mounds of rubbish
and rafters in one place; heaps of earth and trunks of trees in another;
deep gullies from torrents of water; and the dead and dying bodies of
men, women and children, half-buried, and scattered about, where streets
but a few hours before were, present to the miserable survivors a
shocking conclusion of a spectacle, often followed by famine, and, when
accompanied by an earthquake, by mortal diseases. Such is the true and
terrific picture of a hurricane in the West Indies, as drawn by an
actual observer.
On the Indian coast, hurricanes are both frequent and disastrous. On the
second of October, 1746, the French squadron, commanded by Le
Bourdonnai, being at anchor in Madras roads, a hurricane came on which
in a few hours destroyed nearly the whole of the fleet, together with
twenty other ships belonging to different nations. One of the French
ships foundered in an instant, and only six of the crew were saved. On
the thirtieth of December, 1760, during the siege of Pondicherry, a
tremendous hurricane drove ashore and wrecked three British ships
belonging to the besieging squadron: the crews were saved. On the
twentieth of October of the following year, 1761, the British fleet,
then lying in Madras roads, had to encounter a violent hurricane. The
men-of-war put to sea, and were thus providentially saved; but all the
vessels which still lay at anchor were lost, and scarcely a soul on
board saved. On the twenty-ninth of October, 1768, another hurricane
was, on the coast of Coromandel, fatal to the Chatham Indiaman, which
neglected to put to sea.
In the West Indies, a tremendous hurricane on the twenty-first of
October, 1817, was particularly severe at the island of St. Lucie. All
the vessels in the port were entirely lost. The government-house was
blown down, and all within its walls, comprising the governor, his lady
and child, his staff, secretaries, servants, &c., amounting to about
thirty persons, were buried in its ruins: not one survived the dreadful
accident; and still more horrid to relate, the barracks of the officers
and soldiers were demolished, and all within them (about two hundred
persons) lost. All the estates on the island were reduced to a heap of
ashes. At Dominica, nearly the whole of the town was inundated, with an
immense destruction of property.
In Great Britain, a dreadful hurricane, commonly called the great storm,
set in at ten at night on the twenty-sixth of November, 1703, and raged
violently until seven the next morning. It extended its ravages to every
part of the kingdom. In the capital, upward of two thousand stacks of
chimneys were blown down. The lead on the tops of several churches was
rolled up like skins of parchment. Many houses were leveled with the
ground, and by the fall of the ruins, twenty-one persons were killed,
and more than two hundred wounded. The ships in the Thames broke from
their moorings: four hundred wherries were lost, and many barges sunk,
with a great loss of lives. At sea the destruction was still greater:
twelve ships of war, with upward of eighteen hundred men on board, were
totally lost, together with many merchantmen.