IN TIME OF PERIL

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 52, 24 November 1917, Page 8

IN TIME OF PERIL

THE GREAT 'QUAKE

A REMINISCENCE OF '55

Mr. James Ames, City Valuer, is one of the few people alive who have a clear recollection of the great earthquakes of 1855 in Wellington, which are said to have mode radical changos in the land. He believes that they had a distinct effect on that area of land known as Tβ Aro Flat, now the most congested part of Wellington, and thon a very formidnblo swamp that was almost impassable at most seasons of tho year. It lay, roughly, between Taranaki Street and Oamhridgo. Terrace, and extended well tip to tho Basin Reserve. Mr. Ames is convinced that the earthquakes of that awe-inspiring time had a beneficial effect on the morass, and made the subsequent draining of tho area an easier matter than it might have been. "My father kept the South Sea Hotel on Lambton Quay then—a brick building which stood about where Aldous's tobacconist shop is now. It was 9 o'clock at night whon tho first big. shako took place. .Everyone- immediately rushed out on to the roadthere was .only the road between tho shops and tho beach—in. a terrorstricken state, to get free of the houses, which were expected to topple over, as the chimneys had done. Most of the people trooped along and up on to tho Terrace, and the Sydney Street Cemetery, where many sheltered for the nio'ht in the old wooden church tilere— huddled together in a fearful state. They made for the higher places because the earthquake was accompanied by a tidal wave, which swept across the Quay and into the shops, and many to cot away from the Quay had to wade up to their' knees or waists through the water. I was one or ihe children who were taken up to the old cemetery. After the 6rst tig 'quake tho earth continued to tremble and every tou or fifteen minutes there would be further heavy shakes. After the first big wave the sea gradually receded, hut no one knew whether they might not all ho engulfed tho next minute,' so truly terrible was the experience. \ . ~. i "Big cracks opened up in tie ground in front of where tho Albert Hotel is now, and exuded mud; there was another ugly crack in the earth in Charlotte Street, near Parliament BuildI in<rs I don't think we went back to tho hotel, for the walls were considered to be unsafe. Farther along another hotelkeeper named Alsdort was killed during the night. A mirror foil on his head and killed him almost out■rivhfc Ho had a blind wife, and 1 remember tho poor woman wandering about in the swamped street with outstretched arms and nobody to guide her, wailing dismally in her utter misery. ' Imagine her position! Her husband stricken down, dead, the placo swamped with tho tidal wave, the woman quite blind and helpless, and; the earth rocking so much tli.it. peoplo were thrown flat upon their faces. Along by the Cecil Hotel, or where that hotel is now, there was a chemists shop, and all the bottles were broken. What an awful stench there was! "There had been races that day at Bnrnham Water—a course between the Miramar golf links and Lyall Bay. All Wellington was there, and I, as a boy, was there, too, for in thoso days a race'meoting was more of a picnic or an outing than'it is now.. There were no jockovs, no 'toto,' and no bookmakers. Peoplo used to make up little sweeps among themselves, and very nice it was. The riders were all gentlemen riders—men who, as often as not, roilo their own horses—some of them officers of tho garrison, for there were Imperial troops here at the time. And wo all walked out to the course in those days, except the few who had horses, for the simple reason t that there were no conveyances. We all trudged over Constablo Street hid and across 'the sands,' and thought nothing of it. It would be a hardship in these days, wouldn't it? That was to have been the first of a two days' meeting, but owing to the earthquake there was no second day. A certain number of people, who had booths at tho course, found themselves flooded out, as the tidal 'wave Submerged the course, and they had to save their lives by climbing up on to their flimsy structures or piles of barrels that held the 'cheer' for the morrow'is meeting.

■ "Among those at the meeting was 'Terawhiti Jack, , as tlaey called the late Mr. John M'Mcnainen, the original owner of the Terawhiti Station. Ho had ii fearful experience, for the 'quako and accompanying wave occurred when he was cantering, homeward along the beach between Island Bay and Terawhiti. A curious thing was that the wave deposited thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of fish among the rocks and on the beach, and left them thero when it retired, and Mr. M'Menamon's terrified horso slipped and slid among the fish, whilst the earth trembled and shook; and the boulders canio tumbling down from the cliffs. When he renchdtl the station he found his terror-stricken family and all tho Maoris on the station gathered together awaiting his return with agonising anxiety. Tho incident concerning the fish was absolutely true, as a day or two later I went out there, saw them—and smelt them!"