THE CYCLONE IN INDIA.

Grey River Argus, Volume V, Issue 345, 31 March 1868, Page 3

THE CYCLONE IN INDIA.

(From the Times. ) Calcutta and the districts to the north and east have been devastated, by a cyclone worse, on the whole, in its violence and destructive effects than that of tlie sth October, 18G4. In Calcutta, Barrackpore, Seramporo, and the vicinity, men wore rising from dinner, or had gone to tho Italian opera — iti iirst night in a new theatre this season — or were witnessing the performances of Japanese and Australian sets of actors in canvas and wooden buildings erected on the Calcutta Plain. The telegraphic announcements from Saugar Island had led Mr Blanford, the meteorological reporter, to give the shipping in the Hooghly six hours' notice of tho coining storm, and a few weather-wise folks looked to the fastening of their houses before goir.g to bed ; but few, if any, expected a cyclone like that of 18(54 About half-past 10 it may be said to have burst in all its fury, and from that hour till 0 in the morning of the 2nd of November it lasted, reaching its maximum of violence between half-past 2 and half- past 3. Nothing but masonry and iron resisted its terriiic gusts. Now the wind lulled for the mo:uent as it all were over, and again it burst forth with a fury which laughed puny man to scorn and made him quietly submit to its own omnipotent might. Crash after crash told of its power, while without, trees which had weathered the tornado of 1804 were laid low. The house in which I was, as large and as strong as is to be found generally in Bengal, had suffered not a little in that year. It stands on the south bank of the Hooghly, where the stroam is half a mile broad, and the hurricane seemed to acquire a new power as it swept over the waters unresisted. On this occasion the half fronting the liver — a fine library, a spacious drawing-room, and two bedrooms — was simply gutted. After a fruitless struggle till half-past Ito keep out the wind by barricading the windows we retired within our second lino of defences ; the iron bars were bent double or snapped like wood, and the storm worked its will till dawn. And then what a spectacle, the river, rolling down its turbid flood, covered with the debris of boats, carcasses of cattle, great trees, straw, and bamboos ! What an amount of human life must have been engulphed of which no one will ever tell the tale ! The livelong day the wrecks came, for the cyclone had swept. the whole length of the Hooghly, from Nuddea to Satigor, and away out of the bay, and had not spared its northern or eastern tributaries. On land the devastation was not less appalling. The population live in huts of mud and bamboo thatched with straw, jnst sufficient to resist an ordinary gale It is a sure sign of comparative wealth when the Hindoo can raise a brick house, and then he uses only mud as mortar, or builds of dry brick. I have detailed accounts of three counties — Hooghly to the south, and Nuddea, and Jessore to the north and east of the Hooghly. Hooghly escaped somewhat, being on the edge of the cyclone, which did not go further south than ten miles from the river, nor further up the line of railway than Kanoo junction, above Burdwan. But even in Hoghly hardly a hut is standing, and half the rice crops have been destroyed. In Nudder a tenth of the cattle spared by the inundation have perished, and all the new Beed has been washed out of the ground. In Jessore not only is every hut gone, but only 5 per cent, of the brick houses are standing. I dwell on the rural districts, because I saw more of them than of Ccilcutta, and their need is such that the Government is sending relief, and a public movement is about to take place to aid the State in the good work. But in Calcutta the damage has been grevioua. There too, the huts of the native town have been levelled, and hardly one of the " palaces" of Calcutta or the public buildings has escaped unscathed. On the river only the English, ships weathered the gale, but not without serious damage. The Euphrates troopship, at Diamond harbor, had fortunately just landed the 2nd bat. of the 60th rifles. She went on shore, and had a narrow escape ; she has come up to Calcutta to refit, which Avill delay her departure. The transports taken up for the Abyssinian expedition have been injured, but not so much as to delay the departure beyond the end of the month. The Orissa coast-, ing steamer is a wreck. The tugs and coasting vessels have suffered most. Lloyd's agents will send home a complete list of the casualties, which seem insignificant only because they are so much less than in 1864. In Barrackpore every thatched bungalow and the temporary barracks are unroofed. The lines of the 17th Bengal Cavalry were swept away. Alipore, in. the vicinity of Calcutta, the Sepoy lines were similarly destroyed. The mules for Abyssinia picketed there ran riot through/ ut the night- The number of deaths recorded in Calcutta and the vicinity, within an area of ten miles, is reckoned at not less than 3,000. On the river it must have been much larger, every captain having a tale to tell of boats he saw go down with all on board. A ghastly spectacle was presented in the first two hours after the storm abated by upwards of a hundred bodies exposed in. the Medical College Hospital for the inspection of strangers and the coroner — the first fruits of the whirlwind. There was, providentially, no stormwave on this occasion at Calcutta but it swept up the Mutlan Creek s|ft. high, and submerged the rising town of Port Canning, from which every trace of building hotel, railway stations warehouse, and jetties has disappeared. The hotel-keeper, his wife, and son, East Indians, were buried in the ruins. A large portion of the railway was obliterated, and it became impossible for a long time to send down assistance and especially the fresh water necessary to save the lives of the survivors, for all the tanks had been poisoned by the salt water. It would demand the imagination of a Dante to realise the cyclone at its height in those jungle "mouths of the Hooghly" known as the Suderbunds, where man disputes with the forest and the tiger for supremacy. In 1864 the Government of Bengal was at Darjeeling, and the public were for some time deniedits assitance and sympathy, like Orissa in 18G6 ; but on this occassion the new Lieutenant. Governor was at his post, which he has refused to leave, though he had arranged to be present at the Lucknow durbar. Food and water have been sent to the worst districts, members of the Orissa Famine Relief Committee have gone to see them with their own eyes, tnd whatever can be done will be done to alleviate the suffering and supply the peasantry. When all the data have come

in, and tho full extent of country over which fhe stwin careered is known, it will be for Mr. Blanchard themeicrological reporter to draw his deductions. lie has already issued a no'ice tot!:c effect that the centre of " a severe cyclone" passed to the east of Saugor Point and Calcutta in a northerly direction. Many observers of thu various phenomena are busy. Since last cyclone a system of taking and recording meteorological observations has been established, and but for the warning which the shipping then received the dovastat'o i vould have been greater. But injspito of Sir John Lawrence's committee, which made so admirable a report on the subject of docks, a river trust, and a Hoo^hly-bridge, nothing has been done. The late Bengal Government insisted on passing an Act for the port condenuned by all tho shipping and mercantile interests, and it has been even a greater failure than it was predicted. Something must now be done in earnest for the port of Calcutta, and tho meteorological arrangements must be extended and be more systematized. But, after all, it is the peasantry and the poor, not the shipping who have been the principal victims.