A SINGULAR SCENE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2608, 30 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SINGULAR SCENE.

Vedaraniam, on the Madras coast (says the Overland Mail, Calcutta, of January 1), has just witnessed a great act of faith. The town stands on a low-lying spit of land, with the open sea on one side and a great nwamp of "spontaneous salt" ou tho other. In thia exposed position Vedarauiam is severely scourged by Btorms, and during the late cyolono it had rnally a bad time. Tho waves, some 20ft. high, dashing over the bund of the salt factory, aud in groat part destroyed it. The Bay of Bengal marched boldly into the streets of the little town, and knocked at the doors of the simple saltmakers. More cogent was this " knocking at tho gates" than that other knocking which struck liko doom on the soul of Macbeth. Tbe insidious waters, stealing on their quest, had all the eruptive energy of an earthquake. Houses crumbled away; the rooftree came crashing in ; the very earth sewned about to dissolve. Women, and children ecroamed, and men aat in anxious groups listening to the Brahmins, who sought consolation from tho cadjan leaves of Holy Writ. Vainly the Brahmins strove to divine whether the place admitted of drowning. The most expert of them, we are told, found a text of Suthar which said that tho great Siva advised his favourite angels to resort to Vedaraniam at this time of the deluge. Arguing from this, he thought that the sea would subtddo and recede if the goddess Durga was sent to the shore. The wieo counsel wae a golden ray of hope, and the people not only took the goddess to the beach, but actually stripped her of some of her jewels, and ceremoniously and with music, threw them into tho tagiug son. All this took about three hours. And hardly was the drama completed than the storm began to abate, and on the morrow the sun ehone upon a glad people full of praises of their marvellous deliverance. At such a moment one must repress all sordid curiosity as to the value of tho jewels that were thrown away. But when the danger was past, Vedaraniam would be like few places in the world if a search was not on foot for the recovery of the missing articles.