I chanced to visit St. Kitts a short time after this awful occurrence. The inhabitants were still trembling from apprehension; and upon the slightest motion of the floor, the colour fled from the lips of many of the fair sex, and left them of a pallid white. I was present, upon one occasion, when a gentleman requested a young lady to favour him with a song. “Oh, no, sir! you must excuse me,” said she, lengthening her very pretty face, and throwing an air of gravity into her countenance; “we never sing since the earthquake.” If no other good was effected, it had the power of alienating her mind (for a season at least) from some of the vanities of the world, if a simple song can be called one.
Another dreadful visitation of elementary strife, to which Antigua, as well as the other West Indian islands, is liable in the months of August, September, and October, are the hurricanes, or tornadoes. When they come, they are armed with every terror—rain, thunder, lightning, and sometimes earthquakes, attend their progress. The sea feels their influence, and, by its swelling and roaring, expresses it—
“The waves behind impel the waves before,
Wide-rolling, foaming high, they tumble to the shore.”
The years 1670, 1681, 1707, 1740, 1772, 1780, and 1792, are those in which the severest hurricanes have occurred at Antigua. The hurricane of 1670 was most memorable. It raged with intense severity for four hours, and in that short space of time destroyed the new town of St. John’s, which had been rebuilt since the French invasion, and levelled almost every house with the ground. The ships lost in the harbour were the “Robert,” of Ireland, William Cocks, master; the “Merchants’ Adventure,” of the same place; the “Margaret Pink,” from Tangiers, and another large ship called the “Five Islands,” besides several smaller vessels which had come there for shelter. A wreck was also driven ashore, in which was found the corpse of a boy, some palm oil, and elephants’ teeth, supposed to be from Guinea. That of 1707 was also very severe, being considered one of the most violent ever experienced in the Leeward West India Islands, although Antigua suffered more than any of the neighbouring colonies. It blew down houses and entire sugar-works, tore up the largest trees by the roots, and devastated whole fields of sugar-canes; indeed, so tremendous was the hurricane, that it caused an almost general destruction. The oldest inhabitants of the present day unite, however, in saying that they never experienced one so awful as that of 1835.
About four in the afternoon it commenced to look very wild, although the wind was moderate; the sky was of a deep saffron colour, and the sun shone with a fiery red. Between five and six in the evening the wind rose, and continued increasing until about seven, when the havoc began.
Houses were levelled in an instant with the ground; many of the small dwellings were completely lifted from off their slight foundations, and carried by the wind to some distance. One old woman in particular had a narrow escape of her life. The house in which she resided was raised about five feet from the ground by the violence of the wind, hurried along with the greatest velocity for about the space of twenty feet across the road, and then placed in what was once a pond. Luckily, however, for the good old dame, the pond had been filled up, or, in all probability, her aerial flight would have finished her course of existence in this transitory sphere.
The hurricane raged with unabated force until a little before nine, tearing up large trees by the roots, and snapping asunder others as if they had been twigs; when, suddenly, in a moment, the wind dropped. Not a sound was to be heard—not a single breeze was abroad: A deep, solemn silence reigned around—a silence which harrowed up every feeling of the soul, for it spoke of dire mishaps.
This continued for some time, when again the wind returned with redoubled fury, as if its strength was recruited by the short respite it had gained, and shook the very earth. The hurricane raged until the sun got up, and then slowly and sullenly it sank to rest; until towards evening, nothing was to be heard but its sobs and sighs.
A great many small vessels belonging to Antigua were sunk during the gale, and many poor mortals that night found—
“Their death in the rushing blast,
Their grave in the yawning sea.”