THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF PORT ROYAL. 781 



which seemed to threaten a deluge to that part of Port Royal 

 which the earthquake seemed to favor, accompanied with ill 

 stenches and offensive smells. . . . The sky, which was before 

 clear and blue, was in a minute's time become dull and reddish, 

 looking (as I have heard it compared often) like a red-hot oven : 

 all these dreadful circumstances occurring at once, accompanied 

 all the while with prodigious loud noises from the mountains, 

 occasioned by their falling, etc. ; and also a hollow noise under- 

 ground, and people running from one place to another distracted 

 with fear, looking like so many ghosts, and more resembling the 

 dead than the living, made the whole so terrible, that people 

 thought the desolation of the whole frame of the world was at 

 hand. Indeed, 'tis enough to raise melancholy thoughts in a man 

 now, to see the chimneys and tops of some houses, and the masts 

 of ships and sloops, which partak'd of the same fate, appear above 

 water ; and when one first comes ashore, to see so many heaps of 

 ruins, many whereof by their largeness shew that once there had 

 stood a brave house ; to see so many houses shatter'd, some half 

 fallen down, the rest desolate and without inhabitants ; to see 

 where houses have been swallowed up, some appearing half above 

 ground, and of others the chimneys only ; but above all to stand 

 on the sea-shore, and to look over that part of the neck of land 

 which for above a quarter of a mile was quite swallowed up ; 

 there where once brave streets of stately houses stood^ appearing 

 now nothing but water, except here and there a chimney." 



2. '" What you desire concerning our earthquake in Jamaica, I 

 will answer as near as I can to what I saw and heard ; Port Royal 

 being the place where I lived. I shall begin with what I met 

 with there. On Tuesday, the 7th of June, 1693, betwixt eleven 

 and twelve at noon, I being at a tavern, we felt the house shake, 

 and saw the bricks begin to rise in the floor, and at the same in- 

 stant heard one in the street cry, 'An earthquake ! ' Immediately 

 we run out of the house, where we saw all people with lifted-up 

 hands begging God's assistance. We continued running up the 

 street, whilst on either side of us, we saw the houses, some swal- 

 lowed up, others thrown on heaps ; the sand in the street rose like 

 waves of the sea, lifting up all persons that stood upon it, and 

 immediately dropping down into pits ; and at the same instant a 

 flood of water breaking in and rowling those poor souls over and 

 over ; some catching hold of beams and rafters of houses, others 

 were found in the sand that appeared when the water was drained 

 away, with their legs and arms out ; we beholding this dismal 

 sight. The small piece of ground whereon sixteen or eighteen of 

 us stood (praised be God) did not sink. As soon as the violent 

 shake was over, every man was desirous to know if any part of 

 his family were left alive. I endeavoured to go towards my house 



