1 1 2 Papers relating to the Earthquake 



action partially lost their equilibrium, and that pigeons and 

 other birds roosting were delicately sensible of the least mo- 

 tion. The elephants in Bhooj broke from their pickets, and 

 seemingly in great alarm attempted to rush through, the street, 

 till obstructed by the falling of houses. 



The shock of the 16th was the only one by which the face 

 of nature or the works of man were materially injured or 

 changed. In the province of Cutch it may be fairly asserted 

 that no town escaped feeling its effects, either in the fall of 

 houses or in that of its fortifications. It would be difficult to 

 particularize the damage done to each. I shall therefore con- 

 fine myself to general remarks. 



The capital naturally attracts our first attention ; and, as 

 fortune would have it, Bhooj suffered in many respects more 

 severely than any other town ; nearly seven thousand houses, 

 great and small, were overturned, and eleven hundred and 

 forty or fifty people buried in the ruins. The houses were 

 built of stone and chunam, or in many cases mud instead of 

 this cement. Such houses as were built of mud alone, were 

 little or no ways affected by the shock. Of the original num- 

 ber of houses which escaped ruin, about one-third are much 

 shattered. Bhooj stands in a plain of sand-stone covered with 

 a thin soil of sand and clay, but in many parts the rock is ex- 

 posed. To the north-eastward about half a mile rises an 

 abrupt hill, apparently composed of solid rock, on which are 

 extensive fortifications. The north-eastern face of the town 

 wall, which is a strong modern building, on an average four 

 and a half and five feet broad, and upwards of twenty feet 

 high, was laid level nearly to the foundation ; whilst the hill 

 works suffered in a very trifling degree. The south and 

 western sides of the town are situated upon a low ridge of 

 sand rock, and the water from the town finds its way out to 

 the northward, where is an extensive swamp of low and springy 

 ground. This face has also been overturned in many places, 

 and not a hundred yards of entire wall left. The town has 

 been utterly destroyed in the N.N.E. quarters, while the S. 

 and S.W. quarters stand comparatively little injured. I have 

 entered thus particularly into minutiae, to explain what I con- 

 ceive to have been the case every where, that buildings situ- 

 ated upon rock were not by any means so much affected by 

 the earthquake as those whose foundations did not reach the 

 bottom of the soil, which I conceive to have been the case 

 with those houses on the swampy and low sides of Bhooj *. 



At 



* There are some strong exceptions to this observation : Roha, which is 

 a fort on a rocky hill, was laid in ruins, while the lower town, on the plain, 



escaped 



