62 LETTER II. 



but none of* them did us any farther harm, than 

 frighting us, and cracking the Walls of a few 

 Boiling-houfes and Cifterns. The longeft and 

 iierceft of them happened about one a clock in 

 the morning fometime in the year of our Lord 

 17 17. It bounced me up in bed, and of courfe 

 v/akened me, lliook the whole houfe (which was 

 built all of Wood except the underpinning) fo as 

 to make it crack loudly, and lafted about two 

 minutes and a half, as was judged by every one 

 in the Illand. In fliort 3 our Fear then was inex- 

 preiiible ; and perhaps that very Paffion of Fear 

 might caufe the minutes to feem lono;er than 

 they really were : Surely it could not have af- 

 fected me more, to have marched Soldier-like up 

 to the mouth of an Enemy's Cannon ; and yet 

 (which I own is not to be accounted for) the ve- 

 ry moment it flopped, we were no more con- 

 cerned than if it had never happened at all. 



41. One Mrs.^u^kers of Nevis was a Native of 

 Port Royal in Jamaica, and lived there in the 

 year of our Lord 1692, when the great Earth- 

 quake made fuch a difmal havock and deftrudli- 

 on, as will hardly ever be forgotten by the Inha- 

 bitants of that Ifland. She told me,That the earth 

 opened wide, fwallowed her with many others^ 

 and then immediately clofed up again -, fhe laid, flie 

 was in a ftate of infenlibility during her fhort flay 

 there. It could not exceed the tenth part of a 



mi- 



