180 . SPORT IN BENGAL. 



apprehended. Accordingly when the flood made at nine or 

 ten o'clock of that terrible night, while the gale blew with 

 its utmost violence from the south-east, frightful masses of 

 water were hurled up from the Bay of Bengal, and cast upon 

 the islands and into the rivers named above, so that at about 

 one o'clock in the morning of the 1st of November, the tide 

 being at its highest and the gale unabated, the country, both 

 island and mainland, was covered with salt water to the 

 depth of several feet, according to the distance from the sea, 

 but up to that hour no great losses had been sustained on 

 account of the gradual rise ; but at the time named the 

 cyclone veered after a few minutes' lull to the north-west, 

 and blowing with greater fury than ever, drove the heaped 

 up waters in raging and towering masses back upon the doomed 

 islands, and completely overwhelmed them in the seaward rush. 

 Then it was that most of the mischief was done, the flood 

 rising to five feet above the ground at the station of Noakholly 

 itself, on the mainland, some ten or fifteen miles up a creek, 

 and to five and twenty on the islets farthest out seawards. 



It fell to me, as a matter of duty, to visit the scenes of 

 this calamity, to report upon the losses, and to assist in re- 

 storing order and confidence ; and arriving a few days after, 

 I was able to estimate pretty closely the force and effects of 

 this hurricane. The first thing to strike me was the general 

 appearance of the stricken country, which looked as if fire had 

 passed over its surface. Trees and all vegetation, whether 

 drooping, all torn and riven, or entirely levelled with the 

 ground, were black and scorched by the combined powers of 

 the furious gale and the inundation of salt water. The next 

 remarkable things were the weird and dismal silence, and the 

 absence of all life, whether of bird, beast or insect ; and lastly 

 the frightful stench, as if all nature lay dead and putrid. So 

 penetrating and sickening was the horrible smell, that one 

 feared to inhale the poisoned air, for which cause sufficient 

 lay around in the corpses which filled the ponds and strewed 

 the water-courses made by the retiring waters ; while the 

 carcases of cattle still more thickly covered the fields and 



