GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF EFFECTS OF EARTHQUAKE. 13 



dl separated and disjointed. The whole must have gone over in one 

 mass projected by the shock into the courtyard of the jail. 



A small Hindu temple or mal, which lay under the shelter of a 

 large banyan tree, was quite uninjured ; and, naturally enough, the 

 people, unaccustomed to reason as to the causes of these phenomena; 

 attributed its safety to the protecting power of its sanctity. It was 

 a small, nearly square cell, of solid heavy masonry and, as it stood close 

 to the utter ruin of the jail wall and to the wild scene of destruction 

 which the adjoining bazaar and banks of the river afforded, its preser- 

 vation was striking. This was clearly due, not to any holiness in the 

 ground which prevented the irreverent footsteps of the earthquake from 

 penetrating there but to the binding effect of the wide-spread roots 

 of the noble tree which covered it and which so tied together the 

 whole ground that it must have been affected as a whole if disturbed 

 at all. For this the force exerted was not sufficient, and the temple 

 escaped. 



The bazaar itself presented one almost unbroken scene of ruin. It 

 had been chiefly composed of bamboo and mat structures, which, in other 

 places, had remained undisturbed, yielding sufficiently to the wave by 

 their elasticity, and quickly recovering themselves. With these there were 

 a few pucka or masonry structures — some with flat-terraced roofs. 

 But here all were in ruins. The views I have given, all taken from 

 Mr. Pearson's photographs and therefore accurate and detailed representa- 

 tions of the facts, will convey a much better idea of the appearance of 

 the place than the most detailed description. 



However, it required very little examination to see that all this terrible 

 destruction of property was due entirely — almost entirely — to secondary 

 causes. This bazaar extended along the bank of the river, up the 

 eastern reach of the great curve or bend which encompasses the town 

 and peninsula of Silchar ; and when one looked at the ground between 

 the houses and the river the eye was met by a wavy sea of broken 

 ground dropping to the river's edge by successive steps, trees thrown at 

 every angle some buried or half -buried, the fragmentary ruins of houses 



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