390 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BERMUDAS. 



following each other in quick succession, as to give the 

 impression that the whirlwind was enveloped in flame. 

 The house was situated in a valley beneath a steep cliff, 

 down which the wind rushed' like a torrent, tearing up stout 

 trees by the roots, and wrenching limbs from others. The 

 walls and roof of a stone tank which stood by Smith's 

 house were torn asunder. One side of the roof of the tank 

 was lying on a hill a hundred feet from the water, where 

 it had been carried by the wind ; and some one hundred 

 yards from where the house stood. There were some 

 twenty or more whale and sail boats moored in the bay; 

 ten were utterly destroyed, three of them belonged to 

 Smith. Some others were very much injured. 



When day dawned on the village on the following 

 morning poor Smith became conscious that he was alone 

 in a wilderness of sorrow — everything he held dear on 

 earth was gone in a few short hours — his wife, his children, 

 his home, and even the very means by which to make a 

 living — his boats, were taken from him, the only thing left 

 him was the suit of clothes he wore at the time of the acci- 

 dent. And, as if to render him still more wretched, if that 

 were possible, some heartless wretch robbed him of all the 

 money he possessed, some fourteen or fifteen pounds. 



It would seem that the whirlwind, with a fearful rush- 

 ing noise, struck the shore from seaward, about thirty yards 

 south-west of the residence of Mr. A. S. Trott, on the 

 south side of Hamilton Parish, and, passing south of the 

 house (its breadth being here about thirty feet), wrenching 

 stout limbs from trees in its way ; and in some spots, where 

 no wind in a straight course if ever so violent would do 

 harm, this whirlwind caused much havoc. In one place it 

 passed through a garden of cabbages, in which it made a 

 road, the sides of which, some forty feet apart, are clearly 

 defined, whilst in its centre not a vestige of vegetation was 



