1838.] Calcutta on the Sth April 425 



I left my father at ByJeunthpore and visited Majaree Gaon, Per gun- 

 nah Anarpur, Dum Dum, Anundpore, Baleaghatta, the salt water 

 lake, and adjacent villages. Baleaghatta towards the west does not 

 appear to have experienced the effects of the storm in all its horrors, as 

 only a few huts came to the ground, and but one life was lost ; but Mr. 

 G. Prinsep's saltworks on the opposite side of the canal have suffered 

 materially*. 



I could not ascertain the actual loss of life and property in the canal, 

 but by information collected from the boatmen and others it would 

 appear that fifteen lives were lost, and about twelve boats. That there 

 may have been more I do not deny ; I only saw five wrecks, one of 

 them in the new dock said to have been conveyed thither by the violence 

 of the wind, the anchor of which must have weighed at least twelve 

 maunds ! But in " Buirnala" almost every boat was swamped. The 

 villages of Samhandal and Choiubagan, have been laid desolate : men, 

 women, and children have died without number as well as animals — I 

 say without number, because there was an established hat in Sambandal> 

 and on that day, I understand, it was crowded to excess by people 

 from the neighbouring villages as well as by the residents. At By- 

 kunthpore and Codalea the visitation has been awful indeed, but at the 

 first mentioned places it surpasses all description ; as far as the eye 

 could reach not a house is to be seen, the grass (I am at a loss how to 

 account for it) has been consumed, and the choppers of houses have 

 vanished as if they were mere vapour : Dongahs and Saidtees\ have 

 been carried up, and in their descent shattered into atoms. The 

 bark of the palm-trees have been pealed off as with a knife, and their 

 leaves broken into shreds ; I am of opinion that the effect of the whirl- 

 wind was more severely felt at Chowbagan and Sambandal than at 

 any other part ; also, that it was owing to the vast expanse of water 



* Some particulars of the damage sustained by these works are worthy of record. 

 An iron salt boiler weighing more than a maund was lifted into the air and con- 

 veyed a few yards distance :— the tiles of the terraces laid in the best cement were 

 ripped up as it were by suction. A beauliah or pleasure boat, lying on the ground 

 for repair disappeared, and only a few fragments were found:— the chimney was 

 thrown down and the roofs of the salt golas blown away— it appears from an observa- 

 tion of Prof. O'Shaughnessy in this month's Asiatic Society's Proceedings, that 

 some of the salt fell in lumps at a great distance ! Large beams were lodged on the 

 salt works from the opposite side of the canal ; but the most extraordinary proof of 

 the force exerted in a lateral direction was evinced in the projection of a slight 

 bamboo horizontally through one of the raised tiled walks, which pierced through the 

 whole breadth, breaking the tiles on both sides. It has been cut off and preserved 

 in situ as a monument of the storm. — A six-pounder could hardly have forced so 

 light an arrow through a mass of earth five feet thick. — Ed. 



f Canoes and hollowed logs of wood used as fishing boats — Ed. 



