1811. AND ITS EFFECTS. 259 
houses, brought out chairs, and remained sitting on the ' stupe,' or in 
the street, the rest of the day. 
Walking afterwards about the town, to make several purchases 
for my journey, I was told that many houses were exceedingly rent, 
and some more materially damaged : but none were actually 
thrown down. At the mill, however, at Salt-river, the dwelling- 
house, it was said, had received so much injury, that the owner con- 
sidered it no longer safe or habitable. In the barracks great con- 
fusion arose from all the men endeavouring to rush out at the same 
instant. Many of the ornamental urns which had escaped the earth- 
quake of 1809, were now tumbled from the parapets down into 
the street : one on the top of the house where I resided, was 
shivered to pieces ; and the wall of my bed-room was in the same 
instant divided by a crack which extended from the top of the house 
to the bottom. 
The weather continued pleasant during the afternoon, and, be- 
fore night came on, the apprehensions of the inhabitants were in 
some measure quieted, as every one ventured to sleep in their 
houses, excepting four or five tents which were pitched on the Parade 
and in the Boer Plain. As for myself, I followed the example of 
others, in passing the night with my clothes on, that I might be ready 
to escape the more quickly out of the house, in case another shock 
happened before morning. 
This precaution was the result of past experience ; for the for- 
mer earthquake, which commenced about nine o'clock in the even- 
ing, returned several times in the course of the same night. But it 
must be concluded, that these convulsions of the earth have no con- 
nection either with the time of the day, or with the season of the 
year, since they now took place at five minutes before noon, and in 
the middle of winter ; whereas the former happened in the middle 
of summer, and during the night. 
All the symptoms attendant on this phenomenon bore so much 
the character of electricity, that it could not easily be viewed in any 
other light than as the explosion of electric matter. 
But many of the good people of the town had quite another opi- 
