A SHOCK. 
265 
met me, I returned to my room in bewilder- 
ment, thinking I had been dreaming, when a 
repetition of the volleying and rattling com- 
menced. This time I fled to the front, and was 
inquiring of some of the family whom I encoun- 
tered, as frightened as I, what it could mean, 
when a hurrah from a crowd concealed behind 
the garden wall recalled to us that it was a salute 
of crackers and a display of fireworks to celebrate 
his Excellency’s birthday. 
But we had a shock in real earnest a few days 
later. We ladies were sitting talking in the 
verandah after dinner, when the gentlemen 
rushed out from the salon , and severally seizing 
one of us, hurried out to the beach, A sharp 
shock, with a noise like the roar of a train ‘draw- 
ing into a station, so paralysed us that we could 
not have fled ourselves. The sensation of an 
earthquake is unforgettable : feel it once, and you 
never have any doubt what means that sicken- 
ing rocking of the very earth beneath you, with 
the swaying of whatever the eye fixes on, and the 
clatter of everything movable. 
Since the last words were written, we have had 
an amusing domestic experience. We have been 
entirely dependent for some days on our own 
efforts for household comfort. The good Goma 
