, 1867-12-13

tCSSCIS VI AK ~ "a AAulA Ots'
ny. But out of the number the Rhone
steamer, the latest addition to their mag
nifcent fleet, is totally lost at Peter Island.
The Wye has been wrecked at Buck
Island the Conway has gone ashore at
Tortola, and the DerWent at st. Tho
mass; while the Tyne and Solent, al
though "serviceable," are, the telegram
says, dismasted. Fifty other vessels are
more or less wrecks the electric mess
age, as we have already said, states that
the town at st. Thomas's is in ruins. 1t
adds that "the fever is over;' and, indeed,
here is misery and suffering enough tor
any spot. Yellow fever and hurricanes are,
to a certain extent, institutions OF the
little Danish islet, which is known and
summed as the "cole-hole" of the West
Indies. The Dutchmen, Danes, and ne
groes who people the place are tolerably
we'll accustomed to ordinary hurricanes
between July and December, and are sure
to have "yellow jack among them, ifit
exists anywhere in the Archipelago. But
their harbour is commOdlouS, always tull
of ships transferring cargOes, or steamers
"coaling ups" and 10 the West Indies
that harbour serves the same purpose as
Syria does to the Greek Archipelago.
The mail steamers call at the port, and it
is the horrible unhealthy but convenient
emporium for the commerce of the Gulf
of Mexico and of the Atlantic coasts.
The town at st. Thomas's which is built
in the form of an amphitheatre above the
bay, is small. To effect such dreadful
ruin the path of the hurricane must have
laid right athwart the bay and the town !;
it must have been strong enough to tear
down the houses, and to drive the sea in
mighty pillows over the wharfS and quays.
Indeed we shall probably yet hear that
the sea killed more than the wind.
1t is hard for the placid denizen of
quiet soils and temperate a~tmospheres TO
conceive the tremendous force of such a
tempest. OF typhoons, cyclones, and
hurricanes we know next to nothing by
experience. Occasionally we have a high
wind, which ~unrools our sheds, showers
down the tiles, strewS our iron shores
with wrecks, and makes sad havoc among
our ame But such Il tempest can no
more be compared with the storm wind
OF tropical regions, than our mild, half
felt earth-tremOrS with the earthquakes
which, under the equator, demoIish cities,
alter the coast line of continents, and
create or destroy islands. The elements
IN tropical zones seems truly to share the
character of the people, and to acquire a
passionate frenzy unknown elsewhere.
In one sense they actually do so; for in
those zones the intensity of elemental ac-
ton is greater, the heat and light more
vivid, the action and reaction of natural
cause more marked and sudden. 1t is
we'll known that the awful tempests of
the earth's central belt are all whirI-winds,
turning furlousIy on a centre which moves
at great rapidlty along q curved line.
Modern nautical science has given sea-
men adequate directions how to Judge Of
the course of these aerial terrors, and thus
to steer out of their worthless. But when
the fury of the atmospheric Maelstrom
passes over an inhabited spot or q har-
bour crowded with shipping, as it did
lately at Calcutta and has done now in
st. Thomas, then a desperate list of
losses and deaths is sure to be recorded,
especially IT, as in the LITTLE town that has