American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-12-16
The Great Cyclone in Bengal.

the cyclone of October 81. Storms are
frequent enough in those latitudes, but
a Calcutta correspondent of the London
Times says that this storm was more
severe than any since the great cyclone
of 1864, and that fuller details will
doubtless show it to have been even
more destructive than that memorable
tempest.
The October cyclone arose some
where in the Bay Of Bengal, and, rush.
ing northward in the track of vessels
bound for Calcutta, dismasted many
large ships, and did much other dam
age. But this was tritling compared to
what it did on shore. Calcutta itself
narrowly escaped its violence. At Chit
TAGGING it stranded every vessel in the
harbor, and almost destroyed the
town. Three large islands, Haitian,
Sundeep, and Dakhin, with numerous
smaller islands included in the Bacher-
gunge, Nookholly, and Chittagong dis
tricts, were entirely submerged by the
storm-wave, as was also the main land
for five or six miles inland.
These islands are situated in or near
the estuary of the river Megna. They
have been formed by the deposition OF
earth washed down by the sacred river
Gauges during its periodical inunda-
tions. The waters of the Ganges pour
into the Bay of Bengal by fourteen
principal channels. Some OF these
channels are so narrow that the rigging
of coasting vessels is often entangled in
the trees on the banks. Plentiful sup.
plies of fish for the Calcutta market are
procured in the numerous water courses
of this region. although with difficulty
and danger, as crocodiles and formida-
BILE serpents abound. The forests and
jungles are crowded with tigers and
other ferocious animals, and every
where reigns the deadly malaria
which makes the tSunderbunds''-
as the low, marshy lands of the delta
are called, from being covered
with the soondru, or sunder- tree-the
most inhospitable and unhealthy, as it
is the hottest, part of British India.
Government has made vigorous efforts
to clear and to people the Sunderbunds.
1t has offered special inducements to
settlers in this extensive maritime dis
trict and its adjacent islands, and re-
lays of fresh victims to accident and
disease have been tempted there to fill
up the gaps left by their predecessors.
A large portion Of land has been clear
ed, and timber, cotton, rice, sugar cane,
honey, and the mulberry tree for feed
ing silk worms, have yielded rich re-
turns to enterprise and labor. The
biggest OF the submerged islands, Da-
kiln, was 800 square miles ia extent, and
had population of about $40, 900.
Haitian and Sundeep together had
about 1OO, 900 inhabitants.
Up to II o'clock on the night of Oct.
81, according to dispatch from CAL
cutta, there were no signs of danger;
but before midnight wave swept over
the country to a depth in many places
of 20 feet, surprising the people in their
beds. Dense groves of cocoanut and
palm trees around the villages enabled
many persons to save themselves by
climbing among the branches, and
some took refuge on the roofs of their
houses, but the water burst the houses
asunder and swept them out to sea.
Some were thus carried across the
channel, ten miles, to the Chittagong,
district, but vast majority were never
heard of again. The country is fiat, and
almost every one persisted who failed
to reach the trees. More than one
tree presented the queer spectacle often
witnessed during an inundation of the
Ganges-a 8. happy family" of SER
pents, birds, and beasts of divere
and hostile kinds, waiting aloft for this
water to subside. All the cattle were
drowned. The boats were swept away
and other means of communication de-
stroyed. The Calcutta Government Ga
Sette says that wherever the storm
wave passed it is believed that not a
third of the population survived. The
islands have barely one fourth of their
former inhabitants. /" The latest official
estimates, in report by Sir Richard
Temple, Lieutenant-Govern of Ben
gal, put the total loss of life at 25O, 200.
In some places the stencil from the
putrefying bodies is insufferable, and .
general outbreak of the cholera, which
has already appeared in Nookholly, is
expected. Government is Fastening to
its duty of relieving the sore distress
which prevails among the survivors of
the cyclone.
Remoteness lessons the shock of the
direst disasters, and India still seems far
remote even in this day of triumph for
steam and for the electric telegraph.
These have almost annihilated time and
space, so that Cooks travellers, who are
nicknamed ''globe trotters' in the East,
can circumnavigate the earth in three
months; and the earliest news of the
Bengal cyclone came from Calcutta to
London and New York in less than
fortnight. 1t was received, however,
with comparative Indifference, because
the scene of the tragedy is so distant, and
so little is known of the victims and
their whereabouts, most of the localities
that suffered not even being named on
the map. Then there were so many
victims as to leave only the |
same vague, confused notion of an
aggregate loss of life which our limited
faculties allow of that oc-