Births  Marriages  Deaths  &c. &c.

---

1845 continued

veered and hauled three or four points, the houses were a good deal sheltered from its violence or they would most assuredly have been prostrated, therefore the most of us though we passed a sleepless night, were in mercy permitted to remain quiet in our houses. Very frequently through the night loud crashes were heard which we supposed were the trees in the higher part of the Island yielding to the fury of the storm. The noise did [not] proceed from the falling and smashing of trees, but from a cause, of which we were at that time happily ignorant. At daylight a man much alarmed came to my house saying "a part of the Island had given way and was going into the sea." From the door of my house I obtained an imperfect view of the spot from which a portion of earth had been detached and felt certain it was an avalanche, occasioned by the wind acting upon the trees, and the torrents of rain which fell detaching the earth from the parts above it. So great was the consternation and amazement of many of the natives that although they had seen the spot from which the earth had slidden almost every day of their lives, yet they could not so far collect their ideas as to remember the original appearance of he place; whose property it had been; een the locality of the part[?] near it. As to the cause of the disrupture several opinions prevailed, some said it was occasioned by a waterspout, others said a thunderbolt had fallen there and a third party were anxiously enquiring if it were not probable the sea had perforated a hole from the underside of the Island