Part 59
"At the south-east of this ridge of mountains, there are plains of an immense extent, covered with different species of grasses, and watered by innumerable torrents, which falling from the mountains, and uniting in different bodies, majestically enter the Orinoco. These plains were likewise convulsed for above 120 leagues in Venezuela: the towns situate immediately at the foot of the Cordilliera, or in the valleys between them, suffered most severely: those seated in the plains did not suffer considerable injury, though violently shaken. For five months a continued drought had parched the earth, no rain having fallen, and in the preceding month of December, a slight shock of an earthquake had been felt at Caraccas. It was on the eve of the Crucifixion, when Catholics assembled together in their churches, to commemorate, with public prayers and processions, the sufferings and merits of their Redeemer, that this sad catastrophe had happened. The weather was fine, and the air serene, when between four and five P. M. a hollow sound like the roar of a cannon was heard, which was followed by a violent oscillatory motion from west to east, which lasted about seventeen seconds, and which stopped all the public clocks; the convulsion diminished for some moments, but was succeeded by a more violent shock than the first, for nearly twenty seconds, keeping the same direction; a calm followed, which lasted about fourteen seconds, after which, a most alarming trepidation of the earth took place for fifteen seconds: the total duration about one minute and fifteen seconds. The inhabitants of Caraccas, struck with terror, unitedly and loudly implored the protection of Heaven: some ran wildly through the streets; some remained immoveable with astonishment; while others, crowding into the churches, sought refuge at the foot of the altar. The crash of falling buildings, the clouds of dust which filled the air, and the anxious cries of mothers, who inquired in vain for their children lost in the tumult, increased the horrors of this sad day. To this scene of disorder succeeded the most horrible despair. Dead bodies, wounded persons crying for protection, presented themselves every where to those who had escaped from the catastrophe, and who could not turn their eyes from these objects of pity and horror, without meeting with heaps of ruin, which had buried hundreds of unfortunate persons, whose lamentations uselessly pierced their hearts, for it was impossible to give relief or assistance to all.
"It has been computed, that in this calamitous day, near 20,000 persons perished at Venezuela. A great part of the veteran troops were of this number; and all the arms destined for the defence of their country, were buried under the ruins of the barracks. The towns of Caraccas, Merida de Maracaybo, and Laguaira, were totally destroyed; those of Barquirineto, Sanfelipe, and others, suffered considerably. It is to be remarked, that Truxillo, which is situate between Merida de Maracaybo and Sanfelipe, experienced very little damage. At the last place, near the mines of Aroa, the first signal they had of the earthquake was an electric shock, which deprived many persons of their power of motion; and in Valencia, Caraccas, and the neighbouring country, the inhabitants were, for about twenty days after the earthquake, in an extraordinary state of irritability. Many persons, who suffered from intermittent fevers, recovered immediately, in consequence of the effect of the earthquake.
"At Vallecillo, near Valencia, a rivulet spouted out from a hill, which continued to flow for some hours after the earthquake, and which I visited a few days after. The river Guaire, which runs through the valley of Caraccas, was greatly swelled soon after the earthquake, and remained in that state for several days. The water of the bay of Maracaybo withdrew considerably, and it is said that the mountain Avila, which separates Caraccas from Laguaira, sunk several feet into the earth.
"The earthquakes continued for many days, we may say, without interruption: they diminished as it were by degrees, though the last were remarkably strong. So late as the month of October in the same year, there was a violent shock. The earthquake of the 26th March was felt at Santafé de Bogotá, and even at Carthagena, though it was very little felt at Cumana.
"In the following April, a volcano burst out in the island of St. Vincent. About the time of the eruption, a noise like that occasioned by the discharge of a cannon was heard at Caraccas and Laguaira, which caused a general alarm, the inhabitants of each place supposing that the neighbouring town was attacked by the enemy. This roaring noise was distinctly heard where the river Nula falls into the Apure, which is more than 100 leagues from Caraccas. In the same year, 1812, many strong shocks of an earthquake were felt at Samaica and Curaçoa.
"The earthquake of the 26th March alarmed so deeply the inhabitants of Venezuela, that they expected to see the earth open and swallow them at every convulsion; and as it happened on the anniversary of their political revolution, they supposed that event had incurred the displeasure of the Almighty. The clergy, who were enemies to the revolution, as their privileges had been diminished by the new constitution of Venezuela, availed themselves of the disposition of the people, and preached every where against the new republic. Such was the beginning of the civil war at Venezuela; a war, which has desolated those beautiful countries, and which has destroyed the tenth part of their population."
The celebrated poet Cowper, in the second book of his admirable poem, The Task, has given us a very accurate and sublime description of the effects of Earthquakes, from which the following is an extract:--
The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise, The rivers die into offensive pools, And, charg'd with putrid verdure, breathe a gross And mortal nuisance into all the air. What solid was, by transformation strange, Grows fluid; and the fixt and rooted earth, Tormented into billows, heaves and swells, Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immense The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs And agonies of human and of brute Multitudes, fugitive on ev'ry side, And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene Migrates uplifted; and, with all its soil, Alighting on far distant fields, finds out A new possessor, and survives the change. Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought To an enormous and o'erbearing height, Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, Upridg'd so high, and sent on such a charge, Possess'd an inland scene. Where now the throng That press'd the beach, and, hasty to depart, Look'd to the sea for safety? They are gone, Gone with the refluent wave into the deep-- A prince with half his people.
It is a consolation to every good man, to consider that the world is governed by a wise and good, as well as powerful BEING, who gives liberty to the powers of nature to range, or restrains them, as may best suit his divine purposes; which have always the ultimate good of the whole creation in view.
CHAP. XLIX.
CURIOSITIES RESPECTING WINDS, HURRICANES, &c.
_Remarkable Winds in Egypt--Whirlwinds of Egypt--Tornado--Harmattan-- Hurricane--Monsoons--Velocity of the Wind._
Bound as they are, and circumscrib'd in place, They rend the world, resistless where they pass, And mighty marks of mischief leave behind; Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind. First, Eurus, to the rising morn is sent, The regions of the balmy continent, And eastern realms, where early Persians run To greet the blest appearance of the sun. Westward the wanton Zephyr wings his flight, Pleas'd with the remnant of departing light; Fierce Boreas, with his offspring, issues forth T' invade the frozen waggon of the north; While frowning Auster seeks the southern sphere. _Ovid._
REMARKABLE WINDS IN EGYPT.
Egypt is infested with the destructive blasts common to all warm countries which have deserts in their neighbourhood. These have been distinguished by various names, such as Poisonous winds, Hot winds of the desert, Samiel, the wind of Damascus, Camseen, and Simoom. In Egypt they are denominated "Winds of fifty days," because they most commonly prevail during the fifty days preceding and following the equinox, though, should they blow constantly during one half of that time, an universal destruction would be the consequence. Of these, travellers have given various descriptions. M. Volney says, that the violence of their heat may be compared to that of a large oven at the moment of drawing out the bread. They always blow from the south, and are undoubtedly owing to the motion of the atmosphere over such vast tracts of hot sand, which cannot be supplied with a sufficient quantity of moisture. When they begin to blow, the sky loses its usual serenity, and assumes a dark, heavy, and alarming aspect, the sun laying aside his usual splendour, and becoming of a violet colour. This terrific appearance seems not to be occasioned by any real haze or cloud in the atmosphere at that time, but solely by the vast quantity of fine sand carried along by those winds, and which is so excessively subtile that it penetrates every where. The motion of this wind is always rapid, but its heat is not intolerable till it has continued for some time. Its pernicious qualities are evidently occasioned by its excessive aridity; for it dries and shrivels up the skin, and, by affecting the lungs in a similar manner, soon produces suffocation and death. The danger is greatest to those of a plethoric habit, or who have been exhausted by fatigue; and putrefaction very soon takes place in the bodies of such as are destroyed by it. Its extreme dryness is such, that water sprinkled on the floor evaporates in a few minutes; all the plants are withered and stripped of their leaves, and a fever is instantly produced in the human species by the suppression of perspiration. It usually lasts three days, but is altogether insupportable if it continue beyond that time.
The danger is greatest when the wind blows in squalls, and to travellers who happen to be exposed to its fury without any shelter. The best method, in this case, is to stop the nose and mouth with a handkerchief: camels, by a natural instinct, bury their noses in the sand, and keep them there till the squall is over. The inhabitants, who have an opportunity of retiring to their houses, instantly shut themselves up in them, or go into pits made in the earth, till the destructive blast is over.
The description of a blast of this kind, which overtook Mr. Bruce, in the desert of Nubia, is still more terrible.--The sun was now obscured by them,[21] and the transmission of his rays gave them a dreadful appearance, resembling pillars of fire. This was pronounced by the guide to be a sign of the approaching simoom, or hot wind; and he directed, that when it came, the people should fall upon their faces, and keep their mouths on the sand, to avoid drawing in this pernicious blast with their breath. On his calling out that the simoon was coming, Mr. Bruce turned for a moment to the quarter from whence it came, which was the south-east. It appeared like a haze or fog of a purple colour, but less bright than the purple part of the rainbow; seemingly about twenty yards in breadth, and about twelve feet high from the ground. It moved with such rapidity, that before he could turn about and fall down, he felt the vehement heat of its current upon his face; and even after it passed over, which was very quickly, the air which followed was of such a heat as to threaten suffocation. Mr. Bruce had unfortunately inspired some part of the pernicious blast; by which means he almost entirely lost his voice, and became subject to an asthmatic complaint, from which he did not get free for two years.
The same phenomenon occurred twice over on their journey through this desert. The second time it came from the south a little to the east, but it seemed to have a shade of blue along with the purple, and its edges were less perfectly defined, resembling rather a thin smoke, and having about a yard in the middle tinged with blue and purple.
The third time, it was preceded by an appearance of sandy pillars, more magnificent than any they had yet observed; the sun shining through them in such a manner as to give those which were nearest a resemblance of being spangled with stars of gold. The simoom which followed had the same blue and purple appearance as before, and was followed by a most suffocating wind for two hours, which reduced our travellers to the lowest degree of weakness and despondency.
It was remarkable, that this wind always came from the south-east, while the sandy pillars, which prognosticated its approach, seemed to keep to the westward, and to occupy the vast circular space inclosed by the Nile to the west of their route, going round by Chaigie towards Dongola. The heaps of sand left by them when they fell, or raised by the whirlwinds which carried them up, were twelve or thirteen feet high, exactly conical, tapering to a fine point, and their bases well proportioned.
The following account of the WHIRLWINDS OF EGYPT, is from Belzoni's Narrative:--"A strong wind which arose this day leads me to mention some particulars of the phenomena that often happen in Egypt. The first I shall notice is the whirlwinds, which occur all the year round, but especially at the time of the camseen wind, which begins in April, and lasts fifty days. Hence the name of _camseen_, which in Arabic signifies fifty. It generally blows from the south-west, and lasts four, five, or six days without varying, so very strong that it raises the sands to a great height, forming a general cloud, so thick that it is impossible to keep the eyes open, if not under cover. It is troublesome, even to the Arabs; it forces the sand into the houses through every cranny, and fills every thing with it. The caravans cannot proceed in the deserts; the boats cannot continue their voyages; and travellers are obliged to eat sand, in spite of their teeth. The whole is like a chaos. Often a quantity of sand and small stones gradually ascends to a great height, and forms a column of sixty or seventy feet in diameter, and so thick, that were it steady on one spot, it would appear a solid mass. This not only revolves within its own circumference, but runs in a circular direction over a great space of ground, sometimes maintaining itself in motion for half an hour, and wherever it falls it accumulates a small hill of sand. God help the poor traveller who is caught under it!"
We shall now describe a TORNADO.--This is a sudden and vehement gust of wind from all points of the compass, and frequent on the coast of Guinea. A tornado seems to partake much of the nature of a whirlwind, or perhaps of a water-spout, but is more violent in its effects. It commences very suddenly: several clouds being previously drawn together, a spout of wind, proceeding from them, strikes the ground, in a round spot of a few rods or perches in diameter, and proceeds thus half a mile or a mile. The proneness of its descent makes it rebound from the earth, throwing such things as are moveable before it, sideways, or in a lateral direction from it. A vapour, mist, or rain, descends with it, by which the path of it is marked with wet.
The following is a description of one which happened a few years since at Leicester, about fifty miles from Boston, in New England: it happened in July, on a hot day, about four o'clock in the afternoon. A few clouds having gathered westward, and coming over-head, a sudden motion of their running together in a point, being observed, immediately a spout of wind struck the west end of a house, and instantly carried it away, with a negro man in it, who was afterwards found dead in its path. Two men and a woman, by the breach of the floor, fell into the cellar; and one man was driven forcibly up into the chimney corner. These were preserved, though much bruised; they were wet with a vapour or mist, as were the remains of the floor, and the whole path of the spout. This wind raised boards, timbers, &c. A joist was found on one end, driven nearly three feet into the ground. The spout probably took it in its elevated state, and drove it forcibly down. The tornado moved with the celerity of a moderate wind, and declined in strength till it entirely ceased.
HARMATTAN.--This is a name given to a singular wind, which blows periodically from the interior parts of Africa, towards the Atlantic ocean. It prevails in December, January, and February, and is generally accompanied by a fog or haze, that conceals the sun for whole days together. Extreme dryness is the characteristic of this wind: no dew falls during its continuance, which is sometimes for a fortnight or more. The whole vegetable creation is withered, and the grass becomes at once like hay. The natives take the opportunity which this wind gives them, of clearing the land, by setting fire to trees and plants in this their exhausted state. The dryness is so extreme, that household furniture is damaged, and the wainscot of the rooms flies to pieces. The human body is also affected by it, so as to cause the skin to peel off; but in other respects it is deemed salutary to the constitution, by stopping the progress of infection, and curing almost all cutaneous diseases.
We now proceed to some curious particulars, under the term HURRICANE.--This is indeed a general name for any violent storm of wind, but is peculiarly applied to those storms which happen in the warmer climates, and which greatly exceed the most violent ones known in this country. Dr. Mosely, in his Treatise on Tropical Diseases, observes, that the ruin and desolation accompanying a hurricane can scarcely be described. Like fire, its resistless force consumes every thing in its track, in the most terrible and rapid manner. It is generally preceded by an awful stillness of the elements, and a closeness and mistiness in the atmosphere, which makes the sun appear red, and the stars larger. But a dreadful reverse succeeds: the sky is suddenly overcast and wild; the sea rises at once from a profound calm into mountains; the wind rages and roars like the noise of cannon; the rain descends in a deluge; a dismal obscurity envelops the earth with darkness; and the superior regions appear rent with lightning and thunder. The earth on these occasions often does, and always seems to tremble; whilst terror and consternation distract all nature: birds are carried from the woods into the ocean; and those whose element is the sea, seek for refuge on land; the frightened animals in the field assemble together, and are almost suffocated by the impetuosity of the wind in searching for shelter, which, when found, is but the prelude to destruction. The roofs of houses are carried to vast distances from their walls, which are beat to the ground, burying their inhabitants under them. Large trees are torn up by the roots, and huge branches shivered off, and driven through the air in every direction with immense velocity. Every tree and shrub that withstands the shock is stripped of its boughs and foliage; plants and grass are laid flat on the earth; and luxuriant spring is changed in a moment to dreary winter. This direful tragedy ended, (when it happens in a town,) the devastation is surveyed with accumulated horror: the harbour is covered with wrecks of boats and vessels; and the shore has not a vestige of its former state remaining. Mounds of rubbish and rafters in one place; heaps of earth and trunks of trees in another; deep gullies from torrents of water; and the dead and dying bodies of men, women, and children, half buried, and scattered about, where streets stood but an hour before,--present the miserable survivors with the shocking conclusion of a spectacle, to be followed by famine, and, when accompanied by an earthquake, by mortal diseases.
Philosophers are now inclined to attribute these terrible phenomena to electricity, though the manner in which it acts in this case is by no means known. It seems probable, indeed, that not only hurricanes, but even the most gentle gales of wind, are produced by the action of the electric fluid.
In the next place we shall treat of MONSOONS, or TRADE-WINDS.
"Trade-winds, observing well their stated course, To human good employ their pow'rful force; The loaded ships across the ocean fann'd By steady gales, spread commerce through the land: These you observe--but have you no desire The hidden spring of such effects t'inquire? Or, when contending winds around you blow, Do you ne'er wish the cause of them to know?"
Monsoons are those winds which blow six months constantly the same way, and the contrary way the other six months.
Mr. Olinthus Gregory observes, that "though the winds in a temperate zone of the earth are very inconstant and changeable, yet this is not the case in every part of the terrestrial globe; for in the torrid zone, and some other parts, the winds are generally very uniform and constant in their direction, as will appear from the following facts relative thereto:--
"1. Over the Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, particularly between thirty degrees of north and thirty degrees of south latitude, the trade-winds, as they are called, blow uniformly from east to west, all the year round, with a small variation in the different seasons.
"2. When the sun is on the equator, the trade-winds, in sailing northward, veer more and more from the east towards the north; so that about their limit they become nearly north-east; and _vice versa_ in sailing southward, they become at last nearly south-east. 3. When the sun is near the tropic of Cancer, the trade-winds north of the equator become more nearly east than at other times, and those south of the equator more nearly south; and _vice versa_, when the sun is near the tropic of Capricorn. 4. The trade-winds are not due east upon the equator, but about four degrees to the north of it.
"To account for these facts relative to the winds, is a most curious and important, though mysterious, inquiry; having employed the pens of several very eminent philosophers: but amongst all the explanations I have seen, there is none in my opinion more agreeable to nature than one given by Mr. John Dalton, of Manchester, in his "Meteorological Observations and Essays." The method of reasoning applied to the subject in that work, I shall here make use of.
"The inequality of heat in the different climates and places, and the earth's rotation on its axis, appears to be the principal causes of all winds, regular and irregular. It may be observed, that whenever the heat is greatest, there the air will ascend, and a supply of colder air will be received from the neighbouring parts: it will be willingly allowed, that the heat is at all times greatest in the torrid zone, and decreases gradually in proceeding northward or southward; also that the poles may at all times be considered as the centres of cold. Hence it reasonably follows, that abstracting from accidental circumstances, there will be a constant ascent of air over the torrid zone, which air will afterwards fall northward and southward, whilst the colder air below is determined by a continual impulse towards the equator.