Quo bruta tellus et vaga flumina
Quo Styx et invisi horrida Taenari
Sedes Atlanteusque finis
Concutitur.
Whereby heavy earth and wandering river
Whereby river Styx and detested wild lower-world/Hades
Home of Atlas ends
Shake
Shillong is a lovely little station nestling away amongst the Khasia Hills, in the midst of pine woods, and abounding in waterfalls and mountain torrents. The climate is delicious all the year round, and the riding and driving as good, if not better, than any hill-station in India. Life there was very pleasant, not a superabundance of gaiety, but quite enough to be enjoyable. I have spent some very happy days there with some good friends, many of whom, alas! I can never hope to see again; and the memories that come to me of Shillong and my sojourn there are tinged with sadness and regret, even though those days were good and pleasant while they lasted.
Things have changed there now, that is, as far as the comings and goings of men change, but the hills remain the same, and the face of Nature will not alter. Her streams will whisper to the rocks and flowers of all that has been and that is to be. So runs the world. Where others lived and loved, sorrowed and died, two hundred years ago, we are living now, and when our day is over and done there will be others to take our place, until a time comes when there shall be no more change, neither sorrow nor death, and the former things shall have passed away for ever.
I left Shillong early in November 1889, travelling part of the way towards Manipur quite alone, and had a terrible experience too. I had arranged to journey a distance of thirty-eight miles in one day. I sent one of my horses on the day before, and started in a Khasia Thoppa down the last hill of the range upon which Shillong is situated, which brings you down into the plain of Sylhet.
A Thoppa is a very curious mode of locomotion. It is a long cane basket, with a seat in the middle, from which hangs a small board to rest your feet upon. Over your head is a covered top made of cane, covered with a cloth. You sit in this basket and a man carries you on his back, supporting some of the weight by tying a strap woven of cane on to the back of the Thoppa, which he puts over his forehead.
The Khasias, luckily, are very strong men, but they think it necessary always to begin by informing you that you are much too heavy to be lifted by any single individual, unless that said individual be compensated at the end of the journey with double pay.
You ask him what you weigh, and he scratches an excessively dirty head, shuts up one eye, spits a quantity of horrible red fluid out of his mouth, and then informs you that he should put you down as eighteen or nineteen stone, and he even will go as far as twenty sometimes. This, to a slim, elegant-looking person, partakes of the nature of an insult, but eventually he picks you up on his back and proceeds along the road with you as fast as he can, as if you were a feather weight.
Going along backwards, and knowing that, should the man's head strap break, the chances are you will be precipitated down the Khud, are certainly not pleasurable sensations; but it is astonishing how exceedingly callous you become after a lengthy course of Thoppa rides up in the hills. Sometimes your Thoppawallah may be slightly inebriated, when he will lurch about in a horrible manner, emit a number of curious gurgling noises from the depths of his throat, and eventually tumble down in the centre of the road, causing you grievous hurt.
At other times he will take into consideration that it is a cold night, the Memsahib is going to a Nautch, and will be there four or five hours, while he is left to his own reflections outside, waiting to carry her home again when her festivities have subsided. Having arrived at the conclusion that the cold will probably by that time be intense, he will come to take you to the scene of action enveloped in every covering that he can get together.
After he has carried you a short way he begins getting hot, and rapidly divests himself of his many wrappers, placing them on the top of your machine, where they flutter about, hitting you now and then playfully in the mouth or eye, as the case may be, and making themselves as generally unpleasant as they possibly can. Having done so, they end by falling off into the road. Your Khasia perceives them, and immediately descends with you on to his hands and knees, and grovels about until he recovers the fallen raiment.
During this process your head assumes a downward tendency, and your heels fly heavenwards; and should you move in anyway ever so slightly, you immediately find yourself sitting on the ground in a more hasty than dignified attitude, upbraiding your Khasia in English. You may swear at a native and abuse all his relations, as their custom is, in his own language, and you will not impress him in any way; but use good sound fish-wife English, and he will treat you as a person worthy of respect.
On my journey from Shillong, at the time of which I write, I fell in with two very amiable Khasias. One could speak Hindostanee rather well, and he walked beside me as I travelled down the hill and talked to me on various interesting subjects. He asked me a great deal about the Lushais, and I invented some wonderful anecdotes for his delectation. When we parted, I think I had impressed him with the idea that I was a person of great moral worth.
At the foot of the hill I got into a small train, the only railway to be found at present in that side of Assam. I think it only extends over about twelve miles of country, and there are about four trains, two up and two down daily. They do not trouble themselves by putting on too much speed. We, my servants and I, travelled as far as we could in it, and then I found myself within twenty miles of Sylhet — my proposed destination — in lots of time to ride in comfortably before dark, and get my servants and baggage in at the same time.
On 12 June 1897, occurred one of those terrible calamities which those who lived through it will always speak with a shudder. I was at our headquarters, the pleasant little station of Shillong, which lies quiet and peaceful amidst some of the most beautiful hill scenery in the world. My wife had just arrived from England and was busy unpacking all her new things and dresses, and the many home treasures we had never before ventured to entrust to India. We were occupied with preparations for celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and no thought of trouble crossed our minds.
Invitations had been issued for a State Ball at Government House, and the residents of the station were engrossed with prospective decorations, festivity, and entertainment. The weather had been wet, but on this Saturday afternoon, after two days of rain, the sun shone brightly and all were enjoying themselves in the open air. My wife and I had just taken our seats in the dog-cart and were starting for our usual drive. The reins were in my hand, the groom was adjusting a defect in the harness to which I had called his attention, and other servants and orderlies in their red and gold uniforms were standing by, in accordance with their custom, to see us off.
Without a warning and with no premonitory rumble, such as is the ordinary precursor of an earthquake, I heard a clattering on the roof, I felt a swaying of the earth, and the high-spirited pony I was driving dashed off ventre a terre like an arrow from a bow. Amid a terrific roar of indescribable elements, we galloped along, missing by a hair's breadth the wooden railing on the winding drive.
The road yawned open with cracks beneath our feet, the pine trees overhead shook and trembled as though under the influence of a mighty storm, and the pinecones showered an avalanche upon our heads. The Gurkha guard was drawn up for the salute, and we saw the guard-house crumble like a house of cards as we approached it. It was more by luck than skill that we escaped a carriage accident, and I managed to stop the trap about a hundred and fifty yards from where we started.
The affrighted pony was then backing over the railings above a crumbling slope. I sprang out, and got my wife out, I know not how. We could scarcely stand. I thought the swaying trees would fall on us and, reeling as we went, rushed with my wife to an open spot before the flag-staff, where we threw ourselves on the ground. As I leaped from the trap, I looked back to where Government House had been, and saw nothing but a great pillar of red dust from earth to I heaven.
We were safe. But what a terrible moment! The noises of the earthquake, blended with cries of terror, rose all around us, and the shaking of the surface of the earth continued, like the movement of some titanic piece of machinery. Gradually the crisis passed and comparative silence reigned. My private secretary hurried up from the Club, and others followed in quick succession, men, women, and children. Then the rain began to fall and continued for forty-eight hours without intermission.
Darkness was closing in: we had to find some shelter for the night. Government House was a heap of ruins, not one stone standing upon another, and all the masonry houses of Shillong were in a similar plight. My servants and the Gurkha guard tore away the stones from a fallen outhouse in which our camp equipment was stored, and managed to extract three servants' tents, which were rapidly pitched and afforded a refuge. Kindly Samaritans whose houses had not been so completely wrecked as ours found us food. Ten or twelve persons remained huddled up in each of these small tents that night.
There was little sleep for any: the earth was in constant tremor, and five minutes did not elapse without a specific shock with its subterranean rumble, and the clattering of the fallen corrugated iron roofs among the adjoining ruins. We kept up a bonfire until the morning, which we fed with the shattered furniture and broken woodwork of the house. Above all was the anxiety for others, for the world outside, which was not relieved until eight days had passed.
I found time to visit many parts of the station. It was a scene of deplorable desolation and distress. Only a very small section of the community had sought a refuge with us in the Government House grounds. Most took shelter as they could find it, in the wooden cricket ground pavilion, which had not subsided, and in sheds in the bazar: others were in their mat-walled stables or coach-houses. The position of all, and especially of delicate ladies and children exposed to the elements, was the most pitiable one. All had their stories of horror to narrate.
Some had been out riding, some bicycling; some had been walking, and, clinging from tree to tree for protection, had fallen to the ground; a set had been playing lawn tennis when the court crumbled away under their feet; others had been golfing and had fallen prone upon the links; a family saved themselves by rushing out of their house and rolling down the steps; the inmates of the Club just escaped by tumbling out of doors. Women were crying out that the Day of Judgment had come. It was no disgrace for the boldest of men to turn pale, or of the nerves of the strongest to be unstrung.
The Government Press was full of compositors, engaged in printing the Gazette when the building fell in on them. Fatigue parties of sepoys were employed all night in endeavouring to extricate those who were entombed and might still be alive. It was a ghastly sight to witness the dead dragged forth, and the pallid, staggering forms of the survivors. The gallant little Gurkhas worked indefatigably amid drenching rain and depressing darkness and earth tremors.
Mr. Robert Blair McCabe, Inspector-General of Police and an officer of conspicuous distinction, was found dead, horribly crushed, beneath the ruins of his house. It had been the Queen's intention to confer a: Companionship of the Order of the Star of India on the late Mr. R. B. McCabe, Indian Civil Service, in recognition of his services in Assam, and of his work of exceptional merit among the wild tribes of the north-east frontier of India.
Such was the notification which appeared in the Gazette of India a short time after his death. I shall never forget his funeral. We laid him in a sheet and carried him, stumbling over the fallen cemetery walls through a tornado of rain, to his grave, which was already half full of water — a tragic close to a career of the most brilliant promise.
There was a simple system of nine seismometric cylinders of varying heights and sizes in Shillong — in arrangement not sensitive enough to record even moderately severe shocks and so of comparatively little use on ordinary occasions; but in this case it was of no use at all, as all the cylinders were levelled indiscriminately to the ground. The great embankment which closed in the beautiful Shillong Lakes had collapsed with a terrific roar; the water, pouring down a ravine, rushed up the river below and destroyed an iron bridge, carrying the heavy girders a considerable distance upstream.
The native bazar was in ruins. The jail, with all other public buildings, had fallen, and the panic-stricken prisoners spent the night in the open. Such was the fear on them that not one attempted to regain his freedom.
The immediate result of the catastrophe was a houseless population, without any change of raiment for day or night, exposed to fury of the rains, destitute of food, and many of them wounded, crushed, or dying. The most urgent need was to house the houseless, to feed the people, and to restore communications. My officers showed admirable presence of mind, and laboured unceasingly. There was no hesitancy or faint heartedness on the part of any one.
Temporary huts were run up in a few days, and a loan was offered from the Treasury to the bazar merchants with a view to the importation of grain. Looting, which had prevailed somewhat extensively on the night of the earthquake and I am afraid it was white men who were to blame was prevented. One of the earliest measures I took was to assign to every officer his own special duty in repairing damages and restoring confidence.
Every officer, whatever his ordinary duties, was made available for the task of rendering assistance. An Examiner of Accounts was set to remove ruins; Forest Officers and Accounts Officers were employed in clearing the roads; the Officers of the Regiment supervised the work of their sepoys in building huts; Magistrates became foremen of coolie gangs; and my Assistant Secretary was converted into a most efficient Conservancy Overseer. Every man was placed at his post, and all worked with their might.
Above all, Major Neil Campbell, the Civil Surgeon of the station, and John C. Arbuthnott, the Deputy Commissioner — both of whom I am glad to say afterwards received a decoration for their services — never spared themselves, and day and night were continually at work, encouraging others and setting an example to everyone by their sense of duty and self-devotion.
Of the Indian staff also I can speak in the highest terms. Although their own losses were great, they devoted themselves to the public service unremittingly and without complaining. It was due to their cooperation with the unweary efforts of Edward Gait, my Chief Secretary, and to that officer's power of organisation that the records were salvaged with little loss, and that current work was promptly resumed. Not a single table or chair came out unbroken from the wreck of the Secretariat, and yet within ten days from the earthquake the office establishment was dealing with current cases.
After the first urgent need of shelter had been met, the task of reopening communications was taken up. Telegraphic connection had been destroyed. The abutments of bridges had been shaken to pieces, and the superstructures had collapsed. Several miles of road had gone down the hillside, all roads were cracked and fissured, both longitudinally and lateral: and great chasms thirty, feet in depth yawned open in places. Portions of the road were buried by huge landslips. Other portions, which ran along level ground, presented the rough appearance of a ploughed field. It will serve to illustrate the force of the shock when I say that all the stacks of metal on the roadside were levelled as though the metal had been spread by hand.
The difficulty of re-establishing communications was enormous. It could only be overcome gradually; but it was done in a manner reflecting the highest credit upon Walter Nightingale, the Chief Engineer, and the other Engineers of the Public Works Department. As Assam is well known as a region of seismic disturbance, and earthquakes before this were not uncommon; but they had never been known on any previous occasion to cause widespread destruction. The area over which this earthquake was felt is prodigious. It was estimated on scientific authority to have extended over a tract of nearly 1,500 miles in length and 1,000 in width, or about 1,275,000 square miles. The area over which the shock was destructive is believed to be unique, and the focus from which it radiated was in the neighbourhood of Shillong.
The earthquake was said by the learned Japanese expert, Professor Omori, who was specially sent by his Government to inquire and report, to be due to a fault in the earth's crust about twenty miles below the surface and to be non-volcanic, and thus of a different type from those great cataclysms which have taken place at Krakatoa and in Japan itself. The character of the shock was everywhere much the same, though varying in degree — a sharp vibration accompanied by a rocking or heaving of the earth and a loud rumbling noise.
In the hills, gigantic landslips plunged mountain-sides in ruin and buried villages beneath them. In the plains, the rivers were agitated, the water rising to a height of many feet; the banks crumbled and fell in, hurling whole hamlets into the stream; in many places geysers leaped forth, spouting up sand and innumerable jets of water. This eruption had such force that the covers of wells solidly embedded in mortar were tossed to a great distance, while the wells were choked
with sand.
These are reproductions of photographs showing the variations of the seismographic needle at Shillong, produced by the subsidiary earthquakes there on the 26th of April, 1898, and 5th of July, 1901.
It is difficult to define the duration of the great shock; but I do not think it lasted for more than three minutes, and the period of extreme intensity was probably limited to about thirty seconds. But this half-minute's disturbance of the earth's crust was sufficient to cover it with ruins. The fall of Government House, a large and straggling masonry building, must have been complete within ten seconds.
But after the great disturbance definite shocks were incessant for about a week, and the earth tremor went on continuously for a longer period. In Shillong itself it was estimated that there were two hundred shocks a day for a few days after the 12th of June; these had gradually diminished to twenty or thirty shocks a day by the middle of July. Then they became fewer; but for at least two years after the earthquake we were accustomed to a daily shock.
Occasionally these were of alarming intensity, but familiarity led to their being treated with contempt. My youngest son, out on a visit from home, was staying with us during the cold weather of 1898. We were on tour, and he was sitting reading in the veranda, while I was writing inside the official Circuit House. A somewhat severe shock occurred; and it is a family tradition that as he sprang from his chair I called to him, “Don't be afraid, Bertie; it is only an earthquake!”
Shocks had become rare when I left Assam at the end of April, 1902; but I may safely estimate that we acquired an experience of about four thousand quakes. Professor Omori had been good enough to explain to us that these after-shocks were merely the residual effects of the first big disturbance, subject to definite laws, and had nothing dangerous in their character. In fact, we were assured that they were absolutely necessary in the ordinary course of things, as by their means the disturbed earth crust was gradually settling itself into its final stable position, and that each after-shock meant the removal of one residual weak point. So we never minded them at all, and earthquakes became an accustomed element in the routine of life.
It was most fortunate that the big earthquake occurred when it did, in the afternoon, about five o'clock, when nearly everybody after a wet day was out of doors. Had it taken place at almost any other time — and needless to say had it happened at night — the mortality would have been terrible. As it was, one of the most remarkable features of a disaster so overwhelming and so widespread is the comparatively small number of deaths which it occasioned. The ascertained deaths numbered only 1,542 — a figure no doubt below the truth, as it was impossible at a season of floods and downpours of rain to collect complete returns.
These were practically all due to falling houses, slipping mountain -sides, and the collapse of river banks; in a few cases boats were swamped, and the occupants were drowned. Two cases were reported of persons having been swallowed up by the earth opening under them — as in the earthquake which swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram — but I decline to vouch for these, as nowhere does the earth gape open and close again.
The earthquake deaths were, however, immeasurably exceeded by the mortality from the epidemics that ensued. In Shillong — where there was a temporary but complete dislocation of the water supply — cholera, dysentery, and fever broke out in the Indian quarter, and much sickness, including a severe outbreak of enteric, laid many low in the cantonments and civil station. The connection between earthquakes and epidemic disease is a medical question of some obscurity, but I believe that this connection has been scientifically traced.
Certain it is that in Assam there was the most appalling sickness throughout the province during the autumn of the earthquake year; thousands, and tens of thousands, died from the most malignant form of fever and the general mortality of the year was over fifty per thousand, or almost as high as that which prevailed in the regions of India where famine was then raging. It was the most unhealthy year of which there is any record.
The population at large, although completely cowed at first by the effects of such an unprecedented phenomenon, very soon displayed their usual patience and, calmness, and resumed their occupations as though nothing had happened. The catastrophe was one which principally affected the few wealthy and well-to-do persons who reside in masonry dwellings. The poor, who live in mat huts, did not suffer so directly from the shock itself.
Tea plantations were damaged in some places, but this great industry escaped as a whole without serious injury. The losses sustained by the province were, however immense. I am afraid that in the interests of the province I was not altogether wise in the studied moderation with which I reported our difficulties. Nothing could have exceeded the personal sympathy of Lord Elgin, and that was felt at the time to be a great support. But I venture now to say that we received no adequate assistance from the Government of India.
When I went down to Calcutta at Christmas I bearded the Finance Minister in his den, but he would give me no satisfaction. I appealed to Caesar, and got some concessions from the Viceroy, abut they were quite insufficient for the needs of the province. It was not until I was leaving Assam, and had no control over the distribution of funds, that Lord Curzon placed supplies at my disposal. The finances of the province during the whole period of my charge were paralysed by the necessity of restoring public works to their former condition, and the dial of progress was set back.
As soon as I could leave headquarters and had made some provisional arrangements for sheltering my wife, whose nerves were badly shattered by what she had gone through, I proceeded on tour during August and September to examine with my own eyes the damage done by the earthquake in all parts of the province. This was a most interesting experience, and it was absolutely necessary that I should go, although the exposure I went through, following on what I had already undergone, resulted in, my health being permanently affected.
I was accompanied by Nightingale, the chief engineer, and could not have had a more cheery companion. We witnessed some wonderful sights. We saw a large native bazar which sank and was embedded in six feet of sand. We saw huge fissures, sixteen feet deep, as many wide, and a mile long. We found rivers completely silted up. In many cases we found embanked roads which had subsided to a level with the adjacent country. We visited a village in which forty-one persons, mostly Mohammedans, who were celebrating the Mohurrum, fell into the river owing to the subsidence of the river bank and were drowned.
The appearance of the southern range of the Khasi Hills — the precipitous sides of which had been scarred as far as the eye could see by numerous and extensive landslips, resembling glaciers tunning down into the valleys;— bore eloquent testimony to the tremendous character of the shock, and left no room for doubt that the centre or focus of the disturbance was to be placed among these hills.
The most permanent and disastrous consequence of the earthquake undoubtedly consisted in the raising of river beds and the obstruction of drainage channels. It so happened that the rainfall that year was quite exceptional, and we witnessed from the foot of the hills at Cherrapunji a downpour of eighty inches in three days. The little Cherra railway was destroyed and, though every effort to repair it was made, it was ultimately abandoned.
A stray pony was utilising the broken-down terminus as a stable. With the aid of an elephant we traversed the course of the line. In places the rails had been forced upwards, as if by the expansion of the metal, and had formed a triangle with the ground, the apex of which was three feet above their former level. Occasionally, the embankment had been washed away, and the rails and iron sleepers hung in mid-air.
From a place called Chhatak, the centre of the limestone industry, we embarked on a day of inspection in drenching rain. Starting at daybreak, in three small country boats, we arrived at our destination after a seven hours' journey. Our difficulties were serious, for the rapids were exceedingly violent, and one of the boats containing our luncheon was lost, while the occupants had a narrow escape, clinging to the boughs of trees till they were rescued.
The channels were blocked with debris and silt, and immense quantities of huge drift timber had come down with the landslips. The beautiful orange groves, which were so marked a feature of this tract, were a sea of ruin. The whole country was covered with sand, and the floods found no other way of outlet than over the surface of the plain. In one place where there had been a crystal pool forty feet deep and a noted resort for fishermen, I was able to cross without wetting myself above the knees. The return journey was accomplished in four and a half hours, and the shooting of the rapids among trees and snags, though dangerous, was accomplished with no further, mishap.
From the same cause the floods of the Assam Valley rose to a height far exceeding any previous record. When I visited the town of Barpeta I found the inhabitants living on platforms and in boats; cattle were perishing from starvation, and dead bodies were floating about. Dogs and ponies were like skeletons. I rescued one miserable pony, which was lying in water with its head only on dry land, and had not strength to raise itself. The police guard of honour to receive me was drawn up on the roof of a large country boat, which had been serving as a treasury and jail and guardroom.
The first thing I did was to release the prisoners, all short-time men. The Magistrate's Court, his residence, and the Circuit House were up to their eaves in water, and the shops in the bazar and all private houses were in the same condition. Everywhere we found that the river beds had upheaved, so as to be almost on a level with the surrounding country. There was no natural escape for the water to run off.
These excessive floods were directly due to this cause, and even up to the present time I hear of old channels not properly scoured out and no new channels formed. Many village sites therefore became uninhabitable, and the people were forced to move to other places. A great decrease of cultivation followed in what had been a very fertile country.
The following encomium was passed on the Assamese Magistrate of Barpeta by Colonel Maxwell, the Commissioner, whose sympathy with the people was the secret of his influence among them: —
"Placed single-handed, as he has been, in this isolated town, among a population thoroughly terrified and all of prophecies of approaching dissolution, he has never lost heart; but by the cheerful disposition with which Nature has endowed him has been of much comfort to the subordinate officials and traders, and has carried on the routine duties of his charge without interruption”.
I would make this eulogy a general one. The flag of Great Britain never ceased to fly on the Government House flag-staff, in the centre of wreck and desolation. It was the token of the spirit by which all my officers were animated. Everything that could be done by them was done — quietly, effectively, and promptly. When I left the province no trace remained of the catastrophe. Shillong was more beautiful than it had ever been.
Houses, public buildings, churches, and jails had been rebuilt. The new roads and bridges were better than the old ones. The whirligig of time had removed from the province most of those who had borne the brunt of the shock. But the great earthquake will never be forgotten. Its memory will live beyond the lives of those men and women on whom it is indelibly impressed. It was a great calamity,
"Quo bruta tellus et vaga flumina
Quo Styx et invisi horrida Taenari
Sedes Atlanteusque finis
Concutitur."
Whereby heavy earth and wandering river
Whereby river Styx and detested wild lower-world/Hades
Home of Atlas ends
Shake
My Three Years in Manipur and Escape from the
Recent Mutiny (1891), Ethel Grimwood. University of Michigan.
http://www.archive.org/details/mythreeyearsinm00grimgoog
Indian & home memories by Sir Henry Cotton
(1910), T.F.Unwin, London.University of Toronto.
http://www.archive.org/details/indianhomememori00cottuoft
