Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/804

782 upon the ruins of the houses that were floating upon the water, but could not; at length I got a canoacanoe [sic], and row'd up the great sea-side towards my house, where I saw several men and women floating upon the wreck out to sea; and as many of them as I could I took into the boat, and still row'd on till I came to where I thought my house had stood, but could not hear of neither my wife nor family. But seeing all people endeavouring to get to the Island, I went among them, in hopes I might hear of my wife, or some part of my family, but could not. Next morning I went from one ship to another, till at length it pleased God that I met with my wife and two of my negroes. I then asked her how she escaped. She told me, when she felt the house shake, she ran out and call'd all within to do the same. She was no sooner out but the sand lifted her up; and her negro woman grasping about her, they both dropped into the earth together; and at the same instant the water coming in, rowl'd them over and over, till at length they catch'd hold of a beam, where they hung, till a boat came from a Spanish vessel and took them up. The houses from the Jews' street end to the breastwork were all shak'd down save only eight or ten that remained from the balcony upwards above water. And as soon as the violent earthquake was over, the watermen and sailors did not stick to plunder those houses; and in the time of their plunder one or two of them fell upon their heads by a second earthquake, where they were lost. . . . Several ships and sloops were over-set and lost in the harbour. Amongst the rest the Swan-Frigat that lay by the wharf to careen, by the violent motion of the sea and sinking of the wharf, was forced over the tops of many houses: and passing by that house where my Lord Puke lived, part of it fell upon her, and beat in her round-house: she did not over-set, but helpt some hundreds in saving their lives."

The shocks of earthquake continued, but with decreasing violence, for a period of nearly three weeks, and the survivors of the catastrophe at Port Royal fled to the plain of the Liguanea and encamped where the city of Kingston now stands. Here they were attacked by a pestilence, occasioned by exposure, scarcity of food, and the effluvium from the corpses which were floating up and down all over the harbor. Jamaica historians tell us that this epidemic "slew thousands of the survivors," but as they have limited the population of Port Royal to thirty-five hundred, and sixteen hundred of these perished in the earthquake, there were no thousands left to be slain. From a letter, dated Jamaica, September 20, 1692, it appears that about five hundred died.

Other portions of the island were more sensibly affected by the shock than was even Port Royal, and it is said that the elevation of the entire surface was considerably diminished. More houses were left standing in Port Royal than in all the rest of