Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/369

 supplications to the Gunga. The Brahmans have forbidden any woman to sleep inside her house, and, I believe, last night every Hindū woman in the city slept in the open air."

26th.—I was sitting in my dressing-room, reading, and thinking of retiring to rest, when the khānsāmān ran to the door, and cried out, "Mem Sāhiba, did you feel the earthquake? the dishes and glasses in the almirahs (wardrobes) are all rattling." I heard the rumbling noise, but did not feel the quaking of the earth. About half-past eleven,, a very severe shock came on, with a loud and rumbling noise; it sounded at first as if a four-wheeled carriage had driven up to the door, and then the noise appeared to be just under my feet; my chair and the table shook visibly, the mirror of the dressing-glass swung forwards, and two of the doors nearest my chair opened from the shock. The house shook so much, I felt sick and giddy; I thought I should fall if I were to try to walk; I called out many times to my husband, but he was asleep on the sofa in the next room, and heard me not; not liking it at all, I ran into the next room, and awoke him; as I sat with him on the sofa, it shook very much from another shock, or rather shocks, for there appeared to be many of them; and the table trembled also. My ayha came in from the verandah, and said, "The river is all in motion, in waves, as if a great wind were blowing against the stream." The natives say tiles fell from several houses. A shoeing-horn, that was hanging by a string to the side of my dressing-glass, swung backwards and forwards like the pendulum of a clock. The giddy and sick sensation one experiences during the time of an earthquake is not agreeable; we had one in September, 1831, but it was nothing in comparison to that we have just experienced. Mr. D and Mr. C, who live nearly three miles off, ran out of their bungalows in alarm.

Sept. 5th.—The rain fell in torrents all night; it was delightful to listen to it, sounding as it was caught in the great water jars, which are placed all round the house; now and then a badly made jar cracked with a loud report, and out rushed the water, a proof that most of the jars would be full by morning.