"GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD, AND PREACH EVERY CREATURE."

THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1863, IN THE VALE OF KASHMERE.

(Extracted from an MS. Lecture by JOSEPH BEAUMONT PEASE.)

KASHMERE is a glorious land; the Vale is some seventy miles in length, by thirty in width; the Jhelum flows through it and expands into the great Wolar Lake, which when I was there was covered with the bloom of the beautiful lotus flower. On the banks of the lake are the summer-houses of the great Mogul Emperors, and at the back rise the hills and grand mountains. These are at first covered with roses, and flowers, and fruit, and beautiful trees; then the pines with their rich green, looking like a bordering of maiden-hair surrounding a bouquet of rare exotics; then, again, the stunted brushwood, then the bare rocks, and then the everlasting hills clad with perpetual snow; all seen as you gaze on the Himalyas of the great Thibetan range, towering up twenty-five thousand feet above the level of the sea. I have not ascended any of these heights, but my tent has been for days on the margin of the snow, twelve thousand feet above the sea. On the other side the Hindustanee frontier is also very fine. Every now and then the traveller comes upon most exquisite little lakes imaginable, hidden among the lower spurs of the hills, and around which the herons, fishhawks, and wild fowl abound.

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We were camped by the banks of the Jhelum-the sacred river, which flows with increasing rapidity towards the pass by which it finds it way out into Hindustan ;- an apparently. impracticable course, made, as the Mussulman traditions say, by Solomon, who, taking a run at the barrier mountain butted the passage through with his head! Our tents were pitched

in an apple orchard, under the shade of the trees; it was about one in the morning, when I was awakened by the most extraordinary sensation a mortal ever experienced. It was as though everything was leaving you, while you were going off in the other direction; my charpoy (travelling bed) seemed to be swimming, or to be contemplating going down on its own account for a float in the river. But there was not much time for thinking, and there I lay spell-bound and wondering what was to come next, until my companion (a retired Major of the Indian Army) called out "I say, Pease, are you awake?" to which I answered, "Rather; what is it?" "What is it, indeed! it is an earthquake of course, and it is the worst I ever experienced; we shall have another shock in less than no time;" and there it was again.

The same shudder and creeping sensation came over me, the rush went through among the trees like a mighty wind, the earth trembled and shook, the apples poured on to the tents like hail, the rumble in the centre of the earth "thrilled me," and "filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before" and seemed to proclaim the fearful Majesty of Omnipotence ;-to utter forth God and still the heart with awe; then a cry went up to heaven, as though every man, woman, child, and dog in the City of Serrenuggar with its ten thousand inhabitants were meeting an inevitable doom. We could hear the rocks rolling down the mountain-sides near which we were encamped, and then all was still as though the angel of death had passed over the city and its people were no more! It was a terrible time, once experienced never to be forgotten.

I was reminded of it once afterwards on the Australian Coast, when lying awake one night I heard the man on the watch call out with frantic earnestness "Ship ahead,-port the helm,-ease her,-stop her,-back her!" and then came a few seconds of breathless anxiety, during which most of the passengers crowded upon the deck; but we were safe. (Since

The Earthquake of 1863, in the Vale of Kashmere. 419

then two of the Australian steamers I travelled by have gone down; the "Carwarra " being the last I have heard of as having met this sad fate.)

However, in the morning I found we were not the only persons spared. My head boatman came to ask leave of absence to go and bury his father, who was killed by the falling of his house, as were many of the inhabitants of the place, although the houses are built of wooden frames, filled with sun-dried bricks, or stone, so that they may be safer and hold together better than if built of brick and stone alone, on account of the prevalence of earthquakes. I visited the ruins, and afterwards went to see what had been one of the Maharajah's stone forts, which was demolished by the shock. The shocks continued, but decreased in intensity, and in about a fortnight's time, when there had been nearly forty, the convulsions ceased.

I have experienced earthquakes when among the Andes in South America, but never anything like the one I now speak of. The Rajah had frequent consultations with his head Brahmins, who found it a great problem how to get rid of the "evil spirit" of the earthquake; for the Hindoos believe that any disaster is caused by an evil spirit, who requires to be bribed or outwitted before things can be put right again. In this instance different means were said to have been tried, when at length they informed their sovereign that they had coaxed the evil spirit into a black bullock, and the question now was how to dispose of him; for of course a Hindoo cannot take the life of an animal of the bullock tribe, as the cow is the chief object of his adoration. At length, however, they met the difficulty by gathering a multitude and driving the possessed creature over the mountains, and through the passes, into the dominions of her Majesty the Empress of Hindustan; whether it carried the infection with it did not transpire, but I rather fancy it did not!

I made many enquiries, but could not hear of the earth's

having ever been known to open during an Indian earthquake. When in South America I was not far from the ruins of the ancient town of Mendoza, in the Argentine Republic, where, in March, 1861, a most awful earthquake occurred, burying and destroying twelve thousand out of a population of fourteen thousand souls. The place is now almost entirely deserted, though it may, probably, be again re-built, as it is on one of the most favourite routes over the Andes in journeying west or east. As far as I could learn, instances where the earth has opened during South American earthquakes have been very rarely known.

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J. B. P.

He who would exert a religious influence over young minds must cultivate a cheerful piety, be he parent, preacher, instructor, or friend. If we would have an influence over our children, we must preserve our own youthfulness. When we find ourselves annoyed by their activities and noise; when we find their sports, their hopes, their fears, their griefs, all becoming of little consequence to us, let us beware,—all this foreshadows gray hairs and wrinkles. Look in the glass, they may have already come. The links of that golden chain of sympathies by which alone we can bind youth to our persons and to our duties are weakening, it may be breaking, perhaps already sundered. On Christmas eve last we heard a friend lamenting that of late years so few good toys were made for children. We put him down with the grandame who despairingly lamented the smallness of the eyes of modern needles. This youthfulness must gush like a living fountain from the heart. Leave your business at the office, store, or shop, and as you enter your home let sunshine gleam all through it. Romp with the little ones awhile. Show them how much of youth there is in you. You can so postpone considerably old age, and make life happier. As life matures, maintain your interest in the advancing pleasures of your children, and let no period come when a caste will spring up in the household, separating the old and young from each other by an impassable gulf."-American Paper.