Virginia Statesman

INDIAN TORNADO,

The shades of evening approached as we reached the ground, and just as the encampment was completed, the atmosphere grew suddenly dark, the heat became oppressive, and the unusual stillness presaged the immediate setting in of the monsoon. The whole appearance of nature resembled those solemn preludes to earthquakes and hurricanes in the West Indies, from which the East is providentially free. We were allowed very little time for conjecture; in a few minutes the heavy clouds burst over us.

I witnessed 17 monsoons in the Indies, but this exceeded them all, in its awful appearance and dreadful effects. Encamped in a low situation on the borders of the lake, formed to collect the surrounding water, we found ourselves in a few hours in a liquid plain, the tent-pins giving way, in a loose soil, the tents fell down, and left the whole army to the contending elements. It requires a lively imagination to conceive the situation of a hundred thousand human beings of every description, with more than two hundred thousand elephants, camels, horses and oxen, suddenly overwhelmed by this dreadful storm in a strange country, without any knowledge of high or low ground; the whole being covered by an immense lake, and surrounded by thick darkness, which prevented our distinguishing a single object, except what the vivid glare of lightning displayed in horrible forms. No language can describe the wreck of the large encampment thus instantaneously destroyed, and covered with water, and the cries of old men and hapless women, terrified by the piercing shrieks of their expiring children, unable to afford them relief.— During this dreadful night more than two hundred persons and three thousand cattle perished, and the morning dawn exhibited a shocking spectacle—Forbes Oriental Memoirs.