THE GREAT CYCLONE IN BENGAL.
By Uriah Smith
“If the disasters which have overtaken the unfortunate inhabitants of Bengal, India, had occurred in ancient times, we should now possess traditions of punishments inflicted by an offended deity, beside which the legends of the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Egyptian plagues, would be altogether inconsiderable. The population of the province is now as numerous as that of the United States. Through the failure of the rice crop in 1868, owing to protracted droughts, a famine occurred which killed off the people by the hundred thousand, and the deaths would undoubtedly have reached millions had not the British government exerted itself to send immense quantities of food among the starving cultivators of the land. Now comes one of the most terrible hurricanes ever experienced in that land of typhoons and fierce storms; and official reports tell us that over 25,000 people have fallen victims to the three great storm waves which have submerged the country for over 3,000 square miles.” “The cyclone which occurred on October 31 last, arose in the Bay of Bengal, and took a northward course, wrecking several large vessels which lay in its track. It just missed Calcutta, but struck Chittagong, which lies in the most northeasterly corner of the bay, stranding every vessel in the harbor and nearly destroying the town. Meanwhile the storm waves submerged the great islands of Hattiah, Sundeep, and Dakkin, lying in one of the mouths of the Ganges, covered several smaller islands, and then flowed over the land for five or six miles toward the interior.” “It appears that the immense waves were projected with astonishing velocity. Up to 11 o’clock on the night of October 31, Calcutta dispatches reporting the storm said that no especial danger was anticipated, but before midnight the waters had overrun the land to the depth of twenty feet.” “An examination of the map shows that the islands mentioned are situated near an estuary of the River Megna, and they owe their origin to the deposition of soil washed down by the Ganges. They constitute part of the Sunderbunds, as the low, marshy land thus produced is called from its being covered with the ‘sunder’ tree; and the district is not only the hottest, but probably the most unhealthy, portion of British India. Malaria reigns everywhere, and the forests and jungles abound with tigers and other ferocious beasts. The English government for some time past has labored to reclaim the islands, and has offered strong inducements to settlers to cultivate the ground, which is rich and extremely fertile. These efforts have resulted in the clearing of a large portion of the territory, and the raising thereon of valuable crops of cotton, rice, sugar cane, mulberry trees for silkworm food, and timber; while the population of Dakkin, the largest island, of about 800 miles in extent, has increased to 240,000, and that of Hattiah and Sundeep together numbers some 100,000 inhabitants.” “Of course the devastation in this district has been complete. The country is dead flat; and the people, when the wave burst upon them, had no place of safety but in the tree tops. And there such as were able found their way, sharing their refuges with the wild beasts, birds, and serpents. Houses by the thousand were utterly swept out of existence, and the only relics of human habitations afterwards found, were cast up on the Chittagong shore, ten miles distant.” “The Calcutta Government Gazette says that ‘wherever the storm wave passed, it is believed that not a third of the population survived. The islands have barely one-fourth of their former inhabitants.’ All the cattle were destroyed, and the stench of the decomposing remains has already generated an outbreak of cholera which it is feared, will prove general. The British government is taking steps to relieve the distress which prevails.” Any one who can read the foregoing account of one of the most marvelous disturbances ever exhibited in nature, and not be reminded of the Saviour’s words in Luke 21:25, shows that he has either never read the prophecy, or that he is unable to mark the signs of the times. “The sea and the waves roaring,” was to be one of the marked features of the last days; and if three great storm waves, submerging 3,000 square miles of land, and destroying 250,000 lives, does not furnish at least one item of the fulfillment, then what terrible visitation would be needed to meet the prophecy? To the honest seeker for truth the evidence is clear enough that nature is beginning to exhibit in a marked degree, those preliminary convulsions, which indicate the near approach of the final catastrophe. U. S.