On arriving at King's House, we found the main building still standing, but so damaged that it might collapse at any moment, and therefore uninhabitable. The handsome ballroom, which formed a separate wing, was nothing but a pile of rubbish, a formless mass of bricks and plaster. The dining-room, making the corresponding wing, was built entirely of wood, and had consequently escaped injury. This dining-room was a very lofty hall, paved with marble and entirely surrounded by arches open to the air. It had previously reminded me of the interiors seen in Italian pictures of sacred subjects, with its bareness, spacious whiteness, its columns and arches. Here the Governor, Lady Swettenham and her sister were living, in little encampments formed by screens. Two splendid chandeliers of Spanish bronze, originally looted from Havannah in the eighteenth century, had been dismantled by the Governor's orders, in view of the possibility of further shocks. The verandah outside formed the living-room for every one. My nephew and I were very comfortably lodged in a little wooden shed, formerly the laundry. A tropical night is seldom quiet, what with the croaking of frogs, the chirping of the cicadas, and some bird, insect, or reptile that imitates the winding in of a fishing-reel for hours together, but really the noise of the Jamaican nights after the earthquake was quite unbearable. Negroes are very hysterical, and some black preachers had utilised the earthquake to start a series of revival meetings, and these were held just outside the grounds of King's House. Right through the night they lasted, with continual hymn-singing, varied with loud cries and groans. "Abide with me" is a beautiful hymn, but really its beauties began to pall when it had been sung through from beginning to end nine times running. Neither my nephew nor I could get any sleep that first night owing to the blatant devotional exercises of the overwrought Negroes. . . . There were some further milder shocks. I was engaged in shaving early one morning in our little wooden house, when I felt myself pushed violently against the dressing-table, almost removing my chin with the razor at the same time. I suspected my nephew of a practical joke, and called out angrily to him. In an aggrieved voice he protested that he had not touched me, but had himself been hurled by an unseen agency against the wardrobe. Then came a perfect cannonade of nuts from an overhanging tree on to the wooden roof of our modest temporary abode, and still we did not understand. I had at that time an English valet, the most stolid man I have ever come across. He entered the hut with a pair of brown shoes in one hand, a pair of white ones in the other. In the most matter-of-fact way he observed, "There's been an earthquake, so perhaps you would like to wear your brown shoes to-day, instead of the white ones." By what process of reasoning he judged brown shoes more fitted to earthquake conditions than white ones, rather escaped me. CLOSE

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- . . . an acquaintance had returned early from his office, and was having a cup of coffee on his verandah at 3.30 [on January 14]. Suddenly he saw the trees at the end of his garden rise up some eight feet. A quick brain-wave suggested an earthquake to him at once, and half-unconsciously he jumped from the verandah for all he was worth. As he alighted on the lawn, his house crashed down behind him. - I had noticed as we drove through the town that the great Edinburgh reservoirs were apparently quite uninjured, and here at King's House the fountain was splashing in its basin as gaily as ever, the building containing the big swimming-bath was undamaged, and the spring which fed the bath still gurgled cheerfully into it. Wherever there was water, the shock seemed to have been neutralised, for I imagine that the water acted as a cushion to deaden the earth-wave. Neither the electric lighting nor the telephones were working. - I noticed that brick houses suffered more than stone ones. This was attributed to the inferior mortar used by Jamaican masons, for which there can be no excuse, for the island abounds in lime. Wooden houses escaped scatheless. Every statue in the Public Gardens was thrown down, except that of Queen Victoria - As we all know, points of view differ. After the trolley-car service had been re-established, my nephew and I had occasion to go into Kingston daily towards noon. On the front bench of the car there was always seated a little white boy, about nine years old, with a pile of school-books. He was a well-mannered, friendly little fellow and soon entered into conversation. Waxing confidential, he observed to us, "Isn't this earthquake awfully jolly? Our school is all 'mashed up' so we get out at half-past eleven instead of at one." "And how about your own house, Charlie? Is that all right?" "Oh no, it's all 'mashed up' too, so is Daddy's store. We're living on the lawn in tents, like Robinson Crusoe. It's most awfully jolly!" Incidentally I may remark that Charlie's father had been completely ruined by the earthquake, his store not being insured, but the small boy only saw things from his own point of view.	- Appalling tragedy though the earthquake was, like most tragedies it had its occasional lighter side. A certain leading lady of the island had been in the habit of wearing short skirts, long before the dictates of fashion imposed the present unbecoming skimpy garments. She did this on account of the numerous insect pests with which Jamaica unfortunately abounds. For the same reason she adopted light-coloured stockings, so that any creeping intruder could be easily seen and brushed off. Her wardrobe being destroyed in the earthquake, she took the train into Spanish Town in an endeavour to replenish it. In a large drapery store the black forewoman at once recognised the lady, and came forward, all bows and smiles, to greet so important a customer. "Please, what can I hab de pleasure of showing Madam?" "I want some silk stockings, either pink or flesh-colour, if you have any!" "Very sorry, Madam, we hab no pink silk stockings, but we hab plenty of flesh-coloured ones," taking down as she spoke a great bundle of black silk stockings. Of course, if one thinks over it for a moment, it would be so. - Many people in Jamaica were in 1907 in quite as difficult a situation. I found the wife of the Chief Justice, an old acquaintance of mine in the Far East, living in the emptied swimming-bath of what had been her home. The officers of the West India Regiment at Up Park Camp were all under canvas on the cricket-ground. The officers' quarters at Up Park Barracks were exceedingly well designed for the climate, being raised on arcades. They were shattered, but the wooden shingle roofs had fallen intact and unbroken, and lay on the ground in pieces about 100 feet long, a most curious spectacle.
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Port Royal cannot be called a fortunate spot, for in 1703 it was again entirely destroyed by fire, and in 1722 it was swept away by a hurricane. It is, in spite of its historic past, a mean, squalid, decaying little place. Being built almost entirely of wood, the town had sustained but little injury, but the massive concrete fort at the end of the peninsula had slid bodily into the sea, six-inch guns and all. Some twenty cocoa-nut palms it had taken with it were standing in the water, their brown withered tops just peering above the surface, giving a curious effect of desolation. A tramway used for conveying ammunition bore witness to the violence of the earth-waves, for it stood in places some ten feet up in the air, resting on nothing at all; looking for all the world like a switchback railway at Earl's Court. So many charges are levelled at the Royal Engineers that it is pleasant to be able to testify that every building erected by this much-abused corps at Port Royal had resisted the earthquake and was standing intact

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