house, to show how little he cares, poor dear
man, for the things of this perishing scene. But
we may make our minds quite easy: the world
is not likely to end until men have done a great
deal more towards subduing the real giants with
whom we were sent here to do battle.

Now all this long preface is à propos of the
late great cyclones in India. Not that there has
been any neglect of duty there: every one has
behaved nobly. But then the standard of duty,
though morally as high as possible, and
admirably acted up to, is not intelligently what
we may hope it will be when, the world grows
wiser. If the telegraph clerks at Kedgeree, by
the Hooghly mouth, had sent on word to
Calcutta the moment they felt the storm, scores of
European ships and hundreds of poor native
craft might have been saved. But it was not
their business to know anything of the law of
storms. There was no one to calculate the
path of the cyclone (as calculable, they say, as
the path of a comet), and so Nature's warning
at Kedgeree was unavailing. Again, at Masulipatam,
some forty-five thousand people were
living mostly on land below the water level, cut
off from the sea by a bar which any extraordinary
tide must wash over, packed in mud
hovels, to which the Devon cob-huts are palaces.
No sea wall; no protection. The calamity
came. One great wave rushed over the town
on the night of last All Saints; and in the
morning over ten thousand people were
drowned, and a little heap of wet mud marked
the position of four houses out of five. Everybody
did his duty: the collector, the magistrates,
the moonsiffs, were indefatigable; the
poor peons (policemen), two-thirds of whom
had perished, stood by the magistrates and
kept society together; and the native regiment
quartered near the place, which lost sixty rank
and file and nearly three hundred women and
children, is described as having "behaved
admirably." Everybody did his duty: but, before
another "secular" visitation like this comes
round, we shall have felt it to be "our duty" to
construct a stout sea wall, and to see that our
native subjects build in such a way that the jail
may not be the only building unhurt, "owing"
(naïvely writes the surgeon of the place) " to
the solidity of its outer wall."

These Indian catastrophes are nobody's fault.
They are not like the Holmfirth flood, or the
Middle Level outburst, or the Sheffield inundation,
distinctly traceable to man's folly—to
red-tape, or (some say) to the want of it. They
are the results of an exceptional season, which,
while we here have had such drought as never
was known by most living men, gave them a soaking
winter in Australia, and then came round to
India in fearful storms. Man cannot hinder
these things; but he may foresee, and guard
against them.

And now for a few notes, from eye-witnesses,
about the storm at Masulipatam, which will cost
the little, not over-rich, Presidency of Madras
something like eleven lacs of revenue, besides
expenses.

We can read enough about Calcutta in the
papers; this calamity to Southern India has
made less noise in England; but the destruction
is relatively more terrible; and our
accounts are fresh from the spot, so that it will
be our fault if they are not interesting.

A good way above Madras, between the
Kistna and Godavery, but nearer the former river,
stands, or rather stood, the old town of Masulipatam.
The whole Coromandel coast is about
as bad for ships as any equal length of shore in
the world. We have all heard of the Madras
surf-boats, and how (till the pier was lately
built) ladies and all used to have to land in
catamarans, for nothing else would live in such
a sea. There is something like a harbour at
Masulipatam; and so the Dutch, with an eye
to trade, had built a fort there ages ago, about
the possession of which the English and French
have had many a hard struggle. It is a place of
considerable trade; with more than the usual
quantum of European officials, and a fairly
large Eurasian (i.e. half-caste, or "East Indian")
population—for everywhere—but more in
Madras than elsewhere, because caste is weaker
there—our island pride of blood is giving way,
and we are treating native women like human
beings, instead of regarding them as a lower race
created for our animal gratification. At Masulipatam,
Mr. Scott, manager in the superintending
engineer's office, and his wife (the bride of a
week); Mr. Carr, public works department;
and a score of other useful and honourable
people, all drowned, were Eurasians; and it is
a good sign, showing that we grow in practical
Christianity out there, that the white people in
Madras interest themselves in the fate of these
half-castes, and write about "poor Mrs. Scott;"
nay, that the survivors are, along with the
Europeans, located at government cost in the Madras
hotels till their houses can be rebuilt and the
danger of pestilence is over. In estimating these
things, we must remember it used to be much
harder for an Englishman to be kind to a half-
caste than to a "black fellow."

The 31st of October was a bright cool day,
refreshing after the great heat and long drought
from which the district had been suffering. Next
day, light misty rain and west wind. "In my
morning drive (writes one) I was strongly
reminded of some of our damp warm autumn days
at home." Towards evening the gale rose, still
from the west. People roped down their
verandahs and made all snug for a squally
night. About seven P.M. the barometer fell
rapidly, and the wind passed round by north to
due east, blowing furiously. The magistrate
and his assistant determined to sit up and "see
it out;" but they had not sat long when,
between nine and ten P.M., a native servant rushed
in, crying in broken English, "Sea come over
us—sea come over us!" "Nonsense," cried
the Englishmen; "get along with you." But
they are persuaded to go to the verandah,
and there, true enough, the water is already
surging up to the godown (outer verandah);
several natives come up swimming; and the