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REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES.

CALAMITY AT MADEIRA.

This extraordinary event,
which we briefly noticed in our
paper of yesterday, happened on
Sunday the 7th of October, at eight
in the evening. The day had been
previously very cloudy, and a con-
tinual rain had fallen, accompanied
with squalls, which were not vio-
lent, until the sun had sunk beneath
the horizon, when the sea appeared
to be unusually agitated, and such
darkness prevailed, that an object
was not discernible at a yard
distance. During this progress,
every person remained within their
houses, in seeming security, and
wholly unconscious of that ap-
proaching horror which was des-
tined so shortly to sweep them from
off the earth!

The clock of the cathedral was
striking eight, when an instanta-
neous storm of terrible lightning
and thunder began; and the rain
fell in such torrents, that all the
cross streets of the eastern part
of the city of Funchall, were sud-
denly filled with mud and water
above the first floors of the houses,
which was occasioned by its being
impeded, in some measure, from
its furious descent from the ravines
of the mountains into the sea. At
this shocking period, the stoutest
heart felt appalled; nothing was
to be heard but the din of ruin
working in every direction: hun-
dreds of huge stones, that had been
torn from their carries on the

hills three miles above the town,
were tumbling over each other in
stupendous concussion, carrying
with them, in conjunction with the
deluge, churches, convents, streets,
trees, bridges, battlements, and
eight hundred human beings into
the bottom of the deep. Whenever
a flash of lightning penetrated the
gloom, were seen mothers wading
through the streets, up to their
chins in water, holding their infants
on their heads with one hand, and
endeavouring to catch security with
the other; while those who at-
tempted to assist them, were fre-
quently maimed or killed, by beams
of timber or wine pipes, which
floated around them; and the sea
presented a scene not less awful,
though less ruinous: most of the
vessels lost their cables, anchors,
and boats; and many of the seamen
were washed overboard. The ships
rolled, in some part or another,
several feet beneath the water con-
tinually, and all the sailors who
were there on that dismal night,
whether Americans, English, or
Portuguese, gave themselves up as
lost men.

Thus, in so short a space of time
as a few minutes, were many
hundred individuals carried to their
eternal home, in the very pleni-
tude of an apparent security; and
several thousands reduced from af-
fluence to poverty: and many of
them, it is probable, in the indul-

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gence of those imperfections which
constitute our criminality or our
folly, and sent to their account,
“unblanched, unanointed, unnan-
nealed.” Ten thousand pipes of
wine and brandy were destroyed,
and the sea-shore was skirted on
the ensuing morning with millions
of fragments, among which the
mourning survivors of the calamity
were eagerly seeking for the dead
remains of their relations or friends.
Several days after, the air of Fun-
chall became so putrescent, from
the rotting bodies that were buried
beneath the congregated mud and
filth, that a pestilence was appre-
hended: but in consequence of
burning tar and pitch, and other
neutralizing combustibles, that
scourge was providentially avoided,

It was remarkable that this de-
luge, in its course, swept away
twenty-nine vine-yards that were
situated on the south-west side of
the city; and so decisive was the
ruin, that it tore up all the trees
by the roots, and bore away not
only them, but all the cottages with
their inhabitants, the ground, cattle
and appurtenances, and left the
rocky basis as bare of vegetation as
the cliffs of Norway. All this as-
semblage of objects were whirled
into the Ribeira Brava, or Mad
river, and ingulphed nearly the
whole of the small town which
bears the name.

In this wreck of matter there
was but one human creature saved,
and that was an infant in a wooden
cradle, which was lodged among
some reeds on the side of the decli-
vity, and when discovered, on the
ensuing day, was in a profound
sleep: this unconscious infant was
saved, from its ignorance of fear,
as it is in the nature of fear, to
counterfact its own desires.

The small town of Machico, was
likewise ruined by this singular
tempest, and many lives were lost
there also; which leads to a sup-
position, that the lamented event
was occasioned by a water spout,
that had burst against the side of
the mountain, and discharged itself

down the gullie produced those
afflictive and sudden disasters, that
all feeling persons must deplore;
and which, whenever recollected,
should operate to remind us of our
frailty and our responsibility, and
make us live well, that we may die
happily.

This is admitted to have been the
greatest civic evil that has hap-
pened since the earthquake of
Lisbon, in 1754, and was the most
tragical of its nature, that ever
happened. Had the younger Pliny
been on the spot, it would have been
adequately detailed.

The property destroyed, has been
estimated at upwards of a million
of pounds sterling.