It was, of course, a matter of extreme difficulty to arrive at
any very reliable estimate of the number who perished, owing to the
vast area of country over which the storm raged. Happily the death
rate in Calcutta itself was, comparatively speaking, not so very
great, and was confined more or less to the crews of small native
craft plying on the river, such as lighters, cargo-boats, dinghees,
budgetows, and green-boats. This closes a brief chapter of some of
the incidents that occurred and which have flitted across my memory
in this never-to-be-forgotten storm which nearly overwhelmed Calcutta
in October 1864, and shook it literally to its very foundations; but
no pen can adequately visualise the picture of awful desolation and
ruin that it wrought and left behind in its terribly devastating
course.
_[The pictures illustrating this chapter are from a collection in the
possession of Messrs. Thacker, Spink & Co_.]
THE CYCLONE OF 1867.
This happened about a month later than that of 1864, on the 1st
November, 1867, and long past the usual period for storms of this
violent nature.
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