th such terrific force as to make
it reel and tremble from top to bottom. I recollect I was not feeling
at all nervous, not realising at the time the very great danger that
threatened us all. But one of my chums, a little stout man, well
known at that time in the tea trade, of the name of Inskipp, usually a
most cheery and genial soul, tried his best to instil into our minds
the very serious risk we were running. He kept roaming about the room
in a very distressed and restless manner, prophesying all sorts of
disasters, winding up with the assertion that it would not at all
surprise him if at any moment the house were to tumble down about our
ears and bury the whole lot of us in its ruins. It was, however, all
of no use. He could not succeed in frightening us; and the four of us
continued to play whist, and now and then threw out at him a few
chaffing remains on his lugubrious and unhappy state. But later on we
had a tremendous shock, and for the moment it seemed as if part of his
prognostications were to come only too true. It appeared that the iron
bar across one of the windows in my bedroom to the west, looking on to
the river, leading oft the sitting room in which we were seated, had
given way, and the wind bursting through the closely-barred shutters
with irresistible fury had forced open the door of communication
between the two rooms. Most fortunately the shutters held or the whole
flat would have been completely wrecked. It took all our combined
efforts some time to force back the door and securely-fasten it by
jamming a music stool and chairs up against it. To add to our
discomfort, the roof was leaking like a sieve, and we had to place
several bowls in each of the rooms, and my own room when I entered it
the following morning when the storm had passed was a sight more
easily imagined than described. Of course I had to find beds for all
my guests, but it is needless to say that none of us got much sleep.
When daylight at length broke we all rushed to the windows, naturally
expecting to see the same sort of debacle amongst the shipping as had
overtaken it in the cyclone of 1864; but, to our intense joy and
relief, not a single vessel had left her anchorage. This was partly
due to the port authorities having learnt by bitter experience the
necessity of considerably strengthening and improving the moorings,
and also in a great measure to the absence of the storm-wave which had
accompanied the previous cyclone and w