A CALCUTTA STORM.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXI, Issue 2433, 27 October 1866, Page 6

A CALCUTTA STORM.

The correspondent of the Bombay Gazette, at Calcutta, writes on June 19: — "The heat was excessive, but thank goodness the monsoon has at last put in an appearance, and the hot air is now comparatively bearable.* Numbers of deaths have occurred from heat apoplexy; natives have even been noticed to drop down dead in the streets ' quite promiscuously,' as Leahy would say, while the casualties amongst horses have been numerous in the extreme. You could not go the length of a street without seeing at least one poor over-driven brute lying at its last gasp, literally ' kicking out.' In all my experience I certainly never felt anything to equal the heat during the day, though thanks to the frequent nor'-westers, as they arc termed here, which have luckily occurred, generally during- tho evening or early wight, we have had the benefit of their cooling influences to render sleep a matter within the bounds of possibility ; otherwiseknownotwhat tho consequences ! might have been. Certainly but for a superfluity of these heavy scjfualls accompanied sometimes by rain but ofteucr, worse luck, by dust and heat unadulterated — these latter are the nuisance j of the place — I do not believe Europeans could have existed in Calcutta this season. The published meteorological reports give the avcrago of the present year as 10 degrees in excess of last. But then, again, they say this season is an exceptional one, and certaiuly I yield to the opinion, for wo have had earthquakes, gales of wind without number, and such thunder and lightening. Last Sunday morning, between two and three o'clock, all my good folks incontinently bolted out of their beds in expectation of the house tumbling down. The walls shook to their foundation, the windows rattled, the very beds trembled with the electric concussion. Talk of artillery ; bless you, a battery of GOO-po under Armstrongs could not havo made such truly awful reports as the thunder did on that occasion, while the lightning was — well, it simply beggars description. I never heard lightning before [few ever have, I suspect], but then I did, and no mistake. Yes, sir, I heard it friz palpably, while in appearance tho electric fluid scorned to burst into innumerable sparks like sky-rockets when they burst. I understand it is no uncommon tiling here for houses to be struck by lightning, hence there is scarcely a building of any description in Calcutta that has not at least one lightning conductor attached to it.