EARTHQUAKES IJN INDIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 140, 7 January 1876, Page 13

EARTHQUAKES IJN INDIA.

A correspondent of the ' Catholic Examiner ' is responsible for the following : — Mount Aboo, 25th October, 1875. — Yesterday evening at about 10.40, 1 was startled by a strange sound like the rolling of distant thunder. I thought it rather strange, for there waa not even a vestige of a cloud visible, but the heavens ehone in all the brilliancy and splendour of a starlight October night. So I asked a friend of mine this morning what the thunderlike sound last night had been. " Oh, that was an earthquake," he quietly replied :" we have had lots of them of late." He then told me that within a week or so of the last shock of earthquake — of which I wrote to you from D eesa onthe 11th instant as having occurred on the previous Saturday evening, the 9th inst. — they had here in Aboo no less than forty such phenomena, namely, like the one of last night. These subsequent mysterious thunderlike sounds were heard in every direction of the compass, but none accompanied by any actual trembling or shaking of the earth, and this brings me now actually back to that powerful shock of the 9th instant. What I wrote you about "every house on the hills having its walls marked by cracks "is but too true. There are several of them in our chapel here, and in many a house and out-house too. However, no house fell in, and the gaol stands all right in its place — to the great displeasure of its inmates, I suppose. But nothing can be compared to the terror which then seized every inhabitant of Mount Aboo. The sound which accompanied that never to be forgotten shock, my informant tells me, was like the discharge of a heavy piece of artillery. The windows and doors rattled, the tiles on the roof began to dance, the earth seemed to burst open ; every one sprung up and rushed to the door, to seek safety from the threatened ruins of his habitation. Those who were out ran home to look after their dear ones. There was that very evening a grand ball in the Residency here, previous to the departure of the Aboo-Bigwigs to the districts. Fancy to yourself the screaming and the lamentations of the terror-stricken ladies, when in the midst of a quadrille the very ground shook beneath their feet, and the echo of that terrific discharge returned from the thousand hills and glens of Abbo to the central rock on which the Agent GovernorGeneral's castle stands. A word about the natives in and around Aboo. They ascribe these terrific phenomena to a gross and most impious neglect of duty, of which the new Rao of Sirohi has been guilty. This personage is the son and successor of the late Rao of Sirohi and Lord of Aboo, who died about a month ago. It appears it was an ancient custom to sacrifice annually on a certain day about that time a Sacred Kine, or cow, which animal, as you know, enjoys a special privilege in this region; it is immortal, that !&■>"_ say, is never killed, but quietly dies a natural death — only on that particular day one of this otherwise so privileged quadrupeds is killed and offered as a sacrifice in the small temple just opposite to the place where I write this letter, that is to say, I can see it through the window, as it stands on the southern declivity of the northern range of the hill. Well, the new Rao forbade this practice, no doubt out of respect for the " Sacred Kine," which should not even be killed to appease the gods. But, oh, horror !by this very act he roused their wrath : witness the tremendous earthquake which followed almost immediately, and the many mysterious distant thunders, which lately disturbed the sleep of the Rajpoots. The " Sacred Bull " who carries the eternal hill upon his horns, shook his frame in rage to avenge the injured rights of the Brahmins. Thej, the Brahmins, now foretell, and with certainty announce, the approaching end of the world ! But are they so very wrong, after all, when they see in these unusual earthquakes a " sign of the times ?" Has not this year of our Lord, 1875, been marked with most extraordinary phenomena all over the world ? And have we not the express word of our Divine Maker that terraemotus per loca, earthquakes in many places were to be, together with other siffns, the herald of the coming doom ?