I found the floor strewn with fragments of the building,and with broken furniture;and our books all soaked as completely as if they had been for several hours in the sea.
"In the course of a few days I had the other room,_g_,which is under the same roof as the one saved,rebuilt;and Susan stayed in this temporary abode for a week,--when we left Colonarie,and came to Brighton.Mr.Munro's kindness exceeds all precedent.We shall certainly remain here till my Wife is recovered from her confinement.
In the mean while we shall have a new house built,in which we hope to be well settled before Christmas.
"The roof was half blown off the kitchen,but I have had it mended already;the other offices were all swept away.The gig is much injured;and my horse received a wound in the fall of the stable,from which he will not be recovered for some weeks:in the mean time Ihave no choice but to buy another,as I must go at least once or twice a week to Colonarie,besides business in Town.As to our own comforts,we can scarcely expect ever to recover from the blow that has now stricken us.No money would repay me for the loss of my books,of which a large proportion had been in my hands for so many years that they were like old and faithful friends,and of which many had been given me at different times by the persons in the world whom I most value.
"But against all this I have to set the preservation of our lives,in a way the most awfully providential;and the safety of every one on the Estate.And I have also the great satisfaction of reflecting that all the Negroes from whom any assistance could reasonably be expected,behaved like so many Heroes of Antiquity;risking their lives and limbs for us and our property,while their own poor houses were flying like chaff before the hurricane.There are few White people here who can say as much for their Black dependents;and the force and value of the relation between Master and Slave has been tried by the late calamity on a large scale.
"Great part of both sides of this Island has been laid completely waste.The beautiful wide and fertile Plain called the Charib Country,extending for many miles to the north of Colonarie,and formerly containing the finest sets of works and best dwelling-houses in the Island,is,I am told,completely desolate:on several estates not a roof even of a Negro hut standing.In the embarrassed circumstances of many of the proprietors,the ruin is,I fear,irreparable.--At Colonarie the damage is serious,but by no means desperate.The crop is perhaps injured ten or fifteen per cent.The roofs of several large buildings are destroyed,but these we are already supplying;and the injuries done to the cottages of the Negroes are,by this time,nearly if not quite remedied.
"Indeed,all that has been suffered in St.Vincent appears nothing when compared with the appalling loss of property and of human lives at Barbadoes.There the Town is little but a heap of ruins,and the corpses are reckoned by thousands;while throughout the Island there are not,I believe,ten estates on which the buildings are standing.
The Elliotts,from whom we have heard,are living with all their family in a tent;and may think themselves wonderfully saved,when whole families round them were crushed at once beneath their houses.
Hugh Barton,the only officer of the Garrison hurt,has broken his arm,and we know nothing of his prospects of recovery.The more horrible misfortune of Barbadoes is partly to be accounted for by the fact of the hurricane having begun there during the night.The flatness of the surface in that Island presented no obstacle to the wind,which must,however,I think have been in itself more furious than with us.No other island has suffered considerably.
"I have told both my Uncle and Anthony that I have given you the details of our recent history;--which are not so pleasant that Ishould wish to write them again.Perhaps you will be good enough to let them see this,as soon as you and my Father can spare it....I am ever,dearest Mother,"Your grateful and affectionate "JOHN STERLING."This Letter,I observe,is dated 28th August,1831;which is otherwise a day of mark to the world and me,--the Poet Goethe's last birthday.
While Sterling sat in the Tropical solitudes,penning this history,little European Weimar had its carriages and state-carriages busy on the streets,and was astir with compliments and visiting-cards,doing its best,as heretofore,on behalf of a remarkable day;and was not,for centuries or tens of centuries,to see the like of it again!--At Brighton,the hospitable home of those Munros,our friends continued for above two months.Their first child,Edward,as above noticed,was born here,"14th October,1831;"--and now the poor lady,safe from all her various perils,could return to Colonarie under good auspices.
It was in this year that I first heard definitely of Sterling as a contemporary existence;and laid up some note and outline of him in my memory,as of one whom I might yet hope to know.John Mill,Mrs.
Austin and perhaps other friends,spoke of him with great affection and much pitying admiration;and hoped to see him home again,under better omens,from over the seas.As a gifted amiable being,of a certain radiant tenuity and velocity,too thin and rapid and diffusive,in danger of dissipating himself into the vague,or alas into death itself:it was so that,like a spot of bright colors,rather than a portrait with features,he hung occasionally visible in my imagination.