BLACK SUNDAY AT BARBADOS
"The day after the explosion, 'Black Sunday,' gave a proof of, though no
measure of, the enormous force which had been exerted. Eighty miles to
windward lies Barbados. All Saturday a heavy cannonading had been heard
to the eastward. The English and French fleets were surely engaged. The
soldiers were called out; the batteries manned; but the cannonade died
away, and all went to bed in wonder. On the 1st of May the clocks struck
six, but the sun did not, as usual in the tropics, answer to the call.
The darkness was still intense, and grew more intense as the morning
wore on. A slow and silent rain of impalpable dust was falling over the
whole island. The negroes rushed shrieking into the streets. Surely the
last day was come. The white folk caught (and little blame to them) the
panic, and some began to pray who had not prayed for years. The pious
and the educated (and there were plenty of both in Barbados) were not
proof against the infection. Old letters describe the scene in the
churches that morning as hideous--prayers, sobs, and cries, in Stygian
darkness, from trembling crowds. And still the darkness continued and
the dust fell.
INCIDENTS AT BARBADOS
"I have a letter written by one long since dead, who had at least powers
of description of no common order, telling how, when he tried to go out
of his house upon the east coast, he could not find the trees on his own
lawn save by feeling for their stems.
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