Life and adventure in the West Indies : a sequel to Adventures in search of a living in Spanish-America / by "Vaquero".

  • Vaquero, pseud.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Life and adventure in the West Indies : a sequel to Adventures in search of a living in Spanish-America / by "Vaquero". Source: Wellcome Collection.

    73/394 (page 45)
    Hotel had not been burnt down and was still standing. When we reached Spanish Town the appearance of the landscape became more familiar to me, for it will be remembered that this is the place where the different branches of the railway diverge, and I had been here on my first arrival in Jamaica. Little change, however, was perceptible until we arrived at the terminus of Kingston, where the effects of the earthquake were very apparent. Owing to the shattered condition of the railway station, we were allowed to reach the street through the large aperture in the partially destroyed brick wall, but although signs of the disaster were very visible in the streets between here and the Queen’s Hotel, it was only in the more central parts of the town that wholesale destruction had taken place. My hotel was indeed standing, but by no means entirely uninjured ; the lower story of the central building, being made of brick, had sever al small clefts in its walls, and thus the upper wooden story, which had been only slightly damaged, was made unsafe from the shaky condition of the house beneath it. The large three-storied wooden building however, on the top of which my room was situated, to the extreme right behind the tree, was in just the same state as when I left it nearly four days before. The management of the house was thrown into that confusion which reigned everywhere. No food could be obtained, the ostensible reason being that the dining room was unsafe out in reality because in this time of terror no one cared to cater for the wants of the public. The hour of the late West Indian breakfast had now long passed, so I went to the market in the hope of being able to buy something to eat. The place was almost deserted, but I managed to buy a plantain which had to suffice for my present wants If food was so hard to procure it seemed preferable to leave the town for themselves1Ct W11C1 iacl su^erecl less severely, until things had righted Before making up my mind, however, I was determined to know the ;^S La?d,Wlth ,thlSv m,tent walked a few hundred yards further towards !Jjat 5enhal patt which was said to have suffered most. Standing at the edge of the park and looking down King Street, the horrors of the scene presented themselves to my view. Instead of occasional to the8?’ ^ m the m°rr outlying places, the whole street right down to the sea was a mass of smouldering ruins. Large houses of several stories were demolished, some of the walls still Landing and others lazed to the giound, with the bricks and other materials of which thev iad been composed strewn over the pavement. The smoking remains of a tram-car lay on the lines in the middle of the ^ l “S'1, f *»!XtiESs1 “ had taken* p]ace^and 1M,at See, ‘° Sh°W that a serious calamity town, , ougf t to prLnT^ft Z