A grave calamity has befallen Darjeeling, the pleasant Himalayan station
and the sanatorium of Bengal. A heavy storm of rain began there on Saturday, the 23rd inst., and lasted thirty-eight hours, during which time some twenty- eight inches of rain fell. The sides of the hills, undermined at different points by the water, began to slip, the houses on them gave way, the rivers rose suddenly, and it is known that at least three hundred natives have been crushed and drowned, though the number may prove far greater. Among the dead are nine European children, four of them sisters who appa- rently—the accounts are not quite distinct—were crushed by the fall of their schoolhouse. Four Europeans, one the manager of the railway, were drowned. The railway itself was blocked to such an extent that repairs will take two months, the water-pipes were destroyed, the telegraph-poles were uprooted, and in several tea-gardens the earth, with the plants on it, was bodily carried off. The water, too, seems to have penetrated into some of the deep cracks caused by the landslips, for on Sunday night there was, by the account forwarded to the Lieutenant-Governor, a sharp shock of earthquake. The English in India build nothing solidly except railway-bridges, and the damage will speedily be restored, but the suffering to individuals is very great, and will help, with many other circumstances, to intensify the British reluctance to settle permanently in the hills.
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