Note 42 — Chapter III

“But it pleased Providence, on the 19th of February, to remove in an instant this ground of confidence. A tremendous earthquake shook down all our parapets, built up with so much labour, injured several of our bastions, cast to the ground all our guard-houses, demolished a third of the town, made a considerable breach in the rampart of a curtain in the Peshawur face, and reduced the Caubul gate to a shapeless mass of ruins. It savours of romance, but is a sober fact, that the city was thrown into alarm, within the space of little more than one month, by the repetition of full one hundred shocks of this terrific phenomenon of nature.”—[Report of General Sale: Jellalabad, April 16, 1842.] “On the 19th of February, an earthquake, which nearly destroyed the town, threw down the greater part of the parapets, the Caubul gate with two adjoining bastions, and a part of the new bastion which flanked it. Three other bastions were also nearly destroyed, whilst several large breaches were made in the curtain, and the Peshawur side, eighty feet long, was quite practicable, the ditch being filled, and the descent easy. Thus in one moment the labours of three months were in a great measure destroyed.”—[Report of Captain Broadfoot, Garrison Engineer.]