At Savanna-la-Mar, there was not even a vestige of a town (the parts only of two or three houses having in partial ruin remained, as if to indicate the situation and extent of the calamity); the very materials of which it had been composed had been carried away by the resistless fury of the waves, which finally completed what the wind began. A very great proportion of the poor inhabitants were crushed to death or drowned; and in one house alone, it was computed that forty, out of one and forty souls, unhappily and prematurely perished. The sea drove with progressive violence for more than a mile into the country; and carried terror, as it left destruction, wherever it passed. Two large ships and a schooner were at anchor in the bay, but were driven a considerable distance from the shore, and totally wrecked among the mango-trees upon land. He concludes his description thus: “Having resided for some time in that delightful country, from which the most celebrated painters of landscape have made their principal studies; and having always travelled with those who loved, or were professors of the Art; and having accompanied the latter in all their walks, and followed their imitations upon the easel, it is not unnatural to suppose that I should catch, as it were by reflection, a small portion of their curiosity, and endeavour to follow, at a distance, those rays which have warmed, although they have not been able to illuminate. As one, therefore, who has observed Nature with more enthusiasm than taste, I must decide in favour of the rich and magnificent scenery of the West Indies, in preference to any rural appearances I have observed in other countries; and I should dwell with more pertinacity upon this opinion, were they, by contrast, more observed and better known.” William Beckford was born in Jamaica in 1744.