It was about two in the morning when people were suddenly awakened by--they knew not what. Simply, they were awakened. Some lay still, wondering why sleep had so abruptly departed; others, suspicious of trouble, rose and began to dress; only the few were aware of the true cause of that untimely awakening, and these rushed out of their dwellings and shouted an alarm. As the cries were in their mouths, there came a dull, far-away rumbling, a shudder shook the earth, and every house in Wellington rocked to and fro. Then people knew what was happening, and for a time all was confusion. The earth-pang was upon them, and folk ran hither and thither, crying aloud in their terror, seeking aid of those who sought it as eagerly, bewailing their ruined homes while shock after shock convulsed the earth, shaking down walls, splitting gaps in houses and cleaving fissures in the solid ground.
From Banks Peninsula on the east of the Middle Island to the Peninsula of Taranaki on the west and White Island on the east of the North Island, the two "isles shivered and shook like a man in a mortal affright." The plains gaped, the mountains reverberated to the crash of great masses of rock thundering down into their valleys, and for nearly a month from the time of the first tremor this whole area was full of diminishing unrest.
Most of the houses in the Wellington district were built of wood, though not a few were of brick, and it was discovered that those of wood which were built upon a brick foundation resisted the shocks better than those where only one of these materials had been used. Wellington suffered most, losing some sixteen thousand pounds' worth of property, while the fall of the ordnance store there buried in its ruins Sergeant Lovell and his two children.[65]
This was bad enough; but, as many of us know, it takes more than an earthquake to drive people from the land in which they have made their home. So most folk stayed where they were, and a shock of a more pleasurable kind presently confirmed them in their judgment.
This was nothing less than the discovery of gold. Men rejoiced, because they knew that, with such a magnet, it would not be long ere the colony attracted to her shores the increased population which she required for her better development.