I had just awoke at gun-fire (5 A.M.), when suddenly the thatch began to rustle and shake as if an army of cats were galloping over it, and immediately afterwards my bed shook too, so that for an instant I imagined myself back in New Guinea, in my fragile house, which shook when an old cock went to roost on the ridge; but remembering that I was now on a solid earthen floor, I said to myself, "Why, it's an earthquake," and lay still in the pleasing expectation of another shock; but none came, and this was the only earthquake I ever felt in Ternate.
The last great one was in February 1840, when almost every house in the place was destroyed.

It began about midnight on the Chinese New Year's festival, at which time every one stays up nearly all night feasting at the Chinamen's houses and seeing the processions.

This prevented any lives being lost, as every one ran out of doors at the first shock, which was not very severe.

The second, a few minutes afterwards, threw down a great many houses, and others, which continued all night and part of the next day, completed the devastation.

The line of disturbance was very narrow, so that the native town a mile to the east scarcely suffered at all.