shore. Along the sea ran a long low range of stone bastions sufficient to repel the attack of wandering cruisers; in front was the roadstead where the ships lay at anchor; and behind the ramparts spread out the town, rising on a gentle slope, and gay with palaces and churches. The road that ran back to Lima was surrounded by gardens and villas, and was usually filled with merry muleteers and the wealthier citizens of the capital driving in their calashes drawn by mules. 2 Andes, had been deposed; a ball was given in the evening in honor of the political change; and in the night the gallant captain rushed from his falling house, pursued by a raging earthquake. He describes his feelings on a similar occasion as follows: "Our sensations were truly horrible. There was nothing remarkable in the appearance or state of the atmosphere; the moon and stars shone with their usual splendor." Chili and Peru still continue the favored lands of the earthquake. In 1835 all Southern Chili was laid in ruins. The great city of Conception wholly disappeared, not a stone being left upon another. Valparaiso was destroyed in 1822, and was afterward rebuilt. Peru has been as unfortunate as Chili, and its history is marked by a succession of disasters. Yet both Peru and Chili are making considerable advances in material and men among the republics of the future. Such were Lima and Callao in October, 1746. Earthquakes had come, gone, and been forgotten. The people of Lima had built their tall churches, their beautiful towers, and lofty palaces as if all were secure, and the people of Callao slept by the side of their tranquil sea as if they could rest on its bosom forever. It was the night of October 28, at half past ten o'clock, when all the city was asleep. A shock awak-tal improvement, and bid fair to rank high ened it. Fortunately the people sprang into the streets. Four minutes served to shake Lima to the ground-not twenty houses out of three thousand were left standing. The whole city crumbled into dust; the convents and monasteries, the church-tower and the churches, the palace of the Viceroy, the pleasant adobe houses-all formed a heap of ruins, beneath which might be heard the groans of the dying, the cry for help, the agony of woe. The loss of life was not excessive, but nearly a thousand persons were dead, and the horrors of that dreadful night were increased by a succession of shocks that shook down what the first had spared. Many were crushed in the ruins of their houses, others were struck down as they fled through the streets, and the survivors watched wearily through the long night for the coming of the dawn. Suddenly their horror was doubled by the intelligence from the port. Callao was now only a bank of sand. The peaceful sea which had slept so tranquilly at its side had risen in a vast tidal wave, swept over the city, and carried its whole population back into the deep. The ships in the harbor were borne over the town to the dry land, and as they passed they were surrounded by multitudes of floating people, and heard the shrieks of the great throng as it sank under the waters. Some few escaped. In the morning scarcely a trace remained of Callao. Wave following wave had blotted it from existence. A heap of sand marked the place where its ramparts and palaces once stood; and the new Callao which was afterward built was placed on a fresh site, away from the terrible memories of its predecessor. Captain Sutcliffe, a soldier of fortune, who visited Chili and Peru in 1822 to take part in the war of liberation, was at once invited to witness a revolution, a dance, and an earthquake. General O'Higgins, who had achieved the freedom of Chili by a bold march over the From the Pacific coast we turn to Europe for the next important earthquake. No event ever created a more intense feeling in the European capitals than the total destruction of Lisbon in 1755. Until that period Europe had looked for no real danger from earthquakes. It was believed that they were confined in their worst effects to the shores of America, the islands of the East and West Indies, or the coasts of Syria and the plains of Sicily; and it was scarcely supposed that any one of the great capitals of Europe would ever be desolated like Lima or Callao. Rome and Naples had trembled for several thousand years with minor shocks, and were still as safe as London and Paris. Lisbon and Madrid had never known any serious casualty. Even Syracuse and Messina continued to stand. And when it was told that splendid Lisbon had been crushed to the earth; that its people were lying dead beneath its ruins, or had been swept into the Atlantic by a tidal wave; that volcanic fires had flashed through its very streets, and the whole land had been shown to be the work of internal combustion, every city in Europe shuddered lest its own turn might be the next; lest it might discover that its foundations concealed a secret destroyer, and that its people might awake on some fatal night amidst the crash of falling buildings and the roar of the sudden earthquake. London and Paris, Vienna and Berlin, were seized with sudden terror, and a solemn gloom hung for a time over the gayest capitals of Europe. Of all the fair lands of the earthquake the environs of Lisbon and its magnificent harbor, the romantic outline of the banks of the Tagus, the seven or more hills on which the city stands revealed, and the glorious back-ground of Cintra and the surrounding mountains, present the most entrancing scene. It is grander than the bay of Naples, more imposing than the Hudson 1 Chili and Peru, p. 397. from this cause by its rulers or its people; nor can philosophy offer any explanation why this great capital should have been made the focus of a grand convulsion that reached from the Baltic on the one continent to the American lakes on the other; nor why the fatal effects of this great earthquake, whose oscillations extended to Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the Antilles, and to Canada, should have fallen upon the unhappy people of Lisbon alone. at New York. The Tagus widens as it approach- | never ceased to visit it. The southern proves the Atlantic, and in front of the city is about inces below the Tagus had long been subject to ten miles in breadth. Its banks are clothed in severe concussions;' Lisbon had frequently been the richest verdure, broken only by frequent vil-shaken, yet no danger had ever been looked for las and overhanging cliffs, and its waters glide bright and tranquil to the sea. The tower of Belem and its surrounding village first strikes the traveler's eye on entering the harbor; then the splendid city of palaces and churches, stretching a narrow bright line along the hills; and far behind the mighty chain of volcanic mountains, studded with villas and gardens, and clad in tropic vegetation. Lisbon, indeed, is set in a grove of lemon and orange trees, of the palm, the olive, and the cork; its skies are of the deepest blue, Those who carefully noticed the course of and its river always cheerful. But its air is often nature just before the earthquake at Lisbon of a fiery heat; and in August and September might have observed that for several years the a kind of torrid winter takes place, in which land had shown various traces of volcanic acvegetation dies, the earth is heated dust, and tion. The weather had been unusually dry; which continues until the cool showers of Octo-springs had ceased to flow that had once been ber call forth the leaves and flowers. abundant; the earth had frequently trembled From the heat and noisome air of the city with slight shocks; and the air had been opthe Portuguese escape to famous Cintra. "It is one of the loveliest spots on earth," wrote Mrs. Quillinan, and the poet Southey was never weary of celebrating its charm. Cintra is part of a chain of majestic mountains that overlook Lisbon. The whole mountain-side is covered with wood-land, gardens, groves, and massive foliage, with dancing streams and the song of countless nightingales, with palaces, villas, and quiet rural homes. Its air is always fresh and cool, and the spirit of health and beauty seems to dwell forever in its midst.3 At the time of the great earthquake in 1755 Lisbon was comparatively a far more important city than it is now, and was more nearly the peer of London and Paris. Something remained to it, too, of that former glory which in the sixteenth century had made it the centre of commerce and discovery. The genius of the Portuguese had once snatched the trade of the East from the Venetians; Vasco da Gama revolutionized his age; the Portuguese ruled over a large part of Africa and Hindostan; and Lisbon became a port where merchants came from all parts of Europe to purchase the spices, the gold-dust, and the silks of the East. Holland in the seventeenth century had done to.Lisbon what she had done for Venice in the sixteenth, and the spice trade and the silk trade were transferred to the wharves of Amsterdam. But still, even in 1755, Lisbon retained traces of its former wealth and power, and its churches and palaces were still adorned with the spoils and trophies of the Indies. Portugal is a mass of volcanic rocks, mountains, and lofty capes, projecting into the Atlantic. Like most volcanic countries its soil is unusually prolific, and its internal fires seem to nourish and perfect all the fruits and flowers of the tropics. The earthquake, however, has 1 Kinsey, p. 12. 2 Link, Travels in Portugal, etc., p. 165. 3 Journal of a Residence in Portugal (Mrs. Quillinan), p. 70. 4 Daubeney, p. 249. pressively hot. Yet never had Lisbon been people of Lisbon lived for pomp and show. They were followed by great retinues of black slaves. Every family valued itself upon possessing a large number of servants; and a costly slave-market stood by the riverside, where the slavers discharged their cargoes at leisure, and sold their wretched captives. No white man would consent to perform any menial service. Labor was left to the slave. The pride of the Portuguese noble and the charms of the Lisbon women were noted in Europe, and their luxurious indolence had been fostered by the softening effect of their tropic clime." The morning of November 1, 1755, broke fair and warm over Lisbon. A soft east wind blew and the sky was cloudless." It was a high of terrible tyranny in the East, or of the horrible traffic in slaves; the costly offerings of the pious in the churches; the savings of the industrious and the subsistence of the good, melted swiftly away and were converted into ashes. The royal palace, adorned with tapestry of unequaled elegance, and filled with silver and gold, was totally consumed. The churches, richer than the palace in gems and gold, shared its fate. The fire raged for eight days; no one ventured to enter the blazing city to check its ravages or to save his property from the flames; and when at last it died out the fairest portion of Lisbon was only a heap of blackened ruins. Many of the particulars of this famous earthquake are narrated by English residents who festival of the Roman Church; the chapels and cathedrals were filled with immense throngs of worshipers; the English merchants had not yet gone to their counting-houses; the royal family were still in the palace. Suddenly a roar was heard like the peal of countless thunder-bolts; a terrible shock struck the city and it fell. Several other shocks followed and completed its destruction. The royal family had just time to rush from the palace as it crumbled to pieces above their heads. The magnificent churches waved for a moment backward and forward, and then falling upon the countless throngs of worshipers, buried them in their ruins. The tall houses were dashed down upon the narrow streets and crushed their inmates as they strove to fly from the tottering walls. A sudden dark-escaped from the scene. An English merchant ness brooded over the city, caused by the thick clouds of dust, beneath which rose the shrieks of the wounded, the wail of the living, and the ery of the fallen metropolis. had just sat down to breakfast when he saw the walls of his house shaking above him. He did not at first understand the cause; but when he saw his neighbors rushing into the street he joined them, and began his struggle for life. It was dark as night. He ran with the terrified throng to the public square; the waters rose, and he turned to fly to the hills. He climbed, crept, or ran, amidst the horrible din, over the ruins and the heaps of dead; escaped the tottering walls and the rising flames; made his way through a ruined church at the very moment that another severe shock shattered it anew; and at length reached the open country. Here he watched through the night the fires breaking out through the deserted city, and saw its final destruction. It is estimated that more than thirty thousand persons perished in that awful moment. Many of the survivors were killed by the fall of the buildings as they fled wildly through the streets. The Spanish embassador was struck down and died as he was escaping from his house. Nobles and fair women, priests, monks, and nuns, the rich and the poor, who were yet unhurt, fled in a vast throng to the great square, until forty thousand miserable human beings had found a temporary refuge in its midst. But now the tidal wave came up to do its work. A wild storm raged over the city; while the sea, rushing into the harbor, overflowed the great square and swept away thousands into the deep. The people rushed madly toward the open country; clambered over the ruins of houses and churches; over the heaps of dead and the countless wounded; forgot in their terror the ties of nature or the claims of friend-property. They shrank terrified from the specship; and made their way as they best could out of the accursed city. In this fearful flight many were destroyed by the falling ruins; others sank down from weakness and could go no farther; and the women, the children, and the aged often died from excess of terror. At length the whole population that still survived had reached the fields, and only a horde of thieves and murderers remained in Lisbon.' But now came the crowning horror of this great catastrophe. The city took fire. The flames broke forth in the churches, where the innumerable wax-candles used in the sacred rites set on fire the draperies of the altars and the dresses of the dead; the houses were also in flames; and to complete the terrors of the conflagration, the banditti, who prowled amidst the ruins, fired several of the churches and convents in order to conceal their depredations. All night long the fugitives in the country watched the fire stealing swiftly over the ruined city and consuming whatever the earthquake and the sea had spared. The accumulated wealth of centuries, the fruit 1 Gentleman's Magazine, p. 557. Ten days passed during which the people of Lisbon lived in tents or huts, half clad and starving; at length they began to return to the city. An English merchant with his servant made his way to the former site of his warehouse to endeavor to recover the remains of his tacle. They passed among the dead, over a blackened waste where the streets were obliterated and scarcely a trace of the buildings remained. Another eye-witness was on shipboard in the harbor. He felt the vessel agitated beneath him, and rose in surprise. He turned toward the city, and there beheld a scene of horror. He saw the tall churches and palaces wave to and fro and then fall to the earth. He saw the people rush wildly to the public square, and the wave rise upon them and sweep them away. He heard the wild scream of terror that rose from the throng, the crash of the falling city, the roar of the angry sea. He witnessed the swift rush of the flames over the waste; and the dreadful picture of the destruction of Lisbon was never erased from his mind. At the very moment of the fall of Lisbon a wild commotion prevailed over a wide circle of cea and land.1 Cadiz was swept by a great tidal wave that carried away many of its people; Milan was so severely shaken as to in 1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1755, p. 588. jure several of its finest buildings; Switzerland | abundant, and in every thing but a governopened in fissures; the firm rock of Gibraltar ment it was one of the happiest portions of the trembled to its base; the earthquake was felt globe. Rivers of wine and oil flowed from the all along the Rhine, and even in the lowlands of fortunate land. The peasantry lived in plenty Holland. It was noticed in Norway and in and ignorance; and a great number of cities, England. All Northern Africa felt the convul- some of them remarkable for their feudal cassion, and the city of Meqinez was destroyed. tles and their massive convents, covered the Far out upon the Atlantic flame and smoke hills and the sea-coast. rose from the waters; and in Boston a shock was felt soon after that drove the people from their houses in alarm. The shock that destroyed Lisbon is computed to have been felt over a portion of the earth greater in extent than Europe.1 In modern times Europe has known but two important earthquakes, and of these the greater was the Calabrian. It formed an epoch in the history of Italy, exclaimed Vivenzio; it spread terror throughout the peninsula, and it taught Rome and Naples to tremble at every quiver of the land. Nothing since the overthrow of Pompeii and Herculaneum had brought the danger so close to them as the desolation of Calabria and the ruin of Messina. Calabria Ultra, the scene of the catastrophe, lies at the southern extremity of Italy, and projects into the Mediterranean Sea. The Straits of Messina separate it from Sicily, and the city of Messina stands on the opposite shore. This city was involved in the ruin of the continent. Calabria is said to have been fertile beyond description. Its fields were covered by enormous olive-trees, its vines grew to a vast size and were laden with grapes, its harvests were 1 Humboldt, Kosmos. 2 Istoria, etc., de' Tremuoti, p. 203. Che formerà epoca nel!' istoria d'Italia. 3 Dolomieu, Pink. Voyages, v. p. 280, note. On the The land was covered with flowers. hill-sides and in the valleys bloomed an infinite number of rare plants that in Paris were only found in the hot-house. Like most of the lands of the earthquake, it was the carnival scene of nature, where life flowed on beneath the brightest skies, amidst the fairest landscapes; where a pleasant languor softened the rude brow of labor, and the song and the dance went on perpetually in the gay cities and cheerful hamlets of the plain. On the 5th of February, 1783, an explosion took place beneath the surface of Calabria; a subterranean roar was heard, and all Southern Italy rocked and trembled. Two minutes sufficed to level the cities of Calabria to the dust. Nothing could resist the shock. Stones of great size were ground against one another and broken into pieces. The foundations of houses were shot from the earth, and whole cities were tossed into the air and fell upon the ground a mass of undistinguishable fragments. No warning noise, or even tremor, preceded the earthquake; it came upon the people at noon, when they were looking for no danger;, and, in a moment, twenty thousand of the inhabitants of Calabria lay dead beneath their ruined homes. The earthquake is the natural foe of cities; it is upon them that its stroke falls heaviest ; to them it is more fatal than sack, siege, or con through the abandoned city; the inhabitants fled to the woods and fields for safety; and for a long time after the first shock no human voice was heard in Messina; no sound but the rattling of doors and windows, and the sighing of the wind through the shattered waste.' Calabria continued to rock and tremble with frequent concussions for many months after the first earthquake, and when Dolomieu visited it in 1784 he felt several slight shocks. One evening as he was trying to sleep in the temporary shelter provided near one of the ruined con flagration. In Calabria the numerous cities crumbled in a moment info dust. The fate of the flourishing town of Terra Nova was particularly noticed. It stood upon an elevated plateau, on three sides of which ran deep gorges or ravines, and below it spread out a fertile plain covered with olive-trees and fresh with verdure. Its elevated position was the source of its utter destruction. The plateau on which it stood was riven by the shock, and rolled down into the ravines below; not a vestige of its houses remained; men, women, children were buried in the earth; and it was impossible to dis-vents, his mind filled with the spectacle of the tinguish where the site of the town had been. Castellace, another pleasant village seated upon a hill, was thrown down into the valley, and not a trace of its former position remained. Entire fields, covered with vines and olive-trees, were, in many instances, carried away from their natural seats and transported to a distance, with their trees still erect and growing; and rivers that had once flowed swiftly to the sea were filled up and spread out into miasmatic lakes. The city of Scilla, near the coast, was nearly destroyed, and its people fled to the level shore for safety. Here, about one o'clock in the morning, a tidal wave rose over the land and swept the Prince of Scilla and a thousand of the people into the waves. great catastrophe, and seeking to picture to himself the emotions of the people when their houses were crumbling above them, he felt his bed shake beneath him. He sprang up, about to fly in terror; but when he saw that his companions paid no attention to the slight tremor, he returned to his couch and sought once more to sleep. The attempt was vain, and he remained terror-stricken through the night, expecting every moment the return of the dread destroyer. It is said that all animals seem to have a foreknowledge of the approach of an earthquake, and that their agitation and cries add to the terrors of the scene. The howling of the dogs at Messina was so violent that they wers ordered to be killed. At the same time human beings were changed into monsters. The country people rushed to the plunder of fallen cities. Instead of aiding in rescuing the sufferers from the ruins, they snatched the jewels and rich clothes from the bodies of the wounded, and On the opposite side of the straits, in Sicily, stood the fine city of Messina. It was built around a bay, in a semicircular form, and a row of splendid palaces, three stories high, lined the front of the harbor. The upper stories of all these buildings were thrown down, and the lower so shattered as to make them a pile of ruins. The other streets were heaps of ruins, impassable and deserted. An awful silence reigned mieu, p. 287. 1 Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies. Dolo |