1858.] the late Earthquakes in Southern Italy. 531 



fertile hills became bare rocks, valleys were raised up, small pools 

 fonned, mountains cleft by deep ravines. The towns of Montemurro 

 and Saponara especially were nearly entirely swept away ; the former 

 lost 5G00 out of 7(X)0, and the latter 3000 out of 4000 inhabitants. 

 Saponara, which rose in the middle ages out of the ancient Gru- 

 vientum, where Hannibal sustained a slight defeat by the Consul 

 Claudius Nero, was almost entirely levelled with the ground ; 

 there remain only a few shattered houses standing. Of Monte- 

 nmrro, originally a Saracenic settlement of the tenth century, 

 literally nothing was left but a heap of rubbish. On the morning 

 of the 17th of December, 5600 of its inhabitants were dead or 

 dying under the ruins, 685 disabled by wounds ; the few remaining 

 unhurt found themselves torn from their dearest ones, houseless, 

 amidst a mass of ruins, without means of subsistence or help, and 

 exposed to all the inclemency of a severe winter on a high peak of 

 the Apennines ! A few days later the stench of the dead human 

 beings under the ruins made life unbearable to the few surviving 

 ones! Both at Montemurro and Saponara, most of the houses 

 standing on beds of conglomerate had been overturned, or shuffled 

 in the strangest manner, and the ruins deposited in the ravines 

 beneath ; the contents of the lower stories were, in several in- 

 stances, thrown up into the stories above, or scattered into different 

 directions, as if propelled by a central force. The scenes of misery 

 and horror that took place in those doomed towns exceed what 

 imagination can fancy. Viggiano came next, a town whose inhabit- 

 ants from time immemorial have been in the habit of wandering, 

 with their harps over different parts of the world, and return home 

 with their savings in summer. It lost 1700 out of 6634 inhabitants, 

 and had most of the houses and churches overthrown. At this place 

 an extensive fire added to the horrors of the night. 



From the centre of a triangle formed by these three towns, 

 on which the fury of the convulsion was more violently wreaked, 

 the distances, in a direct line, are, — to the Gulf of Policastro, 

 24 miles; to Paestum, on the Gulf of Salerno, 58 miles; to the 

 mouth of the Agri, on the Gulf of Tarentum, 47 miles ; to the 

 extinct volcano of Mount Vulture, 55 miles ; to Mount Vesuvius, 

 94 miles ; to Bari, on the Adriatic, 80 miles ; and to Mount Etna, 

 195 miles. 



Beyond this district, the terrific effects of the ^rthquake ex- 

 tended, though somewhat diminished in intensity, over an area of 

 more than 3000 square miles, destroying or injuring, more or less, 

 about 200 towns and villages, with an aggregate population of 

 more than 200,000 inhabitants, of whom no less than 10,000 were 

 killed. 



Within this area the beautiful and fertile valley of Diano, 

 through which flows the Tanagro, a tributary of the Sele, traversed 

 in its length by the high road leading into Calabria, and enlivened 

 on both sides by numerous towns and villages built on the top or 



