184 | Mr. Woodbine Parish on the Effects of the 
of its former position, it is at present become a spacious strand, 
extending along that coast.. Some few towers, indeed, and the 
strength of its walls for a time endured the whole force of 
the earthquake, and resisted the violence of its shocks; but 
scarcely had its poor inhabitants begun to recover from the 
horror of the first fright which the dreadful ruin and devasta- 
tion had occasioned there, (and how great that was is not to be 
known,) when suddenly the sea began to swell, either through 
the impulsive force which the earth by its violent agitation 
impressed upon it,—and thereby keeping up for a time, in one 
vast body, mountains of water,—or by what other means na- 
tural philosophers may please to assign, which on these occa- 
sions are the causes of its elevation—and swelling rose to such 
a prodigious degree, and with so mighty a compression, that 
on falling from the height it had attained, (although Callao 
stood above it on an eminence which, however imperceivable, 
yet continues still increasing all the way to Lima,) it rushed 
furiously forward, and overflowed with so vast a deluge of water 
its ancient bounds, that foundering the greater part of the ships 
which were at anchor in the port, and elevating the rest of 
them above the height of the walls and towers, drove them 
on and left them on dry ground, far beyond the town; at the 
same time it tore up from the foundation everything that was 
in it of houses and buildings, excepting only the two great 
gates, and here and there some small fragment of the walls 
themselves, which as registers of the calamity are still to be 
seen among the ruins and the waters, a dreadful monument 
of what they were. 
‘In this raging flood were drowned all the inhabitants of 
the place, who at that time might amount to near 5000 per- 
sons, of all ages, sexes, and conditions, according to the most 
exact calculation that can be made,” &c. &c. 
** There were twenty-three ships, great and small, at anchor 
in the port at the time of the earthquake: and of these, as has 
been mentioned before, some were stranded, being four in 
number, viz. the § San Firmin’, man of war, which was found 
in the low ground of the upper Chacara, the part opposite to 
the place where she rode at anchor, and near her the ‘St. An- 
tonio,’ belonging to Don Thomas Costa, a new ship just ar- 
rived from Guayaquil: the vessel of Don Adirar Corsi rested 
on the spot where before stood the hospital of St. John, and 
the ship * Succour’ of Don Juan Baquixano, which had just 
arrived that very evening with a cargo from Chile, was thrown 
up towards the mountains, both one and the other of them at 
reat distances from the sea; and all the rest were foundered.” 
Ulloa adds, that “this terrible inundation extended to 
other ports of the coast, as Cavallos and Guanape, and the 
