162 'SPOUTING ADVENTURES 



courtyard of the Consulate ; we then proceeded 

 together to make an inspection of the ruins. 

 It was indeed a sad scene of desolation : the 

 once thriving city, containing originally 40,000 

 inhabitants, was completely destroyed; as the 

 captain of the port truly said, it no longer 

 existed. 



Curiously enough, the only two houses left 

 standing were built of wood, showing very 

 clearly the great advantage of that material 

 over stone for withstanding earthquake shocks: 

 one of these was an hotel and the other 

 a clerical institution, and they were completely 

 gutted. The palace, built partly of wood and 

 partly of stone, was completely destroyed ; the 

 wooden part still remained, but the stone had 

 fallen, leaving great gaps in the building. All 

 the substantially-built stone buildings, including 

 several churches and the cathedral, the walls of 

 which were of immense thickness, were a mass 

 of ruins ; the spire of the latter remained in the 

 position I have endeavoured to represent in my 

 sketch. One of the bells must have been 



