1835.] GREAT EARTHQUAKE. 219 



good face upon it, gravely replied, "No, I am sure, sir, they would 

 stand two ! " The Spaniards must have intended to have made this 

 place impregnable. There is now lying in the middle of the courtyard 

 a little mountain of mortar, which rivals in hardness the rock on 

 which it is placed. It was brought from Chile, and cost 7,000 dollars. 

 The revolution having broken out, prevented its being applied to any 

 purpose, and now it remains a monument of the fallen greatness of 

 Spain. 



I wanted to go to a house about a mile and a half distant, but n.y 

 guide said it was quite impossible to penetrate the wood in a straight 

 line. He offered, however, to lead me, by following obscure cattle- 

 tracks, the shortest way : the walk, nevertheless, took no less than 

 three hours ! This man is employed in hunting strayed cattle ; yet, 

 well as he must know the woods, he was not long since lost for two 

 whole days, and had nothing to eat. These facts convey a good idea 

 of the impracticability of the forests of these countries. A question 

 often occurred to me how long does any vestige of a fallen tree 

 remain ? This man showed me one which a party of fugitive royalists 

 had cut down fourteen years ago ; and taking this as a criterion, I 

 should think a bole a foot and a half in diameter would in thirty years 

 be changed into a heap of mould. 



February 2oth. This day has been memorable in the annals of 

 Valdivia, for the most severe earthquake experienced by the oldest 

 inhabitant. I happened to be on shore, and was lying down in the 

 wood to rest myself. It came on suddenly, and lasted two minutes, 

 but the time appeared much longer. The rocking of the ground was 

 very sensible. The undulations appeared to my companion and myself 

 to come from due east, whilst others thought they proceeded from 

 south-west : this shows how difficult it sometimes is to perceive the 

 direction of the vibrations. There was no difficulty in standing upright, 

 but the motion made me almost giddy; it was something like the 

 movement of a vessel in a little cross-ripple, or still more like that felt 

 by a person skating over thin ice, which bends under the weight oi 

 his body. 



A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations ; the 

 earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like 

 a thin crust over a fluid ; one second of time has created in the mind 

 a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have 

 produced. In the forest, as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the 

 earth tremble, but saw no other effect. Captain Fitz Roy and some 

 officers were at the town during the shock, and there the scene was 

 more striking ; for although the houses, from being built of wood, did 

 not fall, they were violently shaken, and the boards creaked and 

 rattled together. The people rushed out of doors in the greatest alarm. 

 It is these accompaniments that create that perfect horror of earth- 

 quakes, experienced by all who have thus seen, as well as felt, their 

 effects. Within the forest it was a deeply interesting, but by no means 

 an awe-exciting phenomenon. The tides were very curiously affected. 

 The great shock took place at the time of low water ; and an old 



