GREAT EARTHQUAKE. 303 



mucli above his fellow as lie had been below him be- 

 fore. The published accounts entirely agree with 

 this statement. For fifteen houi's the solid ground 

 thus rolled like the sea, but the heaviest wave did 

 not occur till ten o'clock on the 15th of February. 

 Fort Orange, which had withstood all the shocks of 

 two hundred and thiii:y years, was partly thrown 

 down, and wholly buried under a mass of pumice- 

 stone and the debris of the forests above it. The 

 people, as soon as this last day of destruction com- 

 menced, betook themselves to their boats, for, while 

 the land was heaving like a troubled ocean, the sea 

 continued quiet ; no great wave came in to complete 

 the work of destruction on the shore. It seemed, in- 

 deed, as if the laws that govern these two great ele- 

 ments had been suddenly exchanged, and the fixed 

 land had become the mobile sea. The whole loss 

 caused by this devastating phenomenon was estimated 

 at four hundred thousand Mexican dollars ; and yet, 

 after all this experience, so great was the attachment 

 of both foreigners and natives to this particular spot, 

 that they would not select some one less dangerous 

 on the neighboring shores, but all returned and 

 once more becran to build their houses for another 

 earthquake to lay in the dust, pro^dng that the com- 

 mon remark in regard to them is literally tnie, that 

 " they are less afraid of fire than the Hollanders are 

 of water." The present city, however, judging by 

 the area of the ruins, is not more than two-thirds the 

 size of the former one. Its total population is about 

 9,000. Of these, 100 are Europeans, 300 mestizoes, 

 200 Arabs, 400 Cliinese, and the others natives of 



