138 INHUMATION OF THE WOUNDED. 



tween the great square and the ravine of Caraguata ; 

 there the cathedral, supported by enormous but- 

 tresses, remains standing. 



" In estimating the number of persons killed in 

 the city of Caraccas at nine or ten thousand, we do 

 not include those unhappy individuals who were 

 severely wounded, and perished several months after 

 from want of food and proper attention. The night 

 of Holy Thursday presented the most distressing 

 scenes of desolation and sorrow. The thick cloud 

 of dust, which rose above the ruins and darkened the 

 air like a mist, had fallen again to the ground ; the 

 shocks had ceased ; never was there a finer or quieter 

 night, the moon, nearly at the full, illuminated the 

 rounded summits of the Silla, and the serenity of 

 the heavens contrasted strongly with the state of 

 the earth, which was strewn with ruins and dead 

 bodies. Mothers were seen carrying in their arms 

 children whom they hoped to recall to life; desolate 

 females ran through the city in quest of a brother, a 

 husband, or a friend, of whose fate they were igno- 

 rant, and whom they supposed to have been sepa- 

 rated from them in the crowd. The people pressed 

 along the streets, which now could only be distin- 

 guished by heaps of ruins arranged in lines. 



" All the calamities experienced in the great 

 earthquakes of Lisbon, Messina, Lima, and Rio- 

 bamba were repeated on the fatal day of the 26th 

 March, 1812. The wounded, buried under the ruins, 

 implored the assistance of the passers-by with loud 

 cries, and more than two thousand of them were 

 dug out. Never was pity displayed in a more af- 

 fecting manner ; never, we may say, was it seen 

 more ingeniously active than in the efforts made to 

 succour the unhappy persons whose groans reached 

 the ear. There was an entire want of instruments 

 adapted for digging up the ground and clearing away 

 the ruins, and the people were obliged to use their 

 hands for the purpose of disinterring the living. 



