16 CARACAS. 



fearful visitations, as frequently laid in ruins the cities of 

 other districts,* Xo one had any apprehension of danger. 

 The festivities of Holy Thursday had filled the churches. 

 Suddenly the earth ti'eniLlcs. The bells of the churches 

 toll as though " rung by an invisible hand." . Caracas is 

 doomed. For four seconds the ground quakes, then rocks 

 with a sea-like movement, and in six seconds moi'e the 

 city lies heaped in ruins. Heavy thunderings rolled be- 

 neath the earth, and rocks were hurled from the sides of 

 Silla. Of fifty thousand inhabitants, ten thousand were 

 killed upon the first overthrow of the city, while thou- 

 sands afterward perished from injuries, hunger, and ex- 

 posure. Beneath the walls of San Carlos six hundred 

 soldiers were mustering. The barracks, says a chronicler, 

 hurled from their base, left not a man of the regiment. 

 Terrible scenes has our earth afibrded; but none more 

 fearful than Caracas presented when the clouds of dust, 

 which at first veiled the ruins, lifted from the fated city. 

 Tlie imagination alone can picture that scene of ghastly 

 ruins, terror, and consternation. So great was the num- 

 ber of victims, that, interment being impossible, for days 

 the survivors were emjiloyed in collecting and burning 

 the bodies u-pon vast funeral-pja-es. Humboldt, in his 

 graphic account of the fearful calamity, alluding to the 

 tolling of the bells by the short tremor which pi-eceded 

 the final shock, pens the following thrilling sentence : " It 

 was the hand of God, and not the hand of man, which 

 rang that funeral-dirge." f This passage possesses a pecu- 

 liar interest. While illustrating how powerfully Hum- 

 boldt was impressed by tlie contemplation of this phe- 



* The earthquake of Caracas was the cuhnination of a series of con- 

 vulsions during the years 1811-'13, felt through the West Indies and 

 over a large portion of the Mississippi Valley. 



f "^s war Gottes, nicJd Mettschenhand^ die hier zitm Grabgeluule 

 zwang. " 



