140 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



calamity a more licentious spot upon the earth. The charming 

 serenity of the climate and fruitfulness of the country, the plenty 

 of all things, and the sedate tranquility which the Spaniards 

 perpetually enjoyed, these, together with the extreme beauty of 

 the women, did not a little contribute to an amorous disposition, 

 which was the prevailing passion of the inhabitants. "...." Lima, 

 being subject with very little intermissions, to such dreadful 

 calamities, one would imagine it was the habitation only of crim- 

 inals sent thither for punishment, or of the people who were 

 weary of life, and not of such who made it their choice to live there. 

 But so powerful are the allurements of riches, so bewitching the 

 hope of gain, as to make danger preferable to safety, and the 

 continual fear of death reconcilable with the desire of living long 



and out of harm's way Of all judgments, proceeding 



from natural causes, which the Deity often inflicts on offenders, 

 in order to satisfy divine justice and manifest his almighty power, 

 the unexpected stroke of sudden earthquake hath ever been the 

 most tremendous, for as much as in one and the same moment 

 they became both the warnings and executioners of its wrath .... 

 . . . .This fatal catastrophe befel the place thirty minutes after 

 ten at night, when the sun was in five degrees ten minutes of 

 Scorpio, and the moon in not much less of Taurus, so that these 

 planets wanted very little of being in opposition, as they actually 

 were in five hours and twenty-two minutes afterwards, an aspect 

 which by constant observation hath proved unfortunate in this 

 climate; for under its influence these convulsive kinds of agita- 

 tion in the earth do most usually happen On this occasion 



the destruction did not so much as give time for fright, for at one 

 and the same instant almost, the noise, the shock, and the ruin 

 were perceived together, so that in the space of only four minutes, 

 during which the greatest force of the earthquake lasted, some 

 found themselves buried under, the ruins of the falling houses, and 

 others crushed to death in the streets by the tumblingof the walls, 



which, as the 3^ ran here and there, fell upon them The 



earth struck against the edifices with such violent percussions, 

 that every shock beat down the greater part of them. " 



"Of a total of about 3,000 houses within the city walls, scarce 

 twenty were left standing, and of the estimated population of 

 60,000 only 1,141 were killed. The small loss of life is due largely 

 to the one-story buildings. " The seaport of Lima, Callao, with a 

 population of 5,000 was wholly destroyed by a tidal wave accom- 



