3835. ANECDOTES — MOTION OF SEA. 409 



lying a full cable's length apart ; and after it had passed they 

 were side by side, with three round turns in their cables. 

 Each vessel had therefore g-one round the other with each wave : 

 the bow of one was stove in : to the other little damage was 

 done. A small vessel* was on the stocks, almost ready for 

 launching; she was carried by the sea two hundred yards 

 in-shore, and left there unhurt. A little schooner, at anchor 

 before the town, slipped her cable, and ran out in the offing as 

 the water fell. She met the wave, unbroken, and rose over it 

 as an ordinary swell. The Colocolo-f* was under sail near the 

 eastern entrance of the bay — she likewise met the wave, as a 

 large swell, without inconvenience. 



Many boats]: put off from the shore before the sea retired : 

 some met the advancing waves before they broke, and rose 

 safely over them ; others, half swamped, struggled through the 

 breakers. The fate of one little boy was extraordinary. A 

 servant woman had taken refuge with him in a boat ; the boat 

 was dashed against an anchor, lying on the shore, and divided. 

 The woman was drowned, but the half of the boat containing 

 the child § was carried out into the bay. It floated, and the 

 boy held firmly. He was picked up afterwards, sitting up- 

 right, holding steadily with both hands, wet and cold, but 

 unhurt. The boy's name is Hodges : his father is an English- 

 man, well known at Talcahuano, and was an officer in the 

 British navy. 



For several days the sea was strewed with wreck ; not 

 only in the Bay of Concepcion, but outside, in the offing. The 

 shores of Quiriquina Island were covered with broken furni- 

 ture and wood work of all kinds ; so much so, that for weeks 

 afterwards, parties were constantly at work collecting and 

 bringing back property. During three days succeeding that 

 of the ruin the sea ebbed and flowed irregularly, and very 

 frequently : rising and falling for some hours after the shock 

 two or three times in an hour. Eastward of the island of Qui- 

 riquina the swell was neither so large nor so powerful as that 



» About thirty tons. t Chilian schooner of war. 



I Chiefly, if not all, whaleboats. § Only four years old. 



