142 EAKTHQUAICES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [Ch. XXIX 



were found clasped in eacli otlier's arms. Affecting narratives 

 are preserved of mothers saved after the fifth, sixth, and even 



interment 



had perished with hunger. 



B 



ima 



sufficient 



b of sufferings 

 awaken senti- 



ments of humanity and pity in the most savage breasts ; but 

 while some acts of heroism are related, nothing could exceed 

 the general atrocity of conduct displayed by the Calabrian 

 peasants : they abandoned the farms, and flocked in great 

 numbers into the towns — not to rescue their countrymen 

 from a lingering death, but to plunder. They dashed through 

 the streets, fearless of danger, amid tottering walls and 

 clouds of dust, trampling beneath their feet the bodies of the 

 wounded and half-buried, and often stripping them, while 

 yet living, of their clothes."^ 



But to enter more fully into these details would be foreign 

 to the purpose of the present work, and several volumes would 

 be required to give the reader a just idea of the sufferino-g 

 which the inhabitants of many populous districts have under- 

 gone during the earthquakes of the last 150 years. A bare 



of the loss of life— as that 50,000 or 100,000 souls 

 perished in one catastrophe — conveys to the reader no idea 



mention 



misery 



forms 



was encountered, the numbers who escaped with loss of limbs 

 or serious bodily injuries, and the multitude who were sud- 

 denly reduced to penury and want. It has been often re- 

 marked, that the dread of earthquakes is strongest in the 

 minds of those who have experienced them most frequently ; 



whereas, m the case of almost every other danger, familiarit} 

 with peril renders men intrepid. The reason is obvious 

 scarcely any part of the mischief apprehended in this instance 

 is imaginary ; the first shock is often the most destructive ; 

 and, as it may occur in the dead of the night, or if by day, 

 without giving the least warning of its approach, no fore- 

 thought can guard against it ; and when the convulsion has 



* Dolomieiij Pinkerton's Voyages and TravclSj vol. v. 



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