Oh. XVIII.] EARTHQUAKE OF 186.3. 297 



A visitor at Manilla cannot fail to be struck with the 

 dilapidated condition of some parts of the city. Houses 

 cracked and partially unroofed, others windowless and 

 deserted, walls broken down, and court-yards grass-grown 

 and uneven, piled-up heaps of hewn stones which have once 

 been part of a building, meet the eye iu every direction, and 

 are all witnesses of the disastrous earthquake which took 

 place here three or four years back, a repetition of the 

 catastrophe of 1645, and which, besides destroying a great 

 part of the city, proved fatal to a large number of the 

 inhabitants. But the neighbourhood of the principal 

 churches, and of the cathedral, most conspicuously testifies 

 to the violence of its effects. These large buildings are 

 almost totally destroyed, and are all in a ruinous condition. 

 The cathedral has a most desolate aspect, and only a small 

 portion remains in a sufficiently stable condition to allow of 

 being patched up, and serving as a temporary church. 

 Another spacious church, close by, was undergoing some 

 attempts at repair, and huge beams of wood were in course 

 of elevation to support a roof; but the whole aspect of 

 affairs is melancholy in the extreme. Few attempts appear 

 to have been made to renovate the city, and as few even to 

 remove^the debris, and with the exception of piling up the 

 stones by the road-side, no efforts have been made to clear 

 away the traces of the catastrophe. 



The terrible earthquake which brought this destruction 

 upon the city of Manilla took place on July 3rd, 1863, at 

 half-past seven in the evening. Like most of these frightful 

 occurrences, which are at the same time overwhelmingly 

 destructive, the ruin was all completed in less than a single 

 minute. Not, however, that this was the only shock ex- 

 perienced, but the only one which effected serious mischief, 



