BETIEWS — NOTES ON CENTRAL AMERICA. 367 



capital was made a heap of ruins. Movements of the earth were felt en the morning 

 cf Holy Thursday, preceded by sounds like the rolling of heavy artillery over 

 pavements, and like distant thunder. The people were a little alarmed in conse- 

 quence of this phenomenon, but it did not prevent them from meeting in the churches 

 to celebrate the solemnities of the day. On Saturday all was quiet, and confidence 

 was restored. The people of the neighborhood assembled as usual to celebrate the 

 Passover. The night of Saturday was tranquil, as was also the whole of Sunday. 

 The heat, it is true, was considerable, but the atmosphere was calm and serene. 

 For the first three hours of the evening nothing unusual occurred, but at half-past 

 nine a severe shock of an earthquake, occurring without the usual preliminary 

 noises, alarmed the whole city. Many families left their houses and made encamp- 

 ments in the public squares, while others prepared to pass the night in their res- 

 pective court-yards. 



"Finally, at ten minutes to eleveD, without premonition of any kind, the earth 

 began to heave and tremble with such fearful force that in ten seconds the entire 

 city was prostrated. The crashing of houses and churches stunned the ears of the 

 terrified inhabitants, while a cloud of dust from the falling ruins enveloped them in 

 a pall of impenetrable darkness. Not a drop of water could be got to relieve the 

 half-choked and suffocating, for the wells and fountains were filled up or made dry. 

 The clock tower of the cathedral carried a great part of that edifice with it in its 

 fall. The towers of the church of San Francisco crushed the episcopal oratory and 

 part of the palace. The church of Santo Domingo was buried beneath its towers, 

 and the college of the Assumption was entirely ruined. The new and beautiful 

 edifice of the University was demolished. The church of the Merced separated in 

 the centre, and its walls fell outward to the ground. Of the private houses a few 

 were left standing, but all were rendered uninhabitable. It is worthy of remark that 

 the walls left stanuing are old ones; all those of modern construction have fallen. The 

 public edifices of the government and city shared the common destruction. 



" The devastation was effected, as we have said, in the first ten seconds ; for, 

 although the succeeding shocks were tremendous, and accompanied by fearful 

 rumblings beneath our feet, they had compartively trifling results, for the reason 

 that the first had left but little for their ravages. 



"Solemn and terrible was the picture presented on the dark, funereal night, of 

 a whole people clustering in the plazas, and on their knees crying with loud voices 

 to Heaven for mercy, or in agonizing accents calling for their children and friends, 

 whom they believed to be buried beneath the ruins ! A heaven opaque and 

 ominous ; a movement of the earth rapid and unequal, causing a terror indescriba- 

 ble ; an intense sulphurous odor filling the atmosphere, and indicating an approach- 

 ing eruption of the volcano ; streets filled with ruins, or overhung by threatening 

 walls ; a suffocating cloud of dust, almost rendering respiration impossible — such 

 was the spectacle presented by the unhappy city on that memorable and awful 

 night ! 



"A hundred boys were shut up in the college, many invalids crowded the hospi- 

 pitals. and the barracks were full of soldiers. The sense of the catastrophe which 

 must have befallen them gave poignancy to the first moments of reflection after the 

 earthquake was over. Tt was believed that atleasta fourth part of the inhabitants 

 had been buried beneath the ruins. The members of the government, however, 

 hastened to ascertain, as far as practicable, the extent of the catastrophe, and to 

 quiet the public mind. It was found that the loss of life had been much less than 



