160 DESTRUCTION OF THE CITY. 
the customhouse de la Pastora, almost entirely dis- 
appeared. A regiment of troops of the line, which 
was assembled in it under arms to join in the pro- 
cession, was, with the exception of a few individuals, 
buried under this large building. Nine-tenths of 
the fine town of Caraccas were entirely reduced to 
ruins. The houses which did not fall, as those of 
the street of San Juan, near the Capuchin Hospital, 
were so cracked that no one could venture to live 
in them. The effects of the earthquake were not 
quite so disastrous in the southern and western parts 
of the town, between the great square and the ra- 
vine of Caraguata ;—there the cathedral, supported 
by enormous buttresses, remains standing. 
~~. In estimating the number of persons killed in 
the city of Caraccas at nine or ten thousand, we do 
not include those unhappy individuals who were 
severely wounded, and perished several months after 
from want of food and proper attention. The night 
of Holy Thursday presented the most distressing 
scenes of desolation and sorrow. The thick cloud 
of dust, which rose above the ruins and darkened 
the air like a mist, had fallen again to the ground ; 
the shocks had ceased ; never was there a finer or 
quieter night,—the moon, nearly at the full, illu- 
minated the rounded summits of the Silla, and the 
serenity of the heavens contrasted strongly with the 
state of the earth, which was strewn with ruins and 
dead bodies. Mothers were seen carrying in their 
arms children whom they hoped to recall to life ; 
desolate females ran through the city in quest of a 
brother, a husband, or a friend, of whose fate they 
were ignorant, and whom they supposed to have been 
separated from them in thecrowd. The people press- 
6 
