26 



CHILI. 



probable these ruins were much in the same state 

 as on the day they were east down, two years and 

 a half before. The walls being from three to four 

 feet thick, none of them above twelve feet high, 

 and built of large flat sun-dried bricks, were cal- 

 culated, it might have been supposed, to withstand 

 the shocks even of an earthquake ; yet, notwith- 

 standing their strength, they seem to have been 

 tumbled down like so many castles of cards. The 

 little chapel above mentioned was built by the 

 Jesuits, who had bolstered it up with a set of 

 monstrous buttresses, occupying an area consi- 

 derably greater than the chapel itself ; which, ne- 

 vertheless, was so twisted about, that the roof had 

 fallen in, and the walls were cracked in all direc- 

 tions. Some houses had been so shaken, that not 

 a brick retained its original place, yet the walls 

 were standing, though with a most ghost-like ap- 

 pearance ; and at such an angle, that, in passing, 

 we were not quite free from apprehension of their 

 falling upon us; indeed, there was hardly a single 

 wall which was not sloping over more or less. In 

 some places the buttresses were shaken down and 

 gone, but the shattered wall was left standing ; 



