136 



A DIARY OF THE 



of the most appalling desolation. Parents and 

 children, relations and friends, were searching 

 for each other in that distraction of mind which 

 terror, anxiety, and apprehension for their safety 

 at such a calamitous moment created. Not a 

 building remained standing of the late city of 

 Concep9ion : high and low, rich and poor, were 

 mingled in an overwhelming destruction. The 

 ruins of a church and a convent, erected by the old 

 Spaniards on a most magnificent and substantial 

 scale, and which had withstood for ages the fre- 

 quent shocks of previous earthquakes, with which 

 the southern continent of America is so peculiarly 

 afflicted, were scattered on all sides, and pre- 

 sented to the beholder a most striking and fearful 

 assurance of the vanity, as well as the instability, 

 of all that is created by the hand of man. 



At Talcuhuana, the village which is situated 

 on the border of the bay forming the anchorage 

 for shipping, communicating with Concep9ion, 

 and about six miles from that city, the sea rose 

 between thirty and forty feet, and came in, in 

 one great wave immediately following the move- 

 ment of the earth ; landed a schooner at the 

 back of the houses ; and retiring, swept every 

 thing before it ; the inhabitants only escaping to 



