16 



hands, to disinter the living. The wounded, as 

 well as the sick who had escaped from the hospi- 

 tals, were laid on the banks of the small river 

 Guayra. They found no shelter but the foliage of 

 trees. Beds, linen to dress the wounds, instru- 

 ments of surgery, medicines, and objects of the 

 most urgent necessity, were buried under the 

 ruins. Every thing, even food, was wanting dur- 

 ing the first days. Water became alike scarce in 

 the interior of the city. The commotion had rent 

 the pipes of the fountains ; the falling in of the 

 earth had choaked up the springs that supplied 

 them ; and it became necessary, in order to have 

 water, to go down to the river Guayra, which 

 was considerably swelled ; and then vessels to 

 convey the water were wanting. 



"There remained a duty to be fulfilled to- 

 ward the dead, enjoined at once by piety, and 

 the dread of infection. It being impossible to 

 inter so many thousand corpses, half-buried un- 

 der the ruins, commissaries were appointed to 

 burn the bodies : and for this purpose funeral 

 piles were erected between the heaps of ruins. 

 This ceremony lasted several days. Amid so 

 many public calamities, the people devoted them- 

 selves to those religious duties, which they 

 thought were the most fitted to appease the 

 wrath of Heaven. Some, assembling in proces- 

 sions, sung funeral hymns ; others, in a state 

 of distraction, confessed themselves aloud in the 



