ClIAP. XVI l] 



^.V EARTHqVAKE, 



251 



even while reuiindiog each other that it really might be nc 

 laughing matter. 



At length the evening got very cold, and I became very 

 sleepy, and deterniined to turn in ; leaving orders to my 

 boys, who slept nearer the door, to wake nie in case the 

 house was in danger of falling. But 1 miscalculated 

 niy apalhy, for 1 could not sleep much. The shocks 

 continued at intervals of halt' an hour or an hour all 

 aight, just strong' enough to wake me thoroughly eacli 

 time and keep me on tlie aleit ready to jump up in case 

 of danger. I was tlierefore very glad when nioniing came, 

 Most of the inhabitants had not been to bed at all, and 

 some had stayed out of doord all night. For the next 

 two days and nigVits shocks still continued at short in- 

 teiTals, and several times a day for a week, showing that 

 there wa.'S some very extensive disturbance beneath our 

 portion of the earth's crust. How vast the forces at work 

 really are can only be properly appreciated when, after 

 feeling their effects, we look abroad over the wide expanse 

 of hill and valley, plain and mountain, and thus realize in 

 a sliglit degree the immense mass of matter heaved and 

 shaken. The sensation produced by an earthquake is 

 never to be fm-gotten. We feel ourselves in the grasp of a 

 power to which the wildest fury of the winds and wavas 

 are as nothing ; yet the effect is more a thrill of awe than 

 the terror which \he more boisterous war of the elements 

 produces. There is a myster\^ and an uncertainty a*? 

 bo the amount of danger we incur, which gives greater 

 play to the imagination, and to the iuUuences of hope 

 and fear. These remarks apply only to a moderate earth- 

 quake. A severe one is the most destmctive and the 

 most horrible catastrophe to which human beings can be. 

 exposed. 



A few days after the earthquake I took a walk to Ton- 

 dano, a large village of about 7,000 inhabitant's, situated at 

 the lower end of tlie lake of the same name. I dined with 

 the ControUeur, Jlr, Bensneidcr, who had been my guide 

 to Tomoh<in. He had a line large house, in winch he often 

 .eceived visitors ; and his garden was the tet for flowers 

 which I bad seen in the tropics, althougli there was n<i 

 great variety. It was he who introdueed the rose hedges 



