450 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[December, 
forth ; each, in its violence, struggUng to destroy that Vi^hich had 
been spared from the voracity of the other ! 
Nothing was able to resist an impulse so sudden and so terri- 
ble, where the small as well as the great edifices of the city 
served only for the sepulchres of many of the inhabitants ; and 
where those who were arrested by fright, or unmindful of the 
event, were crushed by the falling houses, or suffocated by the 
dust which arose from their ruins ! 
The duration of this first and terrible movement of the earth 
lasted a little more than three minutes ; but that time, though 
short, was sufficient for the destruction of what had cost the la- 
bour of two hundred and eleven years in the construction ! Mag- 
nificent temples and sumptuous palaces — edifices of the most 
splendid and costly character — were tumbled into heaps of pro- 
miscuous ruins ! 
The following day dawned on immeasurable sorrow. Here 
was the father grieving for his son ; — there, the son mourning for 
the loss of his mother ! Relations lamenting the death of their 
kindred, and friends weeping for the destruction of their friends 
and acquaintances ! All was consternation — all lamentation ! 
Men talked — but their words conveyed no meaning; their thoughts 
and feehngs were read in their looks ! Volumes of grief were 
expressed in convulsive sighs! Indeed, it was not a life which 
they lived — but worse than death which they suffered. Devotion 
alone found a seat in their hearts, directing fheir prayers in fervour 
and in silence to the Most High ! " 
The streets were little else than mountains of earth and rub- 
bish, impeding the movements of the inhabitants, and causing the 
greatest fatigue to those who attempted to pass. In many places 
they were inaccessible and insurmountable ; — so much so, that in 
the most approachable of the different squares, it was impossible 
to distinguish the paths and the most familiar situations ; and 
such was the wilderness of ruins around, that one house could 
scarcely be distinguished from another. 
The consternation continued — every moment augmenting in 
horror, from the incessant repetition of shocks, which amounted 
to nearly two hundred in twenty-four hours — from half past ten 
o'clock on Friday evening, xmtil the same hour on Saturday — when 
the inhabitants passed out into the free air of the Plazas Cam- 
