186 Sir william Hamilton’s Account of 
maid-fervant : neither he nor his maid-fervant were hurt ; but 
he told me, his wife had been a little hurt, but was now nearly 
recovered. I happened to afk him, what hurt his wife had 
received ? His anfwer, though of a very ferious nature, will 
neverthelefs, I am lure, make you fmile, Sir, as it did me r 
He laid, Hie had both her legs and one arm broken, and that? 
fire had a fracture on her lkul '1 fo that the brain? was vifible. It 
appears to me, that the Calabreli have more firmnefs than the 
Neapolitans; and they really feem to bear their excehive pre* 
lent misfortune with a true philolophic patience. Of 1600 
inhabitants at Terra Nuova, only 400 efcaped alive. My 
guide there, who was a prieft and phyfician, had been Unit up i li- 
the ruins of his houfe by the firfl Ihock of the earthquake, 
and was blown out of it, and delivered by the l'ucceeding 
Ihock, which followed the firft immediately. There are many 
well-attefted inftances of the fame having happened ellewhere? 
ill Calabria. In ether parts of the plain lituated near the 
ravine, and near the town of Terra Nuova, I faw many acres* 
of land with trees and corn-fields that had been detached into 
fehe ravine, and often without having been overturned, fo that 
the trees and crops were growing as well as if they had been 
planted there. Other fuch pieces were lying in the bottom, in 
an inclined fituation ; and others again that had been quite 
overturned. In one place, two of thefe immenfe pieces oft 
land having been detached oppofite to one another, had filled the 
valley, and flopped the courfe of the river, the waters of which 
were forming a great lake : and this is the true ftate of what 
the accounts mention of mountains that had walked, and 
joined together, flopped the courfe of the river, and formed a 
lake. At the moment of the earthquake the river difappeared 
here, as at Rofarno, and returning foon after, overflowed the • 
6 bottom' 
