£0 Court Mercati on an Earthquake in the Island Xante.. 
The first was very strong and vertical ; the second produced an 
undulating movement ; and the third, which was the most violent, 
created a rotatory motion. A sudden and confused noise of 
clamours and cries arose, and announced the general distress of 
the people, who thought that the last day was come. 
The violence of the shocks threw down the strongest built 
houses : eighty were overturned from the foundation ; nearly 800 
Avere dreadfully shattered ; and others so much injured as to be 
uninhabitable till they were repaired 
In the midst of so many disasters, it is very astonishing that 
only four persons perished among the ruins, and a few were 
wounded. The earthquake lasted about thirty seconds, though 
some people say only fifteen. But the oscillation continued af- 
ter the shocks ; so that, from the beginning to the end, one could 
count a minute. The people and the English garrison, fright- 
ened at this horrible disaster, iipfiplored tlie Divine clemency in 
the streets. 
While the Government and the people followed the proces- 
sion, called forth by piety and the general terror, another mis- 
fortune befel uSi. All at once, the clouds, which were grouped 
ill whirls, discharged themselves in rain, accompanied with a 
small kind of hail ; then the storm redoubled, and discharged a 
quantity of hail, of a size so extraordinary, that some of the 
crystals weighed six ounces, and, as some say, even two pounds. 
These crystals were irregular polygons, with their angles ex- 
tremely acute. After the first commotion, we found the other 
shocks less considerable. The horizon and the wind had not 
changed during twenty-five successive days. In the night of 
the 30th, a new hurricane, such as I believe no one ever before 
experienced, was sent to assail us. Before midnight, the wind 
rose in the south-east with an incredible violence, and at the 
same time a deluge of rain and of hail descended. The 
currents wliich precipitated themselves, during four hours, 
down the hills, which rise above the town, quickly carried away 
with them whole houses, which were swallowed up with all that 
they contained. These torrents not being able to find a pas- 
* The Gazette of Corfu of the 6th January 1821 , makes the number of house?^ 
destroyed 300, and those which were much injured 500. 
