THEIlt PHESOM-ENA. 
1G3 
four-fifths of the city were then entirely destroyed ; and the 
shock, attended by a very loud subterraneous noise, resembled, 
as at Kiobamba, the explosion of a mine at a great depth. 
Happily the most violent shock was preceded by a slight 
undulating motion, so that most of the inhabitants were 
enabled to escape into the streets, and a small number only 
perished of those who had assembled in the churches. It is a 
generally received opinion at Cumana, that the most de- 
structive earthquakes are announced by very feeble oscilla- 
tions, and by a hollow sound, which 'does not escape the 
observation of persons habituated to this kind of pheno- 
menon. In those fatal moments the cries of ‘ misericordia ' 
tembla! tembla!’* are everywhere heard; and it rarely happens 
that a false alarm is given by a native. Those who are most 
apprehensive attentively observe the motions of dogs, goa ts 
and swine. The last-mentioned animals, endowed with delicate 
olfactory nerves, and accustomed to turn up the earth, give 
warning of approaching danger by them restlessness and 
their ones. W e shall not attempt to decide, whether, being 
nearer the surface of the ground, they are the first to hear 
the subterraneous noise ; or whether their organs receive the 
impression of some gaseous emanation which issues from 
the earth. We cannot deny the possibility of this latter 
cause. During my abode at Peru, a fact was observed in 
the inland country, which has an analogy with this kind of 
phenomenon, and which is not unfrequent. At the end of 
violent earthquakes, the herbs that cover the savannahs of 
Tuouman acquired noxious properties ; an epidemic disorder 
broke out among the cattle, and a great number of them 
appeared stupified or suffocated by the deleterious vapours 
exhaled from the ground. 
At Cumana, half an hour before the catastrophe of the 
14th of December, 1797, a strong smell of sulphur was per- 
ceived near the hill of the convent of San Francisco ; and on 
the same spot the subterraneous noise, which seemed to 
proceed from south-east to north-west, was loudest. At 
the same time flames appeared on the banks of the Manza- 
nares, near the hospital of the Capuchins, and in the gulf of 
wariaco, near Mariguitar. This last phenomenon, so extra- 
. * "Mercy! the earthquake ! the earthquake!”— See Tschudi’s TraTels 
Jn Peru, p. 170 . 
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