HU IN’S OP TUE C1T1’. 
45:1 
wounds, instruments of surgery, medicines, every object of 
the most urgent necessity, was buried in the ruins. Every- 
thing, even food, was wanting; and lor the space of several 
days water became scarce in the interior of the citv. The 
commotion had rent the pipes of the fountains j and the 
falling in ot the earth had choaked up the springs that 
supplied them, lo procure water it was necessary to go 
down to the river Guayra, which was considerably swelled ■ 
and even when the water was obtained vessels for convey- 
mg it were wanting. 
There was a duty to be fulfilled to the dead, enjoined 
at once by piety and the dread of infection. It bcin- 
impossible to mter so many thousand bodies, half-buried 
under the rums, commissioners were appointed to burn 
them: and for this purpose funeral piles were erected 
between the heaps of rums. This ceremony lasted several 
days. Amidst so many public calamities, the people devoted 
themselves to those religions duties which they thought 
best fitted to appease the wrath of heaven. Some, assem- 
precessions, sang funeral hymns ; others, in a state 
ot distraction, made their confessions aloud in the streets. In 
Caracas was then repeated what had been remarked iii the 
province ot Quito, after the tremendous earthquake of 1797 • 
a number ot marriages were contracted between persons who 
had neglected tor many years to sanction their union by the 
sacerdotal benediction. Children found parents, by whom 
they had never till then been acknowledged; restitutions 
were promised by persons who had never been accused of 
iraud; and families who had long been at enmity were 
drawn together by the tie of common calamity. But if this 
feeling seemed to calm the passions of some, and onen the 
heart to pity, it had a contrary effect on others, rendering 
them more rigorous and inhuman. In great calamities 
nugar mmds evmce less ot goodness than of energy Mis- 
fortune acts m the same manner as the pursuits of litera- 
ture and the study of nature; the happy influence of which 
is left only by a lew, giving more ardour to sentiment, more 
disposition 0 th ° * 10Ug lts ’ aud increaaed benevolence to the 
■Shocks as violent as those which in about the space of a 
