of an eye-witness, Major M., who still lives,
and who was in official employment in Carácas
when the earthquake happened. Major M. was
writing in his office with his clerk at four P.M.,
on the 26th of March, in that year. It was
intensely hot, and no rain had fallen for a
considerable time. Being Holy Thursday, the
churches were crowded with ladies, dressed
in their gayest attire. The chapels of the
convents were filled with nuns, and the streets,
as is usual on holidays, with people who had
come in from the neighbouring villages. At the
barracks of San Carlos, a regiment of six hundred
men were mustering under the walls. There
was not a cloud in the sky, not a thought of
danger in the heart of any one. All of a sudden
the earth seemed to move upward, the church
bells tolled, and a tremendous subterranean noise
was heard. The perpendicular motion lasted
four seconds, and was instantly succeeded by a
violent undulatory movement, which continued
six seconds more. In those ten seconds that
great city, with fifty thousand inhabitants, had
become a heap of blood-stained ruins. The
churches of Alta Gracia and Trinidad, with towers
one hundred and fifty feet high, were so
completely levelled, that in their place only shapeless
mounds remained, spread out to a great distance,
but not more than five feet high. Every convent
was destroyed, and of the inmates scarcely one
escaped. The barrack of San Carlos was hurled
forward from its base, and of the six hundred
soldiers mustering below its walls not a man
was left alive. At the first shock, Major M.
started from his seat and rushed towards the
door, followed by his clerk. M. sprang into the
street, but his clerk was too late, and was crushed
to death by the falling house. The major had
seen many terrific sights in his long residence in
these regions of the volcano and the earthquake,
and had been in many battles both by sea and
land, but he declared that the spectacle which
Carácas presented at the moment of the great
earthquake, was the most terrible of all. A vast
cloud of dust rose up to heaven, and with it
ascended the shrieks of more than twenty thousand
human beings dying or wounded in the
ruins. Great rocks came thundering down from
the mountains, and at intervals explosions, like
the discharge of innumerable pieces of artillery,
were heard beneath the earth. Major M. fled
down to the river La Guaira, and remained there
without food till the next day. Even then it was
difficult to procure the means of satisfying
hunger, for the houses were all fallen, and the
streets so encumbered with ruins, that it was
difficult to pass. So for many days the sad sights
were renewed of digging out the wounded and
the dead.

Men's minds were so affected with terror,
that for a long time they could not return to
their ordinary occupations, but were continually
absorbed with prayer and religious ceremonies.
Then were many marriages performed
between those who had for years been living
together without that tie, and men who had
defrauded others made restitution, appalled by
the horrors of that tremendous day, and
apprehensive of their recurrence.

At a few places in the Cerro d'Avila, I
observed houses perched up at an elevation of
several hundred feet, and among them one
belonging to the Dutch minister. Below it is a
country-house, called the Paraiso, once the
property of an English minister, and which passed
from him to a famous Creole beauty. But that
which interested me most in this direction was
the Catholic cemetery, said to be the finest in
all South America, and well worth a visit. It
stands on very high ground, and the view is
magnificent. The singularity of the place is,
that the inner side of the very high walls by
which it is surrounded is lined with a sort of
gigantic pigeon-holes. They are eight feet deep,
and three feet wide and high, and are used as
receptacles for coffins. Persons who can afford
to pay a fee of thirty-five dollars are allowed the
privilege of placing the coffin of a deceased
relative in one of these receptacles for three years.
The name of the deceased person is printed over
the recess, and the coffin can be brought out at
any time if required. Of course, it is thus
preserved from destruction, being quite dry, and
sheltered from the weather, and also safe from
the attacks of insects, especially the formidable
black ant, which is three-quarters of an inch in
length, and devours everything it can get at.
At the expiration of three years coffins are taken
down, and the remains of the deceased person
are, if the family wish it, handed over to them.
Otherwise, they are thrown into a large pit,
called a carnero. Poor people, and those who
do not choose to pay for the three years'
lodgment in the pigeon-holes, are buried at
once in the grounds of the cemetery. I
observed the words Calentura Amarilla in many
of the epitaphs, which told plainly of the
ravages of the yellow fever. Humboldt
mentions that this disease had been known at
La Guaira only two years before his arrival,
and says nothing of its having appeared at
Carácas.

After I had ridden past the cemetery a few
hundred yards, I came to a mound about one
hundred and fifty feet in length, and was told
that this marked the spot where the persons
who died in the great outbreak of cholera a few
years ago, were buried. The victims were so
numerous that it was quite impossible to inter
them separately, so a very long deep trench was
dug, and the dead were brought in carts and
cast into it. The English burial-ground and the
German are on the southern outskirts of the
city, and are very poor places as compared with
the Catholic cemetery. They are both covered
with weeds, but, in the British burial-ground,
the rank grass is so tall that it is impossible
to see the graves, and the whole place is
full of ant-hills several feet high. There is a
chapel, with an inscription to say it was built