Some geologists are of opinion that earthquakes are frequently the result of the subsiding, sinking in, or cracking of subterranean cavern roofs, in consequence of the pressure of the superincumbent rocks. Small local earthquakes may be explained by this theory; but terrible convulsions which shake a whole continent evidently proceed from a far more formidable cause, and are more satisfactorily explained by the agency of subterranean heat and elastic vapours.
If, even during an ordinary storm, the black clouds, the howling of the wind, the flashes of lightning, and the loud claps of thunder strike men and brutes with fear, we may naturally expect to see terror carried to its highest pitch by so dreadful a phenomenon as an earthquake. All creatures living or burrowing under the earth—rats, mice, moles, snakes—hastily creep forth from their subterranean abodes, though many no doubt are gripped and suffocated by the suddenly moved soil before they can effect their escape; the crocodile, generally silent, like our little lizards, rushes out of the river and runs bellowing into the woods; the hogs show symptoms of uneasiness; the horses tremble; the oxen huddle together; and the fowls run about with discordant cries. On man, the phenomenon makes a peculiarly deep impression.
‘A bad earthquake,’ says Mr. Darwin, ‘at once destroys our oldest associations. The earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid. One second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced.’ We can no longer trust the soil on which we stand, and feel ourselves completely at the mercy of some unknown destructive power, which at any moment, without forewarning, can destroy our property or our lives. But as first impressions are always the deepest, so habit renders man callous even to the terrors of an ordinary earthquake. In countries where slight shocks are of frequent occurrence, almost every vestige of fear vanishes from the minds of the natives, or of the strangers whom a long residence has familiarised with the phenomenon.
On the rainless coast of Peru, thunderstorms and hail are unknown. The thunder of the storm is there replaced by the thunder which accompanies the earthquake. But the frequent repetition of this subterranean tumult, and the general belief that dangerous shocks occur only twice or thrice in the course of a century, produce in Lima so great an indifference towards slighter oscillations of the soil that they hardly attract more attention than a hail-storm in Northern Europe.
CHAPTER X.
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF LISBON.
A dreadful All Saints’ Day—The Victims of a Minute—Report of an Eye-witness—Conflagration—Banditti—Pombal brings Order into Chaos—Intrigues of the Jesuits—Damages caused by the Earthquake in other Places—at Cadiz—in Barbary—Widespread Alarm—Remarks of Goethe on the Earthquake.
History exhibits few catastrophes more terrible than that which was caused by the great earthquake which, on November 1, 1755, levelled the town of Lisbon to the dust. On other occasions, such as that of a siege, a famine, or a plague, calamity approaches by degrees, giving its victims time to measure its growth, and preparing them, as it were, to sustain an increasing weight of misery; but here destruction fell upon the devoted city with the rapidity of a flash of lightning.
THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON IN 1755.
A bright sun shone over Lisbon on that fatal morning. The weather was as mild and beautiful as on a fine summer’s day in England, when, about forty minutes past nine, in the morning, an earthquake shock, followed almost immediately by another and another, brought down convents, churches, palaces, and houses in one common ruin, and, at a very moderate computation, occasioned the loss of thirty thousand lives. ‘The shocking sight of the dead bodies,’ says an eye-witness of the scene, ‘together with the shrieks and cries of those who were half buried in the ruins, exceeds all description; for the fear and consternation were so great that the most resolute person durst not stay a moment to remove a few stones off the friend he loved most, though many might have been saved by so doing; but nothing was thought of but self-preservation. Getting into open places, and into the middle of streets, was the most probable security. Such as were in the upper storeys of houses were, in general, more fortunate than those who attempted to escape by the doors; for they were buried under the ruins with the greatest part of the foot-passengers; such as were in equipages escaped best, though their cattle and drivers suffered severely; but those lost in houses and the streets are very unequal in number to those that were buried in the ruins of churches; for as it was a day of great devotion, and the time of celebrating mass, all the churches in the city were vastly crowded; and the number of churches here exceeds that of both London and Westminster; and as the steeples are built high, they mostly fell with the roof of the church, and the stones are so large that few escaped.’[[11]]