"The night of April 16, 1854, will ever be one of sad and bitter memory to the people of Salvador. On that unfortunate night our happy and beautiful capital was made a heap of ruins. Movements of the earth were felt on the morning of Holy Thursday, preceded by sounds like the rolling of heavy artillery over pavements, and like distant thunder. The people were a little alarmed in consequence of this phenomenon, but it did not prevent them from meeting in the churches to celebrate the solemnities of the day. On Saturday all was quiet, and confidence was restored. The people of the neighbourhood assembled as usual to celebrate the Passover. The night of Saturday was quiet, so also was the whole of Sunday. The heat, it is true, was considerable, but the atmosphere was calm and serene. For the first three hours of the evening there was nothing of unusual occurrence, but at half-past nine a severe shock of an earthquake, occurring without the usual preliminary noises, alarmed the whole city. Many families left their houses and made encampments in the public squares, while others prepared to pass the night in their respective courtyards.
"Finally, at ten minutes to eleven, without further premonition of any kind, the earth began to heave and tremble with such fearful force that in ten seconds the entire city was prostrated. The crashing of houses and churches stunned the ears of the terrified inhabitants, while a cloud of dust from the falling ruins enveloped them in a pall of impenetrable darkness. Not a drop of water could be got to relieve the half-choked and the suffocating, for the wells and fountains were filled up or made dry. The clock-tower of the cathedral carried a great part of that edifice with it in its fall. The towers of the church of San Francisco crashed down upon the episcopal oratory and part of the palace. The Church of Santo Domingo was buried beneath its towers, and the College of the Assumption was entirely ruined. The new and beautiful edifice of the University was demolished. The Church of the Mercéd separated in the centre, and its walls fell outward to the ground. Of the private houses, a few were left standing, but all were rendered uninhabitable. It is worthy of remark that the walls left standing are old ones; all those of modern construction have fallen. The public edifices of the Government and the city shared in the common destruction.
"The devastation was effected, as we have said, in the first ten seconds; for although the succeeding shocks were tremendous, and accompanied by fearful rumblings beneath our feet, they had comparatively trifling results, for the reason that the first jar left but little for their ravages.
"Solemn and terrible was the picture presented, on the dark, funereal night, of a whole people clustering in the plazas, and, on their knees, crying with loud voices to Heaven for mercy, or in agonizing accents calling for their children and their friends, whom they believed to be buried beneath the ruins. A heaven opaque and ominous; a movement of the earth rapid and unequal, causing a terror indescribable; an intense sulphurous odour filling the atmosphere, and indicating an approaching eruption of the volcano; streets filled with ruins or overhung by threatening walls; a suffocating cloud of dust, almost rendering respiration impossible—such was the spectacle presented by the unhappy city on that memorable and awful night.
"A hundred boys were shut up in the college, many invalids crowded the hospitals, and the barracks were full of soldiers. The sense of the catastrophe which must have befallen them gave poignancy to the first moments of reflection after the earthquake was over. It was believed that at least a fourth part of the inhabitants had been buried beneath the ruins. The members of the Government hastened to ascertain as far as practicable the extent of the catastrophe, and to quiet the public mind. It was found that the loss of life had been much less than was supposed, and it now appears that the number of the killed will not exceed one hundred, and of wounded fifty. Among the latter is the Bishop, who received a severe blow on the head, the late President, Señor Dueñas, a daughter of the President, and the wife of the Secretary of the Legislative Chambers, the latter severely.
"Fortunately, the earthquake has not been followed by rains, which gives an opportunity to disinter the public archives, as also many of the valuables contained in the dwellings of the citizens.
"The movements of the earth still continue with strong shocks, and the people, fearing a general swallowing up of the site of the city, or that it may be buried under some sudden eruption of the volcano, are hastening away, taking with them their household gods, the sweet memories of their infancy, and their domestic animals—perhaps the only property left for the support of their families—exclaiming with Virgil: 'Nos patriæ fines et dulcia linquimus arva.'"
I have witnessed scenes in Valparaiso, in San Francisco, and in Kingston, Jamaica, almost precisely similar to these so graphically portrayed; but in all these cases the loss of life was considerably greater than occurred in San Salvador. To-day the capital of the Republic bears not a single trace of the disaster, nor yet of some subsequent visitations; for the recuperative faculties of these optimistic peoples are as astonishing as they are thorough and instantaneous in the manner in which they assert themselves.
CHAPTER XIX
City of San Salvador—San Salvador as place of residence—Theatres—Parks—Streets—Hotels—Domestic servants—Hospitality of residents—Societies and associations—Educational establishments—Government buildings—Religion and churches—Casino—Hospitals and institutions—Disastrous conflagrations—Public monuments.
There are few more pleasant cities as a place of residence for all the year round than San Salvador. The climate is very agreeable, while the situation of the city, scenically speaking, is exceptionally beautiful, being located as it is 2,115 feet above the level of the sea in the valley of Cuscatlán, or, as it is called in the vernacular, "Valle de las Hamacas" (the Vale of the Hammocks). This district has been so named, I understand, because it lies directly in the line of the severest earthquake action, and has many times in the past been "rocked and swung" by the waves of movement, and which have been rendered unusually destructive by the reflex action of the high hills which half encircle the place.
San Salvador was founded, as already observed, by Don Jorge de Alvarado, brother of the famous Spanish conqueror, Don Pedro de Alvarado, on April 4, 1543, and from 1834 to 1839 it was the capital of the new Republic, a dignity which was in later years transferred to the city of San Vicente; while Cojutepeque upon three separate occasions, as pointed out more fully elsewhere, was also used as the Federal Capital. In the year 1840, however, San Salvador became the designated metropolis, and has since remained so. Here are located all the Government Departments, as well as the Supreme Civil and Military Courts, in addition to the headquarters of the Ecclesiastical Government.
In the year 1854, the city having been ruined, as we have seen, the Government as a consequence ordered the founding of Nuéva San Salvador, or Santa Tecla, which lies some eight miles to the south-west, and about 800 feet higher, as a city of refuge. To this place many families transferred their homes, and it is now a very prosperous place, with a population exceeding 11,000 inhabitants. Many good people of San Salvador, however, were not so much discouraged by their misfortune after all, and they very pluckily rebuilt the city, only, however, to again see it laid low by the even greater catastrophe of March 19, 1873. Gradually, and for the third time, this city rose from its ruins, and there are to-day no traces in its streets of any of the various disasters which have visited it.
San Salvador is altogether a well-constructed and even a handsome city, with several notable public buildings which would grace any European capital. Among these are the Casa Blanca, the Artillery Barracks, the National Institute, the University, the Theatre, the Market, the Orphans' Home, the Polytechnic School, the Normal School, the new Cathedral, and a large number of other handsome churches.