In February, 1798, San Salvador was badly shaken and after a rather long rest, broken by “no great shakes,” two very destructive earthquakes were felt in March and October, 1839. On Sept. 2, 1841, Cartago, in Costa Rica, was destroyed; in June, 1847, the Balsam Coast was greatly ruined; on May 16, 1852, the disturbances occurred northward, in the vicinity of Quezaltenango; on April 16, 1854, San Salvador was destroyed,—not, however, for the last time. On Nov. 6, 1857, Cojutepeque was badly shaken, and the same misfortune came upon La Union Aug. 25, 1859. The following December houses were shattered in Escuintla and Amatitlan; Dec. 19, 1862, Antigua, Amatitlan, Escuintla, Tecpan Guatemala, and the neighboring towns were severely shaken; June 12, 1870, Chiquimulilla was destroyed, and much damage done in Cuajinicuilapa; a month later a severe earthquake was felt in the Departments of Santa Rosa and Jutiapa; March 4, 1873, San Salvador and the neighboring towns were destroyed,—a process they must have become quite accustomed to by this time,—and eighteen months later it was the turn of Patzicia to be destroyed, while Chimaltenango, Antigua and the vicinity were only ruined. The year 1878 was marked by the destruction of several towns in Usulutan, San Salvador, and on Dec. 27 and 30, 1879, most of the small towns in the neighborhood of the Lago de Ilopango were overturned.
Hardly a month passes without some slight tremor in western Guatemala. In recent years so much more attention has been paid to seismology, or the observation and record of the time, duration, and direction of earthquake shocks, that the longer lists seem to indicate the increase of slight tremors; but this is not probable, and certainly the volcanic eruptions have diminished in force and frequency. Fuego, the most important, lays claim to twenty-one of the fifty recorded eruptions of the Central American volcanoes; but during the present century it has cast out merely sand, and no lava streams.
VOLCAN DE FUEGO.
I have never had the experience of a very severe earthquake, although I have had the pictures swing on the walls and the plastering crack and fall; therefore I must borrow the description of an earthquake, that the list just given may seem more real. The following account is considered very truthful:—
“The night of the 16th of April, 1854, will ever be one of sad and bitter memory for 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 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 neighborhood assembled as usual to celebrate the Passover. The night of Saturday was tranquil, as was also 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 nothing unusual occurred; but at half-past nine a severe shock of an earthquake, occurring without the 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 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-choking and 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 crushed 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 Merced 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 city shared 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 had 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 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 odor 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.