had nothing to eat. These facts convey a good idea of the
impracticability of the forests of these countries. A question often
occurred to me--how long does any vestige of a fallen tree remain? This
man showed me one which a party of fugitive royalists had cut down
fourteen years ago; and taking this as a criterion, I should think a
bole a foot and a half in diameter would in thirty years be changed
into a heap of mould.
February 20th.--This day has been memorable in the annals of Valdivia,
for the most severe earthquake experienced by the oldest inhabitant. I
happened to be on shore, and was lying down in the wood to rest myself.
It came on suddenly, and lasted two minutes, but the time appeared much
longer. The rocking of the ground was very sensible. The undulations
appeared to my companion and myself to come from due east, whilst
others thought they proceeded from south-west: this shows how difficult
it sometimes is to perceive the directions of the vibrations. There
was no difficulty in standing upright, but the motion made me almost
giddy: it was something like the movement of a vessel in a little
cross-ripple, or still more like that felt by a person skating over
thin ice, which bends under the weight of his body. A bad earthquake 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. In the
forest, as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the earth tremble, but
saw no other effect. Captain Fitz Roy and some officers were at the
town during the shock, and there the scene was more striking; for
although the houses, from being built of wood, did not fall, they were
violently shaken, and the boards creaked and rattled together. The
people rushed out of doors in the greatest alarm. It is these
accompaniments that create that perfect horror of earthquakes,
experienced by all who have thus seen, as well as felt, their effects.
Within the forest it was a deeply interesting, but by no means an
awe-exciting phenomenon. The tides were very curiously affected. The
great shock took place at the time of low water; and an old woman who
was on the beach told me that the water flowed very quickly, but not in
great waves, to high-water mark, and then as quickly returned to its
proper level; this was also evident by the line of wet sand. The same
kind of quick but quiet movement in the tide happened a few years since
at Chiloe, during a slight earthquake, and created much causeless
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