expected. I believe this convulsion has been more effectual in
lessening the size of the island of Quiriquina, than the ordinary
wear-and-tear of the sea and weather during the course of a whole
century.
The next day I landed at Talcahuano, and afterwards rode to Concepcion.
Both towns presented the most awful yet interesting spectacle I ever
beheld. To a person who had formerly known them, it possibly might have
been still more impressive; for the ruins were so mingled together, and
the whole scene possessed so little the air of a habitable place, that
it was scarcely possible to imagine its former condition. The
earthquake commenced at half-past eleven o'clock in the forenoon. If
it had happened in the middle of the night, the greater number of the
inhabitants (which in this one province must amount to many thousands)
must have perished, instead of less than a hundred: as it was, the
invariable practice of running out of doors at the first trembling of
the ground, alone saved them. In Concepcion each house, or row of
houses, stood by itself, a heap or line of ruins; but in Talcahuano,
owing to the great wave, little more than one layer of bricks, tiles,
and timber with here and there part of a wall left standing, could be
distinguished. From this circumstance Concepcion, although not so
completely desolated, was a more terrible, and if I may so call it,
picturesque sight. The first shock was very sudden. The mayor-domo at
Quiriquina told me, that the first notice he received of it, was
finding both the horse he rode and himself, rolling together on the
ground. Rising up, he was again thrown down. He also told me that
some cows which were standing on the steep side of the island were
rolled into the sea. The great wave caused the destruction of many
cattle; on one low island near the head of the bay, seventy animals
were washed off and drowned. It is generally thought that this has
been the worst earthquake ever recorded in Chile; but as the very
severe ones occur only after long intervals, this cannot easily be
known; nor indeed would a much worse shock have made any difference,
for the ruin was now complete. Innumerable small tremblings followed
the great earthquake, and within the first twelve days no less than
three hundred were counted.
After viewing Concepcion, I cannot understand how the greater number of
inhabitants escaped unhurt. The houses in many parts fell outwards;
thus forming in the middle of the streets little hillocks of brickwork
287