ned in
the crash they had set fire to beams and rafters in the houses, and
many who escaped being crushed were burned to death. Even proper
instruments were wanting, and the number of persons who had collected to
assist in the work of searching the debris was totally inadequate to the
occasion. Many instances of distress I can vouch for as authentic, as
the victims were intimate friends of my own, and all the individuals I
am about to mention were persons of the highest respectability, the
upper classes having suffered more than the lower, who, living in huts
such as I have described, were generally uninjured.

One of the richest commercial houses in Cua was owned by three German
gentlemen, brothers. The eldest, having married a Spanish American lady
of the place, had lately built himself a magnificent mansion, and one of
his brothers resided with him. The lady was seated between her
brother-in-law and husband when the shock came: a huge beam from the
ceiling fell across her brother-in-law and literally divided him in two,
while the side wall, falling at the same time, buried her husband from
her sight. She herself was saved by the great packages of hemp and
tobacco which fell around her and prevented the wall from crushing her.
Blinded by the darkness and choked by the dust, she yet managed with the
only hand at liberty to tear an opening which allowed her to breathe,
and through which she called for help. Faint accents answered her: they
were the tones of her husband's failing voice. She called to him to have
courage--that she had hopes of release. "No," he replied, "I am dying,
but do not give way. Live for our child's sake." As well as her
agitation and distress would permit she endeavored to sustain him with
words of encouragement, but in vain. About fifteen minutes passed in
this sad colloquy: the replies came more and more slowly, more and more
painfully, and then they ceased: the imprisoned lady comprehended in her
lonely agony that she was a widow. She, a living, breathing woman, fully
conscious of her awful anguish, lay helpless between the stiff and stark
corpses of her husband and brother-in-law, and quite ignorant of the
fate of her infant child, which had been left in another part of the
house. Her cries were heard at last by a muleteer, who made some efforts
to release her, but alone and in the darkness he could accomplish
little. He went in search of aid, but his companions, after he had
returned to the