and Portugal, and was in Lisbon when the
great earthquake shook his house over his head. He fled. The streets
reeled; the houses fell; church towers dashed down in thunder across his
path. There were flying crowds, shrieks, and dust, and darkness. But he
fled on. The farther, the more misery. Crowds filled the fields when he
reached them--naked, half-naked, terrified, starving, and looking in
vain for a refuge. He fled across the hills, and gazed. The whole huge
city rocked and staggered below. There were clouds of dust, columns of
flame, the thunder of down-crashing buildings, the wild cries of men. He
suffered amid ten thousand suffering outcasts.

At length, the tumult ceased; the earth became stable. With other ruined
and curious men he climbed over the heaps of desolation in quest of what
once was his home, and the depository of his property. His servant was
nowhere to be seen: Thompson felt that he must certainly have been
killed. After many days' quest, and many uncertainties, he found the
spot where his house had stood; it was a heap of rubbish. His servant
and merchandise lay beneath it. He had money enough, or credit enough,
to set to work men to clear away some of the fallen materials, and to
explore whether any amount of property were recoverable. What's that
sound? A subterranean, or subruinan, voice? The workmen stop, and are
ready to fly with fear. Thompson exhorts them, and they work on. But
again that voice! No _human_ creature can be living there. The laborers
again turn to fly. They are a poor, ignorant, and superstitious crew;
but Thompson's commands, and Thompson's gold, arrest them. They work on,
and out walks Thompson's living servant, still in the body, though a
body not much more substantial than a ghost All cry, "How have you
managed to live?"

"I fled to the cellar. I have sipped the wine; but now I want bread,
meat, every thing!" and the living skeleton walked staggeringly on, and
looked voraciously for shops and loaves, and saw only brickbats and
ruins.

Thompson recovered his goods, and retreated as soon as possible to his
native land. Here, in his native town, the memory of the earthquake
still haunted him. He used almost daily to hasten out of the place, and
up the forest hill, where he imagined that he saw Lisbon reeling,
tottering, churches falling, and men flying. But he saw only the red
tiles of some thousand peaceful houses, and the twirling of a dozen
windmill sails. Here he chos