The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-10-15

whole city had crumb1ed into dust.
The churches and menasteries, the
palace of the Vicefoy, the. pleasant
adobe dwellings, had fallen and
crushed their inmates IN many in
stances, and those who had sought
escape in flight were overwhelmed by
the falling structures that buried over
O thousand victims beneath their
ruins, and there, amid the desolation
of destruction, the cry of the dying
and bereaved, the survivors awaited
the coming of the dawn. With the
dawn came the terrible tidings that
Callao had been swept away by a
tidal wave, aid only a waste of sand
filed the site of the fourishing sea-
port, with its harbor, its ramparts,
and places beside the peaceful ocean
that had risen in its might and swept
it with wave after wave from off the
earth. The new Callao that was after
ward built was on a different site, far
away from the terrible memories of
the past. At the time of the
great earthquake. in 1865, Lisbon was
a far more important city than it is
y
when it had been the center of COM
merce and culture in the sixteenth
century. 1t was then more the
peer of London or Paris than any other
city in Southern Europe. hose who
noticed the course of nature just be-
fore the earthquake at Lisbon had OBJ
served that In several years the land
had shown various signs of volcanic
action. The weather was dry and OPP
pressive, springs had ceased to flow
where they once existed in abundance,
and the earth had frequently trembled
with slight shocks. Yet never had
Lisbon been more needless of danger
than at the moment of its destruction.
For more than a century and half it
had known no catastrophe. The tall
houses, four or five stories high, with
their open balconies stretching over
the narrow streets, had stood to shell
ter generations. The royal palaces,
richly adorned with furniture of
gold and silver, and stored with
gems and diamonds had been built
with no expectation of their de-
struction, and its churches, more
elaborate still than its palaces,
were decked with the spoils of the
Indies. In its two great squares were.
palaces and public buildings and the
magnificent Church Of the Dominicans.
The corridors and dungeons of the
Holy Inquisition marked the greater
circuit of them. The Ruccio was
placed in the center of the city, and it
was here that some of the most fatal
accidents of the earthquake occurred.
The morning of November 1, 1865,
broke fair and warm over Lisbon. A
soft east wind blew and the sky was
cloudless. 1t was high festival of
the Roman Church, the chapels and
cathedrals were filled with .hrongs of
worshipers. The English merchants
had not yet gone ID their counting
houses, and the royal family were still
in the palace. Suddenly roar was
heard like the peal of countless thun-
der-bolts, terrible shock struck the
city, and it fell. The royal family had
time to leave the palace ere it fell in
dust and remnants. The magnificent
churches swayed backwards and for
wards ere they fell upon the worship
ers and crushed them in their ruins.
The tall houses were dashed down upon
the narrow streets, burying their in
mates who strove to flee from the tot
tering walls. A sudden darkness
brooded over the city, where the air
was filled with dust, the shrieks of the
dying, the wall OF the living and the
cry Of the fallen metropolis. 1t is es-
timated that more than thirty thousand
persisted in that awful moment. Many
of the survivors were killed by the fall
of the buildings as they fled wildly
through the streets. Mobiles, fair wom-
en-, priests, monks and nuns, peasant
and slave, who were yet unhurt, fled
in one vast throng to the open public
square, where forty thousand miser-
able human beings found a tempo
rary refuge. But now another hor-
ror came upon them. A solid wall.
of water, the tidal wave, advanced
and swept thousands away into the
ocean. Again they, the survivors,
fled from the accursed city, Chamber
ing over ruins, over the heaps of
wounded and dying, forgetting the
ties of nature and the claims of friend
ship, leaving the weak, the aged and
women and children to die from iniu-
ries or the excess of terror. To COM
plete the horror of the situation, the
city took fire from the burning candles
of the fallen churches, that kindled
from the altar clothes and dresses OF
the dead, so that the substance of the
rich and poor, the booty of the dishon-
est, the costly offerings of the pious,
all melted swiftly away. What the
earthquake and the tidal wave had left
was totally consumed. At the time
when Lisbon fell general commotion
prevailed over a wide circle of sea and
land. Cadiz was swept by a tidal wave
that carried away many of its people.
Milan was severely shaken, and some
of its buildings destroyed. The firm
rock of Gibraltar trembled violently
In Switzerland and along the Rhine,
and even in Holland, the shock was
felt. Northern Africa felt it also, aud
the city of Meginez was destroyed.
Far out upon the Atlantic the waters
were disturbed with flame and smoke.
Even Boston felt it SO perceptibly as to
drive people from their homes in con-
sternation. In 1911 almost every part
of the United States was shaken by
an earthquake. 1t was year of
terror. Fierce-looking comets swept
across the sky, and hurricanes of sleet
and snow desolated Massachusetts and
Long Island. and the terrible conscious
ness that the earth beneath them was
in commotion brooded everywhere.
From all parts the news came to New
York and Philadelphia that the land
was being shaken by earthquakes. The
first shock occurred at Washington
December 16, at about 2:50 in the
morning. Houses were shaken, doors
and windows ratified, men grew sick
and giddy, and fears Of a great catas-
trophe filled every mind. At Rich
mond the bells in the houses rang, and
the people arose in terror. At Column
| bia, S. c., houses rocked and quivered
and had the plastering shaken from
the walls. At Charleston a rumbiine
sound was heard like distant thunder,
and the bell in ST. Philip's steeple was