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ucceeded in getting it open, and made my way to the court-yard, where I found the rest of the inhabitants of the house praying and screaming. After a few moments had elapsed, however, they had quite got over their fright, and were laughing and joking at their previous consternation and precipitate flight. Unless the houses actually fall, people do not, after the first moment, think much of these shocks, but this time they did take the precaution to put all their doors open, and had their beds carried out into the court. Mine was placed under the gallery of the corridor, and a great deal of compassion was expressed for me when they found I had been a little hurt. A young doctor, who occupied the room next to mine, thought there would be no strong "temblor" again to-night, but an aged priest said that this house was old and decayed, and it was very necessary to be careful. My housemates then went back into their rooms, and, though they kept the doors open, consumed with a good appetite the remainder of the Easter feast, the conversation the while turning, of course, almost exclusively on the "temblor." I lay gazing up into the night sky, not at all inclined to sleep. The day had been, as usual, very warm, the thermometer at noon showing 88 deg. Fahrenheit; a heavy mass of clouds (strato-cumulus) lay piled up about the waning moon, but dispersed towards ten o'clock, and the moon then shone brightly through a clear and tranquil atmosphere. A few light scattered clouds of the cirrus and cirro-stratus lay motionless at a few points on the horizon, but there was nothing to portend any unusual phenomenon. At thirty minutes past ten, however, came the shock that laid the city of San Salvador in ruins. It began with a terrific noise, the earth heaving as if lifted by a subterranean sea; and this movement, and the thunder accompanying it, continued for ten or twelve seconds, while the crash and uproar of falling buildings were still more deafening than the thunder. An immense and blinding cloud of dust arose, through which were heard the shrieks and supplications of the flying people, calling on "Maria Santissima" and all other saints; and at length a hymn, in thousand-voiced chorus, which was heard plainly, through all the other noises, at a distance of a mile and a half from the town, by a family of German emigrants with whom I was acquainted. I had witnessed many terrible scenes of war and revolution in the Old World, b
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