n the very spot where they took place. It
was the Feast of the Virgin, and the church was densely crowded with a
congregation composed almost entirely of women, principally young,
many of whom were servant-girls. Some of the draperies used in the
decoration of the building caught fire, the flames spread rapidly,
destroying in their course the cords by which the numerous paraffin
and oil lamps were suspended across the nave and aisles, and
precipitating their burning contents upon the people beneath. The
great doors opened inwards; the crowd, trying to press out, closed
them, and kept them hermetically sealed. The priests, anxious to save
the church properties and sacred relics, shut the large iron gates
across the chancel and kept them fastened, notwithstanding the
agonising shrieks of the unhappy victims, many of whom might otherwise
have escaped. Their conduct on this terrible occasion created at the
time a feeling of bitter and universal indignation, and caused a shock
to the popularity and authority of the priesthood in this country,
from which it will take them a long time to recover.

Mr. Long told us that, between seven and eight o'clock on the evening
of the catastrophe, he was walking with some friends on the Alameda,
when he saw smoke rising in dense volumes from the quarter of the city
where the house in which he resided was situated. He and his friends
ran quickly in the direction of the fire, giving the alarm as they
went, and on reaching the church they found the doors closely shut,
while fearful screams were issuing from the interior, and smoke and
flames pouring from the windows. They got a party of men together
accustomed to the use of the lasso--no difficult task here--and with
them climbed from the neighbouring houses to the top of the church.
Making a hole in the roof, they then dropped their lassoes over some
of the women beneath, and so dragged them out of the building; but the
number thus saved was necessarily very small, and it happened too
often that many of the poor creatures below, in their eagerness to
escape, hung on to the legs or body of the one they saw lassoed, and
by their weight literally dragged her to pieces. Sometimes even a
lasso broke, and those clinging to it, when almost within reach of
safety, were again precipitated into the burning mass below. Any one
who has seen a raw hide lasso, capable of withstanding the sudden rush
of the fiercest bull ever captured, will be able to rea