yet could afford them no succor. The piled
mass resisted all their strength, and rendered their efforts of no
avail.

At Terranuova, four Augustin monks, who had taken refuge in a vaulted
sacristy, the arch of which continued to support an immense pile of
ruins, made their cries heard for the space of four days. One only of
the brethren of the whole convent was saved, and "of what avail was his
strength to remove the enormous weight of rubbish which had overwhelmed
his companions?" He heard their voices die away gradually; and when
afterwards their four corpses were disinterred, they were found clasped
in each other's arms. Affecting narratives are preserved of mothers
saved after the fifth, sixth, and even seventh day of their interment,
when their infants or children had perished with hunger.

It might have been imagined that the sight of sufferings such as these
would have been sufficient to awaken sentiments of humanity and pity in
the most savage breasts; but while some acts of heroism are related,
nothing could exceed the general atrocity of conduct displayed by the
Calabrian peasants: they abandoned the farms, and flocked in great
numbers into the towns--not to rescue their countrymen from a lingering
death, but to plunder. They dashed through the streets, fearless of
danger, amid tottering walls and clouds of dust, trampling beneath their
feet the bodies of the wounded and half-buried, and often stripping
them, while yet living, of their clothes.[673]

_Concluding remarks._--But to enter more fully into these details would
be foreign to the purpose of the present work, and several volumes
would be required to give the reader a just idea of the sufferings
which the inhabitants of many populous districts have undergone during
the earthquakes of the last 150 years. A bare mention of the loss of
life--as that fifty or a hundred thousand souls perished in one
catastrophe--conveys to the reader no idea of the extent of misery
inflicted: we must learn, from the narratives of eye-witnesses, the
various forms in which death was encountered, the numbers who escaped
with loss of limbs or serious bodily injuries, and the multitude who
were suddenly reduced to penury and want. It has been often remarked,
that the dread of earthquakes is strongest in the minds of those who
have experienced them most frequently; whereas, in the case of almost
every other danger, familiarity with peril renders men intrepid. The
reason is obv