Kitabı oku: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, December 1878», sayfa 17
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF 1878 IN VENEZUELA
On Friday evening, the 12th of April, 1878, we were collected, as usual, in our drawing-room in Caracas, and were in the act of welcoming an old friend who had just returned from Europe, when there came suddenly a crash, a reverberation—a something as utterly impossible to convey the impression of as to describe the movement which followed, or rather accompanied, it, so confused, strange and unnatural was the entire sensation. It was like the rush of many waters, the explosion of cannon—like anything the imagination can conceive; and at the same time the earth appeared to leap beneath our feet, then swayed to and fro with an oscillating motion: the panes of glass rattled in the windows, the beams of the flooring above creaked ominously; lamps, chandeliers and girandoles vibrated and trembled like animated creatures. The great bells of the cathedral suddenly rang out a spontaneous peal of alarm with a sonorous, awe-inspiring clang, while the clock in the tower struck the ill-timed hour with a solemn, unearthly reverberation.
This was but the work of a few seconds: a few more and Caracas would have been a heap of ruins, as in the earthquake of 1812. But even in these short moments we had time, horror-stricken and pallid with terror as we were, to cry out, "An earthquake! an earthquake!"—to seize upon our European friend, who did not seem to realize the danger, to drag him from the chair which he was just about to take, I pushing him before me, while my sister pulled him by the arm down the long drawing-room into the corridor which surrounds the central court, while still the earth rocked beneath our feet and everything around us trembled with the vibration.
By this time the city was thoroughly alarmed. Cries of "Misericordia! misericordia!" resounded on every side, and every one prophesied another and a greater shock. These fears were not entirely uncalled for, for at twenty minutes past nine there was a second, and several more before daybreak, although none proved to be as severe as the first.
In a short time carriages began to roll by in all directions, bearing the more timorous to the villages and plantations outside of the city: the open public squares or plazas filled rapidly with the excited population, especially when telegram after telegram began to arrive from La Guayra, Puerto Cabello, Valencia, La Vittoria and the intervening towns—all having felt the violence of the shock, and anxious lest the capital might have been destroyed. This proof of the extent of the onda seismica, as the scientists termed it, served to increase the general alarm. Tents were improvised in the plazas, composed of blankets, counterpanes, etc., stretched across ropes attached to the trees in the square, those who had no such appliances at hand remaining all night upon the public benches or upon more comfortable seats which they caused to be transported for their accommodation.
The scene in the principal square of Caracas, the Plaza Bolivar—upon which front the cathedral on the eastern side, the palace of the archbishop on the southern, the presidential residence (called the Casa Amarilla, or "Yellow House") on the western, and a number of other public buildings on the northern—was one which under less terrifying circumstances would have been most imposing, for the archbishop left his palace and descended by the great stairway into the plaza, accompanied by a train of his attending priests, to raise the fainting spirits of the terrified multitude, who, with pallid faces upraised to Heaven or crouched upon the bare ground in attitudes of supplication, implored mercy from on high. And inasmuch as calamitous events, such as the appearance of comets, earthquakes or pestilences, are usually the signal for great moral reforms, doubtless many a promise of a purer life was registered in that hour of terror by those self-accused by their quickened consciences.
The archbishop—who is a young man, devout, fervent and sincere, a very anchorite in his habits and mode of life, thin, spare of frame, and with features eloquent with the fire of intellect, morally and physically the splendid ideal of what a true priest ought to be—wandered among his flock, exhorting, comforting, admonishing and cheering them; while the Hermandades, a religious brotherhood, headed by their color-bearer, upon whose banner the effigy of the Virgin, their patron saint, was emblazoned, walking two by two in procession in the long gowns of their order—some red, some black, some white—and each carrying a lighted taper, traversed the plazas and paraded the streets the whole night. The glimmering light of the tapers falling upon these dusky shrouded forms in the gloom of this awful night, the melancholy refrain of the prayers which they chanted as they passed through the awestruck city, the lessening glimpses of the flickering tapers as the train passed solemnly by into some distant street,—all served rather to intensify than to tranquillize the alarm.
The excitement and agitation of the people were so great that no one thought of going to bed: those who, like ourselves, went neither to the country nor to the open squares, sat in their windows and compared their experiences or gathered news from every passer-by; for they feared to separate from their families, lest a worse shock might overtake some one of them apart from the rest. Besides this, the danger in the streets was greater than at home, because of their narrowness and the likelihood of the walls on either side toppling over upon pedestrians.
The night had been beautifully clear, and the moon brilliant as it is only in the tropics, but toward midnight the weather became cloudy and a drizzling rain fell at intervals, driving us within doors between one and two o'clock, but only to lie down fully dressed upon our beds, with lights burning and doors left open, so as the more readily to facilitate our escape if necessary. One or two slight shocks recurred during the night, but morning dawned at last, finding us unhurt; and with returning day our courage too returned, so darkness "doth make cowards of us all." It was then ascertained that the cathedral had sustained some slight damage; the image of the Virgin in the church of the Candelaria had been thrown to the ground and broken to pieces; and the National Pantheon, the observatory of the new university and other public buildings, with many houses, had been injured, but none thrown down and no lives lost.
No one, however, could dwell long in lamentation over these accidents when the news reached us the next morning of the terrible calamity which had overtaken the beautiful valley of the Tuy. This valley lies to the south of the city of Caracas, at an elevation of twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the sea, and is noted for being one of the most fertile of the many rich agricultural districts in which Venezuela abounds. The river Tuy, two hundred miles in length and navigable for about forty miles, flows through the centre, fertilizing the soil and causing it to become the granary of the capital, its abundant crops usually sufficing, in fact, for the consumption of the whole province. Indeed, were there more public highways its surplus products might find their way to still more distant portions of the republic. The whole valley is studded with towns, villages and plantations: of the former, the principal are Ocumare, Charallave, Santa Teresa, Santa Lucia and Cua.
The city of Cua was beyond comparison the richest and most flourishing of all, being situated at the head of the valley, where it opens toward the vast Llanos or plains, and being also the emporium of many extensive districts producing the staples of the country, such as coffee, cocoa, sugar and indigo. There too had been transported enormous timber from the still virgin forests—timber of the most valuable kind, whether for ornament, for building or for dyeing purposes. Nor was the city more remarkable for its advantageous situation and the importance of its commerce than for the refinement of its society. Unlike the generality of inland towns in South America, where the constitution of society is apt to be rather heterogeneous, Cua was the residence of many of the principal families of the country—gentlemen at the head of wealthy commercial establishments, or opulent planters owning large estates in the neighborhood, but making the city their permanent abode. Hence the society was far beyond what might have been imagined as regards position and general cultivation. Cua, like all Spanish American towns, was laid out at right angles, while many of the houses rivalled the handsomest in Caracas, and were furnished with equal splendor.
Such was the state of things in this smiling valley when, at the same moment precisely at which we in Caracas felt the shock of the earthquake, all the above-mentioned towns—Ocumare, Santa Lucia, Charallave, etc.—were shaken to their foundations. The latter especially suffered greatly, for not a house was left uninjured or safe to inhabit, although the occupants had time to escape. But Cua—unhappy Cua!—was utterly destroyed. Without a moment's warning, without a single indication of their impending fate, all the inhabitants were buried beneath the mass of ruins to which in a few seconds it was reduced. Perhaps it is not strictly correct to say there had been no sign. The heat had become so intense between seven and eight o'clock that numbers of persons were seated outside of the houses or had betaken themselves to the open squares to endeavor to seize a breath of fresh air, while many of the lower classes were sleeping under the open sky; to which fact, indeed, they owed their lives. The only habitations which survived the violence of the shock were the huts of the poor, being what is called bajareque, made of posts driven into the earth and otherwise formed of a species of wild cane tied together and cemented with mud and straw, these primitive dwellings being usually considered earthquake-proof.
Besides the extraordinary heat, a friend of ours, who was riding from his plantation into the town, observed another indication of some disturbance in the usual processes of Nature. While crossing the river he noticed that the fishes were leaping in great numbers out of the water, and called the attention of several persons to the fact. They attributed this, however, to the discomfort occasioned by the intense heat, for the temperature of the water had increased so much that it had become disagreeable to drink.
The gentleman to whom I have alluded, Don Tomas de la G–, describes the subterranean noise at Cua during the earthquake as something terrific, like the discharge of hundreds of cannon, while the earth rose simultaneously under his feet. There are two kinds of earthquakes—that of trepidacion, which comes directly from below, with an upward motion; the other, de oscilacion, where the earth sways to and fro like a pendulum, and which is generally less dangerous. Unfortunate Cua experienced both: the first shock was one vast upheaval, the whole town being uprooted from its foundations and every house uplifted and overturned, and before the bewildered population could realize what was happening they were buried beneath the ruins. The shock then changed into the oscillatory movement, and set all this mass of destruction to quivering as if it were the dire agony of some living creature. All was so sudden that few were saved by their own exertions, those who survived having either been dug out of the ruins afterward or cast forth by the counter-motion as the earth rocked to and fro in the second shock. It was as if the city had been lifted up en masse, and then thrown back with the foundations uppermost—upside down, in fact. Don Tomas de la G– happened to be in the plaza in front of the church when the shock came: in the endeavor to steady himself he grasped a tree close by; the tree was uprooted, throwing him violently forward; then suddenly reversing its course in an exactly opposite direction, it flung him off to a great distance, bruising him severely. While clinging to the tree he beheld the church in front of him, a new and handsome edifice, literally lifted up bodily into the air and then overturned with an appalling crash, "not one stone left upon another." If this had occurred an hour or two previously, hundreds would have perished within the walls, for there had been religious services in the church until a late hour, it being the Friday before Holy Week, termed by Spanish Catholics Viernes del Concilio.
Don Tomas de la G– described the whole scene as something too terrible for the imagination to conceive. After the stupendous crash caused by the falling of the houses, for a few moments there ensued an awful silence: then, amid the impenetrable darkness caused by the cloud of dust from the fallen walls, which totally obscured the murky light of a clouded moon, there arose a cry of anguish from those without—a wail as of one great voice of stricken humanity; then the answering smothered groan of those buried beneath the ruins—a cry like nothing human, rising as it did from the very bowels of the earth.
There ensued a scene the harrowing details of which can never be fully given—the search of the living and uninjured for those dead, dying or imprisoned ones who lay beneath the great masses of stone and mortar. Sometimes, in answer to the desperate cries of those outside or already rescued, smothered, almost inaudible cries for help might be heard, so faint as to seem scarcely human, and yet growing fainter and fainter still, until those who were working for the release of the captive became aware that their labor was in vain, and that only a corpse lay beneath their feet. No light could be obtained in this stifling Erebus of dust and darkness: all means of obtaining light had been buried in the undistinguishable mass, and where lighted lamps were overturned in the crash they had set fire to beams and rafters in the houses, and many who escaped being crushed were burned to death. Even proper instruments were wanting, and the number of persons who had collected to assist in the work of searching the débris was totally inadequate to the occasion. Many instances of distress I can vouch for as authentic, as the victims were intimate friends of my own, and all the individuals I am about to mention were persons of the highest respectability, the upper classes having suffered more than the lower, who, living in huts such as I have described, were generally uninjured.
One of the richest commercial houses in Cua was owned by three German gentlemen, brothers. The eldest, having married a Spanish American lady of the place, had lately built himself a magnificent mansion, and one of his brothers resided with him. The lady was seated between her brother-in-law and husband when the shock came: a huge beam from the ceiling fell across her brother-in-law and literally divided him in two, while the side wall, falling at the same time, buried her husband from her sight. She herself was saved by the great packages of hemp and tobacco which fell around her and prevented the wall from crushing her. Blinded by the darkness and choked by the dust, she yet managed with the only hand at liberty to tear an opening which allowed her to breathe, and through which she called for help. Faint accents answered her: they were the tones of her husband's failing voice. She called to him to have courage—that she had hopes of release. "No," he replied, "I am dying, but do not give way. Live for our child's sake." As well as her agitation and distress would permit she endeavored to sustain him with words of encouragement, but in vain. About fifteen minutes passed in this sad colloquy: the replies came more and more slowly, more and more painfully, and then they ceased: the imprisoned lady comprehended in her lonely agony that she was a widow. She, a living, breathing woman, fully conscious of her awful anguish, lay helpless between the stiff and stark corpses of her husband and brother-in-law, and quite ignorant of the fate of her infant child, which had been left in another part of the house. Her cries were heard at last by a muleteer, who made some efforts to release her, but alone and in the darkness he could accomplish little. He went in search of aid, but his companions, after he had returned to the house, refused to endanger their lives, as the shocks were incessant and a high wall still standing threatened to topple over upon them at any moment. They even endeavored to dissuade the muleteer from any further effort, but the good creature replied that he was indebted to the imprisoned lady for many kindnesses, and that he was willing to risk his life in her behalf. One or two remained with him, and they succeeded at last in releasing her, but were obliged to cut her clothes from her body, as they seemed immovably nailed to the floor, the Good Samaritan of a muleteer covering her with his own cloak. The bodies of her husband, brother-in-law, two clerks and several servants were recovered the next day and buried.
Another lady was found, when the ruins of her house were cleared away, upon her knees, with her children surrounding her in the same attitude—all dead! Their bodies were uninjured, so that it is probable that they were suffocated by the dust of the falling walls. A gentleman named Benitez, who had been standing at the door of his house, ran into the centre of the street and fell upon his knees: a little boy from the opposite doorway rushed in his terror into Benitez's arms. At that moment the two houses fell, and in this attitude the bodies of the man and the child were found the following day. A bride of twenty-four hours was killed with three of her children by a previous marriage. A fourth child was supposed also to have been killed, but on the third day a soldier who was passing the house pierced a basket which was among the ruins with his bayonet out of curiosity, when to his amazement a childish voice cried out, "Tengo hambre" ("I am hungry"), and the basket being lifted a living child was discovered, thus almost miraculously saved.
One lady was crushed to death under the weight of the body of her daughter, who could not move a limb, although she knew her mother was dying beneath her. A beam had fallen transversely across the daughter, and in this position she crouched, listening in agony to the death-struggles of her parent. More, almost, than the bitterness of death itself must have been the horror of such a situation and the terrible contact during long hours of silent darkness with a cold, rigid corpse. This lady belonged to the family of Fonseca-Acosta, one of the most distinguished in Cua, its head being the eminent physician Dr. Acosta, now of Paris, one of the favored circle of the ex-queen Isabella of Spain, with his wife, who was Miss Carroll, a sister of the present governor of Maryland.
The Acosta family suffered perhaps more than any other, no less than fourteen of its members having perished, among them Doña Rosa, a still young and remarkably handsome woman, with her son, a lad of fifteen, and her baby grandchild. It was to save the life of this grandchild that Doña Rosa forfeited her own, as she ran into the house to snatch it from its cradle. Of the same family two little boys had fallen asleep at their play: one lay upon a sofa, and the other had crept beneath it. The earthquake literally turned the room upside down, the sofa being overturned by the falling wall, the child beneath thrown out and killed by the descending rafters, while the boy who had been sleeping upon it fell beneath the lounge, and, being thus protected, actually remained in this position uninjured for the greater part of two days. He had been numbered with the many dead in that house of sorrow, and was only found when the mourning survivors were searching for his remains to inter them—alive, but insensible, and entirely unable to give any account of what had befallen him.
Every member of the police force, twenty-five in number, was killed, together with nine prisoners under guard.
But it is impossible to give an adequate description of that night of horror in Cua by enumerating individual instances of suffering. Those that I have given are merely a few out of hundreds of others equally distressing.
The survivors encamped upon the banks of the river Tuy, where they might well repeat those tender lines of the Psalmist: "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." Even the discomfort of the heavy rains which set in could make no impression upon hearts bowed down and crushed by the terrible calamity which had swept away their all—home, friends, everything that makes life worth having—at one quick blow. Not a house was left standing in their beautiful city: even the outlines of the streets were no longer visible: it was with the greatest difficulty that any particular building or locality could be recognized.
Tents of various materials were improvised upon the river-side, sheltering without regard to age, sex or social condition the wounded, and even the dead. Many were in a state of delirium, some in the agonies of death, hundreds weeping for their lost friends and relatives, and many unable to recognize the recovered bodies on account of their having been burned beyond recognition by the fire caused by the upsetting of petroleum lamps. For the first two days the bodies were buried in the usual manner, but on the third decomposition had set in to such an extent that it was found necessary to burn them. An eye-witness exclaims: "Of all that I have seen in what was the rich, the beautiful, the flourishing city of Cua, now a cemetery, nothing has made so profoundly melancholy an impression upon me as the cremation of the bodies of the unfortunate victims of the late disaster, tied together with ropes and dragged forth from the ruins, one over another, the stiffened limbs taking strange, unnatural attitudes, and upon being touched by the flames consuming instantly, on account of their advanced decomposition." The body of a little child was thrown upon this funeral pile, when suddenly the eyes opened, and the voice cried out, "Pan! pan!" ("Bread! bread!") Imagine the feelings of the spectators at beholding how nearly the little creature had been immolated!
The explosion and principal strength of the subterranean forces were concentrated in the town of Cua and within a radius of four or five leagues (twelve or fifteen miles) around it. Within this distance great chasms of various widths had opened, all running from east to west. From some of these streams of a fetid liquid issued, intermingled with a grayish-tinted earth, which caused many persons to surmise that a volcano was about to burst forth, especially as the earthquake-shocks still continued for many days, accompanied by loud subterranean reports. Although the catastrophe was confined to the valley of the Tuy, the shocks were felt for many hundred miles in every direction, even as far as Barquesimeto and other places toward the Cordilleras.
As the population of Cua had entirely deserted the city and encamped upon the river-side, and as large sums of money and other valuables were known to be buried beneath the ruins, some heartless, lawless wretches took advantage of the unprotected state of things, under pretence of assisting in the work of extricating the victims, to appropriate everything that they could secrete without being discovered. Only one of the public officials, General E–, had escaped: the police had perished. It was a situation where only prompt and stringent measures could avail. General E–, therefore, with Don Tomas de la G–, whom I have before mentioned, assumed the responsibility of issuing a most energetic order of the day, and Don Tomas was commissioned by the general to draw up the document. In relating the anecdote to me, Don Tomas avers that the order had to be drawn upon the back of a letter which he discovered in his pocket, and that great delay was caused by its being an impossibility to procure ink. A poor black woman, however, hearing of his perplexity, announced that her son had been learning to write, and that as her rancho or hut was still standing, the bottle of ink would probably be found tied to a nail in the wall, as well as the pen; that is, provided the thieves had not made away with it, of which she appeared to be somewhat suspicious. She consented to go for the articles herself, stipulating, however, that Don Tomas and one or two others should accompany her, believing, apparently, that numbers would guarantee her against injury from the earthquake. The ink was found where she had described it, but, unfortunately, no pen. Here was another dilemma! She bethought herself at last that a neighbor of hers possessed a pen; so the party was obliged to retrace its steps to the encampment for further information. The neighbor was sufficiently generous to lend the pen, but stoutly refused to re-enter the stricken city. She described its locale, however, as being between a rafter and a caña in the roof at the entrance of her hut. The thieves, it proved upon investigation, had spared the precious implement, although, probably, if they had surmised the use to which it was to be put, that of fulminating destruction to their machinations, they might not have been so honest. All difficulties having been at length overcome, the important document was drawn up, and duly published the following morning by bando—that is, by sound of the trumpet, drum and fife—a body of citizens doing duty in lieu of troops, and the individual with the most stentorian lungs thundering forth the edict from where the corner of the streets might have been supposed to be. The proclamation was to the effect that any person or persons discovered robbing houses or insulting females should be shot on the spot, without trial or benefit of clergy. This measure of lynch law had the desired effect, and proved sufficient to maintain order until the arrival of a corps of three hundred soldiers sent by the government for that purpose.
As soon as the disaster was made known, General Alcantara, the president of the republic, sent carts laden with provisions, blankets, shoes, hats, etc., besides money, and coaches to convey the unfortunate Cuans to their friends in the adjacent towns. The president also recommended the unfortunate people of Cua to the generosity of Congress, which was then in session. A sum of one hundred thousand dollars for rebuilding the city was immediately voted—a large sum for so impoverished a nation—and subscriptions from neighboring states, as well as private ones, have been most liberal. But these are but a drop in the bucket. Some of the finest plantations in the country surrounded Cua—coffee, sugar, cocoa, indigo, etc.—all with handsome mansions and expensive offices, with stores, sugar-mills and steam-engines, many of them worth from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars. After the disastrous 12th no one for many miles in the vicinity slept under roof, but all encamped on the adjacent plains: not even the rainy season, which soon set in with great violence, sufficed to drive them from their hastily-contrived shelter. From the 12th of April to the 30th there were ninety-eight or ninety-nine shocks of earthquake.
In Caracas too the people still continued to sleep in the public squares, although the capital had hitherto escaped the greatest violence of the shocks. Various rumors among the most ignorant part of the population, however, still kept up the general excitement. A certain astronomer or professor of the occult sciences, a Dr. Briceño by name, had even the audacity to circulate a paper throughout the city, headed by the ominous title, "Vigilemos!" (Let us watch!). He prophesied that on the 17th of April, at twenty-nine minutes past one, there would certainly occur a great cataclismo, connecting the movements of the moon with the occurrence of earthquakes, and assuring the populace that at that hour this heavenly body would be in the precise position to produce this extraordinary cataclismo, whatever that might prove to be. The public excitement was intense, but the fatal day and hour arrived, passed, and found the city still safe and unharmed.
Isabella Anderson.
