Page:Account of several remarkable earthquakes, which happened in various quarters of the world.pdf/9

 choaked for near ten minutes.

'As soon as the gloom began to disperse, and the violence of the shock seemed pretty much abated, the first object I perceived in the room was a woman sitting on the floor, with an infant in her arms, all covered with dust, pale and trembling: I asked her how they got hither: but her consternation was so great that she could give me no account of her escape; I suppose, that when the tremor first began, she ran out of her own house, and finding herself in such imminent danger from the falling of stones, retired into the door of mine, which was almost continuous to her's, for shelter, and when the shock increased, which filled the door with dust and rubbish ran up stairs into my apartment which was then open; be it as it might, this was no time for curiosity. I remember the poor creature asked me, in the utmost agony, if I did not think that the world was at an end; at the same time she complained of being choaked, and begged for God's sake I would procure her a little drink; upon this I went to a closet where I kept a large jar with water (which you know is sometimes a pretty scarce commodity in Lisbon) but finding it broken in pieces, I told her she must not now think of quenching her thirst, but saving her life, as the house was just falling on our heads, and if a second shock came, would certainly bury us both. I bade her take hold of my arm, and that I would endeavour to bring her into some place of security

'I shall always look upon it as a particular providence that I happened on this occasion to be undressed, for had I dressed myself, as I proposed, when I got out of bed, in order to breakfast with a friend, I should, in all probability, have run into the street at the beginning of the shock, as the rest of the people in the house did, and consequently have had my brains dashed out, as every one of them had; however, the imminent danger I was in did not hinder me from considering that my present