Page:Awful phenomena of nature -- earthquakes.pdf/5

5 I hurried down stairs, the woman holding by my arm, and made directly to the end of the street which opens to the river Tagus: but finding the passage completely blocked up by the fallen houses, I turned back; having helped the woman over a vast heap of ruins, with no small hazard to my own life. Just as we were going into the street, there was one part which I could not climb over without the assistance of my hands as well as my feet. I therefore desired her to let go her hold, which she did, remaining two or three feet behind me; and at this moment there fell a vast stone from a tottering wall, and crushing both her and the child in pieces!

I had now a long narrow street to pass, in which the houses on each side were four or five stories high, all very old, and the greater part of them already thrown down, or continually falling, and threatening the passengers with death at every step, numbers of whom lay killed before me, or what was more deplorable, so wounded and bruised, that they could not move so as to escape the destruction which impended over them.

As self-preservation, however, is the first law of nature, I proceeded as fast as I could: and having got clear of the narrow street. I found myself in safety in the large