A MEXICAN EARTHQUAKE.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] do not know whether your readers would care to read the account of an earthquake in the city of Mexico which I received from a friend some little time ago. It strikes me as graphic and picturesque. The shock was severe enough to raze to the ground a considerable portion of one part of the city. My correspondent writes as follows :— " We have had an earthquake, and I have never had a sensation like it either physically, mentally, or spiritually. I was up here writing in my room, which opens with French doors on to a large stone balcony overlooking the court in which the fountain is. For some time there was an increasing trembling which I at first thought was the moving of furniture, though it seemed strange that it should shake a heavy stone building ; but when I began to feel dizzy I said to myself earthquake,' and I then went out into the balcony, and, sure enough, the whole building was visibly swaying and the large hanging lamps swinging like censers. There was no noise, which made it all the more weird. I ran downstairs and found every one hurrying into the street (it was in the afternoon), and in the wide street which opens into the Alameda (public gardens) at this point was a very impressive scene. All traffic had stopped still, and there were hundreds of people in little groups on their knees praying, some aloud, some to themselves, the men with their hats off ; those who were not kneeling were holding on to one another, as no one could stand steady. The lamp-posts were swinging like trees in a wind. Some people were calm, others in abject terror. I can't say that I was not afraid at all, though as soon as I was out of the building I couldn't see the chance of any danger. The earth was not any longer trembling or shaking, but swinging, which was most demoralising. I felt something as though a solemn and dignified nightmare had come true ; or as though we had been suddenly transferred to somewhere near the Presence where the working of Nature was going on. It was very strange indeed. No one was hurt in our part of the town, and I can see now how very little danger there really is, for there was plenty of time to get into the open."
My correspondent here turns to personal matter and descrip- tions of the wonderful city of Mexico.—I am, Sir, &c., N. E. N.
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