148

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

possible varieties of the weather; but when the earthquakes \ceased, a new cause of fear and evil to the wretchedCalabrians came on. A thick and hitherto unknown fog 1

obscured the sun by day, and rendered the night impene- j

trably dark. It was pungent and painful to the eyes and \

fetid to the smell; it was most depressing to the spirits Jof the already distracted people and proved very injuriousto the health both of man and beast. This pestilenceendured twenty-four days.

The second part of this dismal history is more afflicting,as I must speak of the sufferings of the inhabitants. Onthe first shock of the 5th of February, all those persons whohappened to be within their houses in La Piana perished,except those few, who, buried alive, were preserved frominstant death, through the adventitious protection of somebeam, or other shielding material. Of these, a few had thegood fortune to be dug out alive; the far greater part moremiserably suffered the lingering death of hunger and bodilyinjuries. Not all of those even who were out of doors at themoment of the earthquake, escaped with life. Some wereprecipitated into the abysses opening under their feet; iothers were dragged into the sea as above stated in the wellknown afflicting case of the prince of Scilla, and his two ;thousand fellow sufferers; many were struck dead ormaimed by fragments of roofs, chimnies, or stones dislo-cated by the earthquake, and hurled by the hurricane. :More wretched, and to be pitied, perhaps, were most of thesurvivors, who were left to mourn over their ruined habita-tions, and, far worse, their wives and children buried beneaththem. This part of the catastrophe, which we may call themoral, is far more harrowing than the physical and mate-rial. So I shall venture a little further to trespass on the jpatience of my reader to record some facts, but little known, jthough of undoubted authority. |