EARTHQUAKE-BIBLICAL NOTICES. 427 And now, free from this singular place, we must descend into this profound wady Leimûn, around whose upper expansions are seated half a score of villages, with hard names not necessary to repeat. Our path leads directly under Kuditha, that wretched hamlet of black basalt immediately before us. It was utterly destroyed by the earthquake of 1837. As we are in the centre of that awful catastrophe, I should like to hear some account of it. 3 4 These terrible calamities have often occurred in this country, and are frequently alluded to in the Bible. At the giving of the Law, Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.' Then the earth shook, sings Israel's great poet; even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God— the God of Israel. The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs.2 On that memorable day when Jonathan overthrew the Philistines, the earth quaked, so it was a very great trembling. And when the Lord appeared to Elijah, a strong wind rent the mountains, and beat in pieces the rocks, and after the wind an earthquake. Isaiah also threatens Ariel, the city where David dwelt, with this awful judgment; and Amos says, I was with the herdmen of Tekoa two years after the earthquake ;5 to which Zechariah refers when he says, Yea, ye shall flee like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah. And so, too, our blessed Lord and his apostles familiarly allude to these dreadful visitations of God. Indeed, a large class of poetic imagery and prophetic commination is based upon them. They give point and emphasis to the most alarming threatenings of divine indignation, and, so far as my knowledge goes, they are, in this land of heavy stone houses, by far the most awful of all. Before them the very "knees of terror quake." When He arises to shake terribly the earth, all hearts fail, all faces gather blackness. 1 Ex. xix. 18. 2 Ps. cxiv. 4, 6. 31 Sam. xiv. 15. 6 Courage is of no avail; the boldest fly, just as the feeble and timid do. Why, our narrative will abundantly show. It was just before sunset on a quiet Sabbath eveningJanuary 1, 1837-when the shock occurred. A pale, smoky haze obscured the sun, and threw an air of sadness over the closing day, and a lifeless and oppressive calm had settled down upon the face of nature. These phenomena are, however, not very uncommon in this country, and may have had no connection with the earthquake. Our native church at Beirût were gathered round the communion-table, when suddenly the house began to shake fearfully, and the stone floor to heave and roll like a ship in a storm. "Hezzy! hezzy!"* burst from every trembling lip as all rushed out into the yard. The house was cracked from top to bottom, but no farther injury was sustained. The shock was comparatively slight in Beirût, but still many houses were seriously shattered, and some on the river entirely thrown down. During the week succeeding this Sabbath there came flying reports from various quarters of towns and villages destroyed, and lives lost; but so slow does information travel in this country, especially in winter, that it was not until eight days had elapsed that any reliable accounts were received. Then letters arrived from Safed with the startling intelligence that the whole town had been utterly overthrown, and that Tiberias, and many other places in this region, had shared the same fate. Some of the letters stated that not more than one in a hundred of the inhabitants had escaped. As soon as these awful facts had been ascertained, collections were made at Beirût to relieve the survivors, and Mr. Cand myself selected to visit this region, and distribute to the needy and the wounded. Passing by Sidon, we associated with ourselves Mr. A- and two of his sons to act as physicians. In Sidon the work of destruction became very noticeable, and in Tyre still more so. We rode into the latter at midnight over her prostrate walls, and found some of the streets so choked up with fallen houses that we could not pass through them. I shall retain a vivid * 'Earthquake! earthquake!" VISIT TO SAFED-DESOLATIONS. 429 recollection of that dismal night while life lasts. The wind had risen to a cold, cross gale, which howled through shattered walls and broken windows its doleful wail over ruined Tyre. The people were sleeping in boats drawn up on shore, and in tents beside them, while half-suspended shutters and doors unhinged were creaking and banging in dreadful concert. On the 17th we reached Rumaish, where we met the first real confirmation of the letters from Safed. The village seemed quite destroyed. Thirty people had been crushed to death under their falling houses, and many more would have shared the same fate if they had not been at evening prayers in church. The building was low and compact, so that it was not seriously injured. After distributing medicine to the wounded and charity to the destitute, we went on to Jish. Of this village not one house remained; all had been thrown down, and the church also, burying the entire congregation of one hundred and thirtyfive persons under the ruins. Not one escaped except the priest, who was saved by a projection of the arch over the altar. The entire vaulted roof, with its enormous mass of superincumbent stone and earth, fell inward in a moment, and of course escape was impossible. Fourteen dead bodies lay there still unburied. On the morning of the 18th we reached Safed, and I then understood, for the first time, what desolations God can work when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. Just before we began to ascend the hill we met our consular agent of Sidon returning with his widowed, childless sister. Her husband, a merchant of Safed, had been buried up to the neck by the ruins of his house, and in that state remained several days, calling in vain for help, and at last perished before he could be reached and set free. As we ascended the hill we saw large rents and cracks in the earth and rocks, and, though not so large as a chasm at Jish which I examined in the morning, still they gave fearful indications of what was to be expected. But all anticipation, every imagination was utterly confounded when the reality burst upon our sight. I had all the while refused to give full credit to the reports, but one frightful glance convinced me that it was not in the power of language to overdraw or exaggerate such a ruin. We came first to the Jewish half of the town, which contained about four thousand inhabitants two years before when I was there, and seemed like a busy hive of Israelites; now not a house remained standing. The town was built, as its successor is, upon the side of the mountain, which is so steep that the roofs of the houses below formed the street for those above; when, therefore, the shock dashed all to the ground, the highest fell on the next below, that upon the third, and so on to the bottom, burying each successive row of houses deeper and deeper under accumulated masses of rubbish. From this cause it happened that many who were not instantaneously killed perished before they could be rescued, and others were rescued five, six, and even seven days after the earthquake, still alive. A friend of mine told me that he found his wife dead, with one child under her arm, and the babe with the nipple in its mouth: it had died of hunger, trying to draw life from its dead mother. Parents heard their little ones crying papa! mamma! fainter and fainter, until hushed in death, while they were struggling to free themselves, or laboring with desperate energy to throw off the fallen rocks and timber from their dying children. O God of mercy! my heart even now sickens at the thought of that long black winter's night, which closed around the wretched remnants of Safed in half an hour after the overthrow-without a light or possibility of getting one, four fifths of the population under the ruins, dead or dying, with frightful groans, and shrieks of agony and despair, and the earth trembling and shaking all the while, as if af frighted at the horrible, desolation she had wrought. Most hideous spectacle, may I never see its like! Nothing met the eye but a vast chaos of stone and earth, timber and boards, tables, chairs, beds, clothing, and every kind of household furniture mingled in horrible confusion; men every where at work, worn out and woe-begone, uncovering their houses in search of the mangled bodies of lifeless EARTHQUAKE-DESTRUCTION OF LIFE. 431 friends, while here and there were companies of two or three each, bearing away a dreadful load of corruption to the tomb. I covered my face, and passed on through the wretched remnants of Safed. Some were weeping in despair, others laughing in callousness still more distressing; here an old man sat alone on the wreck of his once crowded house; there a child at play, too young to realize that it had neither father nor mother, nor relative of any name in the wide, wide world. They crowded round us with loud lamentations, as if kindness unsealed the floodgates of their sorrow-husbands without wives, wives without husbands; parents childless, and children without parents, and not a few left the solitary remnants of large families. The people were scattered abroad above and below the ruins, in tents of old boards, old carpets, mats, brush, and earth, while some poor creatures, wounded and bruised, were left among the tottering walls, exposed to a horrible death from the loose and falling stones above them. As soon as our tent was pitched and our medicines and stores opened, we set out to visit the sufferers. But I have no heart to recall the sights and scenes of that morning: bodies crushed and swollen out of all human shape, and in every stage of mortification, dying hourly without hope of relief: they were crowded into old vaults, where the air was tainted beyond endurance. Very soon we returned, and commenced arrangements to erect a temporary hospital, without which it was useless to attempt any thing for the sufferers. On this we all labored incessantly, and by the 19th it was ready for their reception. Having collected them in it, and distributed medicines and clean bandages in abundance, we placed them under the care of a native doctor hired for the purpose, and then left for Tiberias. It was most refreshing to breathe once more the pure air of the open country, free from the horrible sights and scents of Safed. Nor shall I soon forget that pleasant ride to Tiberias, particularly in the evening, and along the shore of the lake. Gennesaret lay like infancy asleep. The sun settled quietly down behind the hills of Nazareth, and the full |