The
People Told Me It Was Ten Years Since They Had Had A Stronger
Shock Than This, At Which Time Many Houses Were Thrown Down And
Some People Killed.
At intervals of ten minutes to half an hour, slight shocks and
tremors were felt, sometimes strong enough to send us all out
again.
There was a strange mixture of the terrible and the
ludicrous in our situation. We might at any moment have a much
stronger shock, which would bring down the house over us, or -
what I feared more - cause a landslip, and send us down into the
deep ravine on the very edge of which the village is built; yet I
could not help laughing each time we ran out at a slight shock,
and then in a few moments ran in again. The sublime and the
ridiculous were here literally but a step apart. On the one hand,
the most terrible and destructive of natural phenomena was in
action around us - the rocks, the mountains, the solid earth were
trembling and convulsed, and we were utterly impotent to guard
against the danger that might at any moment overwhelm us. On the
other hand was the spectacle of a number of men, women, and
children running in and out of their houses, on what each time
proved a very unnecessary alarm, as each shock ceased just as it
became strong enough to frighten us. It seemed really very much
like "playing at earthquakes," and made many of the people join
me in a hearty laugh, even while reminding each other that it
really might be no laughing matter.
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