The condition of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, when they found themselves encircled by this wild and lawless host, was, as may be imagined, a very uncomfortable one; but another horror was immediately added, one of a more frightful, because more mysterious character. It seemed as if heaven itself was about to fight for their enemies. During the very night which succeeded the investment of the city, it was shaken by an earthquake--the shocks were repeated during the next day and night--many of the houses in the city were shaken down, and the massive walls of the convent at Bethlehem were split from top to bottom. The affrighted inhabitants took refuge in the yards of their falling tenements, and in the open places of the city; and thus, while the hills were rocking to and fro, and wailing was going up from every part of Jerusalem, some of the enemy found admittance one night, it is said, by subterranean passages, and these throwing open the gates, the hordes rushed in, and the place was given up to pillage and outrage. There were, at that time, an American, and also an English missionary family, living in the city. Mrs. Thompson, the wife of the American missionary, was in feeble health, and had an infant but a few months old to increase her anxieties; her husband was absent, and after repeated but unsuccessful attempts to join her during the siege, had been compelled to return and wait the issue at Jaffa. She took refuge with their English missionary friends, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholayson; and they had all, at the early part of the war, shut themselves up in Mr. Nicholayson’s house, subsisting in a rude way on some grain and dried fruits, which he had providentially on hand. Mrs. Thompson, in a letter to her husband, has touchingly described their situation, the horrors of the earthquake, and their greater horror when the cries of terror and triumph arose on the taking of the city; and when, on the following morning, they heard the Arabs forcing their own doors, and soon after met them peering among the chambers below. Mr. Nicholayson, who speaks the native language; and understands their habits well, immediately bribed some of the intruders, and, by paying them well, engaged a dozen of them to act as guardians of his house and premises, and thus saved the families and his effects from injury, except a few articles which the guardians themselves took a fancy to and carried off in their subsequent hasty retreat. Mr. Thompson’s house was stripped, not a single article escaping their hands. The Egyptian soldiers who had formed the garrison of the city took refuge in a strong castle at the Jaffa gate, which is near Mr. Nicholayson’s dwelling, and the invaders seizing on all the neighboring houses, a fire was kept up between the two parties, which I believe did little injury, except to the houses, some of which were riddled by the balls from the castle; among them was that of Mr. Nicholayson, and his family were once more