Before the Earthquake, Arequipa was a prosperous town of 30,000 inhabitants. It enjoyed a considerable trade, and, in importance as well as size, it was regarded as the third city of Peru, being inferior only to Lima and Cuzco. The houses were constructed with especial regard to security against the shock of Earthquakes. They were but one story high, built of solid stone, and massive to an extraordinary degree. But these precautions, though the fruit of long experience, were all of no avail. At Sunset on the fatal thirteenth of August the populous and thriving city of Arequipa was little better than a heap of ruins. “Not a church is left standing,” writes an eye-witness, “not a house habitable. The shock commenced at twenty minutes past five in the afternoon, and lasted six or seven minutes. The houses being solidly built and of one story, resisted for one minute, which gave the people time to rush into the middle of the streets, so that the mortality, although considerable, is not so great as might have been expected. If the Earthquake had occurred at night, few indeed would have been left to tell the story. As it is, the prisoners in the public prison, and the sick in the hospital, have perished. The Earthquake commenced with an undulating movement, and as the shock culminated, no one could keep his feet: the houses rocked as a ship in the trough of the sea, and came crumbling down. The shrieks of the women, the crash of falling masonry, the upheaving of the earth, and the clouds of blinding dust, made up a scene that cannot be described. We had nineteen minor shocks the same night, and the earth still continues in motion. Nothing has as yet been done toward disinterring the dead; but I do not think any are buried alive, as certain death must have been the fate of all those who were not able to get into the street. The earth has opened in all the plains around, and water has appeared in various places.”[99]