There ensued a scene the harrowing details of which can never be fully given--the search of the living and uninjured for those dead, dying or imprisoned ones who lay beneath the great masses of stone and mortar. Sometimes, in answer to the desperate cries of those outside or already rescued, smothered, almost inaudible cries for help might be heard, so faint as to seem scarcely human, and yet growing fainter and fainter still, until those who were working for the release of the captive became aware that their labor was in vain, and that only a corpse lay beneath their feet. No light could be obtained in this stifling Erebus of dust and darkness: all means of obtaining light had been buried in the undistinguishable mass, and where lighted lamps were overturned in the crash they had set fire to beams and rafters in the houses, and many who escaped being crushed were burned to death. Even proper instruments were wanting, and the number of persons who had collected to assist in the work of searching the debris was totally inadequate to the occasion. Many instances of distress I can vouch for as authentic, as the victims were intimate friends of my own, and all the individuals I am about to mention were persons of the highest respectability, the upper classes having suffered more than the lower, who, living in huts such as I have described, were generally uninjured. One of the richest commercial houses in Cua was owned by three German gentlemen, brothers. The eldest, having married a Spanish American lady of the place, had lately built himself a magnificent mansion, and one of his brothers resided with him. The lady was seated between her brother-in-law and husband when the shock came: a huge beam from the ceiling fell across her brother-in-law and literally divided him in two, while the side wall, falling at the same time, buried her husband from her sight. She herself was saved by the great packages of hemp and tobacco which fell around her and prevented the wall from crushing her. Blinded by the darkness and choked by the dust, she yet managed with the only hand at liberty to tear an opening which allowed her to breathe, and through which she called for help. Faint accents answered her: they were the tones of her husband's failing voice. She called to him to have courage--that she had hopes of release. "No," he replied, "I am dying, but do not give way. Live for our child's sake." As well as her agitation and distress would permit she endeavored to sustain him with words of encouragement, but in vain. About fifteen minutes passed in this sad colloquy: the replies came more and more slowly, more and more painfully, and then they ceased: the imprisoned lady comprehended in her lonely agony that she was a widow. She, a living, breathing woman, fully conscious of her awful anguish, lay helpless between the stiff and stark corpses of her husband and brother-in-law, and quite ignorant of the