Lima is but a few miles from Callao, with a strip of coastal land between. The earthquake had given rise, as it commonly does on that coast, to a tidal-wave, which was now rushing inland. It did not, however, reach Lima, falling some distance short, and, it is said, rising to 150 feet above sea-level. But the people already seemed to see themselves overwhelmed. A priest, half naked, wounding his own breast in penitential frenzy, rushed through the streets, ashes on his head, the bit and bridle of a mule in his mouth. "This is the punishment of heaven upon sinners!" he cried, and he beat himself with an iron bar until the blood gushed from his body. At the sight, thousands of persons fell on their knees, imploring pardon from heaven, confessing their crimes, but "as all were sinners, none lent ear to the confession of others, being too much occupied in recounting their own misdeeds." In Callao a more dreadful scene was enacted. After the first great shock of the earthquake, the people tried to flee from the town, but the gates had been locked for the night, and whilst they flocked the streets, screaming and praying, endeavouring to avoid the falling walls, a terrible thing was seen. The sea had gone out for more than two miles from the shore, forming mountains of water that seemed to reach the skies. The mountains of water then rushed forward and fell with horrid crash upon the doomed city, submerging the ships in the bay or carrying them in among the houses. The cries for mercy to heaven were vain: there was no mercy shown them, and the people perished. When at length the waters retired, nothing was left of Callao but part of the wall and the two great doors of the city.[14] [14] See the Author's _The Andes and the Amazon_. To this day the image of _Nuestra Señora de los Temblores_--Our Lady of the Earthquakes--is carried through the streets of Lima, as of other Peruvian towns, such as Arequipa, which has suffered terribly from earthquakes in its history, whenever the earth trembles, that the heavens may be appeased. A moral effect of these visitations is to be noted by the traveller in Peru. It is seen that the women of the labouring class wear very long skirts that often drag in the mud or dust. It was ordained that, the formerly short skirts being immodest and displeasing to heaven, which, it was held, had punished the people by that earthquake, they should henceforth be worn long enough to conceal the ankles! Perhaps the devotees of exaggerated feminine fashion in Europe to-day might usefully ponder these occurrences! CHAPTER VI ALONG THE PACIFIC COAST IN PERU, BOLIVIA AND CHILE