A bright sun shone over Lisbon on that fatal morning. The weather was as mild and beautiful as on a fine summer’s day in England, when, about forty minutes past nine, in the morning, an earthquake shock, followed almost immediately by another and another, brought down convents, churches, palaces, and houses in one common ruin, and, at a very moderate computation, occasioned the loss of thirty thousand lives. ‘The shocking sight of the dead bodies,’ says an eye-witness of the scene, ‘together with the shrieks and cries of those who were half buried in the ruins, exceeds all description; for the fear and consternation were so great that the most resolute person durst not stay a moment to remove a few stones off the friend he loved most, though many might have been saved by so doing; but nothing was thought of but self-preservation. Getting into open places, and into the middle of streets, was the most probable security. Such as were in the upper storeys of houses were, in general, more fortunate than those who attempted to escape by the doors; for they were buried under the ruins with the greatest part of the foot- passengers; such as were in equipages escaped best, though their cattle and drivers suffered severely; but those lost in houses and the streets are very unequal in number to those that were buried in the ruins of churches; for as it was a day of great devotion, and the time of celebrating mass, all the churches in the city were vastly crowded; and the number of churches here exceeds that of both London and Westminster; and as the steeples are built high, they mostly fell with the roof of the church, and the stones are so large that few escaped.’[11] Footnote 11: Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlix. part i. p. 404. Many of those who were not crushed or disabled by the falling buildings fled to the Tagus, vainly hoping that they might find there the safety which they had lost on land. For, soon after the shock, the sea also came rushing in like a torrent, though against wind and tide, and rising in an enormous wave, overflowed its banks, devouring all it met on its destructive path. Many large vessels sank at once; others, torn from their anchors, disappeared in the vortex, or, striking against each other, were shattered to pieces. A fine new stone quay, where about three thousand persons had assembled for safety, slipped into the river, and every one was lost; nor did so much as a single body appear afterwards.