I lay gazing up into the night sky, not at all inclined to sleep. The day had been, as usual, very warm, the thermometer at noon showing 88 deg. Fahrenheit; a heavy mass of clouds (strato-cumulus) lay piled up about the waning moon, but dispersed towards ten o'clock, and the moon then shone brightly through a clear and tranquil atmosphere. A few light scattered clouds of the cirrus and cirro-stratus lay motionless at a few points on the horizon, but there was nothing to portend any unusual phenomenon. At thirty minutes past ten, however, came the shock that laid the city of San Salvador in ruins. It began with a terrific noise, the earth heaving as if lifted by a subterranean sea; and this movement, and the thunder accompanying it, continued for ten or twelve seconds, while the crash and uproar of falling buildings were still more deafening than the thunder. An immense and blinding cloud of dust arose, through which were heard the shrieks and supplications of the flying people, calling on "Maria Santissima" and all other saints; and at length a hymn, in thousand-voiced chorus, which was heard plainly, through all the other noises, at a distance of a mile and a half from the town, by a family of German emigrants with whom I was acquainted. I had witnessed many terrible scenes of war and revolution in the Old World, but there at least they were visible enemies of flesh and blood with whom people had to contend; but here were unknown, terrific, incalculable forces at work, of whose nature they had only the vaguest idea. The shocks went on, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, and with very brief intervals, until, by the evening of Easter Monday, one hundred and twenty had been counted, and they were accompanied all the time by hollow thunder and detonations, as if a tremendous battle were raging beneath the earth. People now abandoned all thoughts of their property, and sought only to save their lives, for, with the continual oscillations of the ground in all directions, rents and chasms were opening on it, so that no one knew whether it might not the next moment yawn beneath their feet and engulf every living soul. After every new shock I noticed that the people changed their prayers and the names of the saints they were invoking; but whether the saints did not hear, or could not or would not help them, the subterranean artillery continued to bellow forth its fearful salvos with unmitigated fury.