ravine; but that is a trifling circumftance, in comparifon of the very great tracts of land, with large plantations of vines and olive-trees, which have been detached from one fide of the ravine clear over to the other, though the diftance is more than half a mile. It is well attefted, that a countryman, who was ploughing his field in this neighbourhood with a pair of oxen, was tranfported, with his field and team, clear from one fide of a ravine to the other, and that neither he nor his oxen were hurt. After what I have feen, I verily believe this may have happened. A large volume might be compofed of the curious facts and accidents of this kind, produced by the earthquakes in the valley; and I fuppofe many will be recorded in the account of the late formidable carthquakes, which the academy of Naples intend to publish, the prefident having already fent into Calabria fifteen members, with draftfmen in proportion, to collect the facts, and make drawings, for the fole purpose of giving a fatisfactory and ample account of the late calamity to the publick; but unlefs they attend, as I did, to the nature of the foil of the local where thofe accidents happened, their reports will generally meet with little credit, except from thofe who are profeffed dilettanti of miracles, and many fuch do certainly exift in this country. I met with a remarkable inttance here of the degree of immediate diftrefs to which the unfortunate inhabitants of the deftroyed towns were reduced. Don Marcillo Grillo, a gentleman of fortune, and of great landed property, having efcaped from his houfe at Oppido, which was deftroyed by the earthquake, and his money (no lefs than twelve thoufand pieces of gold) having been buried under the ruins of it, remained feveral days without food or fhelter during heavy rains, and was obliged to a hermit in the neighbourhood for the loan of a clean thirt. Having walked over the ruins of Oppido, I defcended into the ravine, and examined carefully the whole of it. Here I faw, indeed, the wonderful force of the earthquake, which has produced exactly the fame effects as I have deferibed in the ravine of Terra Nuova, but on a fcale in

finitely greater. The enormous maffes of the plain, detached from each fide of the ravine, lie fometimes in confused heaps, forming real mountains, and having ftopped the courfe of two rivers (one of which is very confiderable) great lakes are already formed, and, if not affifted by nature or art, fo as to give the rivers their due course, must infallibly be the caufe of a general infection in the neighbourhood. Sometimes I met with a detached piece of the furface of the plain (of many acres in extent) with the large oaks and olive-trees, with lupines or corn under them, growing as well, and in as good order at the bottom of the ravine, as their companions, from whom they were feparated, do on their native foil in the plain, at least 500 feet higher, and at the distance of about three quar ters of a mile. I met with whole vineyards in the fame order in the bottom, that had likewife taken the fame journey. As the banks of the ravine, from whence thefe pieces came, are now bare and perpendicular, I perceived that the upper foil was a reddish earth, and the under one a fandy white clay, very compact, and like a foft stone; the impulfe thefe huge maffes received, either from the violent motion of the earth alone, or that affifted with the additional one of the volcanick exhalations fet at liberty, feems to have acted with greater force on the lower and more compact ftratum, than on the upper cultivated cruft: for I conftantly obierved, where thefe cultivated illands lay (for fo they appeared to be on the barren bottom of the ravine) the under ftratum of compact clay had been driven fome hundred yards farther, and lay in confufed blocks, and, as I obferved, many of thefe blocks were of a cubical form. The under foil having had a greater impulfe, and leaving the upper in its flight, naturally accounts for the order in which the trees, vineyards, and vegetation, fell and remain at prefent in the bottom of the ravine. This curious fact, I thought, deferved to be recorded, but it is not ealily described by words. When the drawings and plans of the academy are publifhed, this account (imperfect as it is) may, perhaps, have its utility: had my time

permitted,

permitted, I would certainly have taken a draftsman with me into Calabria. In another part of the bottom of the ravine, there is a mountain compofed of the fame clay foil, and which was probably a piece of the plain detached by an earthquake at fome former period; it is about 250 feet high, and about 400 feet diameter at its bafis: this mountain, as is well attested, has travelled down the ravine near four miles, having been put in motion by the earthquake of the 5th of February. The abundance of rain which fell at that time, the great weight of the fresh detached pieces of the plain, which I faw heaped up at the back of it, the nature of the foil of which it is compofed, and particularly its fituation on a declivity, accounts well for this phenomenon; whereas, the reports which came to Naples, of a mountain, in a perfect plain, having leaped four miles, had rather the appearance of a miracle. I found fome fingle timber trees alfo, with a lump of their native foil at the roots, ftanding upright in the bottom of the ravine, and which had been detached from the plain above-mentioned. I obferved, alfo, that many confufed heaps of the loofe foil, detached by the earthquake from the plains on each fide of the ravine, had actually run like a volcanic lava (having probably been affifted by the heavy rain) and produced many effects greatly refembling thofe of lava, during their courfe down a great part of the ravine. At Santa Chriftina, in the neighbourhood of Oppido, the like phenomena have been exhibited, and the great force of the earthquake of the 5th of February feems to have been exerted on these parts and at Cafal Nuovo and Terra Nuova. The phenomeha exhibited by the earthquakes in other parts of the plains of Calabria Ultra are of the fame nature; but trifling in comparison of thofe I have been defcribing. The barracks erected for the remaining inhabitants of the ancient city of Oppido, now in ruins, are on a healthy fpot, at about the distance of a mile from the old town, where I found the baron of this country, the Prince of Cariati, ufefully employed in the LOND. MAG. O&. 1783.

affiftance of his unfortunate fubjects. He showed me two girls, one about fixteen years of age, who had remained eleven days without food under the ruins of a houfe at Oppido: fhe had a child of five or fix months old in her arms, which died the fourth day. The girl gave me a clear account of her fufferings: having light through a fmall opening, fhe had kept an exact account of the number of days fhe had been buried. She did not feem to be in bad health, drinks freely, but has yet a difficulty in fwallowing any thing folid. The other girl was about eleven years of age; the remained under the ruins fix days only; but in fo very confined and diftrefsful a pofture, that one of her hands, preffing against her cheek, had nearly worn a hole through it.

From Oppido I proceeded through the fame beautiful country and ruined towns and villages to Seminara and Palmi. The houfes of the former were not quite in fuch a ruined condition as thofe of the latter, whose fituation is lower, and nearer the fea. One thoufand four hundred lives were loft at Palmi, and all the dead bodies have not been removed and burnt, as in most other parts I vifited; for 1 faw myfelf two taken up whilft I was there; and I fhall ever remember a melancholy figure of a woman in mourning, fitting upon the ruins of her houfe, her head reclined upon her hand and knee, and following with an anxious enger eye every ftroke of the pick-axe of the labourers employed to clear away the rubbish, in hopes of recovering the corpfe of a favourite child. This town was a great market for oil, of which there were upwards of 4000 barrels in the town at the time of its deftruction, fo that the barrels and jars being broken, a river of oil ran into the fea from it for many hours. The fpilt oil mixed. with the corn of the granaries, and the corrupted bodies have had a fenfible effect on the air. This, I fear, 29 the heats increafe, may prove fatal to the unfortunate remainder of the inhabitants of Palmi, who live in barracks near the ruined town. My guide to me, that he had been buried i

Q9

ruins of his houfe here by the firft fhock, and that after the fecond, which followed immediately, he found himfelf fitting aftride of a beam, at leaft fifteen fect in the air. I heard of many fuch extraordinary efcapes in all parts of the plain, where the earthquake had exerted its greatest force.

From Palmi I proceeded through the beautiful woody mountains of Bagnara and Solano; noble timber oak trees on high rocks, narrow vallies with torrents in their bottoms, the road dangerous both on account of robbers and precipices. My two guards, inftead of leading the way, as they had hitherto dene, now feparated, and formed an advanced and a rear-guard. The narrow road was often interrupted by the fallen rocks and trees during the earthquakes, and obliged us to feek a new and ftill more dangerous road; but the Calabrefe horfes are really as furefooted as goats. In the midft of one of thefe paffes we felt a very fmart fhock of an earthquake, accompanied by a loud explofion, like that of fpringing a mine: fortunately for us it did not, as I expected, detach any rocks or trees from the high mountains that hung over our heads. After having paffed the woods of Bagnara, Sinopoli, and Solano, I went through rich corn-fields and lawns, beautifully bounded with woods and fcattered trees, like our fineil parks, and which continue varying for fome miles, till you come upon the top of an open plain on a hill, commanding the whole Faro of Meffina, the coaft of Sicily as far as Catania, with Mount Etna rising proudly behind it, which altogether compofed the fineft view imaginable. From thence I defcended a horrid rocky road to the Torre del Pezzolo, where there is a country-feat and a village belonging to the Princefs of Bagnara. There I found that an epidemical diforder had already manifefted itfelf, as it probably will in many other parts of this glorious but unhappy country, in proportion as the heats increafe, owing to the hardships fuffered, and the air having been fpoiled by new-formed lakes. Several fishermen affured me, that, during the earthquake of the 5th

of February at night, the fand near the fea was hot, and that they faw fire iffue from the earth in many parts. This circumftance has been often repeated to me in the plain; and my idea is, that the exhalations which iffued during the violent commotions of the earth were full of electrical fire, juft as the fmoke of volcanoes is conftantly obferved to be during violent eruptions; for I faw no mark in any part of my journey of any volcanic matter having iffued from the fiffures of the earth; and I am convinced that the whole damage has been done by exhalations and vapours only. The first fhock felt at this place, as I was affured, was lateral, and then vorticofe, and exceedingly violent; but what they call violent here must have been nothing in comparifon of what was felt in the plain of Cafal Nuovo, Politene, Palmi, Terra Nuova, Oppido, &c. &c. where all agreed in affuring me, that the violence of the fatal fhock of the 5th of February was inftantaneous, without warning, and from the bottom upwards; and indeed in thofe places where the mortality has been fo great, and where nothing is to be feen but a confufed heap of ruins, without diftinction of either ftreets or houfes, the violence of that shock is fufficiently confirmed. From this place to Reggio the road on each fide is covered with villas and orange groves. I faw not one houfe levelled to the ground; but perceived that all had been damaged, and were abandoned; and that the inhabitants were univerfally retired to barracks in thefe beautiful groves of orange, mulberry, and fig-trees, of which there are many in the environs of Reggio. One that I vifited, and which is reckoned the richest in all this part of Magna Grecia, is about a mile and a half from the town of Reggio, and, what is remarkable, belong to a gentleman whofe Christian name is Agamemnon. The beauty of the argrume (the general name of all kind of orange, lemon, cedrate, and bergamot trees) is not to be defcribed; the foil being fandy, the expofition warm, and command of water, a clear rivulet being introduced at pleasure in

little channels to the foot of each tree, is the reafon of the wonderful luxuriancy of those trees. Don Agamemnon affured me it was a bad year when he did not gather from his garden (which is of no great extent) 170,000 lemons, 200,000 oranges (which I found as excellent as thofe of Malta) and bergamots enough to produce 200 quarts of the effence from their rinds. There is another fingularity in thefe gardens, as I was affured every fig-tree affords two crops of fruit annually; the first in June, the fecond in Auguft. But to return to my fubject, from which my attention was frequently called away by the extraordinary and uncommon beauty and fertility of this rich province; I arrived about fun-fet at Reggio, which I found lefs damaged than I expected, though not a houfe in it is habitable or inhabited, and all the people live in barracks or tents: but after having been feveral days in the plain, where every building is levelled to the ground, a houfe with a roof, or a church with a fteeple, was to me a new and refreshing object. The inhabitants of the whole country that has been fo feverely afflicted with earthquakes feem, however, to have fo great a dread of going into a houfe, that when the earthquakes fhall have ceafed, I am perfuaded the greateft part of them will fill continue to live in barracks. The barracks here (except fome few that are even elegant) are il conftructed, as are in general throughout the country all barracks of towns that have been fo little damaged as to allow the inhabitants to flatter themselves with a hope of being able to return to, and occupy, their houfes again, when the prefent calamity is at an end. Reggio has been roughly handled by the earthquakes, but is by no means destroved. The Archbishop, a fenfible, active, and humane prelate, has diftinguished himself from the beginning of the earthquakes to this day, having immediately difpofed of all the fuperfluous ornaments of the churches, and of his own horfes and furniture, for the fole relief of his diftreffed flock, with whom he chearfully bears an equal fhare of every inconvenience and

ditrefs which fuch a calamity has naturally occafioned. Except in this inflance, and very few others, indeed, I obferved throughout my whole journey a prevailing indolence, inactivity, and want of fpirit, which is unfortunate, as, fuch a heavy and general calamity can only be repaired by a difpofition directly contrary to that which prevails; but, as this government is indefatigable in its endeavours at remedying every prefent evil, and preventing fuch as may naturally be expected, it is to be hoped that the generous and wife difpofitions lately made will reflore the energy that is wanting, and without which one of the richest provinces in Europe is in danger of utter ruin. Silk and effence of bergamot, oranges and lemons, are the great articles of trade at Reggio. I am af fured, that no less than 100,000 quarts of this effence are annually exported. The fruit, after the rind is taken off, is given to the cows and oxen; and the inhabitants of this town affure me that the beef, at that feafon, has a ftrong and difagreeable flavour of bergamot. The worthy Archbishop gave me an account of the earthquakes here in 1770 and 1780, which obliged the inhabitants (in number 16,400) to encamp or remain in barracks feveral months, without, however, having done any confiderable damage to the town. I was affured here (where they have had fuch a long experience of earthquakes) that all animals and birds are in a greater or lefs degree much more fenfible of an approaching fhock of an earthquake than any human being; but that geefe, above all, feem to be the foonelt and moft alarmed at the approach of a fhock: if in the water they quit it immediately, and there are no means of driving them into the water for fome time after.

The mortality here, by the late earthquake of the 5th of February, correfponds with the apparent degree of damage done to the town, and does not exceed 126. As it happened about noon, and came on gently, the people of Reggio had time to efcape; whereas, as I have often remarked, the fhock in the unhappy plain was as inftantaQ92

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