wards an immense torrent of water rushed down from the summit of the mountain, forcing away with it enormous fragments of rocks and large trees, which descending upon the town overwhelmed and destroyed almost all the houses, and buried a great number of the inhabitants under the ruins. When day dawned on the 11th, those who had escaped unhurt from the scourge, rendered all the assistance in their power to their less fortunate neighbours, who were maimed or wounded. They collected the bodies of the dead, and in the evening buried them. To commemorate this calamity, a fast was annually held on the day for twenty years afterwards.
On the 23d of December 1586, another very violent shock overthrew the old city; reducing the greater part of it to a heap of ruins, and burying under them many of the inhabitants. The earth shook with such violence that the tops of high ridges were torn off, and deep chasms formed in various parts of the level ground.
The third commenced on the 18th of February 1651, about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, when a most extraordinary subterranean noise was heard, and immediately followed by three violent shocks, at short intervals from each other, which threw down many buildings, and damaged others. The tiles from the roofs of the houses, were dispersed in all directions, like light straws by a gust of
