Mr. Long told us that, between seven and eight o'clock on the evening of the catastrophe, he was walking with some friends on the Alameda, when he saw smoke rising in dense volumes from the quarter of the city where the house in which he resided was situated. He and his friends ran quickly in the direction of the fire, giving the alarm as they went, and on reaching the church they found the doors closely shut, while fearful screams were issuing from the interior, and smoke and flames pouring from the windows. They got a party of men together accustomed to the use of the lasso--no difficult task here--and with them climbed from the neighbouring houses to the top of the church. Making a hole in the roof, they then dropped their lassoes over some of the women beneath, and so dragged them out of the building; but the number thus saved was necessarily very small, and it happened too often that many of the poor creatures below, in their eagerness to escape, hung on to the legs or body of the one they saw lassoed, and by their weight literally dragged her to pieces. Sometimes even a lasso broke, and those clinging to it, when almost within reach of safety, were again precipitated into the burning mass below. Any one who has seen a raw hide lasso, capable of withstanding the sudden rush of the fiercest bull ever captured, will be able to realise the immense strain which would be required to cause one to give way. The next morning at daybreak, the interior of the church presented a terrible spectacle. Mr. Long described it as being full of women, standing up, tightly wedged together, their hands stretched out as if in an attitude of supplication, their faces and the upper part of their bodies charred beyond recognition, the lower part, from the waist downwards, completely untouched.
Their remains were buried in one large grave, in the cemetery of the Recoleta, and the spot is now marked by a square piece of ground, full of bright flowers, enclosed by iron railings, almost hidden by the creepers that entwine them, and shaded by willows, orange-trees, cypresses, and pomegranates. In the centre is a large cross, and on either side of the iron railings there is a marble tablet with the simple but touching inscription, in Spanish--