al Alcantara, the president
of the republic, sent carts laden with provisions, blankets, shoes,
hats, etc., besides money, and coaches to convey the unfortunate Cuans
to their friends in the adjacent towns. The president also recommended
the unfortunate people of Cua to the generosity of Congress, which was
then in session. A sum of one hundred thousand dollars for rebuilding
the city was immediately voted--a large sum for so impoverished a
nation--and subscriptions from neighboring states, as well as private
ones, have been most liberal. But these are but a drop in the bucket.
Some of the finest plantations in the country surrounded Cua--coffee,
sugar, cocoa, indigo, etc.--all with handsome mansions and expensive
offices, with stores, sugar-mills and steam-engines, many of them worth
from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars. After the disastrous 12th no
one for many miles in the vicinity slept under roof, but all encamped on
the adjacent plains: not even the rainy season, which soon set in with
great violence, sufficed to drive them from their hastily-contrived
shelter. From the 12th of April to the 30th there were ninety-eight or
ninety-nine shocks of earthquake.

In Caracas too the people still continued to sleep in the public
squares, although the capital had hitherto escaped the greatest violence
of the shocks. Various rumors among the most ignorant part of the
population, however, still kept up the general excitement. A certain
astronomer or professor of the occult sciences, a Dr. Briceno by name,
had even the audacity to circulate a paper throughout the city, headed
by the ominous title, "_Vigilemos!_" (_Let us watch!_). He prophesied
that on the 17th of April, at twenty-nine minutes past one, there would
certainly occur a great _cataclismo_, connecting the movements of the
moon with the occurrence of earthquakes, and assuring the populace that
at that hour this heavenly body would be in the precise position to
produce this extraordinary _cataclismo_, whatever that might prove to
be. The public excitement was intense, but the fatal day and hour
arrived, passed, and found the city still safe and unharmed.

ISABELLA ANDERSON.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

THE HISS AND ITS HISTORY.

"I warrant thee, if I do not act it, they will hiss me."--_Merry
Wives of Windsor._

Hissing is a custom of great antiquity. Cicero, in his _Paradoxes_, says
that "if an actor lose the measure of a passage in the sligh