by
flames rising out of the earth, and that afterward the neighboring
mountains would forever remain covered with snow and ice. After
denouncing the curse, the two holy men went on their way.

ERUPTION OF JORULLO.

On the night of the 28th and 29th of September, 1759, horrible
subterraneous noises were heard, which had been preceded by slight
shocks of an earthquake since the June preceding. The affrighted
Indians fled to the Aquasareo, and soon thereafter a tract of land
twelve miles square, which now goes by the name of the "evil land"
(_mal pais_), rose up in the form of a bladder, and boiled, and
seethed, and bubbled like a caldron of pudding, shooting up columns of
fire from ten thousand orifices. Sometimes a number of orifices would
unite into one vast crater, and vomit forth such a column of fire as
was never before seen by human eyes since the time when "the smoke of
the country went up as the smoke of a furnace."

Intelligent witnesses assured Humboldt that flames were seen to issue
forth, which, from a surface of more than a mile square, cast up
fragments of burning rock to a prodigious height. The two small rivers
were swallowed up, and their decomposed waters added fuel to the
flames, which burned for many months with a fierceness that is
indescribable.

Such is the origin of the volcano of Jorullo, in the State of
Michoican, and such is the pretended consequence of a curse pronounced
by Capuchin monks upon one of the most beautiful estates in the
country; and for generations since, the dread of incurring the
displeasure of strolling vagabond monks has rested like a blight upon
the common people; and yet this is but one of the thousand ways by
which the Mexican priesthood play upon the credulity of the ignorant in
a country where convulsions of nature are matters of almost ordinary
occurrence. Every extraordinary event in nature is ascribed to the
exercise of supernatural power on the part of the clergy or the most
holy images of the Church.

The fires of Jorullo have ceased to burn for half a century. The
central crater that was eventually formed, and the numerous little
orifices of fire, have long since become cold, and all the evidences of
an active fire have passed away. But to this day the Indians watch the
progress of the cooling process; as they anticipate that, before many
years have passed, the unfulfilled portion of the curse will be
realized, and that those now live who will see the surro