vivid
account.

On that day the people of the Venezuelan city of Caracas were assembled
in the churches, beneath a still and blazing sky, when the earth
suddenly heaved and shook, like a great monster waking from slumber,
and in a single minute 10,000 people were buried beneath the walls of
churches and houses, which tumbled in hideous ruin upon their heads. The
same earthquake made itself felt along the whole line of the Northern
Cordilleras, working terrible destruction, and shook the earth as far
as Santa Fe de Bogota and Honda, 180 leagues from Caracas. This was a
preliminary symptom of the internal disorder of the earth.

While the wretched inhabitants of Caracas who had escaped the earthquake
were dying of fever and starvation, and seeking among villages and
farms places of safety from the renewed earthquake shocks, the almost
forgotten volcano of St. Vincent was muttering in suppressed wrath. For
twelve months it had given warning, by frequent shocks of the earth,
that it was making ready to play its part in the great subterranean
battle. On the 27th of April its deep-hidden powers broke their bonds,
and the conflict between rock and fire began.

THE MOUNTAIN STONES A HERD-BOY

The first intimation of the outbreak was rather amusing than alarming.
A negro boy was herding cattle on the mountain side. A stone fell near
him. Another followed. He fancied that some other boys were pelting him
from the cliff above, and began throwing stones upward at his fancied
concealed tormentors. But the stones fell thicker, among them some too
large to be thrown by any human hand. Only then did the little fellow
awake to the fact that it was not a boy like himself, but the mighty
mountain, that was flinging these stones at him. He looked up and saw
that the black column which was rising from the crater's mouth was no
longer harmless vapor, but dust, ashes and stones. Leaving the cattle to
their fate, he fled for his life, while the mighty cannon of the Titans
roared behind him as he ran. For three days and nights this continued;
then, on the 30th, a stream of lava poured over the crater's rim and
rushed downward, reaching the sea in four hours, and the great eruption
was at an end.

On the same day, says Humboldt, at a distance of more than 200 leagues,
"the inhabitants not only of Caracas, but of Calabozo, situated in
the midst of the Lianos, over a space of 4,000 square leagues, were
terrified by a subterranean noise w