VOLCAN DE JORULLO. 295 cloud of ashes, illumined by the volcanic fire, the softened surface of the earth was seen to swell up like an agitated sea. The rivers of Cuitamba and San Pedro precipitated themselves into the burning chasms. The decomposition of the water contributed to invigorate the flames, which were distinguishable at the city of Pascuaro, though situated on a very extensive table-land 4,600 feet elevated above the plains of las playas de Jorullo. Eruptions of mud, and especially of strata of clay enveloping balls of decomposed basaltes in concentrical layers, appear to indicate that subterraneous water had no small share in producing this extraordinary revolution. Thousands of small cones, from 6 to 10 feet in height, called by the natives ovens (hornitos), issued forth from the Malpays. Although within the last fifteen years, according to the testimony of the Indians, the heat of these volcanic ovens has suffered a great diminution, I have seen the thermometer rise to 202° Fahr. on being plunged into fissures which exhale an aqueous vapour. Each small cone is a fumorola, from which a thick vapour ascends to the height of 40 or 50 feet. In many of them a subterraneous noise is heard, which appears to announce the proximity of a fluid in ebullition. In the midst of the ovens, six large masses elevated from 1,300 to 1,600 feet each above the old level of the plains, sprung up from a chasm, of which the direction is from N. N. E. to S.S. E. This is the phenomenon of the Montenovo of Naples, several times repeated in a range of volcanic hills. The most elevated of these enormous masses, which bears some resemblance to the puys de l'Auvergne, is the great Volcan de Jorullo. It is continually burning, and has thrown up from the north side an immense quantity of scorified and basaltic lavas containing fragments of primitive rocks. These great eruptions of the central volcano continued till the month of February 1760. In the following years they became gradually less frequent. The Indians, frightened at the horrible noises of the new volcano, abandoned at first all the villages situated within seven or eight leagues distance of the playas de Jorullo. They became gradually, however, accustomed to this terrific spectacle; and having returned to their cottages, they advanced towards the mountains of Aguasarco and Santa Iñes, to admire the streams of fire discharged from an infinity of great and small volcanic apertures. The roofs of the houses of Queretaro were then covered with ashes at a distance of more than 144 miles in a straight line from the scene of the explosion. Although the subterraneous fire now appears far from violent, and the Malpays and the great volcano begin to be covered with vegetables, we nevertheless found the ambient air heated to such a degree by the action of the small ovens (hornitos), that the thermometer at a great distance from the surface and in the shade, rose as high as VOLCAN DE JORULlo. 297 109° Fahr. This fact appears to prove that there is no exaggeration in the accounts of several old Indians, who affirm that, for many years after the first eruption, the plains of Jorullo, even at a great distance from the scene of the explosion, were uninhabitable from the excessive heat which prevailed in them. The traveller is still shown, near the Cerro de Santa Iñes, the rivers of Cuitamba and San Pedro, the limpid waters of which formerly watered the sugar-cane plantation of Don André Pimentel. These streams disappeared in the night of the 29th September 1759; but at a distance of 6,560 feet further west, in the tract which was the theatre of the convulsion, two rivers having the appearance of mineral waters, in which the thermometer rises to 1263.8 Fahr., are now seen bursting through the argillaceous vault of the hornitos. The Indians continue to give them the names of San Pedro and Cuitamba, because in several parts of the Malpays great masses of water are heard to run in a direction from east to west, from the mountains of Santa Iñes towards l'Hacienda de la Presentacion. Near this habitation there is a brook, which disengages itself from the sulphureous hydrogen. It is more than 21 feet in breadth, and is the most abundant hydro-sulphureous spring which I have ever seen. In the opinion of the Indians, these extraordinary transformations which we have been de scribing, the surface of the earth raised up and burst by the volcanic fire, and the mountains of scoria and ashes heaped together, are the work of the monks; the greatest, no doubt, which they have ever produced in the two hemispheres! In the cottage which we occupied in the playas de Jorullo, our Indian host related to us, that in 1759, Capuchin missionaries came to preach at the plantation ́of San Pedro, and not having met with a favourable reception (perhaps not having got so good a dinner as they expected), they poured out the most horrible and unheard-of imprecations against the then beautiful and fertile plain, and prophesied, that in the first place the plantation would be swallowed up by flames rising out of the earth, and that afterwards the ambient air would cool to such a degree that the neighbouring mountains would for ever remain covered with snow and ice. The former of these maledictions having already produced such fatal effects, the lower Indians contemplate in the increasing coolness of the volcano the sinister presage of a perpetual winter. I have thought proper to relate this vulgar tradition, because it forms a striking feature in the picture of the manners and prejudices of these remote countries. It proves the active industry of a class of men who too frequently abuse the credulity of the people, and pretend to suspend by their influence the immutable laws of Nature for the sake of founding their empire on the fear of physical evils. EXTENT-POPULATION. 299 The extent of the intendancy of Valladolid is onefifth less than that of Ireland; but its relative population is twice as large as that of Finland. In this province there are 3 ciudades (Valladolid, Tzintzontzan, and Pascuaro); 3 villas (Citaquaro, Zamora, and Charo); 263 villages; 205 parishes; and 326 farms. The imperfect enumeration of 1793 gave a total population of 289,314 souls, of whom 40,399 were male Whites, and 39,081 female Whites; 61,352 male Indians, and 58,016 female Indians; and 154 monks, 138 nuns, and 293 individuals of the secular clergy. The Indians who inhabit the province of Valladolid form three races of different origin;-the Tarascs, celebrated in the sixteenth century for the gentleness of their manners, for their industry in the mechanical arts, and for the harmony of their language, abounding in vowels; the Otomites, a tribe yet very far behind in civilization, who speak a language full of nasal and guttural aspirations; and the Chichimecs, who, like the Tlascaltecs, the Nahuatlacs, and the Aztecs, have preserved the Mexican language. All the southern part of the intendancy of Valladolid is inhabited by Indians. In the villages the only White figure to be met with is the curé, and he also is frequently an Indian or Mulatto. The benefices are so poor there, that the bishop of Mechoacan has the greatest difficulty in procuring ecclesiastics to settle in a country where Spanish is scarcely ever spoken, and where, along |