STATISTICAL ANALYSIS. } IV. Intendancy of Valladolid. 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, of which the limpid waters 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 2000 metres farther west, in the tract which was the theatre of the convulsion, two rivers are now seen bursting through the argilaceous vault of the hornitos, of the appearance of mineral waters, in which the thermometer rises to 52°.7. 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 7 metres in +126°.8 of Fahrenheit. Trans, * 6561 feet. Trans. STATISTICAL IV. Intendancy of Valladolid. ANALYSIS. } breadth, and is the most abundant hydro-sulphureous spring which I have ever seen. nary In the opinion of the Indians, these extraorditransformations which we have been describing, 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 neighbour ing 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, worthy of figuring in the STATISTICAL IV. Intendancy of Valladolid. ANALYSIS. } epic poem of the Jesuit Landivar, 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*. * The monks seem to have acted with no small share of sagacity under all the circumstances in which they were placed. It is true, no doubt, as M. de Humboldt observes, that they indulged pretty freely in miracles; but it is to this that we are chiefly, perhaps, to ascribe the introduction of the religion of benevolence and humanity among them. Thiş religion is not in their hands every thing that we could wish; still, however, in its worst modification it must partake something of the divine spirit of its author. Miracles would seem to be necessary to the foundation and dissemination of every religion, however convincing its evi dence, especially among barbarous and half civilized nations. It is not by reasoning or logical subtlety that such a people, the great mass of whom have neither leisure nor aptitude for it, can be brought to shake themselves free of the religious impressions, of whatever nature, to which they have been accustomed from their infancy, and which are interwoven with every feeling and association of their nature. The change can only, in general, be effected by the operation of such means as are calculated to produce astonishment and terror in an uncultivated mind, which will then be disposed to resign itself blindly to the guidance of the apparently supernatural agent. However obvious this truth may be, and however much confirmed by all our experience hitherto, STATISTICAL ́} IV. Intendancy of Valladolid. The position of the new Volcan de Jorullo gives rise to a very curious geological observation. We already remarked in the third chapter, that in New Spain there is a parallel of great elevations, or a narrow zone contained between the 18° 59′ and those persons whose business it is to carry on at present the dissemination of religion have laid aside, certainly very im prudently, the operation of miracles, a privilege of which it appears the Roman catholics continue to avail themselves with success, and to the want of which our own bad success ought in a great measure to be ascribed. What reasonings, for instance, could have convinced so effectually the Betoya nation, that the sun is not God but fire to light us, as the miracle which, in confirmation of his assertion, Padre Gumilla wrought on the arm of the chief Tunucua, by means of a lens? When Tunucua saw his arm roasting and swelling up, he could resist the truth no longer, and with sorrowful voice loudly exclaimed, "Truly, truly, the sun is fire! Es verdad! Es verdad! fuego es el Sol!" The whole passage is well worth transcribing, as it serves powerfully to illustrate the sagacity of the missionaries fathers, and the observation of M. de Humboldt. "Viendo pues que passaban muchos meses sin acabar de creer, que el Sol era fuego, me valì de la mecanica de un Lente ò Cristal de bastantes grados, y junta toda la gente en la Plaza, cogì la mano del Capitan mas capaz, llamado Tanucua. Preguntèle si el Sol era Dios? Luego respondiò que sì. Entonces, en voz alta, que oyeron todos, dixe: Day diami obayrefolajuy! Theoda futuit ajaduca, may mafarra. Quando accabereis de creerme? Ya os tengo dicho, que el Sol no es sino fuego y diciendo y haciendo, interpuse el lente entre el Sol, y el brazo del dicho capitan, y al punto el rayo Solar le quemò, y levantò ampolla considerable en el brazo : clamò luego èl con voz amarga, diciendo: Es verdad, Es verdad, fuego es el Sol." Gumilla, Vol. II. p. 11. 1 STATISTICAL IV. Intendancy of Valladolid. ANALYSIS. the 19° 12 of latitude, in which all the summits of Anahuac which rise above the region of perpetual snow are situated. These summits are either volcanoes which still continue to burn, or mountains, which from their form as well as the nature of their rocks have in all probability formerly contained subterraneous fire. As we recede from the coast of the Atlantic we find in a direction from east to west the Pic d'Orizaba, the two volcanoes of la Puebla, the Nevado de Toluca, the Pic de Tancitaro, and the Volcan de Colima. These great elevations, in place of forming the crest of the Cordillera of Anahuac, and following its direction, which is from the south-east to the north-west, are, on the contrary, placed on a line perpendicular to the axis of the great chain of mountains. It is undoubtedly worthy of observation, that in 1759 the new volcano of Jorullo was formed in the prolongation of that line, on the same parallel with the ancient Méxican volcanoes! A single glance bestowed on my plan of the environs of Jorullo will prove that the six large masses rose out of the earth, in a line which runs through the plain from the Cerro de las Cuevas to the Picacho del Mortero; and it is thus also that the bocche nove of Vesuvius are ranged along the prolongation of a chasm. Do not these analogies entitle us to suppose that there exists in this part |