352 THE XATUKALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. XIX. 



a lofty cone, which was blasted away in 1718, leaving 

 the present crater-ring of cliffs and peaks ; and that thus 

 may be explained the discrepancies in the accounts of its 

 height, which Mr. Scrope gives as 4,940 feet, and Hum- 

 boldt and Dr. Davy at 3,00'0, a measurement which 

 seems to me to be more probably correct ? The moun- 

 tain is said to have been slightly active in 1785. In 

 1812, its old crater had been for some years (and is now) 

 a deep blue lake, with walls of rock around, 800 

 feet in height, reminding one traveller (Dr. Davy) 

 of the lake of Albano. But for twelve months it had 

 given warning, by frequent earthquake shocks, that it 

 had its part to play in the great subterranean battle 

 between rock and steam ; and on the 27th April, 1812, 

 the battle began. 



" A negro boy he is said to be still alive in St. Yin- 

 cent was herding cattle on the mountain-side. A stone 

 fell near him, and then another. He fancied that other 

 boys were pelting him from the cliffs above, and began 

 throwing stones in return. But the stones fell thicker, 

 and among them one and then another too large to have 

 been thrown by human hand. And the poor fellow woke 

 up to the fact that not a boy but the mountain was 

 throwing stones at him ; and that the column of black 

 cloud which was rising from the crater above was not 

 harmless vapours, but dust, and ash, and stone. lie 

 turned and ran for his life, leaving the cattle to their 

 fate, while the steam mitrailleuse of the Titans to 

 which all man's engines of destruction are but pop-guns 

 roared on for three days and nights, covering the 

 greater part of the island in. ashes, burying crops, break- 

 ing branches off the trees, and spreading ruin from which 



