504 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



1395. From these lomas one travels 5 leagues S. to the Rio de 

 Tambo. In this valley there were once along the banks of its river 

 [very good] sugar mills, mule and cattle ranches, vineyards and other 

 plantations ; but when the volcano up in the Province of Los Ubinas 

 erupted, [16 leagues from Arequipa] 12 leagues upstream from the 

 sea — this volcano was a low ridge in the center of a sierra and in 

 the year 1600 it ejected so much fire and ashes that it [the ashes] 

 spread over 200 leagues in every direction and fell on ships sailing 

 out at sea [and is to be seen today] ; at present there is much [ashes] 

 after all this lapse of time over 150 leagues, as I myself saw when 

 traveling over those plains — accordingly, when the volcano erupted, 

 I was assured by trustworthy residents of that region that the Rio 

 de Tambo which runs near [where] the volcano [was], was full of 

 great red-hot pumice stone which burned up and consumed all the 

 farms and the cattle and that it carried the pumice stone out to sea 

 and for more than 2 leagues round about [where it empties into 

 the sea] it roasted all the fish in the sea and that great quantities 

 of dead and roasted fish appeared on all those shores and it was 

 a special mercy of God that they caused no pestilence, [the scavenger 

 birds of that country] the condors and buzzards [which are im- 

 portant for the country's sanitation] making short and thorough 

 work of them. 



1396. And they likewise assured me that when the volcano erupted, 

 it caused such a huge earthquake in that country that it ruined many 

 houses and caused extensive damage [and with these earthquakes 

 lasting 7 days and the depth of the fiery ashes raining down, they 

 thought that the end of the world and the Day of Judgment had 

 arrived ; and it caused such a horrible darkness throughout that 

 district that for the space of 7 days they never saw the sun and 

 could not tell whether it was day or night ; even with lights in their 

 houses they could not see one another, remaining terrified and 

 demoralized, with the cinders raining down constantly and many 

 houses catching fire and falling in ; and in this terrible tribulation 

 they all confessed their sins, feeling sure that the final end had 

 arrived, and it was such that] only at the close [of the 7 days] of 

 the period described in the following chapters, they began to get 

 the light of the sun and to see, as Noah did from his Ark, how 

 God was looking with merciful eyes upon them. It left the whole 

 country, crops and stock, burned up and devastated and some villages 

 in the provinces were destroyed; the land remained scorched and 

 burned, and nothing could grow for a long time, its fertility having 

 been impaired ; the adjoining provinces which came to their aid, were 



