268 The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
found that the whole mountain had disappeared. Now there 
is no eastern end to St. Vincent nor any mountain on the east 
coast, and the Souffriére is at the northern end. It is im- 
possible, meanwhile, that the wreck of such a mountain 
should not have left traces visible and notorious to this day. 
May not the truth be, that the Souffriére had once 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 4940 feet, and Humboldt and Dr. Davy at 
3000, a measurement which seems to me to be more probably 
correct? The mountain 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. Vincent— 
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. 
He 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 with 
ashes, burying crops, breaking branches off the trees, and 
spreading ruin from which several estates never recovered; 
and so the 30th of April dawned in darkness which might be 
felt. 
‘“‘ Meanwhile, on the same day, to change the scene of the 
campaign two hundred and ten leagues, ‘a distance,’ as 
Humboldt says, ‘ equal to that between Vesuvius and Paris,’ 
the inhabitants, not only of Caracas, but of Calabozo, situate 
