Miscellanies. 385 



5 



poor asses made all the resistance in their power, holding back, lyin 

 down, and roaring most piteously, and when at last forced into the 

 water, they were seemingly incapacitated by fear from making any 

 exertion, rolling over and over, and arriving at the bank half drown- 

 ed ; however, no accident happened and we recommenced our jour- 

 ney through a country formed of the materials thrown from Cotopaxi, 

 toward which mountain we were now travelling ; the quantity of lava 

 thrown from the burning bosom of this terrific mountain is almost be- 

 yond belief; as far as the eye can reach, the whole country appears 

 to be a mass of lava and volcanic sand, and although in some places 

 there are patches of cultivation it has a sickly hue, and the whole 

 bears the appearance of a spot on which a withering curse has fallen. 

 A short time before sunset, we arrived at La Tacunga, after a fa- 

 tiguing ride through fine sand which every wind raised in blinding 

 clouds, and over bare hills of lava, heated almost to scorching by the 

 rays of a nearly vertical sun* La Tacunga is the very picture of 

 desolation and ruin, being a sad monument of the effects occa- 

 sioned by the terrible convulsions of nature to which this country is 

 subject ; it has, perhaps, suffered more frequenly than any town in 

 South America ; in the year 1698, it was almost totally destroyed by 

 an earthquake; in the year 1743 and 1744 it was much injured by 

 eruptions of Cotopaxi; in 1756, another earthquake happened which 

 destroyed the Jesuits' church, an enormous stone building, at the time, 

 full of people ; five thousand persons are said to have perished in it;* 

 many other houses were ruined and many people lost their lives, beside 

 those who were in the church. The last earthquake, which caused 

 much injury, happened in 1800 and although it destroyed the church of 

 San Francisco and many houses; comparatively few persons lost their 

 lives. La Tacunga is built wholly of the dark colored spongy lava 

 of Cotopaxi, which is easily worked and forms very handsome walls; 

 whole streets are in ruins, but the most curious and appalling proof 

 of the tremendous and irresistible force of the earth's throes, is pre- 

 sented by the ruined church of the Jesuits ; its arched roof of solid 

 stone has fallen in, burying thousands in its ruins; its walls, six feet in 

 thickness, are cracked in every direction, and huge masses are torn 

 off as if by the agency of some violent explosion ; one mass, of 



* For the accuracy of this, perhaps, exaggerated statement, 1 cannot vouch : i 

 had it from different persons in La Tacunga. T. 





