412 MISCELLANEA. 



" The wounded who had friends were conveyed to them, and 

 those who had none were committed to the care of any person 

 willing to receive them, and whose trouble I compensated. Ac- 

 cording to the data which 1 could collect while at Peladeros, there 

 must have perished more than a thousand persons, in the six 

 square leagues which I calculate to have been inundated, and the 

 capital destroyed could not amount to less than half a million of 

 dollars. 



" The phenomenon which has occasioned these misfortunes was, 

 in my opinion, produced by the falling down of a part of the 

 frozen peak of Ruiz, carrying with it all the snow that covered it : 

 the thawing did the rest, because it brought down all the immense 

 mass of decomposed granite which covered the sources of the 

 Lagunilla. Not content with these observations and the reflections 

 which arose from them, I sent commissioners, who recognised in 

 the same desert the occasion of such a disaster. I do not, how- 

 ever, know as yet all the results of their observations, as I re- 

 turned to this*place on the 1st inst. 



" I visited the place from whence the River Lagunilla pours its 

 streams from the mountain into the plain, and I there saw that 

 the deluge had come from a height of 200 yards above the level 

 of the river, spreading itself so as to take in the plain. From this 

 point everything was converted into a sandy waste, and, with the 

 exception of a few birds of prey, which were cruising about in all 

 directions, scarcely a single living creature was to be observed in 

 the whole extent. On a few insulated spots the inhabitants were 

 to be seen, but reduced to the last extremities of hunger, thirst, 

 and fatigue. 



" The tobacco is generally destroyed, partly by the inundation, 

 and partly by the terror, which prevented any effectual means 

 being taken to preserve it : thus I fear the revenue will suffer 

 considerably." 



