SHATTERED CAPITALS OF CENTRAL AMERICA 



205 



A STREET IN GUATEMALA CITY 



For mile after mile, houses are tangles of rafters and heaps of plaster and adobe. The ground 

 will in most cases have to be cleared before reconstruction or restoration can take place. 



was the church of the Cerrito de Car- 

 men, which in 150 years had not been 

 damaged by earthquakes. So St. James 

 of the Gentlemen of Guatemala was re- 

 established in 1776 and until Christmas 

 of 191 7 did not experience a devastating 

 earthquake — a record of nearly three 

 hundred years for the site. 



Over the doorway to this church of 

 the Cerrito de Carmen, leading in from 

 the court, one may read in old-fashioned 

 Spanish the following inscriptions : 



Right: "He who aided the foundation 

 of this house was the illustrious Don 

 Antonio Maria Cheberi de Justiniano, 

 conqueror." 



Center: "The Virgin Mother of God, 

 conceived without the original sin. In 

 1620 I. H. S. (Jesus Savior of Men)." 



Left: "The founder of this was Juan 

 Croz, religious of the seraphic national 

 order of the Lordship of Genoa." 



And now the church that stood on the 

 rock for three hundred years is a ruin, 

 its solid facade shattered, its roof fallen, 

 its dome broken like an egg-shell. Rut 

 the image has been rescued from its 



shrine and set up under a temporary 

 roof. Before it services are held. 



From the fixed face of the painted 

 Christ one has only to turn the head to 

 see the streets of the "city that was," 

 spread out like a map — deserted streets 

 blocked by fallen houses ; and beyond the 

 far-stretching ruins rise faintly through 

 the haze the toothed summit of Pacaya, 

 and to the right of this the cone of the 

 Vol can de Agua. 



NICARAGUA AND HONDURAS THE SCENES 

 OF MANY EARTHQUAKES 



We need not sketch in detail the vol- 

 canic actions that have been so ruinous 

 in this part of Guatemala, especially in 

 the cities of Ouezaltenango and Chiqui- 

 mula, but before closing let us review 

 briefly the experiences of Honduras, 

 Nicaragua, and Costa Rica (map. page 



x 94)- 



Honduras lies almost entirely outside 

 the area of active volcanoes and repre- 

 sents a geologically old land-mass. How- 

 ever, her territory comes down to the 

 Gulf of Fonseca. which is a hotbed of 



