EFFECTS OF AN ERUPTION. 37 



expect to see it ; the most awful in the history of vol- 

 canic eruptions, the noise of which startled the people 

 of Guatimala four hundred miles off; and at Kingston, 

 Jamaica, eight hundred miles distant, was supposed to 

 be signal guns of distress from some vessel at sea. The 

 face of nature was changed ; the cone of the volcano 

 was gone ; a mountain and field of lava ran down to 

 the sea ; a forest old as creation had entirely disappear- 

 ed, and two islands were formed in the sea ; shoals 

 were discovered, in one of which a large tree was fixed 

 upside down ; one river was completely choked up, and 

 another formed, running in an opposite direction ; seven 

 men in the employ of my bun go-proprietor ran down to 

 the water, pushed off in a bungo, and were never heard 

 of more ; wild beasts, howling, left their caves in the 

 mountains, and ounces, leopards, and snakes fled for 

 shelter to the abodes of men. 



This eruption took place on the 20th of January, 

 1835. Mr. Savage was on that day on the side of the 

 Volcano of San Miguel, distant one hundred and twenty 

 miles, looking for cattle. At eight o'clock he saw a 

 dense cloud rising in the south in a pyramidal form, 

 and heard a noise which sounded like the roaring of the 

 sea. Very soon the thick clouds were lighted up by 

 vivid flashes, rose-coloured and forked, shooting and 

 disappearing, which he supposed to be some electrical 

 phenomenon. These appearances increased so fast that 

 his men became frightened, and said it was a ruina, 

 and that the end of the world was nigh. Very soon he 

 himself was satisfied that it was the eruption of a vol- 

 cano ; and as Cosaguina was at that time a quiet 

 mountain, not suspected to contain subterraneous fires, 

 he supposed it to proceed from the Volcano of Tigris. 

 He returned to the town of San Miguel, and in riding 



4 



