270 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



report of the commissioners was read, and, by a plu- 

 rality of votes, it v^as resolved to make a formal trans- 

 lation of the city of Guatimala to the Valley of Las 

 Vacas. The king gave his assent to this resolution on 

 the 21st of July, 1775 ; and, by a decree of the 21st of 

 September following, approved most of the plans that 

 were proposed for carrying the determination into ef- 

 fect ; granting very liberally the whole revenue arising 

 from the customs, for the space of ten years, toward 

 the charges of building, &c. In virtue of this decree, 

 the ayuntamiento was in due form established in the 

 new situation on the 1st of January, 1776 ; and on the 

 29th of July, 1777, a proclamation was issued in Old 

 Guatimala, commanding the population to remove to 

 the new city within one year, and totally abandon the 

 remains of the old one." 



Such is the account given by the historian of Guati- 

 mala concerning the destruction of this city; besides 

 which, I saw on the spot Padre Antonio Croques, an 

 octogenarian, and the oldest canonigo in Guatimala, 

 who was living in the city during the earthquake which 

 completed its destruction. He was still vigorous in 

 frame and intellect, wrote his name with a free hand 

 in my memorandum-book, and had vivid recollections 

 of the splendour of the city in his boyhood, when, as he 

 said, carriages rolled through it as in the streets of Ma- 

 drid. On the fatal day he was in the Church of San 

 Francisco with two padres, one of whom, at the mo- 

 ment of the shock, took him by the hand and hurried 

 him into the patio ; the other was buried under the ru- 

 ins of the church. He remembered that the tiles flew 

 from the roofs of the houses in every direction ; the 

 clouds of dust were suffocating, and the people ran to 

 the fountains to quench their thirst. The fountains 



