484 
THE VOLCANOES OF GUATEMALA. 
The volcanoes of Fuego, 13,120 feet, and Agua, 12,286 feet, are other 
members of the chain more to the east, and are near to the city of 
Antigua Guatemala, once the capital of Spanish America. Fuego has 
been repeatedly in eruption in historic times, the last date being 1880, 
but its outbreaks, which are of the explosive type, present no special 
features beyond their violence. It has a large and very deep crater 
open towards the Pacific, and this has such a characteristic aspect that 
it is of great value as a landmark, for even a glimpse of it, through 
a break in the clouds, cannot be mistaken, and gives the navigator 
a sure bearing. Agua presents a well-marked crater breached to a 
certain extent in the direction of a valley leading down to Antigua. 
It has not had an ordinary volcanic eruption during the historic 
period, but in 1541 a great flood of water descended the mountain 
and destroyed a still older capital, Ciudad Vieja, situated at its base. 
It has been supposed that the flood proceeded from the bursting 
of a lake in the crater. This, however, extends to a depth at least 
50 feet below the old breach, and I could not see either a raised 
beach, or any other evidence of the crater having held a lake. On the 
whole, therefore, I am inclined to believe that the flood was really the 
result of a cloud-burst on the mountain and not a volcanic phenomenon 
at all. After this catastrophe the city of Antigua was built, and in its 
turn was destroyed by a violent earthquake in 1773, in consequence 
of which the present capital was built, and the seat of government was 
removed to it. The ruins of Antigua, including many churches over¬ 
grown with vegetation, are very picturesque and interesting. 
Guatemala appears to have a great future before it. FTp to the present 
time access to it has been almost entirely by steamer on the Pacific 
via Panama or San Francisco, in either case a most circuitous and expen¬ 
sive route ; but now two new ways are in process of being opened—one 
through Mexico via the Tehuantepec railway across the isthmus of that 
name, at either end of which magnificent new harbours have been con¬ 
structed at Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz; and the other by a new 
railway direct to the capital from Puerto Barrios, also a new port on the 
Atlantic seaboard, to which steamers already run from New Orleans 
direct. 
My cordial thanks are due to Sir Edward Grey, of the Foreign 
Office, and Mr. Carden, the British Minister at Guatemala, for their 
good offices with the Guatemala Government, and to Senor Juan Barrios, 
Foreign Minister of Guatemala, who exerted himself most effectively on 
my behalf with various local authorities. I found these gentlemen 
uniformly courteous and obliging, and to their kind assistance in obtain¬ 
ing trustworthy guides, porters, and other facilities too numerous to 
mention, much of the success of my expedition was due. I wish also 
particularly to thank Mr. Walter G. Ascoli, f.r.g.s., of Manchester, 
Guatemala, and Quezaltenango, Mr. Gehrke, f.r.g.s., and Mr. Moesly, 
