378 
GUATEMALA. 
door for such vision, the cooling globe wrinkling with 
age, the force of contraction liquefying in fervent heat 
the solid materials of the earth’s crust and pouring out 
into daylight the molten rock, or puffing out the dust of 
stones ground to powder in the gigantic mill, — his 
heart, his brain, his very being, will be enlarged by the 
reflections that come to him in such moments. Not so 
the Indio who lazily cultivates his milpa on the lower 
slopes of this same volcano. His feet never seek the 
summit, where no maiz can grow. He knows that the 
ground is very fertile where his hut is placed; he has 
nothing that an earthquake can destroy, and the showers 
of ashes, while injuring his present crop, are a pledge of 
increased fertility in the future ; then from the streams 
of lava he can run, should they come in his way. When 
a more terrible outbreak of the great mass above him 
disturbs his stolidity, he attributes it to some super¬ 
natural agency, and calls upon his especial saints for 
the protection due their votary. Have not the Central 
Americans baptized their volcanoes, and have not these 
huge Christians since that rite been quiescent and proper 
members of the Church ? 
The people who live in the midst of this region of 
volcanic disturbances have not been elevated by commu¬ 
nion with this manifestation of the agencies of Nature. 
Their religion is not autochthonic ; their choicest tradi¬ 
tions come from the non-volcanic lands to the eastward, 
and are not tinged with the lurid glow of the earth-fires. 
Even their hell is no fiery furnace, and the apostles of 
an Eastern religion introduced to their imagination 
that supposed element of future punishment. Where a 
suggestion of fire-worship appears, it is always called 
