mud spread itself far and wide, blocking up the channels of rivers,
and forming lakes, which remained upwards of two months. But,
strangest of all, quantities of dead fishes were found in the water
which burst from the volcano. These fishes are supposed to have
been bred in subterranean lakes contained in caverns in the
interior of the mountain, considerably removed from the volcanic
fires in the centre. It is probable that, when the rent was formed
near the base, one of those caverns was broken open, and that the
waters from it were discharged along with their finny inhabitants.

Here is a picture of one of those fishes, which was taken by Baron
Humboldt. When you see what a queer-looking fish it is, you will
wonder the less at its having chosen so strange an abode.

[Illustration: Pimelodus Cyclopum]

Quito, the capital of the province of that name, is the highest of
cities--being situated at an elevation of between nine and ten
thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is built on a plain,
lying on the flanks of the volcano Pichinca, of which a view is
given in the annexed woodcut. Poor Quito has suffered severely from
this dangerous neighbourhood; for, on the 22nd of March 1859, a
violent shaking of the mountain laid the whole city in ruins.

Pichinca, you will observe, has a most irregular outline, but very
graceful withal. Instead of a single cone like Cotopaxi, it has a
group of cones, some of which are very pointed. It has four
principal summits, of which the most southerly contains the active
crater. Here the celebrated traveller Baron Humboldt nearly lost
his life. Having ascended the cone and approached the edge of the