again, and Mr. Jorullo's servants slept in fancied security. On the
night of the 28th of September, however, their slumbers were
suddenly broken by a return of the horrible underground rumblings-
thundering more loudly than before. The next night, these
subterranean thunders became so loud, that the Indian servants
started from their beds, and fled in terror to the mountains in the
neighbourhood. Gazing thence, after day had dawned, they beheld to
their astonishment that a tract of ground from three to four square
miles in extent, with their master's farm in the middle of it, had
been upheaved in the shape of an inflated bladder. At the edges
this singular elevation rises only about thirty-nine feet above the
old level of the plain; but so great is the general convexity of
the mound, that towards the centre it swells up to five hundred and
twenty-four feet above the original level.

The Indians affirmed that they saw flames issue from the ground
throughout an extent of more than half a square league, while
fragments of burning rocks were thrown to enormous heights. Thick
clouds of ashes rose into the air, illuminated by glowing fires
beneath; and the surface of the ground seemed to swell into
billows, like those of a tempestuous sea. Into the vast burning
chasms, whence these ejections were thrown, two rivers plunged in
cataracts; but the water only increased the violence of the
eruption. It was thrown into steam with explosive force, and great
quantities of mud and balls of basalt were ejected. On the surface
of the swollen mound there were formed thousands of small cones,
from six to ten feet in height, and sending forth steam to heights
varying from twenty to thirty feet.

Out of a chasm in the midst of these cones, or ovens, as the