SECTION 11.

Volcanoes of New Grenada.

THESE are chiefly to be met with on the summits of the enormous mountains in the viceroyalty of New Grenada, and in the neighbourhood of the city of Quito. These mountains constitute some of the grandest objects in natural geography, being many of them the loftiest on the face of the globe, while their volcanoes are of a most sublime and horrible character. The most celebrated of these elevated excavations are, Chimborazo, Cotopoxi, Sangai, Pichinchia, aud Antisanas; most of them, however, have expended themselves, except Sangai and Cotopoxi.

Chimborazo, the loftiest of the whole, about a hundred English miles to the south of Quito, and about ten to the north of Riobamba, is computed by Bouguer to be 3217 French toises, or 20,280 feet above the level of the sea; and consequently to be about 5,000 feet, or one quarter higher than Mount Blanc: its region of perpetual snow extends to about 2,400 feet from the summit.

The next loftiest mountain is Cotopaxi, estimated at about 18,500 feet, and situated at about twenty-five miles to the south east of Quito. Pichincha, lies still nearer to the capital, but in a southwesterly direction; and Altar and Sungai to the south-east.

This last is a páramo*, or vast desert, the summit always covered with snow. It is a perpetual volcano, whose fire is continually seen, and whose explosions are heard at a distance of forty leagues. The adjacent country is entirely barren, in consequence of being covered with the cinders ejected from its mouth. In this mountain rises the river Scagai, which being joined by the Upano, forms the Payra, a large river, which discharges itself into the river Maranon, or river of Amazons.

Cotopoxi is supposed to have become a volcano about the time. when the Spaniards first invaded the country; and Ulloa asserts that it ejected stones of eight or nine feet in diameter, to a distance of more thau nine miles. A new eruption occurred in 1743, which had been for some days preceded by a continual interior rumbling

A Spanish term contracted from par eremo, eremitical, hermetical, hermit-like, solitary.-Editor.

noise; after which an aperture was made iu its suinmit, as also three others near the middle of its declivity; which parts, when the eruption commenced, were buried under prodigious masses of snow. The ignited substances which were ejected, being mingled with a considerable quantity of snow and ice, melting amidst the flames, were carried down with such amazing rapidity, that the plain from Callo to Latacunga was overflowed, and all the houses, with their wretched inhabitants, were swept away in one general and instantaneous destruction. The river of Latacunga was the receptacle of this dreadful flood, till becoming swollen above its banks, the torrent rolled over the adjacent country, continuing to sweep away houses and cattle, and rendered the land near the town of the same name as the river, one vast lake. Here, however, the inhabitants had sufficient warning to save their lives by flight, and retreated to a more elevated spot at some distance. During three days the volcano ejected cinders, while torrents of lava, with melted ice and snow, poured down the sides of the mountain. The eruption continued for several days longer, accompanied with terrible roarings of the wind, rushing through the craters which had been opened. At length all was quiet, and neither smoke nor fire was to be seen; until, in May, 1744, the flames forced a passage through several other parts on the sides of the mountain; so that in clear nights, the flames, being reflected by the transparent ice, exhibited a very grand and beautiful illumination. On November 13th following, it emitted such prodigious quantities of fire and lava that an inundation equal to the former soon ensued; and the inhabitants of the town of Latacunga, for some time, thought their ruin irremediable. The roarings of the volcano are said by Humboldt to have been heard at two hundred and twenty leagues distance.

Nothing, however, can equal the fertility, pure, etherial atmosphere, and picturesque beauty of the sides of the mountain, which have generally been described as a terrestrial paradise; in consequence of which alone the inhabitants still adhere to this stupendous region, and dare the dangers of its eruptions and earthquakes.

The most horrible visitation of this double kind to which they have been exposed, occurred on February 4, 1797, about eight o'clock in the morning. At Quito little damage was sustained, but the subterranean thunder, and the shocks repeated every six hours, occasioned indescribable horror and dismay. On the day ensuing,

it was known, towards the evening, that Latacunga, and all the hamlets in its corregiamento, were utterly destroyed, not one stone remaining upon another. Multitudes of persons perished, and the stench of the dead bodies infected the survivors. Various mountains split near Ambulo, and by their sudden fall produced still greater destruction among the human race. Quero, with all its people, was buried in an instant by a cliff which fell on the town. Pelileo was overwhelmed by a stream of water and mud; the circumjacent lands were all transposed; and a deadly silence betrayed the general Juin. The elegant town of Riobamba became a heap of wreck and desolation, and shortly afterwards totally disappeared: for the peak of Sicalpa falling on the town, and damming up the two rivers that pass by it, formed a lake, so that even the ruins of the town were not visible. Of nine thousand inhabitants, only about four hundred escaped. Alansi and Guaranda also suffered extremely. The fate of Cuenca, Leja, Jaen, and Guayaquil, was at that time unknown; but the shocks do not appear to have extended so far. The adjoining volcano Tungarunga seems to have united in the fury; as extensive subterranean thunders proceeded from this last quarter, and the most fearful mischief was in its vicinity. Towards the north the

earthquake was faintly perceived at Pasto.

We cannot give a better account of what may be called the present state of the country than in the following words of M. Humboldt, who has visited it since the above devastation.

We arrived at Quito, by crossing the snows of Quiridien and Tolima, for as the cordillera of the Andes forms three separate branches, and at Santa Fe de Bogoto, we were on the easternmost, it was necessary for us to pass the loftiest, in order to reach the coast of the Pacific ocean. We travelled on foot, and spent seventeen days in these deserts, in which are to be found no traces of their ever having been inhabited. We slept in huts made of the leaves of the heliconia, which we carried with us for the purpose. Descending the Andes to the west, there are marshes, in which you sink up to the knees. The latter part of the time we were deluged with rain; our boots rotted on our legs; and we arrived barefoot at Carthago, but enriched with a fine collection of new plants, of which I have a great number of drawings.

From Carthago we went to Popayan, by way of Buga, crossing the beautiful vale of the river Cauca, and having constantly

at one side the mountain of Choca, in which are the mines of Platina.

We staid during the month of November 1801, at Popayan, visiting the Basaltic mountains of Julusuito; the mouths of the volcauo of Purace, which evolve, with a dreadful noise, vapours of hydrosulphurated water; aud the porphyritic granites of Pische, which form columns of five, six, or seven sides, similar to those I remember I saw in the Euganeau mountains in Italy, which Strange has described.

In travelling from Popayan to Quito, we had to cross the paramos of Pasto, and this in the rainy season. Every place in the Andes, where, at the height of 3500 or 4000 yards, vegetation ceases, and the cold penetrates to the very marrow of your bones, is called a paramo. To avoid the heats of the valley of Patia, where, in a single night, a fever may be caught, that will last three or four months, we passed the summit of the Cordillera, traversing frightful precipices..

We spent our Christmas at Pasto, a little town at the foot of a tremendous volcano, where we were entertained with great hospitality. The roads leading to and from it are the most shocking in the world. Thick forests, between marshes, in which the mules sink up to their bellies; and gullies so deep and narrow, that we seemed entering the galleries of a mine.

The whole province of Pasto, including the environs of Guachucal aud Tuqueres, is a frozen plain, nearly beyond the point where vegetation can subsist, and surrounded by volcanoes and sulphurpits, continually emitting volumes of smoke. The wretched inhabitants of these deserts have no food but potatoes: and if these fail, as they did last year, they go to the mountains to cat the stem of a little tree called achupalla (pourretia pitcarnia); but the bears of the Andes, as they too feed on it, often dispute it with them. On the north of the volcano of Pasto, I discovered in the little Indian village of Voisaco, 1900 yards above the level of the sea, a red porphyry, with base of argil, enclosing vitreous feldspar, and hornblende, that has all the properties of the serpentine of the Fichtelge birge. This porphyry has very distinctly marked poles, but no attractive power. Near the town of Ibarra, we nearly escaped being drowned by a very sudden swell of the water, accompanied with shocks of an earthquake.

We reached Quito on the 6th of January 1802. It is a handsome city; but the sky is commonly clouded and gloomy. The neigh bouring mountains exhibit little verdure, and the cold is very considerable. The great earthquake on the 4th of February 1797, which changed the face of the whole province, and in one instant destroyed thirty-five or forty thousand persons, has so altered the temperature of the air, that the thermometer is now commonly 41° to 54°, and seldom rises to 68° or 70°, whereas Bouguer observed it constantly at 66 or 68°. Since this catastrophe, earthquakes are continually recurring; and such shocks! it is probable, that all the higher ground is one vast volcano. What are called the mountains of Cotopoxi and Pichincha, are but little summits, the craters of which, form different conduits terminating in the same cavity. The earthquake of 1797, afforded a melancholy proof of this; for the ground then opened every where, and vomited forth sulphur, water, &c. Notwithstanding the dangers and horrors that surround them, the people of Quito are gay, lively, and sociable; and in no place did I ever see a more decided and general taste for pleasure, luxury, and amusement. Thus man accustoms himself to sleep tranquilly on the brink of a precipice.

I was twice at the mouth of the crater of Pichincha, the mountain that overlooks the city of Quito. I know of no one but Condamine, that ever reached it before; and he was without instruments, and could not stay above a quarter of an hour, on account of the extreme cold. I was more successful. From the edge of the crater rise three peaks, which are free from snow, as it is continually melted by the ascending vapour. At the summit of one of these I found a rock, that projected over the precipice, and hence I made my observations. This rock was about twelve feet long, by six broad, and strongly agitated by the frequent shocks, of which we counted eighteen in less than half an hour. We lay on our bellies, the better to examine the bottom of the crater. The mouth of the volcano forms a circular hole, near a league in circumference, the perpendicular edges of which are covered with snow on the top. The inside is of a deep black; but the abyss is so vast, that the summits of several mountains may be distinguished in it. Their tops seemed to be six hundred yards below us, judge then where their bases must be. I have no doubt that the bottom of the crater is on a level with the city of Quito. Condamine found it