southwest, a hollow, subterranean, rumbling
noise, which recurred at short intervals and continued for several
minutes, appearing to come from the mountains which form a kind of large
semi-circle at the foot of the volcano, but there was no shock whatever.
On the Good Friday, at half-past seven in the morning, two slight
shocks, quickly succeeding each other, were felt, and about ten minutes
afterwards a rather stronger one. The roof and walls of my cottage
shook, without my at first perceiving the cause; but a young Spaniard,
who waited on me, said, quietly, "_Es un temblor_." Being a native of
the country, he was accustomed to the phenomenon, and thought little of
it.

These tremblings and rockings of the earth, that seem so terrible to us
Europeans, are such ordinary occurrences in the environs of San Salvador
that the district has acquired the name of the "swinging mat;" but these
shocks, though frequent, had never been hitherto of the violent and
destructive character which they have assumed at Valparaiso and Lima,
where about once in a century the destruction of a town is reckoned on
as a matter of course.

The volcano of Isalco, too, being in constant activity, and only
forty-eight miles south of the city of San Salvador, had always been
regarded as a chimney and safety-valve, affording a free vent for the
steam and other dangerous products of the subterranean furnace.

The shocks were repeated at tolerably regular intervals, two or three
in an hour, during the whole of the Good Friday, and all had the same
direction,--namely, from west-southwest to east-northeast; at which
point, a league from the town, lies the great crater of Cuscatlan,
about five hundred feet above San Salvador.

The ceremonies of the Good Friday proceeded with the accustomed pomp,
and people did not think of disturbing their processions, or their
visits to the cathedral, on account of the earthquake; though
occasionally, when there came a shock rather stronger than usual, some
of the devout crowd did turn pale and make a rush towards the doors.

At half-past nine in the evening there came a shock so violent that the
houses were shaken to the foundations, the roofs cracked, plaster and
tiles fell, and the walls in many places were rent. The houses are all
low and broad, without upper stories, the walls mostly of clay, which
is very elastic, and the rafters made of pliable, closely-plaited cane,
admirably adapted to resist the most viole