lakes, rise, like an army of giants, a number of lofty volcanoes.
Whilst most of them are wrapped in slumber which has lasted for
centuries, others occasionally roar and groan as if in order to keep
themselves awake, and to watch well over their sleeping companions.
The fire which consumes their entrails extends far beneath the soil,
and often causes it to tremble. Three times within thirty years the
town of Guatemala has been destroyed by earthquakes, and there is not
in all Guatemala, Honduras, or any other state of Central America a
single coast which has not been visited by one or more violent
subterranean shocks. When the earthquakes occur in remote regions, far
from the habitations of men, in the midst of virgin forests, or in the
vicinity of large lakes, they give rise to very singular phenomena.

In 1856, a painter, entrusted with an official mission in Honduras,
witnessed an event of this kind, and though he sought to conceal his
identity, he was generally believed to be Herr Heine, the well-known
painter and explorer of Central America. Upon the day in question he
was sailing across a large lagoon named Criba, some twenty miles
broad, the weather being calm, and the sun shining brilliantly. After
having secured his boat to the shore, he had landed at the entrance to
a beautiful little village commanding a view of the plain dotted with
houses and with stately trees. Upon the opposite shore extended the
forest, with the sea in the far distance. The chief inhabitant of the
village having invited Herr Heine and his companions to come in and
rest, the whole party were seated beneath the veranda of the house,
engaged in pleasant conversation. Suddenly, a loud noise was heard in
the forest. The birds flew off in terror; the cocoanut palms bent and
writhed as if in panic, and large branches of them snapped off; shrubs
were torn up from the ground and carried across the lake. All this was
the effect of a whirlwind traveling through space from south to north.

The whole affair lasted only a few seconds, and calm was
re-established in Nature as suddenly as it had been disturbed.
Conversation, of course, then turned upon the phenomenon just
witnessed, and the natives maintained that atmospheric disturbances of
this kind are the forerunners of severe earthquakes or violent
volcanic eruptions; some of them declaring that a disaster of this
character had doubtless just occurred somewhere. The host, an elderly
man much estee