med in the district for his knowledge, went on to
describe many such catastrophes which he himself had witnessed. He
spoke more particularly of the eruption of the volcano of Coseguina,
in Nicaragua, which had been preceded by a fierce whirlwind, which had
been so strong that it carried pieces of rock and ashes to a distance
of nearly a mile. The captain of a large sailing vessel had told him
that upon the following day, when more than 100 miles from the coast,
he had found the sea covered with pumice-stone, and had experienced
great difficulty in threading a way for his vessel through these
blocks of volcanic stone which were floating upon the surface like
icebergs.

Everyone, including the European, had his story to tell, and while the
party were still in conversation, a terrible noise like thunder was
heard, and the earth began to quake. At first the shocks were felt to
be rising upward, but after a few seconds they became transformed into
undulations traveling northward, just as the sudden whirlwind had
done. The soil undulated like the surface of a stormy sea, and the
trees were rocked to and fro so violently that the topmost branches of
the palms came in contact with the ground and snapped off. The
traveler and his friends, believing themselves to be out of danger,
were able to follow with ever-increasing interest the rapid phases of
the disturbance, when a strange and alarming phenomenon attracted
their notice.

"Our attention was called," relates Herr Heine, "to a terrible
commotion in the direction of the lagoon, but I cannot express what I
then saw, I did not know if I was awake or a prey to a nightmare;
whether I was in the world of reality or in the world of spirits."

The water of the lagoon disappeared as if it were engulfed in a sort
of a subterranean cavern, or rather, it turned over upon itself, so
that from the shore to the center of the lake the bed was quite empty.
But in a few moments the water reappeared, and mounting toward the
center of the enormous basin, it formed an immense column, which,
roaring and flecked with foam, reached so high that it intercepted the
sunlight. Suddenly, the column of water collapsed with a noise as of
thunder, and the foaming waves dashed toward the shore. Herr Heine and
his companions would have perished if they had not been standing upon
elevated ground, and, as it was, they could not restrain an
exclamation of horror as they saw this mass of water, like solid roc