hildlike obedience
to their spiritual superiors. So long as this state of things
continued, the holy Virgin was ever present among them, performing the
most astounding cures, and even, upon one occasion, causing the ground
to open and swallow up the surplus waters of the valley, to the relief
of the "most devout people of Mexico," besides performing other
astounding miracles, that have been duly attested by Pope, prelates,
and the Council of Rites. But now, since the education of the common
people has been attempted, although on a very limited scale, and men
are allowed to speak openly, the most holy Virgin of Guadalupe has
withdrawn her wonder-working power from an unbelieving people, while
the blind, the halt, the lame, the palsied, and the diseased crowd
around her shrine, not to obtain her healing mercy, but to solicit
charity. The saints, also, have ceased to stir up the elements, so that
volcanic fires have ceased throughout the whole limits of the republic,
and earthquakes have almost forgotten to perform their annual duty of
shaking the earth.

The last volcanic eruption in Mexico was one of the most astounding of
which the record has come down to us, whether in Mexico or in any other
country. Fortunately, we have reliable evidence in relation to this
event, for Humboldt not only surveyed the volcano as it appeared in his
day, but, from eye-witnesses of the first eruption, learned the
incidents that fill out the history, and also the miraculous cause
which is assigned for this mighty convulsion of nature. His story I
shall follow in preference to the popular tradition of the awful
consequences that succeeded the curse pronounced by two Capuchin friars
upon the estate of Jorullo.

Just one hundred years ago, which was fifty years before the time of
the visit of Humboldt, two Capuchin friars came to preach at the estate
which occupied the beautiful valley of Jorullo. This valley was
situated between two basaltic ridges, and was watered by two small
streams of limpid water, the San Pedro and the Cuitamba. These small
parallel rivers furnished an abundant supply of water, which was well
employed in irrigating flourishing sugar and indigo plantations. These
Capuchins, not having met with a favorable reception at the estate of
San Pedro, poured out the most horrible imprecations against the
beautiful and fertile plains, foretelling that, as the first
consequences of their curse, the plantation would be swallowed up