We Cannot Deny The Possibility Of This Latter Cause.

During my abode at Peru, a fact was observed in the inland country, which has an analogy with this kind of phenomenon, and which is not unfrequent.

At the end of violent earthquakes, the herbs that cover the savannahs of Tucuman acquired noxious properties; an epidemic disorder broke out among the cattle, and a great number of them appeared stupified or suffocated by the deleterious vapours exhaled from the ground.

At Cumana, half an hour before the catastrophe of the 14th of December, 1797, a strong smell of sulphur was perceived near the hill of the convent of San Francisco; and on the same spot the subterraneous noise, which seemed to proceed from south-east to north-west, was loudest. At the same time flames appeared on the banks of the Manzanares, near the hospital of the Capuchins, and in the gulf of Cariaco, near Mariguitar. This last phenomenon, so extraordinary in a country not volcanic, is pretty frequent in the Alpine calcareous mountains near Cumanacoa, in the valley of Bordones, in the island of Margareta, and amidst the Llanos or savannahs of New Andalusia. In these savannahs, flakes of fire rising to a considerable height, are seen for hours together in the dryest places; and it is asserted, that, on examining the ground no crevice is perceptible. This fire, which resembles the springs of hydrogen, or Salse, of Modena, or what is called the will-o'-the-wisp of our marshes, does not burn the grass; because, no doubt, the column of gas, which develops itself, is mixed with azote and carbonic acid, and does not burn at its basis. The people, although less superstitious here than in Spain, call these reddish flames by the singular name of 'the soul of the tyrant Aguirre;' imagining that the spectre of Lopez Aguirre, harassed by remorse, wanders over these countries sullied by his crimes.* (* When at Cumana, or in the island of Margareta, the people pronounce the words el tirano (the tyrant), it is always to denote the hated Lopez d'Aguirre, who, after having taken part, in 1560, in the revolt of Fernando de Guzman against Pedro de Ursua, governor of the Omeguas and Dorado, voluntarily took the title of traidor, or traitor. He descended the river Amazon with his band, and reached by a communication of the rivers of Guyana the island of Margareta. The port of Paraguache still bears, in this island, the name of the Tyrant's Port.)

The great earthquake of 1797 produced some changes in the configuration of the shoal of Morro Roxo, towards the mouth of the Rio Bordones. Similar swellings were observed at the time of the total destruction of Cumana, in 1766. At that period, the Punta Delgado, on the southern coast of the gulf of Cariaco, became perceptibly enlarged; and in the Rio Guarapiche, near the village of Maturin, a shoal was formed, no doubt by the action of the elastic fluids, which displaced and raised up the bed of the river.

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