sin, where the water was hotter than the highest grade of my Reaumur's thermometer. In several places we heard subterranean noises, and toward the end of the ravine, on the slope of one side, was an orifice about thirty feet in diameter, from which, with a terrific noise, boiling water was spouted into the air. This is called. El Infiernillo, or the "little infernal regions." The inhabitants say that the noise is increased by the slightest agitation of the air, even by the human voice. Approaching to within range of the falling water, we shouted several times, and as we listened and gazed into the fearful cavity, I imagined that the noise was louder and more angry, and that the boiling water spouted higher at our call. Colonel Hoyas conducted me to a path, from which I saw my road, like a white line, over a high verdant mountain. He told me that many of the inhabitants of San Miguel had fled to San Vicente, and at that place the Honduras arms would be repelled; we parted, little expecting to see each other again so soon, and under such unpleasant circumstances for him.

I overtook the captain at a village where he had breakfast prepared, and in the afternoon we arrived at Cojutepeque, until within two days the temporary capital, beautifully situated at the foot of a small extinct volcano, its green and verdant sides broken only by a winding path, and on the top a fortress, which Morazan had built as his last rallying-place, to die under the flag of the Republic.

The next day at one o'clock we reached San Salvador. Entering by a fine gate, and through suburbs teeming with fruit and flower trees, the meanness of the houses was hardly noticed. Advancing, we saw heaps of rubbish, and large houses with their fronts cracked

and falling, marks of the earthquakes which had broken it up as the seat of government, and almost depopulated the city. This series of earthquakes commenced on the third of the preceding October (the same day on which I sailed for that country), and for twenty days the earth was tremulous, sometimes suffering fifteen or twenty shocks in twenty-four hours, and one so severe that, as Mr. Chatfield told me, a bottle standing in his sleeping-room was thrown down. Most of the inhabitants abandoned the city, and those who remained slept under matting in the courtyards of their houses. Every house was more or less injured; some were rendered untenantable, and many were thrown down. Two days before, the vice-president and officers of the Federal and State Governments, impelled by the crisis of the times, had returned to their shattered capital. It was about one o'clock, intensely hot, and there was no shade; the streets were solitary, the doors and windows of the houses closed, the shops around the plaza shut, the little matted tents of the market-women deserted, and the inhabitants, forgetting earthquakes, and that a hostile army was marching upon them, were taking their noonday siesta. In a corner of the plaza was a barricado, constructed with trunks of trees, rude as an Indian fortress, and fortified with cannon, intended as the scene of the last effort for the preservation of the city. A few soldiers were asleep under the corridor of the quartel, and a sentinel was pacing before the door. Inquiring our way of him, we turned the corner of the plaza, and stopped at the house of Don Pedro Negrete, at that time acting as vice-consul both of England and France, and the only representative at the capital of any foreign power.

It was one of the features of this unhappy revolution,

that the Liberal party, before the friends and supporters of foreigners, manifested a violent feeling against them, particularly the English, ostensibly on account of their occupation of the miserable little Island of Roatan, in the Bay of Honduras. The press, i. e., a little weekly published at San Salvador, teemed with inflammatory articles against los Ingleses, their usurpation and ambition, and their unjust design of adding to their extended dominions the republic of Central America. It was a desperate effort to sustain a party menaced with destruction by rousing the national prejudice against strangers. A development of this spirit was seen in the treaty of alliance between San Salvador and Quezaltenango, the only two states that sustained the Federal Government, by which, in August preceding, it was agreed that their delegates to the national convention should be instructed to treat, in preference to all other things, upon measures to be taken for the recovery of the Island of Roatan; and that no production of English soil or industry, even though it came under the flag of another nation, and no effect of any other nation, though a friendly one, if it came in an English vessel, should be admitted into the territory until England restored to Central America the possession of that island. I do not mean to say that they were wrong in putting forth their claims to this island-the English flag was planted upon it in a very summary way-nor that they were wrong in recommending the only means in their power to redress what they considered an injury; for, as England had not declared war with China, it would have been rash for the states of San Salvador and Los Altos to involve themselves in hostilities with that overgrown power; but no formal complaint was ever made, and no nego.

EXCITEMENT AGAINST FOREIGNER 8. 49

tiation proposed; and on the publication of this treaty, which Mr. Chatfield, the British consul general, considered disrespectful and injurious to his government, he addressed a note to the vice-president, requesting a categorical answer to the question "if the Federal Government did exist or not" (precisely what I was anxious to know); to which he received no answer. Afterward Mr. Chatfield visited Nicaragua, and the government of that state sent him a communication, requesting his mediation in settling the difficulties between the states of San Salvador and Honduras, then at war, and through him the guarantee of the Queen of England to compel the fulfilment of any treaty made between them. Mr. Chatfield, in his answer, referred to his letter to the vice-president, and spoke of the gov ernment as the "so-called Federal Government." The correspondence was published, and increased the exasperation against Mr. Chatfield and foreigners generally; they were denounced as instigators and supporters of the revolution; their rights and privileges as residents discussed, and finally the injustice of their enjoying the protection of the government! without contributing to the expenses of supporting it. The result was, that on the levying of a new forced loan, foreigners were included in the liability, and a peremptory order was issued, requiring them, in case of refusal to pay, to leave the country in eight days. The foreigners were violently exasperated. There were not more than a dozen in the state, and most of them being engaged in business which it would be ruinous to leave, were compelled to pay. Two or three who wanted to leave before walked off, and called themselves martyrs, threatened the vengeance of their government, and talked of the arrival of a British ship-of-war. Mr. VOL. II.-G

5

Kilgour, a British subject, refused to pay. The au thorities had orders to give him his passport to leave the state. Don Pedro Negrete, as vice-consul of France, Encargado de la Inglaterra, presented a remonstrance. The vice-president's answer (in part but too true), as it contains the grounds of the law, and shows the state of feeling existing at the time, I give in his own words:

"Strangers in these barbarous countries, as they call them, ought not to expect to have the advantage of being protected in their property without aiding the government in it. We are poor, and if, in any of the convulsions which are so frequent in new countries that have hardly begun their political career, strangers sufer losses, they at once have recourse to their governments, that the nations in which they come to speculate, not without knowledge of the risks, pay them double or treble of what they have lost. This is unjust in every point of view, when they do not care with a slight loan to aid the government in its most urgent necessities. What ought the government to do? to tell them, ' Away with you, I cannot secure your property; or, lend me a certain sum in order to enable me to secure it.' On the other hand, if it happens that a strong party or faction, as it is called, prevails, and falls upon your property the same as upon the property of the sons of the country and the public rents, and you complain to your nation, she comes and blockades our ports, and inakes the poor nation pay a thousand per cent."

Mr. Mercher, a French merchant, was absent at the time of enforcing the contributions. Don Pedro was his agent under a power of attorney, and had charge of his goods, and refused to pay. The government insisted; Don Pedro was determined. The government sent soldiers to his house. Don Pedro said he would