CHAPTER XV.

EARTHQUAKE.

I SAID that Maturin was in the centre of Nueva Andalucia, but that Cumaná was the capital of that state. Cumaná is well situated for maritime commerce on the southern part of the mouth of the beautiful Golfa de Cariaco, but it is too secluded, by its position at the extremity of a point, and it is cut off from the bulk of the state, for facility of communication, by the mountainous character of the country immediately beyond it. The only apparent reason for its being the capital, is its more convenient vicinity to the Federal district of Caracas than any other city of Nueva Andalucia.

Cumaná was, at this time, in the hands of the insurgents, the Provisorios, as they were called, on account of the Provisional Government they pretended to have organised. Several of the chief

officers and subalterns came from Cumaná, picking up and pressing soldiers on their way to Maturin.

Despatches having been sent on to Cumaná reporting the investiture of Maturin by the Government army, and the consequent distress of the town, and asking for reinforcements, the Provisional Governor of the State sent on to say that aid would be sent to them in men and commisariat requirements within a certain time. It was observed that no fighting had occurred for some days (Sotillo had never been, willingly, the assailant during this siege: his policy seemed to have been patiently to sit and starve out the city to a surrender), and that the officers were in excellent spirits; that double guards were placed at the entrenched and barricaded entrances, and the patrols increased; and that mysterious assurances of a speedy end to the siege were everywhere given to the jaded and starved soldiery and towns-people. But it was also currently reported that Sotillo was impatiently awaiting the arrival of Monagas, with an overwhelming force,

and fuming at the tardy surrender of the distressed town. His wish was to gain admittance before the approach of his superior.

The news of the arrival of Monagas into Sotillo's camp was a great relief to the women and strangers of the town. Maturin was his native

place; his great cattle wealth was principally in the environs of the town; his own family house was here, and in it his most beloved daughter, La Doña Giuseppi, with her children unprotected but by the general love which sprang from her own benevolent and friendly character. And withal, Monagas was known to be not cruel, and was farseeing and politic. To have destroyed Maturin would have been to depreciate the value of his cattle farms, and to imperil their very existence in the contingency of revengeful reprisals. To intercede for the liberation of Maturin, and to protect it from Sotillo's infuriated Indians, would strengthen his cause in Nueva Andalucia, by fixing to himself the sympathies of wavering partisans of both sides, and rendering his name popular as a generous foe.

Meanwhile, the Provisorios, shut up in the town, instead of receiving the expected relief from Cumaná, heard news that blanched the swarthy faces of the stoutest hearts, and sent deserters, night after night, into the government camp.

In

Soldiers for the relief of the besieged town of Maturin had undergone inspection on a certain day by the provisional governor of Cumaná. the review they had proved themselves experts in the deploying exercises so essential to Venezuelan warfare. The despatches were written, so was the order for the drafting of the detachment of relief. They stood in close order within the square of the barracks awaiting the orders to march. The governor sat down and began to sign one document after another. But before the marching order was placed for his signature, flashes of lightning played fearfully above, followed by sharp deafening claps of thunder, and answered by a rumbling subterranean noise not unfamiliar to the Cumanes.* The noise

* The energy of atmospheric electricity appears to decrease as we recede from the equator to the poles, thus sympathising with light and heat; for it is in tropical countries that the most terrific

approached, and was louder as it came on. The ground trembled, shook, and upheaved. The heavy stone buildings that seemed destined to endure through ages, toppled and fell in a few seconds, like houses of cards built up by children

flashes of lightning, and the loudest bursts of heaven's artillery occur. Awful as these manifestations are occasionally in our temperate climate, they are but as a skirmishing of outposts to the general engagement of armies, when compared with inter-tropical displays. . . . .. Humboldt, during his residence at Cumaná, witnessed a coincident development of electrical action, peculiar atmospheric phenomena, and terrestrial disturbance during what is called the winter of that region. From the 10th of October to the 3d of November, a reddish vapour rose in the evening, and in a few minutes covered the sky. The hygrometer gave no indication of humidity; the diurnal heat was from 82.4° to 89.6°. The vapour disappeared occasionally in the middle of the night, when brilliantly white clouds formed in the zenith, extending towards the horizon. They were sometimes so transparent, that they did not conceal stars even of the fourth magnitude, and the lunar spots were clearly distinguishable through the veil. The clouds were arranged in masses at equal distances, and seemed to be at a prodigious elevation. From the 28th of October to the 3d of November, the fog was thicker than it had been before; and the heat at night was stifling, though the thermometer indicated only 78.8°. There was no evening breeze. The sky appeared as if on fire, and the ground was everywhere cracked and dusty. About two o'clock in the afternoon of November 4th, large clouds of extraordinary blackness enveloped the mountains of the Brigantine and Tartaraqual, extending gradually to the zenith. About four, thunder was