As No Record Exists At Cumana, And Its Archives, Owing To The Continual Devastations Of The Termites, Or White Ants,

Contain no document that goes back farther than a hundred and fifty years, we are unacquainted with the precise dates

Of the ancient earthquakes. We only know, that, in times nearer our own, the year 1776 was at once the most fatal to the colonists, and the most remarkable for the physical history of the country. The city of Cumana was entirely destroyed, the houses were overturned in the space of a few minutes, and the shocks were hourly repeated during fourteen months. In several parts of the province the earth opened, and threw out sulphureous waters. These irruptions were very frequent in a plain extending towards Casanay, two leagues east of the town of Cariaco, and known by the name of the hollow ground (tierra hueca), because it appears entirely undermined by thermal springs. During the years 1766 and 1767, the inhabitants of Cumana encamped in their streets; and they began to rebuild their houses only when the earthquakes recurred once a month. What was felt at Quito, immediately after the great catastrophe of February 1797, took place on these coasts. While the ground was in a state of continual oscillation, the atmosphere seemed to dissolve itself into water.

Tradition states that in the earthquake of 1766, as well as in another remarkable one in 1794, the shocks were mere horizontal oscillations; it was only on the disastrous 14th of December, 1797, that for the first time at Cumana the motion was felt by an upheaving of the ground. More than four-fifths of the city were then entirely destroyed; and the shock, attended by a very loud subterraneous noise, resembled, as at Riobamba, the explosion of a mine at a great depth. Happily the most violent shock was preceded by a slight undulating motion, so that most of the inhabitants were enabled to escape into the streets, and a small number only perished of those who had assembled in the churches. It is a generally received opinion at Cumana, that the most destructive earthquakes are announced by very feeble oscillations, and by a hollow sound, which does not escape the observation of persons habituated to this kind of phenomenon. In those fatal moments the cries of 'misericordia! tembla! tembla!'* are everywhere heard (* "Mercy! the earthquake! the earthquake!" - See Tschudi's Travels in Peru page 170.); and it rarely happens that a false alarm is given by a native. Those who are most apprehensive attentively observe the motions of dogs, goats, and swine. The last-mentioned animals, endowed with delicate olfactory nerves, and accustomed to turn up the earth, give warning of approaching danger by their restlessness and their cries. We shall not attempt to decide, whether, being nearer the surface of the ground, they are the first to hear the subterraneous noise; or whether their organs receive the impression of some gaseous emanation which issues from the earth.

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