Luzon, and at least six hundred miles north; and this volcano ejected water. The outbreak was preceded by a violent storm and earthquake. The earth swallowed up three mountains, on the sides of one of which were three villages. All three mountains were torn from their foundations and blown into the air, together with a vast amount of water, and the chasm which took their place formed a broad lake, that showed no trace of the mountains which had stood on the spot. The letter from which the foregoing account is taken goes on to say that the noise of this outbreak, which occurred between 9 and 10 A. M., was heard not only in Manila but in all the Philippine Islands and the Moluccas. It even reached the mainland of Asia in the kingdoms of Cochin China, Champa, and Cambodia, as was learned from priests and others who came to Manila from those countries afterward. The noise sounded like heavy artillery and musketry fire at two or three leagues’ distance. In Manila it was supposed that the firing was going on in Cavite, while at Cavite it was referred to Manila, and messengers were sent from one place to the other to make inquiries, and a similar impression prevailed in all the islands, cities, and villages in a circuit of nine hundred leagues, within which the noise was heard. Malacca was taken by the Dutch on the 13th of January, and was already hard pressed on the 4th, and many pious Spaniards believed, after the news had come of the capture of the place, that Heaven had taken this volcanic means of warning them of the great injury which would result to the archipelago from the loss of so important a city. The missionaries in Cochin China gave January 5th as the date of the outbreak, instead of the 4th, there being one day’s difference between the reckoning of the Portuguese, who sailed from west to east, and that of the Spaniards, who sailed from east to west, to their Eastern possessions.