The earthquake did not destroy the city, still less was there an eruption of water from the volcano; but the crater of the long-extinct cone had been filled with the rains, and the tremor shattered the loose dam of the crater-lip and let the great body of water down the steep side of the mountain. There was water in the crater long before, and the crater to-day shows marks of the broken wall and emptied lake. The destruction of the city was considered a judgment of Heaven upon Doña Beatriz for certain impious remarks made in her bereavement, and it was with difficulty that her family were able to bury her remains in consecrated ground. On May 23, 1575, San Salvador (Cuscatlan) was destroyed by an earthquake which also greatly damaged Antigua. Afterwards the latter city had an experience that would have discouraged the people of any Northern town, for in 1576 and 1577 it was badly shaken, and on Dec. 23, 1586, destroyed. Then it was rebuilt enough to be again shattered on Feb. 18, 1651, and again on Feb. 12, 1689, and Sept. 29, 1717. The day after this last shock Antigua was destroyed completely; but for all that, on March 4, 1751, the chronicler writes “many ruins,” and then the centre of disturbance goes southward for a while. In April, 1765, several towns were destroyed in San Salvador, and the next month many in the Department of Chiquimula in Guatemala; while during the following October the “earthquake of San Rafael” shook many Guatemaltecan towns to pieces. On July 29, 1773, Antigua was again destroyed,—if such a thing was possible; and although her inhabitants yielded to the momentary discouragement and permitted the Government to be removed to the Valley of the Hermitage, they have never allowed the ruins to become desolate, and to-day the traveller gazes in astonishment at the shattered walls of nearly eighty churches still the ornament of the town. The Antigua that once sheltered eighty thousand inhabitants, beautiful in its situation and distinguished by its architectural display, is still attractive in its ruins; its forty thousand inhabitants go in and out under the shadow of the volcano and await the next destruction, which may come to-morrow or years hence: the lesson that is past is all forgotten. I confess myself that the ruined churches, so fresh after the sun and rains of a century have penetrated their shattered walls, inspired no apprehension of danger; they were objects of great interest rather than warning; and it was no strange thing that those born in that charming place should cling to it still. In 1774 nearly all the towns on the Balsam Coast of San Salvador were ruined. I hope my readers understand the delicate gradation in the terms used in speaking of the misfortunes of earthquake countries. A place is “shaken,” then “shattered,” then “ruined,” and finally “destroyed” by the _visit_ of a _temblor_; and it is a very nice matter to decide exactly where one term is appropriate and another not.