three centuries and a half since it was founded. [Illustration: LA UNION AND VOLCANO OF CONCHAGUA.] The most fearful eruption on record in Nicaragua, and one of the most serious the world ever saw, was that of the volcano Cosequina, near Grenada, in 1835. It continued for four days, and covered the country for hundreds of miles around with ashes and lava, causing a panic from which the people did not recover for many years, and resulting in great destruction of life and property. The explosions were of such force that ashes fell in the city of Bogota, Colombia, fifteen hundred miles away in a direct line, and at an altitude eleven thousand feet above the sea. Ashes fell in the West India islands, also far in the interior of Mexico, and showers of them that obscured the sun caused great consternation in Guatemala and the neighboring republics, while the people in Nicaragua thought the end of the world had come. Vessels sailing in the Pacific had their decks covered with lava and ashes, and several sailors were injured by falling stones; while the ocean for a hundred and fifty miles was so strewn with floating ashes and pumice-stone that the surface of the water was concealed. The anniversary of this horrible catastrophe is always observed by the people as a great fast-day, business being suspended throughout the whole republic, and the people gathering in the churches to pray for deliverance from further eruptions. Since that date the volcano has continued active, but has caused no damage. A great part of the surface of the country is covered with beds of lava and scoria, lakes of bitter water that have no bottom, yawning craters surrounded with blistered rocks, and pits from which sulphurous vapors are constantly rising that the people appropriately call _infernillos_. [Illustration: THE FATE OF FILIBUSTERS.]