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242 country every part of which abounds in the traces of great volcanic eruptions; but still, it enables you to meet an incipient earthquake with infinitely more composure than I at least should feel, under similar circumstances, at Caracas, or upon the ruins of Callao. The natives are both more sensible than strangers of the smaller shocks, and more alarmed by them; while even animals give evident indications of anxiety at their approach.

Having given so detailed an account of the first journey of the Commission to the Capital, it will be unnecessary for me to state any thing with regard to my return to the Coast, except that, not being encumbered with a carriage, I was enabled to effect it in a very short time. I took with me a number of baggage-mules very lightly laden, and two good horses for myself, and my servant. My escort, which the unsettled state of the country rendered indispensable, was changed at each of the towns through which we passed, so that I proceeded with great rapidity. I took the La Puebla road, (the disturbances at that place having been entirely settled,) and made my first stage to the Venta de Cōrdŏvă, about eight leagues from Mexico, having left that town very late in the day. The second day I reached Lă Pūēblă; the third, Ŏjŏ dĕ Āgŭa; the fourth, Pĕrōtĕ; the fifth, Jălāpă, where I passed the morning of the sixth day, and from whence I arrived at Vĕrăcrūz in twenty-four hours, which included a few hours rest at Plan del Rio, and Pūēntĕ dĕl