GREAT VOLCANO “AWAKES”

Western Star, 8 May 1925, Page 4

GREAT VOLCANO “AWAKES”

Popocatepetl the famous volcano in Mexico, is in eruption after a sleep of 4(SO years; and is causing panic in the surrounding districts. Smoke a fetv days ago began to issue from the lofty crater, says a despatch to the Chicago -Tribune, rising in an ominous black column. Volcanic ash; carrying sulphur gas rolled, into the villages, terrifying the natives, Avho have knoAvn of Popocatepetl's dangerous moods only from fable and hearsay.

The refugees fled down the mountainside, abandoning its fertile slopes, and took shelter in the city of Amaca. meca, a picturesque town of 20,000 inhabitants, made holy by -Sacro Monte," the most sacred-altar for-human sacrifice iii the days of- the ancient Cliichimccu civilisation.

Tho Indian refugees- are ..-swarming to this holy hill, .dropping off their assumed garments of Christianity, resuming the heathen religion of their ancestors, and worshipping the pagan Fire God in the hope of appeasing the might of “the Mountain That Smokes.”

The Mexicans have been crowding the chapels day and night, praying for protection ' 'against the sinister Avrath of the.volcano. The whole district- in the immediate vicinity has been deserted.