THE demon of the earthquake passed

With scourge through Andes' table-lands,

And fertile plains were turned to sands,

Huge mountains down their summits cast,

And Nature into one sad night

Pressed ruins of a thousand years.

A traveller from a foreign shore

Went curious through the country then

To mark the horrors of that blight,

The thoughts and superstitious fears

Such things might raise in untaught men,

And, more than all, to search for gold

Or art unearthed from cellars old,

And relics of forgotten lore.

Where Llanganatis eastward runs

He wandered over wastes of stones

Heaped into wild fantastic forms,

The vanquished mountains' splintered bones

In wrestling with an enemy

Mightier than the fiend of storms;

And as he scanned them one by one,

Piled high upon the mountain-side,

One like a golden mirror shone,

With blazes of the noonday sun;

And far above it seemed to lie

A figure carved in porphyry.

Unto his eager fancy rushed

The wonders of Peruvian art

That Time has almost changed to myths;

Rich goods, and sculptured monoliths

Whose tale is in oblivion hushed;

And, leaping forward eagerly,

He strove to reach the tempting prize,

When, lo! the stone beneath his eyes

Sank in a yawning cavern wide,

Whose ragged walls were torn apart

In last night's dread catastrophe;

And down his feet went suddenly,

And through the crevice swift he fell,

Thinking with horror to be hurled

To central regions of the world;

But soon his rapid course was stayed

By solid rock, and, half afraid,

He oped his eyes, and tried to move.

The sunlight through the crack above

Showed him a spacious cavern old,

Set in the solid rock, and cold

With damp of ages. But a sight

Thrilled his heart through with strange delight,

Mingled with awe. Before him lay,

As though it were an Eastern dream,

A heap of treasures greater far

Than maddened human brain could tell.

Gold heaped with silver, bar on bar,

And shaped in vessels wonderful,

Crusted with unknown gems that shone

Most brilliant e'en in that dim ray.

There was a woman carved in gold

Against the wall, and of life size;

And living gems she had for eyes,

As fair as thing of Grecian mould.

And there were Spanish ducats too,

Scattered profusely on the floor. -

But ah! what doth his eye see more?

Why from its eager fever red

Turns now his cheek to pallid hue?

It was the chamber of the dead!

Two forms there were most terrible,

Lying beneath the farther wall, -

Two skeletons in armor dressed,

Of Spanish fashion. Was that all?

Above their forms a battered stone

Appeared to close an orifice;

Elsewhere the walls unbroken were,

Save the new rent through which his haste

Had brought him all bewildered there.

Their story fancy soon made his.

These Spaniards centuries ago

Had stored away their treasures found

In secret caverns underground;

When suddenly an earthquake stoned

Their doorway up. How worked these men,

Whose gold was worth them nothing then,

To wrench the fatal rock from place!

How in despair they cursed and groaned,

As weakness soon stole over them,

And they besought the Virgin's grace!

How visions filled their staring eyes

Of golden fruit to red-ripe turned,

And silver birds to flesh and blood,

Dying alone of hunger, lost

With buried wealth they had not earned,

Dead dross that with their death they bought,

Theirs to a cold Eternity!

And as the stranger rose and stood,

Thinking upon their agony, -

Forgotten silver, gold, and gem, -

And staring at their mouldering bones,

Above him rattled many stones,

And half his light by dark was crossed.

A horror seized his blood, as though

He too were shut forever there.

He touched not of the gilded prize,

But rushed, and scaled the ragged hole,

Now choked with bowlders fallen in,

As if he could not climb too fast;

And when he reached the upper air

His pallid lips a fervent prayer

Muttered, as he had 'scaped from hell;

And fainting on the ground he fell.

And when at last his wondering soul

A woke to consciousness, he cast

His glance upon the cavern. There

A giant bowlder downward rolled

Shut out that view of death and gold.

F.