Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1914-09-24
UNDER A VOLCANO
A Town That Lives In Perennial
Dread of Extinction.
COLIMA'S CRATER IN ACTION.

It's a Solemn Spectacle For the DWELL
ers In the Shadow of the Gloomy
Peak When "Oid Faithful E~xpIodes,
as 1t Does Regularly Once a Year.
1t is singular how Indifferent to a
persistcntly threatened danger human
beings can become, even when the dam
ger is of Il deadly nature and may
imperil their very lives. Harry II.
Dunn, in the Montreal Herald and
Star, tells of a case in which a whole
toWnful of people lie under tie con-
slant threat of extinction by Il volcano.
The ROOF OF the little boXlike hotel in
Colima, capital of the state of Colima.
in Mexico, was freshly drenchcd With
water in a vain effort to fight off some
of September's heat. | think there were
eighteen of us gathered there in the
cool, gray night. The almost silent
town lay like a black and white check
erbOard at our feet.
Twenty miles away, across a valley
still green With the rains of summer
rose a conical mountain, almost soil
tary. Even by night it looked sinister:
by day it was terrible, With its barren.
lava coated sides, its gas eNuding cone
Stunned even by the vultures which
haunted mountain and plain. 1t was
the volcano of Colima, the "Old Faith
ul' OF craters. which %cXplodes regu-
larly once Il year-and it was almost
due for an exhibition.
HE should begin soon" droned the
hotel keeper. Maybe today, maybe to-
morrow, maybe not for Il week. but it
is the middle Of September. and it is
his time"
The old man had scarcely finished
when a bubble. black as night, crowd
ed itself out of the broken end Of the
mountain, which we knew was a pot Of
molten stone. twenty miles away. The
bubble, so dark that we could see it
plainly, swelled like n growing pufrball
and then. pushed u from below, rose
like q giant umbrella. With incredible
speed, into the sky. Behind 1t came n
straight tubular column Of smoke, such
smoke as that Of which the bubble was
made, black and thick and ominous.
Up, up. up, rose the bubble, riding. it
seemed, on the column below it 1t ap-
peared to hang like a huge blanket Il
thousand feet In the heavens; then
slowly, like some great octopus feeling
its way along the bed of the sea, the
bubble tlattened and began to spread
out. Probably it moved miles every
minute, but it was far away and so
mOnstrous that we could not judge It
by ordinary standards.
1t seemed that the town below US
heaved Il long sigh. The thing for
which its ten or twelve thousand in
habitants had been waiting was about
to happen. The mighty drama was
about to be enacted before their eyes,
as it was before the Spanish conquis-
tadores set foot on Mexican soil. Yet
to them the spectacle was eve eXcit-
ing, for it's end might be death, might
be destruction Of their town, as it had
been the destruction Of the many small
er towns clustered more closely round
the skirts Of the gloomy peak.
The roofs filled with people. Here
n there a woman Screamed; many,
both men and women, prayed; queru-
lous cries and questions from children
rose on the night air, and the bells in
the churches began to ring, slowly at
first and then more rapidly, as the fire
god began to play about the crest of
Colima.
Like a waterspout on the crest Of a
lofty roller at sea, the smoke column
and its spreading top rested for a mo-
ment on the volcano and then, With a
thunderous outrush Of air, which must
have been heard for at least a hundred
miles, vanished into thin air. a col
m Of fire took their place.
No ordinary fire was this. No flame
ever kindled by human hands burned
so white as that tower of luminous bits
Of lava and sand and stone and super
heated gases that shot upward from
the mouth of the crater.
I gazed at it %spellbound as the light
Of day spread round all over the valley
and the city. A constant roar anne
from the volcano, a oar so in%sistent.
SO monotonouS, that l could not hear
what the old hotel keeper who stood at
my elbow was saying. | bent my ear
to him and heard: Not so bad as last
year. Mayhap we shall not De harmed"