during a violent storm, suddenly vomited huge masses of stone and clouds of ashes, succeeded by a deluge of water, from the bursting of the crater, by which a great part of the town where the widow of Alvarado resided was totally destroyed, and she herself, with several of her ladies, drowned. However, this lady certainly gave utterance to nothing more than what I have mentioned above, and what Gomara states is an invention of his own: and if it pleased the Lord Jesus to call her away from this earth, it is not for mortal man to scrutinise the mysterious decrees of heaven.
With respect to this dreadful tempest and earthquake, I will give the particulars in another place. I cannot help mentioning with regret, that, notwithstanding the many important services which Alvarado and his five brothers, as also the other Alvarados, had rendered to the crown, the sons and daughters of the first-mentioned retained none of the townships comprehended in his commendary, and that the fact of his having subdued the whole province was never even taken into consideration, and it was no longer borne in mind that he accompanied the expedition under Grijalva, and was present in all the campaigns of Cortes. The manner in which he himself, his wife, his children, and his brothers lost their lives, is altogether remarkable. Alvarado himself, as we have seen, met with his death in the expedition against Cochitlan; his brother Jorge, who fought in some of the campaigns of Mexico and those of Guatimala, died in Madrid in the year 1540, whither he had gone to solicit his majesty for some remuneration for the services he had rendered the crown; Gomez was killed in Peru; Gonzalo died in Guaxaca or Mexico; and Juan, who was a natural brother, ended his life at Cuba, whither he had journeyed to look over some property he possessed in this island. The eldest of Alvarado's sons, named Don Pedro, repaired, with his uncle Juan the younger, to Spain, to represent to his majesty the many valuable services his father had rendered to the crown; but neither of them were ever after heard of, and they must either have been lost at sea or taken prisoners by the Moors. His second son, Don Diego, finding