the Apaches of the Sierra Madre necessitated prompt preparations for a campaign. Added to these and other complicating disturbances, water-spouts, inundations, grasshoppers and drought locally afflicted the land. A terrible stench, as of sulphur fumes, made life in the cities of Mexico, Puebla and Vera Cruz, for a time, unbearable. The gases which were supposed to have been the result of subterranean combustion, escaped from the craters of the neighboring volcanoes, but in Oajaca the phenomenon was preluded by an earthquake.
The projected invasion of Salvador, by the armies of Guatemala, was interrupted at the outset of hostilities by the death of General Barrios, the President, who was killed at the battle of Cachuhualta—it was so stated by his own officers—and the troops were withdrawn, and Guatemala's efforts to force a union of the Latin Republics in Central America having failed, the Mexican government was relieved of the alleged necessity for armed intervention.
Disaffection on account of the attitude of the government in regard to the recognition of the debt due the English bondholders, was now resented as evidenced by class agitation. In the city of Mexico the students who were loud in their denunciation of the recognition of the liability, finally revolted, order not being restored until some of the ringleaders, together with a few sympathetic editors were imprisoned for their pains. In October, the Liberal deputies who comprised the opposition, created a political disturbance, by a persistent and reiterated demand for a verbal explanation in regard to the vast sales of the national lands. The written explanation, submitted by
