Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/263





It is impossible to cast your eyes eastwardly over the plain, without having your view bounded by the lofty peaks of Popocatepetl—the smoking mountain," and its neighbor Iztaccihuatl—or "the white woman"—lifting their snowy heads far above the level of the wall-like sierra that hems in the Valley of Mexico. I had ardently longed to climb one of these mountains to survey the adjacent plains from its craggy crater but I was constantly doomed to disappointment. Several parties that were made up, failed at the fixed time, and the rainy season coming