Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/277

 Rh thousand to nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and form the mountainous ridges all around, among which is the Iztlasihuatl, (meaning White Woman, or 'Woman in "White,' in the old Aztec language,) of fourteen thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea.

"Perpetual snow covers this giant of a mountain, and its slopes are mostly composed of volcanic matter, (petrified streams of lava may yet be seen) forming an entirely broken ground, generally known under the vulgar denomination of 'Mal Paìs.' The sand near the snow-region shows no sign of vegetation whatever, and immense rocks of basalt and calcareous formations may be encountered.

"In the language of the Aztecs the name of Popocatépetl meant: smoking mountain, or hill producing smoke, and in fact, the quantity of smoke, issuing constantly from its crater, forms a dark column, visible at a great distance, and especially so during a clear and pure atmosphere.

"The Popocatepetl may be compared to an immense silver-pyramid, rising from a great basin, whose surfaces are covered with all possible kinds of shrubs and trees; but the vegetation of these regions, so full of mystery and solitude, and so intimately connected with historical events, grows thinner and thinner, the nearer it approaches the eternal snows. The shrubs, in place of the beautiful cedars and oyameles, and the pale looking flowers growing out of the sandy ground or appearing in the crevices of rocks, indicate clearly, the great elevation and the thinness of the air unfavorable to vegetation.

"The few, who ever made the ascension of this fuming height, have admired, and very justly too, the imposing grandness, in which nature clothes itself in these regions. The exploring parties of the old Aztecs never penetrated any farther than to the commencement of the snows, and looked upon the Popocatepetl with great veneration and also fear, believing that a malignant spirit had taken up his abode in the interior of the mountain. The Spaniards, when short of powder during the times of the conquest, ascended the highest summit, but never penetrated any distance down the crater, having been enabled