Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/390

382 of wine. There was but one bed, and in this Don Domingo had been sleeping when we arrived; but he insisted that I should occupy it, and he and Don Felipe spread their sarapes on the floor, and were soon snoring, with their heads on their saddles. The "bed" was three or four boards, raised a foot from the floor and covered with a thin strip of straw matting. Drawing my sarape over my head, and belting my knife and revolver about me, I was soon in the land of dreams.

The rancho of Tlamacas, says Charnay, the archæologist,—who visited it, and found near it some of his most valuable pottery,—is at an elevation of 12,595 feet above the sea. It is in a valley, with high hills on all sides but the north, where the surface slopes toward the valley of Puebla, about nine leagues distant The soil is volcanic, sand and grit, supporting a growth of coarse grass and great pines hoary with moss and lichens. In about the centre of this secluded valley is the rancho, its visible portion being the house and the subliming works, where the crude sulphur brought down from the crater is purified. This is done in earthen jars, which are broken when the sulphur is sublimed.

Here, then, is a sort of half-way house for the volcaneros, and a resting-place for the mules and donkeys that transport the sulphur to the valley below. Sulphur is not the only product of the volcano; for many years the only ice used in Mexico was obtained from the ravines seaming the cone, above the snow-line. Even to this day, the city of Puebla is supplied from the mountain. The Indians ascend far above the rancho, dig out the ice, where it rests congealed the year through, and carry it on their backs to the donkey trails, where it is packed on the backs of these animals to the valleys. From the fact that the ice is imperfectly crystallized and more resembles snow, it is known as nieve, snow, and this name is yet applied to the ice-cream made in the cities. In the Plaza of Mexico you will hear, every afternoon, the cries of the boys peddling ice-cream: "Nieve! tome nieve!"

The volcano towers directly above the rancho, southeast of it, first a broad strip of pines, then black volcanic sand; then the