Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/402

394 At last, after more than three hours on the mountain-top, vainly looking for a clear view over the expanse below, came the time for leaving, and I prepared to descend, first however taking stock of the provisions and drinking my canteen of cold tea. Wishing to make the ascent as much a test of endurance as possible,—as it is certainly a test of lung and vital power,—I had not drunk or eaten anything since my biscuit and coffee of the morning, having accomplished the ascent in six hours, with nothing in my mouth but the coca.

If the ascent was slow and tedious, going down was exactly the reverse. Down the cone, the laborers of the last month had dug a long, straight trench, leading from the crater brim to the fields of volcanic sand, over which they used to slide the sulphur. Had they been working then I should have borrowed a petate, or mat of bulrush, and have slid down on that, as they were wont to do; but as they were not, I stood up on my broad soled shoes, and, guiding my course with my alpenstock, flew downward with the speed of the wind.

In less than ten minutes I had left the region of storms, and had emerged into one of calm, the snow-cakes spinning past me in away decidedly lively; in less than two more I had come near sliding into that zone of tropic heat we sometimes read about, for my toe caught an ice-chunk and sent me burrowing into a crevice, looking for the centre of the volcano. Fortunately, there was not room enough both for me and my clumsy shoes; so my peon pulled me out in time to prevent suffocation, and set me down in the snow to recover. Then, with long leaps, we sped down the cone and out upon the sand, and finally reached La Cruz, whence our descent to the rancho was uneventful.

Popocatapetl stands high among the volcanoes, and holds a respectable position among mountains in general. "There are no Alps," quaintly observes Friar Gage, "like unto it for Height, cold, and constant Snow that lieth upon it."

No two authorities perfectly agree as to its altitude; according to Humboldt (trigonometrical measurement) it is 17,716 feet; the French savans made it 18,362, and the Mexican geographer, Garcia Cubas, 5,400 metres; the limit of pines is placed at 12,544 feet, and that of vegetation at 12,963.