plateau-perhaps as populous as Yucatan is known to have been-sunk beneath the ocean. Whatever tragedy was enacted, and whenever it happened, Popocatepetl was in for his full share of rant, and undoubtedly took the part of heavy villain.

hundred feet down, were banks of discolored and the Gulf of Mexico, which had been a great snow, which must have fallen recently to have withstood the warmth of the crater. At the uttermost depths are pools, or reservoirs, believed by the Indians to be liquid sulphur-an appearance which the sunlight gives them at mid-day. Hence may have arisen the idea of molten gold which the Spanish conquerors imagined the crater to contain. It is not improbable that one of Cortéz's soldiers ascended the mountain and brought away sulphur, of which to make powder, as is stated in one of the great captain's letters to Charles V. The sulphurous clouds proceed from a number of openings, of which we counted nine-seven large and two small-among the irregular piles of lavablocks and other débris far below. The Indians call these the "respiradores,' or breathingholes. They emit columns of hot water and steam, with a gurgling noise already described. Occasionally this monotonous process is varied by the falling of loose rocks into the profound depths; and, as experiments, we rolled down the largest rocks we could move, and listened to their plunging descent. Horizontal jets of sulphurous steam occasionally shot out from the inner walls and at unexpected places. Sulphur collecting has been abandoned by the Indians since one of their number was suffocated in this way while hanging from the "mala

cate.

These are the only noticeable phenomena of the crater; and this ceaseless respiration, and the seething of the caldrons hidden in the recesses of the mountain suffers no change, except when, very rarely, an ominous muttering is heard, or at intervals of years the volcano awakens with a drowsy shudder that startles the adjacent villages into at least transient activity-as it did during the earthquake in the fall of 1864, when half the towns on the Atlantic slope of the Mexican Andes were jolted to their centres. Then the mountain groaned aloud-so say the Amecans-and rocks, dislocated from around the crater, rolled down to the sand-belt with the noise of thunder.

Surrounded by the evidences of terrific destruction, such as characterize the approaches to the volcano, the mind is lost in contemplating the fearful agencies which have elevated this vast stack, serving in after-ages as a safetyvalve for half a continent. Science may be all right, or all wrong. Speculations upon cause and effect bewilder the thoughts, and end in leaving the inquirer as much in the dark as ever. One learned oracle establishes premises and draws conclusions which some other pundit, with high forehead and gold spectacles, overthrows in a ponderous tome. Theology and geology clash in hot debate as to whether the six days in Genesis mean days or ages. Divinity and natural laws get by the ears, and libraries teem with dissertations and wranglings over periods of upheaval and subsidence, and mysteries of nature which will probably remain forever a sealed book. We can only recognize an Original Designer, and devoutly believe that out of chaos the Creator evolved order and beauty. These destructive forces may have been in action millions of years ago-before what the spectacled magnates term their glacial period-the era of cold and wreck and waste, of submerged lands and icy seas. But when that was, what chronologist shall dare to assert ?

Señor Ramerez, an eminent Mexican scholar, has in his library ancient manuscripts, written on paper made of the maguey plant, which speak of eruptions of the "Smoking Mountain" hundreds of years before the discovery of America; and the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, the celebrated Yucatan explorer, now in Mexico, at the head of a French scientific commission, has equally interesting records to the same effect. At the time of the Spanish conquest a slight eruption occurred; and even now clouds of smoke and ashes are said to

sometimes rise above the crater. It is clear that the monster yet lives and breathes; and as no contract has been signed restricting future eccentricities, the citizens of Mexico are liable to find him a dangerous neighbor. An eruption, such as has occurred sometime in the world's history, would not only devastate the country with lava, but the melting of the prodigious accumulations of snow would inundate all the lowlands.

In remote ages all these Mexican cones were in full blast, and Popocatepetl probably bellowed the loudest of all. He is sedate enough now, but time was when his explosions reverberated from sea to sea, and his lurid flames illumined all this part of the continent. This may have been the epoch of that general convulsion when the aboriginal cities of Yucatan and Guatemala were overthrown and their inhabitants destroyed; when the domes of Orizaba and Iztaccihuatl were split from summit to base, and half their craters hurled in fragments over But the crater of a volcano is not the coziest the country; when the subterranean fires, seek-place for sifting geological facts, or the soluing vent, burst up through the earth's crust, as in after-ages did Jorullo; and when, as the geologists say has been the case, the Antilles, which once formed across the Mexican Gulf, were rent asunder, and the Gulf stream changed its course, modifying the climate of Europe and North America. Then Cuba became an island,

tion of nature's problems. Spent with the day's exertions, we remained only long enough to impress the scene on the memory and take a rough sketch, when we clambered again to the lip and gazed upon the amazing landscape opening to the east and north. It had been proposed to pass the night at the summit and

ments, and mysterious origin, have ever been subjects of curious interest to Maximilian and Carlotta. The amelioration of their condition, and the adaptation of their peculiar industry and ingenuity to the useful arts, has been a matter of no little study with the Emperor, who has repeatedly given audience to political deputations of their representative men. An emi

tions existed equally in the uplands of Mex-| with garlands. The Mexican Indian races, co; and the healthy country for many leagues with their strange customs, gigantic monuaround Popocatepetl was densely peopled, as is shown by the altars and idol-caves still existing on the southern and eastern slopes in the primeval forest, and the aboriginal cemeteries in the same vicinity where the remains of the once powerful Chichimaca nation are still thrown out by the shifting sands. Many of their idols, ingeniously carved in stone, I saw in Ameca at the house of the venerable Don Francisco Cres-nent scholar himself, he invests the Indian races po. He and others had repeatedly carried for sale in Mexico mule loads of copal, in which bodies had been embalmed. Remains of altars, elaborately wrought in volcanic rock, have been found buried among the broken lava-blocks. To this day the worship of the mountain is observed among the aborigines, still boasting their descent from the "tlatoam" or King Acamapitzin. Toward the close of the year they make their sad pilgrimage, Druid-like, into the woods east of the volcano; and in these caves of worship the wanderer may yet hear their lamentations and see the walls piously hung VOL. XXXI.-No. 186.-3 A

and their history with a scientific importance; while the scarcely less accomplished Empress has become known among even the most distant tribes for the intelligent interest she has taken in the welfare of these ruder portions of her subjects. At the time of the conquest the population of the mountain districts around Popocatepetl had been concentrated into fourteen towns under a king subordinate to Montezuma. Their original religion, customs, and superstitions did not change, but continued through three centuries of Vice-Royalty; and when the sun of Spanish empire went down

they were the same distinct, primitive peo- | walked. ple.

Three days before the nuptials were to have been celebrated, a party, including our couple, rode to the base of the volcano, and stopped to rest at a beetling precipice, where an ascent was deemed impossible. Josefa playfully announced her intention to discard her suitor if he did not place her bouquet on a certain lofty crag within a given time. No sooner said than away sprang the young Indian, and in the course of three hours reached the place indicated, where he stood a moment, a mere speck on the summit, and then disap

days of anxious suspense, during which Josefa was effectually cured of coquetry, a number of their friends ventured up to seek the missing bridegroom. On the giant crag he had been commanded to crown, bolt upright sat Mariano, bouquet in hand, and staring off into the air with fixed and glassy eyes. He had died of rupture of the lungs.

Avalanches, both of snow and sand, are among the dangers of the volcano. Within a few years several Indians have been overwhelmed by the sliding of snow upon the smooth lava dome. The percolation of water during the warm months detaches the mass, which the unsuspecting native has only to tread upon to set in motion. In an instant he is flying down the declivity with frightful speed, and at last, launched into mid-air with the wreck of his ice-chariot, descends like an æro-peared. He returned no more; and after two lite into the sands below and is crushed to death. Equally dangerous is the shifting of the steep fields of sand and ashes which may be started by the tread of a single person. Several hundred yards square are seen to move without any apparent cause, increasing in momentum, and gliding noiselessly, unless arrested by some slight wave or undulation. These sand- slides occur without We commenced the descent a few minutes warning, and sometimes attain a velocity suf- before three in the afternoon, having passed ficient to bury any party happening to be in nearly an hour at the crater. This is not only their track. Storms of hail, often attended of itself intensely fatiguing, but the exertion with terrific thunder and lightning, áre com- must be made when the muscles are yet quivmon in the summer months. At such times | ering after consecutive hours of climbing. The the electricity darts in fiery fluid along the me- staves, which hitherto had done us but slight tallic sands, lighting up the declivities with service, now came into use. Springing across fearful effect. Some years ago three Indians the slippery ridges, sometimes sprawling at full were descending the frozen snow, when one of length, or oftener assuming decidedly emphatthem chose to follow a depression or furrow, ic if not classical positions, with heels up and at one side, which seemed to offer an easier arms extended, we reached the lower belt of route. Suddenly he shot out of sight. The snow in less than a quarter of the time we had others made toward the place to learn the fate taken to climb the steep ascent. Here we of their companion, when the crust commenced rested a few minutes before launching into the sinking, and they had scarcely time to scram-sand-fields, and then, being in ignorance of ble away before several rods of the surface had fallen into a gloomy, unfathomable abyss. The missing man was never again seen. A curious phenomenon, often occurring in the dry season, are columns of dust and ashes, which seem to rise from the extensive sand-fields at the base of the volcano, and appear to be connected with the lower strata of clouds. From the snow line we counted several of these-some incomplete, and two perfectly formed. The nearest, which bended down from the clouds, was shaped like the inverted trunk of an elephant. It moved rapidly, swaying from side to side, and seemed to draw up sand and scoria in its path. They apparently originate in whirlwinds caused by counter currents of air among the mountain fastnesses, and increase in height and size by a process similar to that by which water-spouts are formed on the ocean. We were shown at Ameca the grave of an amorous victim of woman's caprice, and the fair one herself, still in mourning for her lost lover. Thus runs the narrative:

their shifting propensities, we started into the yielding mass intent only upon reaching terra firma. At times the rapidity of the descent was alarming. To avoid pitching end over end we locked arms, and throwing the body back allowed the natural momentum to bear us onward at a quick run, but keeping pace in regular strides, sinking at each step nearly to the knees, and stopping every five minutes to catch breath. The specimens of volcanic sulphur, porous lava, and many-colored stones with which we had stuffed every pocket rather accelerated our speed. Our two Indians followed in the same order, and it was only when our mad race brought up at La Cruz that they told us of the sliding sands. But we were now past the steepest places and beyond danger. After several such spells we made out with the glass our little cavalry escort winding like a caravan of mice along the brink of the lower barranca, evidently coming to meet us. We soon gained the level plains of scoria, and in half an hour more were mounted and trotting through the Mariano and Josefa were betrothed, and the moss-clad pines to Tlamacas, where we arrived next Sunday was to see them happily united. at half past five, pale, haggard, coated with Frijoles were prepared, fiddlers and guitarists dirt, and trembling with sheer exhaustion. The engaged, fandangoes practiced, and the mount-soldiers had watched us early in the day crawlain village was in as great a ferment as was ing up the volcano till our forms were lost in the that in which "La Sonnambula" dreamed and distance. Off to the right we heard the roar