[233] “La Sierra nevada y el volcan los tenian por Dioses; y que el volcan y la Sierra nevada eran marido y muger.” Ibid., MS. [234] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 62. “Ætna Giganteos nunquam tacitura triumphos, Enceladi bustum, qui saucia terga revinctus Spirat inexhaustum flagranti pectore sulphur.” CLAUDIAN, De Rapt. Pros., lib. 1, v. 152. [235] The old Spanish called any lofty mountain by that name, though never having given signs of combustion. Thus, Chimborazo was called a _volcan de nieve_, or “snow volcano” (Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. i. p. 162); and that enterprising traveller, Stephens, notices the _volcan de agua_, “water volcano,” in the neighborhood of Antigua Guatemala. Incidents of Travel in Chiapas, Central America, and Yucatan (New York, 1841), vol. i. chap. 13. [236] Mont Blanc, according to M. de Saussure, is 15,670 feet high. For the estimate of Popocatepetl, see an elaborate communication in the “Revista Mexicana,” tom. ii. No. 4. [237] Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 70.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 5.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 78.--The latter writer speaks of the ascent as made when the army lay at Tlascala, and of the attempt as perfectly successful. The general’s letter, written soon after the event, with no motive for misstatement, is the better authority. See, also, Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 6, cap. 18.--Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. p. 308.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 62. [238] [Montaño’s family remained in Mexico after the Conquest, and his daughter received a pension from the government. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. i. apénd. 2.] [239] Rel. Ter. y Quarta de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, pp. 318, 380.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 3, lib. 3, cap. 1.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 41.--M. de Humboldt doubts the fact of Montaño’s descent into the crater, thinking it more probable that he obtained the sulphur through some lateral crevice in the mountain. (Essai politique, tom. i. p. 164.){*} No attempt--at least, no successful one--was made to gain the summit of Popocatepetl, since this of Montaño, till the present century. In 1827 it was reached in two expeditions, and again in 1833 and 1834. A very full account of the last, containing many interesting details and scientific observations, was written by Federico de Gerolt, one of the party, and published in the periodical already referred to. (Revista Mexicana, tom. i. pp. 461-482.) The party from the topmost peak, which commanded a full view of the less elevated Iztaccihuatl, saw no vestige of a crater in that mountain, contrary to the opinion usually received. {*} [There would seem to have been no grounds for the doubt expressed by Humboldt, as the sulphur is now nearly exhausted, having been regularly collected by Indian laborers, lowered into the crater by means of a rope of hide attached to a windlass. Tylor, Anahuac, p. 269.--K.]