Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/395

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POPOCATAPETL.
387

bling to the ground; so they descended, and brought with them a considerable quantity of snow and icicles, that we might see them, as it was something quite new in this region. . . . . While on their way to the mountain, the party discovered a road, and inquired of their Indian companions where it led, who told them to Culua (Mexico), They followed this road until they began to ascend the mountain, between which and the other elevation

THE VOLCANOES, FROM CHAPULTEPEC.

it passed; and from it they discovered the plains of Culua, and the great city of Temixtitan, and the lakes of that great province."[1]

The same scene of beauty that greeted the delighted eyes of the Spaniards, three hundred and sixty years ago, was unfolded to me as I stood at the foot of La Cruz, eight thousand feet above the valley of Mexico, where the glimmering towers of the city could be seen, though fifty miles away. The

  1. "The Spaniards followed nearly the same track which the courier of Mexico takes on his way to Puebla, by Mecameca, which is traced on the map of the valley of Tenochtitlan."—Humboldt.