in the direction of the capital, we observed a heavy cloud rolling along the valley, and darkening the distant lakes with its shadow. As it gradually approached and deluged the plains below us, the clouds continued to gather about the summit of the mountain, until they finally burst in a heavy snow-storm around it. We thus enjoyed, for some time, the singular spectacle of a thunder-storm raging below, and a snow-storm above us, while we were ourselves in the sunlight, and beheld the broad valleys to the southwest shining in all the brightness of a cloudless day. As the shades of night closed around us, the clouds gathered about our camp, and we were soon in the midst of a heavy hailstorm. The scene now derived a new interest, as the vivid streams of light flashed around and below us, and exposed, in their momentary gleams, the dark outlines of the forest, while the loud crash of the thunder broke harshly on the ear, and died away in distant echoes amongst the wild mountain crags.

It was our intention to make a very early start from our camp on the following morning, but the night was so tempestuous that we had to wait for daylight. The morning was exceedingly unfavorable to the accomplishment of our purpose. The snow and hail had been falling almost constantly during the night, so that it now covered all the heights in our vicinity, as well as the ground upon which we were encamped, and had greatly increased the difficulties we were to encounter. The clouds still hung darkly around the mountain, and promised any thing but a favorable day, and the snow extended more than six thousand feet from the summit.

Under these unfavorable circumstances, we left our camp about seven o'clock on the morning of the 7th of April, and continuing our course through the part of the forest which still extended above us, we reached, after an ascent of perhaps a thousand feet, the limit of vegetation. Here commenced the most arduous part of our labors. The new-fallen snow, which covered the soft sand to the depth of nearly a foot, yielding constantly to our steps, rendered the ascent toilsome in the extreme, as we clambered up the steepening acclivity. To add to our difficulties, the clouds which had been hanging threateningly over us all the morning, finally burst around us in a terrific storm of hail and snow, accompanied by so fierce a wind that we were blinded by the drifting eddies which were constantly whirling in the air. We soon lost sight of every landmark which could serve in any way to guide us. So dense were the

clouds in which we were enveloped, that it was impossible to distinguish an object at the distance of more than a few yards; yet for a long time we continued to struggle against the opposing elements, directing our course along what appeared to be the steepest ascent, and trusting to fortune to guide us to a practicable path over the precipices of the mountain. On we toiled until we reached, about three thousand feet above our camp, a ridge of rocks, which appeared to extend in a rugged line towards the summit. At this point we found our party reduced to four, who alone, of the entire number, had thus far overcome the difficulties which opposed us. Unwilling to relinquish the attempt when we supposed it so nearly accomplished, we continued our struggle towards the top, scrambling as well as possible along the northern declivity of the ridge, sometimes half buried in the snow which covered the loose stones, and advancing at the imminent risk of being precipitated into the deep valley on our left. After toiling in this manner until past twelve o'clock, the acclivity became so steep that, in order to make any further advance, we were obliged to climb to the top of the ridge which had served hitherto to direct our course. Proceeding a short distance along the crest we had thus attained, we were stopped by an impassable obstacle, which interposed itself in our way. We had reached the point of a rock which was the termination of a part of the ridge, and in our front and on either hand, looked down a precipice of forty or fifty feet. The storm still raged around us with unabated violence, so that it was impossible for us to distinguish upon what point of the mountain we stood. Unable to advance, but unwilling to retrace our steps, when the ascent appeared so nearly accomplished, we waited here for a time, in the hope that the storm would exhaust its fury, and enable us to reconnoitre our pathway. Standing on this isolated peak, half buried in the drifting snows, and looking around upon the dense masses of clouds which were driving fiercely past us, and which seemed as if they would bear us away in the wild chaos which they presented, we could appreciate most feelingly the sublimity of the thoughts expressed in these lines of Childe Harold

"He who ascends to mountain tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow.

*

Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led."

After waiting in this position a con

siderable time, and finding the storm rather to increase in its fury than to offer any signs of abatement, we were compelled by the lateness of the hour and the intensity of the cold, reluctantly to relinquish our attempt to gain the summit. But we did not make our retrograde movement until we had determined, in council, that the effort should be renewed on the following day. In going down the mountain we followed the path we had pursued in the ascent, supporting our steps with our Alpine poles until the declivity became comparatively smooth and gentle, when the soft snow, spread over the surface of the smooth sand, enabled us to descend with rapidity. We had not reached the upper edge of the forest on our return, when the clouds, having apparently poured down their entire contents, cleared away and exposed to our view what we had so much desired during the morning-a magnificent view of the mountain, together with the direction of the pathway we had pursued in the ascent. We then discovered that the highest point we had reached was not far below the Pico del Fraile, and little more than two thousand feet from the summit of the mountain. Amidst the obscurity in which we had been involved, we had wandered from the true direction, and followed, as far as was possible, an impracticable way.

Having returned to our camp, several of the party made the necessary preparations to resume the ascent at an early hour on the following morning; but as the night approached, we were painfully reminded of the predictions of the superstitious peasants. Exposure, in so elevated a region, to the violent storm and the intensity of the cold, had induced such a degree of inflammation in our eyes, as to occasion us serious apprehensions. Never did I pass a night in such agony; and when I made an effort in the morning to open my eyes and look around me, it seemed as if a thousand pointed arrows, instead of rays of light, had pierced to the retina of my eyes. Under these circumstances, we were under the necessity of abandoning our enterprise for the time, and were forced to seek some alleviation for our sufferings in the more equable temperature of the plains. What ren

dered this retreat more vexatious was the fact, as stated by those of the party whose exposure had not been so great as to blind them, that the day was a most beautiful one, and highly favorable to our designs. My recollections of it, however, are of a less pleasing kind, it having been a perfect blank to me; and I think the experience of that and the subsequent

day, will ever excite in the hearts of seve ral of our party, a most lively interest in the sufferings of the blind.

It was not without much difficulty that we succeeded in reaching, on the evening of the 8th, the villages of Ozumba and Amecameca, and in concentrating at the latter place, on the morning of the 9th, the scattered members of our party. We here found ourselves so much recovered from the effects of our exposure on the mountain, that several of the party concluded to return, and, awaiting a more favorable day, make another attempt to reach the summit. Having, by the morning of the 10th, made the necessary preparations, we retraced, with this view, the path we had so reluctantly descended; and threading our way once more along the deep barrancas, and through the dark shadows of the mountain forest, pitched our camp about a mile above its former position, on the crest of a ravine, which afforded us a supply of the coldest water. During our absence in the valley the weather had been remarkably fine, and had served to dissolve much of the snow which had fallen during our first visit to the mountain; but the air was of a chilly coldness, and gave us a keen relish for the cheering heat of the blazing pine knots, out of which we formed our evening's camp fire. The night was a beautiful one; and the moon, though not at her full, was sufficiently old to cast her mild light, in magical tints, over the valley and forest below, and around the white summit which rose like a spectre above us.

At fifteen minutes before three o'clock on the morning of the 11th April, the party was again in motion. After proceeding about half a mile we emerged from the forest, which terminates abruptly on account of the sandy soil which here suddenly commences. Ascending, perhaps, a thousand feet above our camp, we found it necessary, because of the steepness of the acclivity, to leave our horses, which we had ridden thus far, in order to diminish, as much as possible, the fatigues of the ascent. Proceeding then on foot, we reached, after a considerable ascent, the lower termination of the ridge we had encountered on the day of the first attempt, and, leaving it on our left, entered upon a very steep and sandy plain, included between this ridge and another, which meets it at an angle of about thirty-five degrees, just below the Pico del Fraile. The ascent had now become very difficult, and was not entirely free from danger; for the steep plain or valley was partially covered with fields of snow which, after having been softened

by the heat of the previous day, was now hard frozen, and afforded a very insecure hold. Supporting ourselves on the snow by means of our pointed poles, and assisting our footing in other places by the sharp stones, which were frozen in the sand and protruded themselves above its surface, we continued to ascend gradually, but constantly, towards the vertex of the two ridges which have been alluded to. As the lines which bounded the irregular inclined plain we were ascending converged to a point, the inclination became greater, and the increasing rarefaction of the atmosphere added much to our difficulty and fatigue.

Before reaching the upper termination of this plain, the distant mountain-chains and deep valleys were indistinctly visible in the west, clothed in the illusive charms of the early dawn. But it was when we were clambering up the steep acclivity which terminates this valley, a little below the Pico del Fraile, that the full glow of morning burst upon our view in its brightest effulgence. The sun, as it rose unclouded in the east, lighted up in all the splendor of a morning in spring, the varying scenes which were spread around us. Nothing could be more beautiful or impressive than the changing tints which came successively over the brightening landscape, as the lofty mountain cast its conical shadow across the valley, and on the distant hills, and on the clouds which curled around them, and, for a long time, obscured the country and villages at its base in the uncertain gloom of early morning, while all beyond the clearly defined line of shadow was glistening in the bright beams of the sun.

Passing over the rugged termination of the valley along which we had ascended, the Pico del Fraile, a porphyritic mass shooting up like a needle to the height of perhaps eighty feet, was in plain view and but a short distance above us. We reached this singular rock about twenty minutes past seven o'clock A. M. It is situated about fifteen hundred feet, in vertical height, from the peak of the mountain, on a bold and rocky ridge, once, apparently, a stream of lava, and which extends in a southwestern direction from the summit, and divides into the two ridges between which we had ascended. On a clear morning this remarkable feature may be distinctly seen from the city of Mexico, on the western profile of the mountain. My attention, upon reaching this point, was directed by one of the party to the appearance, at short intervals, of light clouds of smoke which were rising above the snow, considerably to the right of the summit.

This served to indicate the position of the crater, and sufficiently explained the cause of the strong sulphurous odor we had encountered far down the mountain.

On the southeastern side of the ridge on which the Pico del Fraile is situated, extending from near the crater to the forests about the waist of the mountain, is a deep valley whose bottom is covered with sand and ice. In order to reach the point indicated by the smoke, it was first necessary, on account of the many precipices which break in upon the unity of the ridge, to descend into this valley, which forms a practicable way through the rocky barriers. Having passed around the southern side of the base of the Pico del Fraile, we continued, for some time, to move in a horizontal direction, along the steep slope of the ridge which forms the western limit of the valley in question, until, having reached the bottom, we resumed the painful ascent towards the crater. The extreme rarefaction of the atmosphere, added to the increasing difficulties of the ascent, imposed a heavy tax upon all our energies. The effort was difficult and laborious in the extreme to pass in safety over the smooth fields of ice, and amongst the wild crags which obstructed our path; and it required much caution to avoid a false step, which might have precipitated us far into the valley below. About six hundred or eight hundred feet above the Pico, we clambered up a steep natural wall of rocks which was at the head of the valley, and entered at once upon an extensive glacier, which filled an indentation in the conical part of the mountain, and extended almost to the summit. passage of this glacier was by far the most fatiguing portion of the ascent. The surface of the snow, which had now become very deep, was so much softened by the warmth of the sun as to be incapable of sustaining our weight, as we moved over the glacier to a solitary rock which, with the occasional puffs of smoke, directed us to the edge of the crater. The air, too, had become so much rarefied at this immense elevation, as scarcely to afford enough oxygen to sustain life. The slightest exertion was attended with great fatigue. We found it necessary, as we advanced, forcing our way through the snow which covered the ice to the depth of more than three feet, to pause, for a few moments, after having taken three or four steps, in order to recover from our exhaustion. A sensation of dizziness, attended with a great oppression about the head, gradually came over us as we ascended; and we were much incommoded by inhaling the noxious

The

gases which were ejected from the crater and dissipated in the surrounding atmosphere.

At ten o'clock A. M., the advance of the party reached the edge of the crater. The contrast presented by the bright glare of the snow which had so dazzled our sight during the ascent, and the dark abyss, which, upon climbing the last few feet, yawned suddenly before us, was striking in the highest degree. In the clear atmosphere of these elevated regions, it is difficult to form by the eye alone, an accurate estimate of the distances and apparent dimensions of objects which are at all remote from us. It is not strange, therefore, that the impressions made on the minds of the different individuals composing the party, should in some respects differ. For this reason, I will give only my own opinion of the dimensions of the crater-remarking that my estimates are as small as any which were made by the rest of the party.

The crater seems to be formed of three cylindrical surfaces, of about the same height, but slightly unequal diameters, having a common vertical axis. The lower section of each cylinder is connected with the upper section of the one below it by an irregular conical surface; while the débris of the broken masses of rocks, falling from the sides and top of the crater, have formed a similar surface connecting the lower cylinder with the bottom;-so that the general form of the crater is that of an inverted frustum of a cone, whose vertex is very distant from its base. The right section of either of the cylinders would not materially differ from a circle. The lip of the crater, following the declivity of the mountain, and being therefore an oblique section of the upper cylinder, is an irregular elliptical figure, whose longest diameter is in the direction of a vertical section through the summit of the mountain. This diameter, I think, does not exceed the third of an English mile in length. The depth of the crater varies from perhaps four or five hundred to six or eight hundred feet;-the difference of depth in different places being caused by the slope of the mountain. The centre of the crater is nearly southeast of the summit, which is so slightly removed from the highest part of the circumference that it may be regarded as forming one point of the lip. At the time we reached the edge of the crater, the smoke was issuing in a constant stream from a crevice near the eastern side of the bottom, nearly opposite the point where we stood, as well as occasionally from other parts of the interior. Considerable quantities of sublimated sul

phur had been deposited on the bottom and interior conical surfaces; and the quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen gas evolved from the crater, was highly offensive and injurious. Following along the lip of the crater, the first of the party succeeded in attaining the summit of the volcano, the highest point of land, with perhaps a single exception, in North America, at ten minutes past ten o'clock a. M. At twenty minutes past ten o'clock, having attached a small flag to one of the poles which had been used in making the ascent, we took formal possession of the subjacent country and planted the "stars and stripes" firmly on the highest peak of the Popocatepetl, overlooking the dark crater which was smoking below.

The view from this point is unsurpassed in extent and magnificence. The eye looked, in every direction, far as human vision can extend, over almost boundless tracts of diversified and enchanting prospect. To the north, and below us, was the white summit of Iztaccihuatl, partially veiled by the clouds which were floating around it. Beyond it, and to the left, reposed the magnificent capital of the Aztecs, amidst the beautiful plains and placid lakes of the valley, shut in, as if by enchantment, by a chain of lofty mountains which concealed its beauties from the surrounding world. To the south extended the fertile valleys of Atlixco and Cuernavaca, and the distant plains of Oaxaca, inclosed between mountain chains, which appeared one beyond another, until lost in the rising mists of the tierra caliente. In the west shone the snowy top of the Nevado de Toluca; and farther to the north were the more distant plains of Morelia or Michoacan. To the east lay the city and valley of Puebla, the famed Pyramid of Cholula, amidst the ruins of the ancient city, and, at the base of the Malinche, the mountain country of the warlike Tlascalans. So transparent was the atmosphere, that we could distinctly trace the national road, as it wound across the plains, until it was lost in the garita of Puebla. Farther off still, were the more elevated table land of Perote, and the remarkable "Cofre " above them; while, but a short distance from the seashore rose the hoary head of Orizava, glittering in the bright beams of the morning light.

As the day advanced, the atmosphere, which had at first been unclouded, was oppressed with the mists which were gathering far below us. It was, indeed, a beautiful and a singular sight to look upon the white clouds rising from the valleys thousands of feet below us, and rolling their vapory masses in fleecy folds

around the base of the mountain, and over the distant plains, and darkening with their moving shadows vast tracts of the surrounding country, while the blue sky above us was yet unobscured by a single cloud.

On account of the very rarefied state of the atmosphere, and the sickening vapors which were constantly issuing from the crater, we found it necessary to descend much sooner than we desired. Leaving the summit about eleven o'clock A. M., we retraced our steps until we reached the head of the sandy valley which we had entered after passing the Pico del Fraile; and following down it, leaving the Pico on our right, we easily arrived, after descending several miles, at its issue from the rocky ridges which inclose it. Turning then to our right, and moving nearly in a horizontal direction around the base of the immense cone, we passed the lower termination of the first ridges we had encountered in the ascent, and entering, near the upper edge of the forest, the pathway we had made over the sand and snow, returned to our camp about one o'clock P. M.

As nearly as we can estimate, the distance along the slope of the mountain, from the limit of vegetation to the top, is about three or four miles. The snow extended, on this day, about four thousand feet, in a vertical line from the summit. The thermometer, at half past ten o'clock A. M., stood at 26° Fahrenheit on the summit. On the 7th April it was at 22° Fahrenheit, three thousand feet below that point. The altitude of the summit, according to a partial geometrical meas

urement by Baron Humboldt, is 17,756 feet-according to a barometrical measurement by Mr. Glennie, 17,896 feet:from a similar measurement by Mr. Ainslie, 17,852 feet. Seventeen thousand eight hundred feet is the usual estimate for its height above the level of the ocean.

Our task being accomplished, we set out from our camp on the morning of the 12th, and descending into the distant valley, crossed again over the beautiful country at the base of Iztaccihuatl, and reached the city of Mexico on the morning of the 14th, after an absence of twelve days.

The following are the names of the officers who succeeded in reaching the summit of the mountain:

Lieut. C. P. Stone, Ordnance Department; Lieut. S. B. Buckner, 6th Infantry; Lieut. R. H. Anderson, 2d Dragoons: Lieut. R. W. Kirkham, 6th Infantry; Capt. J. V. Bomford, 8th Infantry; Capt. S. H. Fowler, 5th Infantry; and Mr. T. J. Baggaly, an English gentleman residing in Mexico, and Professor in the National Academy of Arts. Three soldiers of the escort also attained the summit.

Wherever our future wanderings may lead us, it will be no inconsiderable source of gratification to know that we were the first Americans who ever stood upon the snowy peak of the "Smoking Mountain," and planted our national color within the tropics, in a clime of eternal winter, over a region of perpetual fire; where it is greeted by the first beams of the sun as he rises from the Atlantic, and receives his last parting look as he sinks behind the waves of the great Southern Ocean.

CHAPTER VIL
"Constancy, thou art a jewel."

"Frailty, thy name is woman." ASHWOOD had been absent about

DASH

eighteen months, and not one line had been received from him. He had said before he left that he would not write until he had good news to tell us ; and we, therefore, concluded our brilliant luminary was waning beyond the sea. Alas, there are so few that fulfil the promise of their youth! Genius, though divine, is easily turned astray. Who has not seen it very low-sinking into a dishonored grave?

Poor Dashwood, more gifted than others, was therefore more tempted than

others. Men are not sought, who are not worth seeking. He, unfortunately so versatile, so pliant, so easily accommodating himself to all characters, was attractive to all. His company was ever welcome. No assembly was complete without him. His time was never his own. Gay, idle fellows were constantly seeking him, and seductive ladies ready to flatter him. Too gifted, too fond of pleasure, too enthusiastic, he was beset on all sides by allurements which few withstand. He had but to woo to win; but to smile, to please; but to exert himself in the least, and rounds of applause saluted him. Spoilt by adulation, tired of flattery, blasé, and dissatisfied, he had