A Ride to Popocatapetl.—The Village of Atlizco.—The old Man of Atlizco and the Inquisition.—A novel Mode of Escape.—An avenging Ghost.—The Vice-King Ravillagigedo.—The Court of the Vice-King and the Inquisition.—Ascent of Popocatapetl.—How a Party perished by Night.—The Crater and the House in it.—Descent into the Crater.—The Interior.—The Workmen in the Volcano.—The View from Popocatapetl.—The first White that climbed Popocatapetl.—The Story of Corchado.—Corchado converts the Volcano into a Sulphur-mine.
One of the first objects of interest in Mexico is the volcano of Popocatapetl. A stage runs from Puebla to Atlizco, but beyond that village the visitor must travel upon horseback. Atlizco is worthy of a special notice from its situation in a most fertile valley, and its peculiar location at the base of a conical hill. This hill, like every attractive locality in Mexico, is the scene of romantic traditions of the common people. From many, I select one illustration of the state of society in the times of the vice-kings.
There once was, the tradition runs in this village, an old hidalgo who possessed a plantation in the immediate neighborhood of the town. His family consisted of himself and two daughters; and he was rich. Upon a certain time, one of those strolling monks, with whom the country abounds, chanced to offer an indignity to one of the daughters, and the old man chanced to return the indignity by inflicting upon the monk such a beating as never poor friar had yet received in the vice-kingdom—such a one as the feelings of an outraged father alone could justify. This was not the end of the matter; it was only the beginning of evil to the old man, as he well knew, for he had laid his hands upon one of the consecrated—one who had received the sacrament of "Holy Orders;" and, above all, he was rich enough to tempt the cupidity of the Inquisition, which always watched with jealous care over the orthodoxy of those whose estates, when confiscated, would add to "the greater glory of God," that is, to the treasury of the "Holy Office."
Guilty or not guilty, the old man had but one mode of escape, and that was by avoiding an arrest. To effect this object he resorted to a novel expedient. As soon as he heard that his accuser had started for Mexico, it was given out that the old man had suddenly died. A circumstance by no means thought remarkable, when it became known that he had assaulted a priest. As he had not yet been accused, his neighbors ventured to come to his funeral; and a coffin, with his name and age marked upon it, was decently buried in holy ground. The funeral fees, too, were secured before the estate was pounced upon by the familiars of the Inquisition. The daughters put on the deepest mourning, and hid themselves from the public gaze, among their relatives; for they had not only to endure the loss of home and estates, but were to be shunned as the accursed of God—the children of one dying while under the accusation of sacrilege. As for the Inquisition, its officials did not care to investigate the question of the decease, for it had reaped all the benefit it might hope for from his conviction—"The Holy Office" had become his heir.
THE OLD MAN OF ATLIZCO.
Strange appearances and stranger noises after a time were heard about the cave that is said to be in the top of the hill of Atlizco, and sometimes a ghost had been seen wandering about the hill by certain benighted villagers; and one time, when the accusing monk was returning rather later than usual from a drunken revel, this ghost who had now become the town-talk, chanced to fall in with him, and to give him such a beating as few living men could inflict, and then disappeared. Still there was no earthquake, and the sun rose and set as though no injury had been done to a priest.
Time wore its slow course along, without any important incident occurring in this matter, until the reputation of the new Virey, Ravillagigedo, reached Atlizco. Shortly thereafter there appeared at the vice-royal palace in the city of Mexico an old man, who related in a private audience the story of his griefs and of his misfortunes, and insisted that, in striking "the Lord's priest," he had no intention of committing an act of impiety, but that the feelings of a father had overcome him in an unguarded moment, and induced him to avenge an attempt made to dishonor his daughter. The story of the old man touched the Virey, who had a manly heart wrapped up in a forbidding exterior. But it was a delicate undertaking even for a vice-king to attempt to wrest a rich estate out of the clutches of the "Holy Office" without himself being suspected of heresy, or of disloyalty to the Church. Yet Ravillagigedo was never at a loss for expedients when justice was to be done or the oppressed relieved. The best advice, however, that he could give the old man was to hide himself again, and to send his daughters to Mexico to accuse the monk.
Upon a set day, the vice-king was found arrayed in state, surrounded by a council of Inquisitors, before whom the daughters, in the deepest mourning, presented themselves as the accusers of the profligate monk. They stated, with an artless simplicity which could not fail to convince, the story of the wrongs the monk had done them. The Inquisitors, sitting in the presence of the incorruptible Virey, could not, for very shame, do otherwise than declare unanimously that the monk, and not the old man, was worthy of the censure of the Church.
"Then let us wipe away the stain that rests upon the fair fame of these ladies as daughters of one dying suspected, by decreeing their father's innocence," said the Virey.
This being assented to, the record of the old man's innocence was made up, and, when duly attested by the Inquisitors, was handed to the daughters. A door was at this moment opened, and there entered into the august presence a gray-headed old man, to whom the daughters presented the record. The old man, when he had received the record, advanced, and, bowing humbly, made confession of his fault. It was a bitter pill for the "Holy Office" thus to be tricked into the performance of a common act of justice, and in this way to lose a valuable estate. From this time onward, it is said that Inquisitors were never known to hold court with a Virey.