The party returned to Amecameca, and determined to remain there a day or two to make some explorations in the vicinity, and also to rest from their fatigues. During their stay Fred found the following description of a visit to the crater of Popocatepetl by an artist, Mr. Frank Kellott, which he carefully copied into his note-book. We have obtained the youth's permission to copy the account, and it is certain to interest our readers.
"We followed a narrow foot-path," said Mr. Kellott, "until we reached a shelf, where we were seated in a skid and let down by a windlass 500 feet or so to a landing-place. From this we clambered down to a second windlass and a second skid, which was the most fearful of all, because we were dangling about, without anything to steady ourselves, as we descended before the mouth of one of those yawning caverns which are called respiraderos, or 'breathing-holes' of the crater. They are so called from the fresh air and horrid sounds that continually issue from them. But we shut our eyes and clung to the rope as we whirled round and round in mid-air until we reached another landing-place about 500 feet lower. From this point we clambered down as best we could until we came among the men digging up cinders from which sulphur, in the form of brimstone, is made.
"We took no measurements while in the crater, and heights and distances can only be given approximately. We only know that all things are on a scale so vast that Old Pluto might here have forged new thunder-bolts, and Milton's Satan might have here found the material for his sulphurous bed. All was strange and wild and frightful.
"We crawled into several of the breathing-holes, but nothing was there except darkness visible. The sides and bottom were for the most part polished by the molten mass which had passed through them, and if it had not been for the ropes around our waists, we should have slipped and fallen we knew not whither. The stones we threw in were lost to sound unless they hit upon a projecting rock and fell from shelf to shelf. The deep darkness was fearful to contemplate. What must have been the effect when each one of these breathing-holes was vomiting up liquid fire and sulphur into the basin where we stood? How immeasurable must be the lake whose overflowings fill such a cavity as this!"
The region around the base of Popocatepetl seems to have been densely peopled at some remote period, if we may judge by the ruins that lie scattered about, by the numerous tombs on the hills and in the valleys, and by the great quantity of pottery brought to light by excavations. Some antiquarians who have made researches here think that the cradle of the human race is to be found in Mexico, and that the people of this region gave the arts and sciences to Egypt and the rest of the Old World.
This conundrum was a perplexing one for our young friends. They did not try to solve it, but contented themselves with investigations on their own account.
The first object of their attention was Monte Sacro, which is in the town of Amecameca. It is a volcanic hill about 300 feet high, and contains a grotto that was turned into a hermitage at the time of the Conquest. A church was built there and a cemetery laid out, and as the traditions of the old time became mingled with those of later days, the place acquired great sanctity. It abounds in tombs, some of them very old, and there were strange figures upon many of these resting-places of the dead, which none of the party could decipher.
RUINS OF TLALMANALCO.