kerchiefs completely over our faces,
to keep off the glare of the sun. Our guide did the same; but the
Indian, who had been many times before up to the crater to get sulphur,
had brought no protection for his face. We marched in a line, the guide
first, sounding the depth of the snow with his pole, and keeping as
nearly as he could along ridges just covered with snow, where we did
not sink far. It was from the lower part of the snow that we began to
understand the magnificent proportions of Iztaccihuatl--the "White
Woman," the twin mountain which is connected with Popocatepetl by an
immense col, which stretches across below the snow-line. This mountain
is not conical like Popocatepetl, but its shoulders are broader, and
break into grand peaks, like some of the _Dents_ of Switzerland, and it
has no crater.[22] Indeed, the two mountains, joined together like
Siamese twins, look as though they had been set up, side by side, to
illustrate the two contending theories of the formation of volcanos.
Von Buch and Humboldt might have made Iztaccihuatl on the "upheaval
theory," by a force pushing up from below, without breaking through the
crust to form a crater; while Poulett Scrope was building Popocatepetl
on the "accumulation theory," by throwing up lava and volcanic ashes
out of an open vent, until he had formed a conical heap some five
thousand feet high, with a great crater at the top.

As we toiled slowly up the snow, we took off our veils from time to
time, to look more clearly about us. The glare of the sun upon the snow
was dazzling, and its intense whiteness contrasted wonderfully with the
cloudless dark indigo-blue of the sky. Between twelve and one we
reached the edge of the crater, 17,884 feet above the sea. The ridge
upon which we stood was only a few feet wide, and covered with snow;
but it seemed that there was still heat enough to keep the crater
itself clear, for none lay on the bottom, or in clefts on the steep
sides.

The crater was oval, full a mile in its longest diameter, and perhaps
700 to 800 feet in depth; and its almost perpendicular walls of
basaltic lava are covered with red and yellow patches of sublimed
sulphur. We climbed a little way down into it to get protection from
the wind, but to descend further unassisted was not possible, so we sat
there, with our legs dangling down into the abyss. Part of the
_malacate_, or winder, used by the Indians in descending, was still
there; but it was not comp