in clouds and its gleaming summit surrounded
by the azure of the tropic firmament. The summit of Orizaba is 18,250
feet above the level of the sea--the highest point in Mexico. Next in
point of altitude is the famous Popocatepetl--the "Smoking Mountain,"
so called by the natives for its eruptions in centuries past, for it is
no longer active. Some of the adventurous Spaniards of the band of
Cortes reached the rim of the crater on its summit, and, indeed, later
the Spaniards extracted sulphur therefrom, and various ascents have
been made recently. Its last eruption was in 1665. The summit of
Popocatepetl is 17,250 feet above sea-level, and it is of
characteristic conical form. The third perpetually snow-capped peak is
Ixtaccihuatl--the "Sleeping Woman," so named by the natives from the
fanciful suggestiveness of a reclining woman--and its summit is 16,960
feet above the sea. The Indian names of these striking monuments of
nature serve to show the poetical nomenclature which the natives of the
Americas ever gave to topographical features. Especially was this the
case among the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. The last-named
mountain is not of the characteristic conical form which volcanoes
generally have, its outline--beautiful as it is--forming a serrated
edge, and it appeared singularly striking from Tacubaya, where I first
beheld it. Nevertheless, all these three mountains--the highest points
in the country--are of volcanic origin. The majestic and poetic peaks
of the "Smoking Mountain" and the "Sleeping Woman" form part of the
Sierra Nevada, or Cordillera of Anahuac, in company with Malinche,
another of the highest culminating peaks, 14,630 feet above sea-level.
This chain is a cross ridge of volcanic and more recent formation than
that of the general system of the Mexican Cordilleras, and forms, as it
were, a line of volcanic action at right angles to the general Andine
trend, associated perhaps with Orizaba on the east and the volcano of
Colima (12,990 feet elevation) on the west. This latter mountain is the
only active crater in Mexico at the present time. The great Malinche,
or Malintzin--possibly named after the fair interpreter of Cortes--is a
mountain of striking form, with its brow often snow-covered, upon the
borders of the plateau of Tlaxcala, whilst the singular Cofre de
Perote, with its box or coffin-like summit (13,400 feet above
sea-level), is a prominent landmark of the eastern slope of Mexico's
r