The New England magazine . wait for themist to clear. Asnowslide startedabove us and wentswirling down o nour left. The snowwas exceedinglyslippery and treach-erous. Had we fal-len, we would havetumbled into one ofthe deep ravines, ordashed down to LasCruces with thespeed of a runawayengine. At last,when our patiencewas as small as amole-hill and ourappetites as largeas mountains, wedragged ourselvesup a last fifty feetand crouched nearone of the peaks atthe craters rim,called Espinazodel Diablo (theDevils Backbone).From here we salu-ted Vaughan below with cheers that never reached him. Thedia
The New England magazine . wait for themist to clear. Asnowslide startedabove us and wentswirling down o nour left. The snowwas exceedinglyslippery and treach-erous. Had we fal-len, we would havetumbled into one ofthe deep ravines, ordashed down to LasCruces with thespeed of a runawayengine. At last,when our patiencewas as small as amole-hill and ourappetites as largeas mountains, wedragged ourselvesup a last fifty feetand crouched nearone of the peaks atthe craters rim,called Espinazodel Diablo (theDevils Backbone).From here we salu-ted Vaughan below with cheers that never reached him. Thediameter of this vast crater is fully half a little green sulphur pleasure-lake, somethirty yards in length, lies at the bottom ofthis yawning cauldron, whence fifty fuma-roles, or vents, are constantly pouring forththeir deadly fumes. A primitive malacate,or winch, stood at the edge of the crater,showing how the sulphur had been here, if they carried life-insur-ance policies, would soon break the com-. Climbing Sacro Monte on her kneesAmecameca, Mexico pany, unless an injunction were obtainedrestraining clumsy chunks of the rim fromtumbling into the pit, stopping for a mo-ment on their way to demolish the cavewhere a shift of sulphur-eaten miners we were suffering greatly from thecold, we did not attempt any descent intothe mixing-bowl five hundred feet below;we did not tarrylong to consider theforces that threw upthis bulbous massand left a vent forthe angry monsterwithin; nor couldwe contemplatewith a Baron Hum-boldt the thousandsof square miles visi-ble from this aerialwatch - tower, forthick flakes of snowbegan to fall. Asfar as the snow-linew e almost crept,descending. Fromthere we went inlong, hungry leapsdown over the vol-canic sand. AtTlamacas we foundVaughan and theguide holdingQuaker minutes laterwe were mountedand on our wayback to Ameca-meca, our faces redas beets from theglare of the sun on the snow. We rodeback, as we wan
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