The party that ascended the mountain the second time succeeded in
reaching the crater at the top, with but little of the labor they
encountered in their first attempt. Three of them--Anderson, Stone and
Buckner--wrote accounts of their journey, which were published at the
time. I made no notes of this excursion, and have read nothing about it
since, but it seems to me that I can see the whole of it as vividly as
if it were but yesterday. I have been back at Ameca Ameca, and the
village beyond, twice in the last five years. The scene had not changed
materially from my recollection of it.
The party which I was with moved south down the valley to the town of
Cuantla, some forty miles from Ameca Ameca. The latter stands on the
plain at the foot of Popocatapetl, at an elevation of about eight
thousand feet above tide water. The slope down is gradual as the
traveller moves south, but one would not judge that, in going to
Cuantla, descent enough had been made to occasion a material change in
the climate and productions of the soil; but such is the case. In the
morning we left a temperate climate where the cereals and fruits are
those common to the United States, we halted in the evening in a
tropical climate where the orange and banana, the coffee and the
sugar-cane were flourishing. We had been travelling, apparently,
on a plain all day, but in the direction of the flow of water.
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