298 IZTACCIHUATL AND POPOCATEPETL. 



upon them as they stood there, silent and degraded, the 

 last of their race! " Glory to Quetzalcoatl !" no longer 

 rent the air; it was drowsy with "the blessed mutter of 

 the mass," and 



" Good, strong, thick, stupifying incense-smoke." 



Quetzalcoatl had passed away, but his altar still remained. 

 A mysterious dread, a religious awe pervaded their souls 

 as they gazed upon that immense pile, covered with 

 shrubbery and perpetual verdure. 



The pyramid of Cholula having led the travellers a 

 little beyond Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl, they turned 

 back and visited these volcanoes.' Before proceeding to 

 Xalapa, Humboldt determined their geographical posi- 

 tion by his observations, and measured their height. 

 Iztaccihuatl he found to be fifteen thousand seven hun- 

 dred feet above the sea, and Popocatepetl seventeen thou- 

 sand seven hundred, which was two thousand feet higher 

 than the most elevated summit of the old world. He 

 ascended to the summit of the latter mountain. It was 

 an ever-burning volcano, but for several centuries it had 

 thrown up nothing from its crater but smoke and ashes. 



Speaking of a report that prevailed in Mexico, that 

 Diego Ordaz penetrated into the crater of Popocatepetl, 

 for the purpose of procuring sulphur for the Spaniards 

 to make powder with, Humboldt gossips thus about the 

 circumstance, and the mountain itself. 



" When the united army of the Spaniards and Tlas- 

 caltecs, in the month of October, 1519, marched from 

 Cholula to Tenochtitlan, across the Cordillera of Ahualco, 

 which unites the Sierra Nevada to the volcanic summit 



