210 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



culminate in the Acatenango cone, called also Pico Mayor, or Padre del Volcan 

 (" Father of the Volcano"), because it rises higher than Fuego, and is, in fact, 

 the loftiest summit in the whole of Central America (13,700 feet). It was 

 ascended in 1868 by Wyld de Dueilas, who found nothing but three nearly 

 obliterated craters, although sulphurous vapours were still escaping from a 

 crevasse in one of them. Acatenango is separated by a deep ravine from the 

 southern group, which includes the vast but partly breached Meseta cone. 

 Beyond it follows Fuego (13,200 feet), whose summit, scaled for the first time 

 by Schneider and Beschor in 1860, terminates in a narrow bowl about 85 feet 

 deep ; immediately to the south is sesn a tremendous chasm, nearly perfectly 

 round, over 450 yards in diameter and no less than 2 000 feet deep. Fuego was 

 in full eruption at the time of the Spanish invasion, and the terror it inspired 

 in the natives seemed to show that they had previous experience of its destructive 

 energy. Since that time explosions have been frequent, and the surrounding 

 districts have often been laid under ashes. 



Agua, which corresponds to Fuego on the other side of the valley, although 

 not quite so lofty (12,360 feet), presents a more majestic appearance due to its 

 completely isolated position. Seen from Escuintla, near its southern base, it 

 seemed " the most lovely sight in the world " to Dollfus and Mont-Serrat, by 

 whom it has been scaled. The gaze here follows the perfect curve of its escarp- 

 ments unbroken by any disturbing prominence, while the vegetable zones — 

 cultivated ground, leafy forests and pine groves — follow with their varying tints 

 one above the other along its regular slopes. Despite repeated assertions to the 

 cantrary, Agua has never been in eruption since the epoch of the conquest. The 

 catastrophe to which it owes its name was caused b}^ the bursting of the rim of 

 the crater, which was flooded by a terminal tarn at the summit of the mountain. 

 To reach this point travellers usually pass through the breach, and here some 

 idea may bo formed of the liquid mass formerly contained in the basin suspended 

 thousands of feet above the plains. Assuming that the reservoir, about 230 feet 

 deep, was entirely filled, it would have been nearly a third of a mile in circum- 

 ference at its upper rim, and 760 feet round at the bottom ; consequently, its 

 volume could not have been much more than 35,000,000 cubic feet. But when 

 the side of the crater gave way on the disastrous day in 1541, the aperture 

 occurred immediately above the capital, which the Spanish conquerors had just 

 founded on the site of the present Ciudad Yieja. The avalanche of water rushed 

 down the mountain, tearing up the ground, sweeping rocks and trees along its 

 irresistible course, and burying the city beneath heaps of mud and débris. 



Agua is separated by the deep valley of the Rio Michatoya from the Pacaya, 

 a groiqD of igneous peaks so named from a species of palm growing at its base 

 and producing edible flowers. A near view of Pacaya reveals a cluster of 

 irregular summits, where the supreme cone seems to have disappeared during 

 some prehistoric convulsion. The loftiest cone, which is still active, rises to a 

 height of 8,400 feet, or some 3,000 feet above the surrounding plateau. Close 

 by is a wooded peak, and both of these crests are enclosed within the breached 



