1893 
Mount 
Orizaba 
body. 
At intervals the clouds would break away and the grateful warmth 
of the sun come out but only to be hidden a few moments later by the 
demon of unrestful wind, The clouds sweeping over the summit had a 
strange, dry, dusty odor as though they were made up of something be¬ 
side vapor, I noticed this odor each time that the clouds enveloped 
us, after a temporary clear spell, all the time I was on the summit, 
fhe clouds were pale gray in color and no sign of mist or other precip- 
• v 
it at ion came from them. 
Below, on every hand, the clouds had multiplied until the earth was 
hidden and go the east lay a dead gray and white sea in billowy vastness 
over fcne land and sea, Ify men told me that on clear days many towns may 
be seen down in the hot country of Vera Cruz and far away a streak of 
silvery ligh'c tells of the Gulf. Today they do not exist, for we are on 
a desert island in the realms of the high, thin air. 
— ' " : j * , • * ^ ,4,- ’ • ( ' | • ! '. . f 
* • 
boon after noon we began the descent and, after picking our cautious 
way down over the snow to the loose slope of sand and small stones, had 
eaey travelling, When there is a layer of soft fresh snow on this side 
of the mountain the men make what they call runs (corridas) from summit 
to base. They take a strong rush mat and drawing up the front and lash¬ 
ing it about their shoulders they got astride of a good iron-pointed 
alpenstock thrust through the mat into the snow and away they go for 
a glissade of 3000 feet to the bottom. 
\ • 
Oar descent through the loos© ashes (or sand) and small stones was 
by giant strides that often covered 12 or 15 feet at a step owing to 
one sliding of the loose material* Several times this surfaoe material 
got to travelling with me so rapidly and to the amount of several hundred 
pounds, that I had to sit down in the midst of my miniature avalanche 
and dig my alpenstock into the surface until we came to a standstill. 
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