MEXICO. 
hardfhips and dangers. Inftead of the inexhauftible 
wealth which they expebted from becoming mailers of 
Montezuma’s treal'ures, and the ornaments of fo many 
temples, their rapacioufnefs could colled! only an incon- 
llderable booty amidll ruins and deflation. The gold 
and filver, according to Cortes, amounted only to 120,000 
pefos, a l'um far inferior to that which the Spaniards had 
formerly divided in Mexico. Guatimozin, aware of his 
impending fate, had ordered what remained of the riches 
amalfed by his ancellors to be thrown into the lake. The 
Indian auxiliaries, while the Spaniards were engaged in 
conflict with the enemy, had carried off the molt valua¬ 
ble part of the fpoil. The l'um to be divided among the 
conquerors was fo fniall, that many of them dil’dained to 
accept of the pittance which fell to their fhare, and all 
murmured and exclaimed ; fome again!! Cortes and his 
confidants, whom they fufpedted of having fecretly ap¬ 
propriated to their own ufe a large portion of the riches 
which fliould have been brought into the common Itock ; 
others againlt Guatimozin, whom they accul'ed of oblti- 
nacy, in refilling to difcover the place where he had hid¬ 
den his treafure. Arguments, entreaties, and promifes, 
were employed in order to foothe them ; but with fo little 
effedt, that Cortes, from folicitude to check this growing 
fpirit of difcontent, gave way to a deed which ftained the 
glory of all his great abtions. Without regarding the former 
dignity of Guatimozin, or feeling any reverence for thofe 
virtues which he had dilplayed, hefubjefted the unhappy 
"monarch, together with his chief favourite, to torture, in 
order to force from them a difcovery of the royal treafures, 
which it was fuppofed they had concealed. Guatimozin 
bore whatever the refined cruelty of his tormentors could 
inflidt, with the invincible fortitude of an American war¬ 
rior. His fellow-l'ufferer, overcome by the violence of 
the anguifh, turned a dejedted eye towards his mailer, 
which feemed to implore his permiffion to reveal all that 
lie knew. But the liigh-fpirited prince, darting on him 
a look of authority mingled with fcorn, checked his weak- 
nefs, by alking, “ Am I now repofmg on a bed of flowers ?” 
Overawed by the reproach, he perfevered in his dutiful 
filence, and expired. Cortes, afhamed of a fcene lo hor¬ 
rid, refcued the royal vidtim from the hands of his tor¬ 
turers, and prolonged a life referved for new indignities 
and fufferings. 
The fate of the capital, as both parties had forefeen, 
decided that of the empire. The provinces fubmitted 
one after another to the conqueror. Small detachments 
of Spaniards, marching through them without interrup¬ 
tion, penetrated, in different quarters, to the great 
Southern Ocean, which, according to the ideas of Co¬ 
lumbus, they imagined would open a fliort as well as ealy 
pallage to the Ealt Indies, and fecure to the crown of 
Caltile all the envied wealth of thofe fertile regions ; and 
the adtive mind of Cortes began already to form l'chemes 
for attempting this important dilcovery. In his after- 
fchemes, however, he was dil’appointed ; but Mexico has 
ever lince remained in the hands of the Spaniards. 
The climate of this vail country varies very much, ac¬ 
cording to the fituation of its different parts. The mari¬ 
time places are hot, unhealthy, and mo ill. The lands 
which lie in the neighbourhood of high mountains, the 
tops of which are always covered with fnow, mull of ne- 
ceffity be cold ; and Clavigero informs us, that he has 
becpt on a mountain not more than twenty-live miles dif- 
•tant from the city of Mexico, where there was white, frolt 
and ice even in the dog-days. “All the other-inland 
countries (fays our author), where thegreatell population 
prevailed, enjoy a climate fo mild and benign, that they 
•neither feel the rigour of winter nor the heats of fummer. 
It is true, in many of thefe countries, there is frequently 
white frofl in the three months of December, January, 
and February, and fometimes even it -fnows ; but the 
finall inconvenience which luch cold occalions continues 
only till the rifing fun ; no other fire than his rays is ne- 
ccliary to give warmth in winter; no other relief is wanted 
29f> 
in the feafon of heat but the fhade ; the fame clothing 
which covers men in the dog-days defends them in Ja¬ 
nuary, and the animals lleep all the year under the open 
fky.” 
One undoubted inconvenience which Mexico has is 
that of volcanoes. One, named by the Spaniards Volcan 
il'Oriznba, is higher than the peak of Teneriffe, according 
to the Jeluit Tailandier, who meafured them both. It 
began to fend forth fmqke in the year 1545, and conti¬ 
nued burning for twenty years ; but has not difc.overed 
any lympcoms of eruption lince that time. It is of a co¬ 
nical figure ; and may be leen at fifty leagues dillance. 
The top is always covered with fnow, but the lower part 
with woods of pine and other valuable timber. It is about 
ninety miles to the eaftward of the capital. Two other 
mountains, named Popocatepec and Iztaccihuatl, which 
lie near each other, at the dillance of thirty-three miles 
to the fouth-eall of Mexico, are likewile iurprifingly high. 
Clavigero f'uppol’es the former to be higher than the 
highelt of the Alps, confidering the elevated ground on 
which the bafe of it Hands. It has a crater more than 
half a mile wide ; from which, in the time of the Mexican 
kings, great quantities of l'moke and flame iifued. In the 
17th century it frequently threw out great fhowers of 
allies upon the adjacent places; but in the 18th century 
hardly any fmoke has been obferved. This mountain is 
named by the Spaniards Volcan, and the other Sierra Ne¬ 
vada. The latter has alfo fometimes emitted flames. Both 
of them have tlieir tops always covered with fnow in fuch 
quantities, that the mafles which fall down upon the 
neighbouring rocks luppiy the cities of Mexico, Gelopoli, 
Cholula, and all the adjacent country to the dillance ot' 
forty miles, with that commodity; of which the con- 
fumption is fo great, that in 1746 the impoll upon what 
was confumed in the city of Mexico amounted to 15,222 
Mexican-crowns ; fome years after it amounted to 20,000 ; 
and is now in all probability a great deal more. Befides 
thel'e volcanoes, there are others in Mexico of a very re¬ 
markable height. The great chain of mountains called 
the Andes is continued through the ifthmus of Panama 
and through all Mexico, until they are Toll in the un¬ 
known mountains of the north. The molt coniiderable 
of that chain is known in Mexico by the name of Sierra 
Madre, particularly in Cinaioa and Tarahumara, provinces 
no lei's than 1200 utiles diilant from the capital. 
M. de Humboldt, whole publications 011 North and 
South America form an interelling ieries of 110 lels than 
fourteen quarto volumes, communicated to the Royal 
Inilitute of Paris, in the year 1815, the hillory of the vol¬ 
cano of jorulio, which broke out in 1759 ' n Mexico, on 
a level and well-cultivated trail, watered by two flream^, 
and where, in the memory of man, no fubterraneous noife 
had ever been heard. The cataflrophe was announced 
lome months before by quakings and rumblings, which 
lalted fifteen or twenty days. Thefe were followed by a 
fhower of afhes and a more violent rumbling, which lo 
terrified the inhabitants, that they fled from their houfes. 
Flames role from the ground over a fpace of more than a 
fquare league ; fragments of rock were projected to a great 
height; the furface of the earth role and fell like waves ; 
an infinite number of fmall cones from fix to nine feet 
high iilued from it, ftudded the plain like mole hills, and 
exilt to this day ; and ialtiy, there role, in the direc¬ 
tion from lbuth-lbuth-eaft to north-north-ealt, a range of 
fix hills, the largeft of which is not lels than 1600 feet 
high, and has yet a fiery crater. Thele alarming opera¬ 
tions of nature lalted from September 1759, t0 the Fe¬ 
bruary following. Eye-witnell'es attell, that the noife was 
equal to that which thoulauds of pieces of cannbn couid 
have produced, and that it was accompanied by an intenfe 
heat, which ftiii partly luoiilts ; for M. de Humboldt 
found the heat of the foil to be twenty degrees higher 
than that of the atmofphere. Every morning thoufands 
of columns of fmoke rile from the cones and clef ts of this 
plain j the water of the two rivers, before cold, is now 
hot 
