[229] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 84, 85.--Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 67.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 60.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 5.
[230] “We walked,” says Diaz, in the homely but expressive Spanish proverb, “with our beards over our shoulders”--_la barba sobre el ombro_. Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 86.
[231] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 86.--Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 70.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 4, cap. 41.
[232] “Llamaban al volcan Popocatépetl, y á la sierra nevada Iztaccihuatl, que quiere decir la sierra que humea, y la blanca muger.” Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.
[233] “La Sierra nevada y el volcan los tenian por Dioses; y que el volcan y la Sierra nevada eran marido y muger.” Ibid., MS.
“Ætna Giganteos nunquam tacitura triumphos, Enceladi bustum, qui saucia terga revinctus Spirat inexhaustum flagranti pectore sulphur.” CLAUDIAN, De Rapt. Pros., lib. 1, v. 152.
[235] The old Spanish called any lofty mountain by that name, though never having given signs of combustion. Thus, Chimborazo was called a _volcan de nieve_, or “snow volcano” (Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. i. p. 162); and that enterprising traveller, Stephens, notices the _volcan de agua_, “water volcano,” in the neighborhood of Antigua Guatemala. Incidents of Travel in Chiapas, Central America, and Yucatan (New York, 1841), vol. i. chap. 13.
[236] Mont Blanc, according to M. de Saussure, is 15,670 feet high. For the estimate of Popocatepetl, see an elaborate communication in the “Revista Mexicana,” tom. ii. No. 4.
[237] Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 70.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 5.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 78.--The latter writer speaks of the ascent as made when the army lay at Tlascala, and of the attempt as perfectly successful. The general’s letter, written soon after the event, with no motive for misstatement, is the better authority. See, also, Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 6, cap. 18.--Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. p. 308.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 62.
[238] [Montaño’s family remained in Mexico after the Conquest, and his daughter received a pension from the government. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. i. apénd. 2.]