Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-06-22
COLD TEA ON PoPooArAPErL.
How Two American Girls Made the
Ascent of the Great Mountain.

How Two American Girls Made the
Ascent of the Great M fountain.
Minerva and I, with our guides, left
Amecameca on the 18th Of April, says
Mexico letter to the Denver Tribune.
The first night we passed far up the slope
at the house of Don Damingo Zila. BY 5
the next morning we were 1900 feet
above the sea. At an elevation Of 1900
feet the scenes were grand, impressive
even, TO the Yankee girl who had learned
to climb at Pixies Peak. The clouds
gathered and FASTENED US on and up. And
now the struggle began. Our alpenstocks
were no fancy affairs-chamois horn tip
and other continental nonsense-but stout
sticks, piked with iron, which we drove
down desperate depths and to which we
chung with despairing grip. Our guide
book advises travellers to s'provide them
selves with oyercoats, wells and alpen-
stock, which they drive into the ashes
wild jokes about taking wells and over
coats ''to drive into the volcanic sand"
but we found danger of literally following
this advice, danger Of sinking ourselves,
wells, overcoats and all. beyond exhuma-
ton. We 1oundered through the black
sand and gained the first fiuted ruffle of the
white skirt Of snow that drops down from
scumng, slipping over the rough blocks of
ice and snow; falling back to rest but
moment, then staggering on again !;
dragged and pushed; hands torn and bleed
ing from clutching the sharp edge of the
ice barriers; tumbling on. half crazed
with pains that dart through eyes and
forehead, for four long hours we travel,
until at last we nearly totter over the edge
of the bleak and yawning gulf and hear
n ha trim slfaF, a vol
of the guide, as he cries: mira, aqui
esta la CRATER Look, here is the crater
Woman's pluck has won, and we have the
satisfaction of seeing poor bruin, who re-
sembles Hamlet only in being STAT and
scant of BREATH y the last to reach the goal
of our united ambition.
Rolled in my warm Scots plaid. and the
.xlartipa zlais.e tl,-e.-e.A tl-O roIOfnoelu re-
lieyed by slight hemorrhage from both
nose and ears, / was soon as snug as
though in my own 'rug" below, and a
glass of cold tea brought me to a realizing
sense of making the most of the hour we
were to spend on the summit. The day
was clear and fine; but must be truthful,
and say that the view aboye $4,000 feet is
not satisfactory. An area of 10000 square
miles is well enough to talk of. but too
vast for human limitations and human
eyes. Indistinct and shadowy, here the
earth and the sky ''seem closing down like
a book that is read.' The clouds lay be-
low, and in one direction a fierce storm
was spending its fury. We could see the
lightning flash, making strange riffs
among the dark shadows.
The crater is very similar to Vesuvius,
only being about three times as large, and
is silent, except occasional reverberatious
of sound from the sulphur works below.
A dense cloud of birthstone blue ascands
forever and ever from the horrible depths.
To-day more than one hundred Indians are
working in the crater. They ascend and
descend continually, not on a heavenly
ladder, but by means of a rude within and
a turbine which is being put in for hoist
ing. Fancy it-a turbine wheel $4,000 feet
in the air. They have huts 800 feet down
in the crater. And down in that inferno
they actually live, often not coming up in
the sunlight for a month at time. Their
teeth soon wear away and their clothes
decay and drop off; but / was told they
are content, and suffer no i'll effects that
money and NATURALIZATION anglefoot--
would not mend. But it needs a union of
the imagination of Dante with the pen
of bore to give you their pictures.
The descent was rapid. The guides
rolled us up in straw mats and slid US
down the glacier-hke cone. A grand ex-
perience in tobogganing it was, but the
bruises will long Outlast the experience.
Another night we spent with the feeble
comics, and the following day were riding
among the cacti and palms of the valley. /