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The Peak of Teneriffe and Cotopaxi, according to Humboldt, are similarly constructed; he states that "at their summits a circular wall surrounds the crater, which wall, at a distance, has the appearance of a small cylinder placed on a truncated cone.
It seemed hard to turn back after getting so far along the great path of the human race; and one had to reason with oneself Foolish soul, whither would you go? You cannot go westward for ever. If you go up the Orinoco, you will long to go up the Meta. If you get to Sta. Fe de Bogota, you will not be content till you cross the Andes and see Cotopaxi and Chimborazo.
As for Dick, it scarcely needed the interview which he had with Captain Wilson, of the Cotopaxi, to decide him to return to England in that ship.
Advancing northward we find, between the volcano of Cotopaxi and the town of Honda, two other systems of volcanic mountains, those of los Pastos and of Popayan. The connection between these systems was manifested in the Andes by a phenomenon which I have already had occasion to notice, in speaking of the last destruction of Cumana.
To add to their distress, the air was filled for several days with thick clouds of earthy particles and cinders, which blinded the men, and made respiration exceedingly difficult.11 This phenomenon, it seems probable, was caused by an eruption of the distant Cotopaxi, which, about twelve leagues southeast of Quito, rears up its colossal and perfectly symmetrical cone far above the limits of eternal snow, the most beautiful and the most terrible of the American volcanoes.12 At the time of Alvarado's expedition, it was in a state of eruption, the earliest instance of the kind on record, though doubtless not the earliest.13 Since that period, it has been in frequent commotion, sending up its sheets of flame to the height of half a mile, spouting forth cataracts of lava that have overwhelmed towns and villages in their career, and shaking the earth with subterraneous thunders, that, at the distance of more than a hundred leagues, sounded like the reports of artillery!14 Alvarado's followers, unacquainted with the cause of the phenomenon, as they wandered over tracts buried in snow, the sight of which was strange to them, in an atmosphere laden with ashes, became bewildered by this confusion of the elements, which Nature seemed to have contrived purposely for their destruction.
Cotopaxi, a volcano of the Cordilleras of Quito, still active, and covered by snow down to a level of 14,800 feet. Below this is a zone of naked rock, succeeded by another of forest vegetation. Owing to the continuous extrusion of lava from the crater, the cone is being gradually built up of fresh material, and the crater is comparatively small in consequence.
Great as the contrast is between this filmy material and the ponderous blocks tossed into the air by Cotopaxi and Etna, it is not greater than that between the latter and other masses which have from time to time been upheaved by volcanic forces.
His unhappy followers, fresh from the warm climate of Guatemala, were perished with the cold, and still further distressed by suffocating clouds of dust and ashes from the volcano of Cotopaxi. After days of incredible suffering they emerged at last, but leaving behind them at least a fourth of their number, beside two thousand Indians, who had died of cold and hunger.
Moreover, it is extremely uncertain when we shall hear of our boy's safe arrival; not, I fear, until we get to Valparaiso, and then only by telegram a long time to look forward to. Over the next half-hour I had better draw a veil. At two o'clock precisely, just after we had left the steamer, the starting bell rang, and the 'Cotopaxi' steamed away.
Those towering mountains, whose ``proud aspiring peaks'' cast silhouettes of shadow that seem drawn with india-ink; those vast plains, enchained with gentle winding hills and bordered with giant ranges; those oval ``oceans, where one looks expectant for the flash of wind-whipped waves; those enchanting ``bays'' and recesses at the seaward feet of the Alps; those broad straits passing between guardian heights incomparably mightier than Gibraltar; those locket-like valleys as secluded among their mountains as the Vale of Cashmere; those colossal craters that make us smile at the pretensions of Vesuvius, Etna, and Cotopaxi; those strange white ways which pass with the unconcern of Roman roads across mountain, gorge, and valley all these give the beholder an irresistible impression that it is truly a world into which he is looking, a world akin to ours, and yet no more like our world than Pompeii is like Naples.
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