[Footnote 11: "It began to rain earthy particles from the
heavens," says Oviedo, "that blinded the men and horses, so that
the trees and bushes were full of dirt." Hist. de las Indias,
Ms., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 20.]
[Footnote 12: Garcilasso says the shower of ashes came from the
"volcano of Quito." (Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 2, cap. 2.) Cieza
de Leon only says from one of the volcanoes in that region.
(Cronica, cap. 41.) Neither of them specify the name. Humboldt
accepts the common opinion, that Cotopaxi was intended.
Researches, I. 123.]
[Footnote 13: A popular tradition among the natives states, that
a large fragment of porphyry near the base of the cone was thrown
out in an eruption, which occurred at the moment of Atahuallpa's
death. - But such tradition will hardly pass for history.]
[Footnote 14: A minute account of this formidable mountain is
given by M. de Humboldt, (Researches, I. 118, et seq.,) and more
circumstantially by Condamine. (Voyage a l'Equateur, pp. 48 - 56
156 - 160.) The latter philosopher would have attempted to scale
the almost perpendicular walls of the volcano, but no one was
hardy enough to second him.]
At length, Alvarado, after sufferings, which even the most hardy,
probably, could have endured but a few days longer, emerged from
the Snowy Pass, and came on the elevated table-land, which
spreads out, at the height of more than nine thousand feet above
the ocean, in the neighbourhood of Riobamba.
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