very thin clothes were perfectly wet through, we chilled till our
teeth chattered. As soon, however, as the sun rose we got so warm
that we soon recovered our tempers. Towards nine o'clock we reached
the hut and got something to eat after twenty-nine hours' fast.

[A suspicious medal.] In the Trabajos y Hechos Nolables de la
Soc. Econom. de los Amigos del Pais, for September 4th, 1823, it is
said that "Don Antonio Siguenza paid a visit to the volcano of Albay
on March 11th," and that the Society "ordered a medal to be struck in
commemoration of the event, and in honor of the aforesaid Siguenza and
his companions." Everybody in Albay, however, assured me that the two
Scotchmen were the first to reach the top of the mountain. It is true
that in the above notice the ascent of the volcano is not directly
mentioned; but the fact of the medal naturally leads us to suppose
that nothing less can be referred to. Arenas, in his memoir, says:
"Mayon was surveyed by Captain Siguenza. From the crater to the base,
which is nearly at the level of the sea, he found that it measured
sixteen hundred and eighty-two Spanish feet or four sixty-eight and
two-third meters." A little further on, he adds, that he had read
in the records of the Society that they had had a gold medal struck
in honor of Siguenza, who had made some investigations about the
volcano's crater in 1823. He, therefore, appears to have had some
doubt about Siguenza's actual ascent.

[An early friar attempt.] According to the Franciscan records a couple
of monks attempted the ascent in 1592, in order to cure the natives
of their superstitious belief about the mountain. One of them never
returned; but the other, although he did not reach the summit, being
stopped by three deep abysses, made a hundred converts to Christianity
by the mere relation of his adventures. He died in the same year,