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,
in consequence, it is recorded, of the many variations of temperature
to which he was exposed in his ascent of the volcano.

[Estimates of height] Some books say that the mountain is of
considerable height; but the Estado Geografico of the Franciscans for
1855, where one could scarcely expect to find such a thoughtless
repetition of so gross a typographical error, says that the
measurements of Siguenza give the mountain a height of sixteen
hundred and eighty-two feet. According to my own barometrical reading,
the height of the summit above the level of the sea was twenty-three
hundred and seventy-four meters, or eighty-five hundred and fifty-nine
Spanish feet.

CHAPTER X

[An accident and a month's rest.] I sprained my foot so badly in
ascending Mayon that I was obliged to keep the house for a month. Under
the circumstances, I was not sorry to find myself settled in a roomy
and comfortable dwelling. My house was built upon the banks of a
small stream, and stood in the middle of a garden in which coffee,
cacao, oranges, papayas, and bananas grew luxuriantly, in s