Summerland sketches : or, rambles in the backwoods of Mexico and Central America

Front matter

lilBRARY ANNEX i-; i!A

'f i I },

OforneU IntoBtHtta Slihrarg

Preface

In the winter of 1867 I was stationed at Medellin, near Vera Cruz, as director of an overcrowded military lazaretto. With accommodations for sixty men we had to take charge of two hundred, besides feeding and nursing a considerable number of destitute civilians, both Indians and whites, who had been quartered in the loft of a neighboring cotton-press. Our white charity patients were neither charitable nor patient; they clamored for the expulsion of their Indian countrymen, denounced the French steward as an Oriental barbarian, and bemoaned the departed glory of the Republic when I stopped their rations of smoking-tobacco. The scum of the Guachinangos, or homeless Creoles of the adjacent seaport-town, they were a lot of graceless scamps, with the apparent exception of a heroic old 'longshoreman who had been brought in an ambulance by a detachment of the harbor police, having nearly bled to death from two wounds which looked very much like French bayonet stabs.

But the supposed exception confirmed the rule when our hero turned out to be a Tabasco indigo planter who had been forced to join Rion's guerillas, and after the defeat of his corps and the confiscation of his property had made his way to Vera Cruz, wounded and penniless, in the hope of gaining admission to the City Hospital. His recovery was slow, but from first to last he behaved with a fortitude that won him the respect of his military nurses, and by and by the sympathy of our city visitors. A Vera Cruz merchant sent him a fine saddle-horse, and before I discharged him we collected money enough to help him over the first six months, or across the ocean if he should prefer to leave the country. He was a native of Reus in Western Catalonia. Mexico was on the eve of a general revolution, and the State of Tabasco was still under martial law; but the ranchero decided to stay.

" Twelve years ago I crossed the ocean of my own accord, and I do not repent it even now," he said, when he mounted his horse at the hospital gate. " Mexico is the freest country on earth, after all. They may blockade the valleys, and change their President for a Sultan, for all I care; but there is freedom in the mountains, and I know a place of refuge where neither monarchs nor demagogues will bother me."

After the restoration I transferred my medical apparatus to the Vera Cruz City Dispensary, and the health offlcer of the quarantine having tendered his resignation, the foreign residents recommended me as his successor, with a view of testing the efficacy of a system of sanitary precautions, whose adoption I had urged for many years. But the fallacy of that system was demonstrated, to my personal satisfaction at least, by the collapse of my own health. Neither surf-baths nor dietetic sacrifices would avail me ; the climate refuted the most cogent pathological axioms ; and I wa.s on the point of embarking for a less paradoxical latitude, when I remembered the man of Reus and his solution of a similar dilemma. Learning that there was a junta of inspecting officers at the fort, I called upon a former colleague, now Surgeon-General and member of the Government Immigration Committee. Soon after his return to the capital I received a communication from the Department of the Interior, and on the same day I exchanged a sea-water proof trunk for a Mexican pack-saddle. The coast range was slirouded with the mists of the rainy season, and my countrymen dismissed me with sore misgivings, and gave me up for lost when they learned that a congestive chill had arrested my progress at Puebla, but my next letter reassured tliem.

" Mexico is the healthiest country on earth, after all," I wrote from Tacubaya, the Montmartre of the Mexican capital ; " the fever may blockade your seaports and terrorize the lowlands from jSIatamoros to Yucatan, but in the mountains is freedom, and I have found a place of refuge where miasmi and mosquitoes will never bother me."

In the course of the next eight years I explored the highlands of Jalisco, Oaxaea, Colima, and Vera Paz, for the benefit of my own health or that of my employers, but like the Catalan farmer, I found more than I had sought. Independence, in tlie political sense, and a healthy climate might be found in the mountains of Scotland, and even of old Spain j but the New Spanish sierras can boast of a virgin soil with primeval forests which offer a sanitarium to all who seek refuge from the malady of our anti-natural civilization, from the old marasmus which has spread from the Syrian desert to the abandoned cotton-fields of Georgia and Alabama.

We vaunt our proficiency in the art of subjugating nature, but in the Old World the same ambition has led to a very dear-bought victory, which the countries of the East have paid with the loss of their forests, and the Eastern nations with the loss of their manhood ; their wild woodlands have been tamed into deserts, and their wild freemen into slaves ; the curse of the blighted land has recoiled upon its devastators. In our eagerness to wrest the sceptre from our Mother Earth we have invaded her domain with fire and sword, and instead of increasing the interest of our heritage we have devoured the principal ; the brilliant progress of the vain god of earth is tracked by a lengthening shadow, the day-star of our empire is approaching the western horizon. , Where shall it end ? Mould, sandy loam, and sand is Liebig's degeneration scale of treeless countries ; the American soil may pass through the same phases, and what then ? Will the sunset in the west be followed by a new eastern sunrise ? Shall Asia, the mother of religions, give birth to an earth-regenerating Messiah, whose gospel shall teach us to recognize the physical laws of God ? Or shall the gloaming fade into the night of the Buddhistic Nirvana, the final extinction of organic life on this planet ? It is not much of a consolation to think that in the latter case the nations of the higher latitudes might count upon a protracted twilight. The westward spread of the landblight will drive the'famished millions of the Old World upon our remaining woodlands, but the resources of the last Oasis will probably be husbanded with Scotch canniness and Prussian systematism, and before we share the fate of the Eastern nations we may see the dawn of the bureaucratic millennium, when all our fields shall be fenced in with brick walls, all rivers with irrigation-dykes, and all functions of our domestic life with official laws and by-laws. My trust in the eternal mercy of Providence lets me expect another deluge before that time, but the recuperative agencies of unaided nature seem powerless against the greatest of all earthly evils. National and territorial marasmus are incurable diseases ; the historical records of the Eastern continents, at least, prove nothing to the contrary. The coast-lands of the Mediterranean were the pleasure-gardens of the Juventus Mundi, the Elysian Fields whose inhabitants celebrated life as a festival ; and now? Spain, Southern Italy, Turkey, Greece, and Persia have been wasted to a shadow of their former self; ghouls and afrits haunt the burial-places of the North African empires ; and no invocation can break the death-slumber of Asia Minor. Acorns perish in the soil which once nourished the oaks of Bashan; outraged nature refuses to be reconciled. With the glory of the Orbis Romanus the spring-time of our earth has departed, and what America mistakes for the prime of a new year is but the lingering mildness of an Indian summer.

The career whose swiftness is our national boast has led us upon a road which has never been far pursued with impunity ; the rapidity of our tree and game destruction is far more unparalleled than the growth of our cities ; the misery of the Old World has not taught lis to avoid its causes, and the history of the effects will not fail to repeat itself. On the frozen shores of Lake Winnepeg and the inaccessible heights of the central Rocky Mountains a few remnants of the old forests will probably survive, but the great East American Sylvania is already doomed ; if we persist in our present course our last timber-States, Maine, Michigan, and North Carolina, will be as bald as Northern Italy in fifty years from now, and our last game will soon retreat to the festering swamps of Southern Florida.

The temperate zone of America will soon be the treeless zone, with a single exception. In the sierras of Southern Mexico large tracts of land still combine a generous climate with a rich arboreal vegetation. Mexico, like our own Republic, has her backwoods States, but their security from the inroads of the destroyer is guaranteed by better safeguards than their remoteness from the great commercial centres. The ruggedness of the surrounding sierras, the supposed or real scarcity of precious metals, and the independent character of the aboriginal population, all conspire to make the alturas or mountain forests as unattractive to

1* the imperious Spaniards as they are inviting to freedomloving visitors from the North.

To m}^ rambles and adventures in these alturas, to their scenic charms, their strange fauna and vegetable wonders, I have devoted this volume ; but I have rarely touched upon the mineral and agricultural resources of a region which should remain consecrate to the Hamadryads and their worshippers. The cities of the intervening " civilized" districts, too, I have only mentioned as wayside stations for the benefit of non-pedestrian tourists. New Spain makes no exception from the general rule that the nations of Europe have transformed their American dependencies after the image of their mother-countries, and only he who leaves the cities far behind can forget that Mexico was colonized under the auspices of St. Jago and Ximenes.

This collection of " Summerland Sketches" is therefore neither a record of a pilgrimage to the shrines and cathedrals of Spanish America, nor a bid for the patronage of Southwestern land-agencies, but rather a guide-book to one of the few remaining regions of earth that may give us an idea of the tree-land eastward in Eden which the Creator intended for the abode of mankind. In the terrace-lands of Western Colima and Oaxaca, near the head- waters of the Rio Lerma and the mountain lakes of Jalisco, and in the lonely highlands of Vera Paz, we may yet see forests that have never been desecrated by an axe, and free fellow-creatures which have not yet learned to flee from man as from a fiend.

Let us make the best of that last chance, for the time may be near when princes and sages shall envy those who have managed to get a glimpse of Paradise before the gates were closed forever.

FELIX L. OSWALD.

CiNCiifNATi, March, 1880.

CHAPTER I. PAOli

Southward Ho !— The "Gila City"— Fellow-Passengers— Vigils on the Pilot-Deck — Climatic Reflections — The Birthland of the Human Eaee — Southern Homesickness — The Saturnian Age — Paradise Theories — America Felix — Arrival in Guaymas — The Morgan Transport Company — Prairie-Schooners — Boss Davis — A Mexican Caravansary — Departure from Guaymas — The Vega — Our First Camp — Don Jose's Advice — Paso del Cabo — The Chieftain's Ford — An Indian Brutus — Sand-Hills — The Gila Desert — Pays de la Muerte — The American Timbuktoo — An Embryo Sahara — Origin of the Treeless Table- Lands — Professor Buckland's Conjecture — The Plateau of Encinal — A Natural Game-Preserve — The Oriyas — Night Camp in the Euins of Azatlan — Disagreeable Visitors — The Eio Mayo — Buffalo Hunters — Aragon Shepherds' Dogs — A Domestic Beast of Prey — Pronghorn Antelopes — The Sergeant's Wager — A Match for a Greyhound — Exciting Chase — Chaparral Cocks — The Phasianus Alector — Chickasaw Plums — Wild Jessamine — Butterfly Swarms — -De Leon's Land — The American Italy — Val de Canas — Don Pancho's Eanch — Mexican Hospitality — New Texas — Northern Colonists — Chronique Scandaleuse of a Mule-Farm — A Horse-Breaker's Secret — Taming a Bison — A Wooden Briareus — The Canas Valley — Are Hogs Snake-Proof? Don Pancho's Theory — Woman's Eights Limited — Toxicological Precautions — The Oasis of Encinal — Camp in a Mulberry-Grove — Locust Orchestra — Coyote Concerts — Vox Clamantis in Deserto . . 21

Chapter II

Kepublican Highways — Tie Geyser of Aguas Calientes — Valley of the Kio Puerte — The " Tree- Alligator" — Meeting a Countryman — A Linguistic Exile — Camp in a Bignonia-Grove — Arid Mountains — The Unpardonable Sin of Forest-Destruction — Ygdrasil — A Wayside Tavern — News from the Frontier — International Banter — San Luis Potosi — "Witch-Hunters — Dr. Eambert's Experience — Departure for San Bias — The Virgin Woods of the Eio Balsas — A Sierra Incognita — The Old Military Eoad — An Entomological Paradise — The Papilio Castor — Cow-Riders — Kustio Prejudices — Camp in a Pine-Porest — Dietetic Experiments — Dr. Kambert's Dilemma — Our Indian Purveyor — A Persistent Peddler — Chile Blanco y Colorado — A Patriotic Handkerchief — Bat Colony — Perse Naturae — The Night-Tiger — A Mexican Bugbear — Juan Rivera's Pate — A Hunter Hunted — Tackling a Tartar — Mountain Forests — The Voices of the Wilderness ........ 54

Chapter III. The Lake-region Of Jalisco

Lake Chapala — A Tropical Switzerland — View from the Sierra Madre — The Alturas — Mountain Woods — Juventus Mundi — The Lake-Shore — Black Herons — Wooded Islands — The Cascades of the Rio Blanco — Val de Paraiso — A Vanilla Plantation — Casa Morena — Don Martinez — Walton Redivivus — Aquatic Curiosities — A Private Museum — The Hog-Tapir — An Expensive Pet — Its Paroxysms of Appetite — Hot Sulphur- Springs —The Fountain of Eternal Coughs — Indian Gluttony — Fried Eels and Sulphur-Water — Evening Rambles — Camping in Eden — Camp-Fire Stories — Don Martinez's Adventure — Curious Phenomenon — Cross-Examination — An Unscientific Witness — Moonlight on the Lake — The Rio Lerma — Travelling Companions — Wild Hogs — Long-Range Arrow-Shooting — Migratory Quadrupeds — The Coast-Hills — In Sight of Mazatlan — Arrival at San Bias — Spanish Characteristics — A Mexican Hotel — Pepper-Pots — Dietetic Abuses ^.s. Intemperance — Hint to Travellers in Spanish America — A Negro Polyglot — Sunset on the Pacific — At the Mouth of the Rio Lerma — View from the Promontory . . . . 83

Chapter IV. The Western Sierras

PA.GE

San Bias — Engage a Guide — Mexican Stage-Coaches — A Tolerant Conductor — Dogs and Goats as Inside Passengers — Dust-Clouds of the Vega — Ascent of the Coast-Eange — The Granite-Alps of Jalisco — Bombax Forests — Climatic Paradoxes — Val de Culebras — A Serpent-Colony — Vivora Parda — Historical Serpents — A Conjecture — Night-Camp in the Sierra de Inua — Starlight — The Eegio Septentrionalis — Wild Scenery — Bighorn Sheep — Mountain Antelopes — Their Confidence — The Volcano of Culiacan — Inaccessible Peaks — Home of the Jaliscano Indians — A Pagan Reservation — Defile of Santander — The Plateau of Las Charcas — Arctic Vegetation — Ascent of the " Altar" — Bird's- Eye View of a Volcanic Phenomenon — A Land of Flowers — Pot-Hunters — Desperate Charge of a Wild Boar — Adonis — A Lucky Shot^Hacienda del Monte^The Governor of Jalisco — A Mexican Philosopher — His Opinion on Woman's Rights — On the Religion of the Future — Bachelor's Hall — Questionable Pastimes — Breaking a Grizzly — A Famous Bull — Padre Felipe's Pets — Trip to the Val de San Juan — An Indian Walhalla — Temple Ruins of Mayapan — Christian Iconoclasts — The Marvel of Atocha — A Symbol of the Moon^ — Lapidary Inscriptions — A Problematic Statue — The Jaliscano Indians — Curious Customs — Adherence to Pagan Rites — Traditions — A Famous Chieftain . . 113

Chapter V. The Sierra Madre

Ascent of Mount Orizaba — Black-Tail Deer — Lonely Heights — The Snow-Line — Excelsior — An Unrivalled Panorama — The Two Oceans — Gulf Islands — Our Mediterranean Sea — The Peak of Perote — Glaciers of the Sierra de San Juan — Mountain Scenery — Terrace-Lands — Contrasted Vegetation — The Coniferous Belt — Forced March — Pine-Forests — Alpine Flora — Mountain Grouse — The Canon of the Rio Blanco — Deserted Mining-Works — Camp in the Old Quartel — Fireside Comforts — A Free and Easy Symposium — Easeus. Luxury— Jose's Ghost Story — La Llorona— Origin of an International Super-

PAGE

stition— The Tuxpan's Testimonial — A Cold Night — Pire- Worehip — Sunrise in the Sierra Madre — Morning Air — The Valley of the Kio Blanco — Barrancas — Limestone Caves — A Colony of Vultures — "Winged Kidnappers — G-anymede — Tresmontes — Monastery of San Eafael — A Mountain Convent 151

Chapter VI. La Tierra Pria

The Convent of San Eafael — A Museum in a Church — Padre Eatoon — A Self-taught Mineralogist — Crudities of Spanish Science — Scientific Curiosity — Deficiencies of the Modern Latin Eaces — The Night of the Middle Ages — A Strange Curiosity- Shop — Secular Ornaments — A Free and Easy Convent — Privileged Friars — Villa Amorosa — The " Children of the Convent" — Precocious Depravity — Pablito's Experiment — Can Squirrels be Killed by a Fall ? — Salto Mortale — Mountain Vegetation — Turpentine Works — Bewitched Bats — A Curious Problem — Val de Perote — New-Spanish Eobber Castles — Mountain Air — A Lung-Test — Don Jose M'Cann — A Carnivorous Hermit — La Trampa — An Eating Match — The Charms of Solitude — Dumb Companions — Voices of the Night — The Pinal de Loreto — Pine- Jungles — Indian Outlaws — Eagle's Nest — Mountain Weasels — Spinescent Trees — Vegetable Instinct — Val de Perote — The Old Fort — Classic Pastimes — The Vegos Brothers — A Foot-Eace — Juancito's Stratagem — Gymnastic Emulation — The Olympic Games : What Nation will Eevive Them ? ... 182

Chapter VII. The Valley Of Oaxaca

Tehuantepec — Aspect of the Coast — Dissolving Views — Mist- Shrouded Lowlands — The Eainy Season — A Strange Panorama — Cloudless Heights — The Llanos Ventosos — Landing in a Squall — Tehuantepec Guides — A Travelling Companion — Eain-Bound — Blockade-Eunning — Horrible Eoads — The Mud- Belt of the Tierra Caliente — The Hummock Eegion — Wild Orchards — A Forced Night-March — Mosquito Jungles — A

PAGE

Place of Eefuge — Night-Voices — The Happiness of Contrast — Reveille — Sunrise in the Foothills— Air de Mille Pleurs— "Woodland Odors — Bird-Voices — A Morning Hymn — The Valley of the Rio Verde — Reptilian and Entomological Bugbears — Harmless Snakes — Vegetable "Wonders — The Cypress of Maria del Tule — Val de Morillo — Orange Gardens — The American Daphne — Tropical Butterflies — Catching Butterflies for a Living — New Bern — Swiss Colonists — Enviable Homesteads — The Climate of the Llanos Ventosos — Pastor "Wenks's "Weather List — Creature Comforts — "Wild Fruits — Cheap Venison — Market Quotations — A "Winter Resort for Consumptives — Resources of the Tierra Caliente — Falcon Hunters — Valuable . Dogs — Treeing a Puma — Las Cascadas — A Private Zoo — Pet Reptiles and Carnivora : Their Ridiculous Tameness — How to Break Dogs from Chicken-Stealing — Supposed Case of Hydrophobia in a Monkey — A Test of Courage — Cicuta Poison — A Strange Tipple — Fuddling with Water Hemlock — Can all Poisons become a, "Second Nature"? — Capuchin Monkeys : Their Obstinacy — A Beast-Tamer Nonplussed — The Limestone Caves of the Sierra Honda — Las Tunas — A Convent Festival — Monastic Bonvivants — Fete Champetre — A Spanish Hercules — The Padre Vicario's "Wager — Tropical Moonlight — "LaVirgen del Pilar" — Nocturnal Dances — A Sanitarium for Pessimists . . .... .219

Chapter VIII. The Delta Of The Sumasinta Rivek

A Shoreless River — Tanglewood — The Swamp-Labyrinth — Strongholds of the "Wilderness — Animal Reservations — Man's Power and its Limits — Inundated Forests — Driftwood Chaos — The Raft Faluca — Dangerous Navigation — The Negro Pilot — Floating Islands — A River-Lake — Land at Last — Camp on Terra Firma — Courting Sleep under Difficulties— Mosquitology — Heroic Remedies — Can the Human Skin become Gnat-Proof?

Under Weigh — The Swamp-Otter — Its Curious Burrows —

Sweetwater Dolphins — Indian Superstitions — Swarms of Water Fowl — Corrientes — A Queer Depot — Pinto Wigwam- Trapping an Alligator — A Surprised Saurian— Settling Old Scores — Vae Victis — The Wigwam Belles — The Costume of

PA«K the Nereids — Pepita's Bonnet — A Casus Belli — Inconvertible Bipeds — Father Cristoval's Lament — Eio Gordo — Aquatic Hunting-Grounds — Habits of the Jaguar — Baiting a Trap with a Corpse — A Curious Case of Blood-Poisoning-^The Mission of San Gabriel — Major Casales — A Swamp Oasis — Lago de Patos — River Pirates — Their Inaccessible Eetrfeats — A Chronicle of the "Wilderness — Mysterious Visitors — A Pour-Legged Lothario — Curious Instinct of a Tame Monkey — Boa-Shooting — A Pinto Patriarch — Indian Kenegades — Impious Inscriptions — Boasting a Boa — Gastronomic Eeflections — The Delta of the Sumasinta River — Lago de Terminos — A Pathless Wilderness — Jack o' Lantern — Carmen Harbor . . . 255

Chapter IX. Rambles In Tucatan

The American Hindostan — Indestructible Forests — Yucatan Indians — A Belligerent Peninsula — Free-Soilers — An Ethnological Problem — San Joaquin — Tropical Fruits in Midwinter — The Teamster from Tennessee — A Water-Cure — The Arenal — Evergreen Forests — A Summerland — Arboreal Quadrupeds — El Hormiguero — A Gypsy Camp — The Tabascanos — Shooting Frugivorous Bats for Supper — De Gustibus, etc. — Macoba — Plum-Pudding Day — An Elaborate Feast — Yictimized by Indian Hogs — The Avenger — Lynching a Lunch-Fiend — Christmas Eve — Kettle-Drums — Indian Converts — Heavy- Armed Missionaries — Dogs as Tax-Collectors — Reclaiming an Apostate — Don Pedro Santo — The Dangers of Unbelief — Striking and Shooting Arguments — Cerro de Macoba^ — Vestiges of Former Civilization — Summer Diet — Frugality — Christmas Dinner — In the Greenwood Shade — Arcadian Pastimes — North and South — Day-Dreams — The Camino Real — Weather Prophets — Ominous Sounds — Chased by a Tornado — The "Tower- House" — Just in Time — A Tropical Thunderstorm — Jupiter Tonans — Von Haller's Conjecture — A Mountain-Farm — Monkey Traps — Carnivorous Squirrels — An Unlucky Pet — The Banana Zone — Spontaneous Orchards — Wild Honey — Cheapness of Happiness in the Tropics — Our Lost Garden- Home .... 290

Chapter X. The American Pompeii

Ruins of the New World— Man and Nature— Fate of the Aryan Empires — A Strange Contrast— Redeemed Deserts — Prehistoric Cities — Chichen — Macoha— The Discovery of Uxmal— Baron "Waldek's Account — An Archaeological Treasure-Trove — Don Yegro's Guest— A Lucky Accident— Arrival at Uxmal— The Majordomo— Our Cicerone— The " Governor's House" — El Palomal — Spanish Nomenclature — The Nunnery — A Sculptured Coliseum — Startling Frescos — The House of the Dwarfs "Altar of Abraham"- Gigantic Ruins— The Oldest Inhabitant —A Problematic Quadruped— The " Town-Crier"— Curious Inscriptions — Sculptured Nondescripts — The Sphinx — Camping in a Palace of Unknown Kings — Fireside Tales — La Rebosada — Outwitting a Night-hag — A Narrow Escape — Indian Traditions — Legend of the Nunnery — Nocturnal Dancers — Sensitive Spooks — A Disappointed Treasure-Hunter — Historical Enigmas — The Malady of Civilization — Nature's Remedy — Redeemed Ruins 326

CHAPTER XL

THE BACKWOODS OF GUATEMALA.

The American Siam — Nature's Botanic Garden — The Palm- Forests of Vera Paz — A Transcontinental Bridie-Path — A Pleasant Companion — The Spider-Monkey — Monkey-Lore — Don Ruan's Theory — Bird- Voices— Ornithological Curiosities — Among the Parrots — The Purple Macaw — Outshining a Peacock — Rio Moscon — Camp in the Tree-tops — Excelsior — Tree Rats — An Unsolved Mystery — Grass Fog — A Snake-Panic — Spider-Monkeys — Monkey-Shooting — A Half-Homicide — Baby Monkeys — Love after Death — A Logwood Camp — Darkness during a Rainstorm — Do Animals enjoy Rain? — Sloths and Monkeys — Their Indifference to a Pelting Shower — A Slothful Family — My Indian Guide — Walking Barefoot in a Jungle^ Natural Sole-Leather — Advantages of a Hardy Education — Is Health the Summum Bonum ? — The Charms of Savage Life — Hunting-Grounds of the Casca Indians — Forest Nomads — Casca Wigwam — A Precocious Muchacho — ^^Knowing Babes in the Woods — Precocity of the Inferior Races— Animal

PAGE

Analogies — Capture of a Young Ant-Bear — Its Awful Shrieks — Arboreal Nosegays — The White Blooming Cecropia — Gorgeous Butterflies — Edible Fruit of the Quercus Ilex — The Gusano Infernal — A Dwarf Rattlesnake : EflTects of its Bite on Dogs ; on an Indian Child — Queer Eemedies — First View of the Sierra Negra — Val de Tortugas — Mountain Lakes — Turtle-Egg Hunters — A Visit to their Kendezvous — Wayside Stores — A Bucolic Instrument — Tortugas — An Indian Patriarch — Cutting a Third Set of Teeth — Unimpeachable Testimony — Parched Corn Bread vs. Sozodont — Ethnological Reflections . . 362

Chapter XII. The Virgin Woods Of The Sierra Negra

Daybreak — Sun-Gilt Peaks — Ascent of the Sierra Negra — The Weather-Saint — Mountain Forests — El Animalote — Boa- Shooting — Tenacity of Life in a Snake — The Caiion of the Rio Motagua — A River dissolved into Spray — A Tropical Yosemite — Pine Woods — A Highland Ranch — Gil Mateo's Boys — A Self-Reliant American — The Casucha — A Hunter's Castle — Living in an Arbor — Indian Pot-Hunters — A Gamelaw-less Land — Value of a Squirrel-Gun — A Humble Visitor — The Guachinos — Indian Remedy for Lovesickness — A Youthful Suicide — The Eastern Slopes of the Sierra Negra — Their Beauty and Loneliness — Wild Pineapples — Alpine Pastures — Fragrance of the Artemisia Alpina — Psychic Influence of Mountain Air — Blue Skies vs. Blue Glass — Chances for a Swiss Colony — Edible Acorns — Colossal Fir-Trees — Squirrel- Monkeys — Connecting Link between the Rodents and Quadrumana — Facts for Darwin — La Zapateria — Cerberus — Predatory Monkeys — Monkey-Hounds — The Wages of Sin^ Vicarious Atonement — The Pantaneros — A Musical Escort — The Austrian Sergeant — An Eventful Career — In Sight of Port Isabel — Transparent Atmosphere — Optic Illusion — The Sun of Mexico — An International Seaport Town — Mexican Garrison — The Harbor of Port Isabel — Barra del Padre — On the Wharf— Passengers of the New Orleans Steamer— Sunset — The Coast-Range — Sunlight on the Sierra de San Tomas — The Last Bell — Valedictory — The Signal-Gun — Adios a Mexico 395

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

1. View on the Rio Motagua

Frontispiece

2. Puerto de Guajanas

3. "Boss Davis"

4. Sonora Indians

5. Euins of Azatlan .

6. The Ranchero

7. Plateau of Encinal

8. Val de Caiias

9. On the Eoad to San Luis

10. Aguas Calientes .

11. " Tree-Alligator" (Iguana) .

12. On the Lerma River

13. An Indian Rancho

14. Oolima Peasants .

15. Lake Chapala

16. The Hog-Tapir

. 91

17. Chechemeca Platanero

. 103

18. Chechemeca Bowman

19. A Negro Polyglot

20. San Bias

21. The Tuxpano

. 123

22. Peak of Culiacan

. 128

23. Jose

. 137

24. Hacienda del Monte

25. Temple Ruins of Mayapan

26. Mount Orizaba

27. Slopes of the Sierra Madre

28. Crater of Orizaba ... . .

29. In the Pinal . . . .

30. Deserted Mining-Works on the Rio Blanco .

31. Convent of San Rafael .

. 177

82. " Dolce far Niente"

. 185

33. Mount Perote ...

. 189

34. Precipice of the Rio Blanco .

. 191

35. El Tigrero .

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

36. La Trampa

37. Val de Perote and the Old Fort

38. TheFoot-Eace ....

39. Falls of the Klo Verde .

40. Jungles of the Rio Verde

41. Cypress of Maria del Tule .

42. Indian Falconer ....

43. Don Carl's Pets ....

44. Limestone Caves of the Sierra Honda

45. The Wigwam Swing

46. The Swamps of the Sumasinta

47. The Eaft Faluca ....

48. Settling Old Scores

49. Mission of San Gabriel

50. A Pinto Patriarch

51. Skinning a Boa

52. Carmen Harbor

53. " Sauve Qui Pent"

54. Tabascano Indians

55. Lynching a Lunch-Fiend

56. Reclaiming an Apostate

57. Don Pedro Santo .

58. Christmas in Yucatan .

59. The Ruins of Saorificios

60. South Wall of Casa de las Monjas

61. The Palomal

62. The Town-Crier . 68. The House of the Dwarf

64. The Oldest Inhabitant .

65. A Disappointed Treasure-Hunter

66. Obelisk of Uxmal

67. Excelsior

68. Village of the Casca Indians '69. In the Toils ....

70. Love after Death .

71. An Ant-Bear at Bay

72. The Highlands of Vera Paz .

73. Boa-Shooting

74. A Hunter's Castle

75. Enfant Perdu

76. Port Isabel .

PA8E

SDMMERLAND SKETCHES.

Chapter I. Sonoea

Mi pays y los monies me Uaman,

Our boat had left Fort Yuma on a cold October morning, and a little before sunset we entered the Gulf of California. Either the weather had moderated during the afternoon, or the first ten hours of our voyage had brought us to a latitude where October is still a summer month, for some of my fellow-passengers appeared on deck in their shirt-sleeves, and even the Mexican sailors had folded their ponchos into pillows and slept or smoked under the lee of the caboose.