in the hallow of a stone and crushed it with much labor. This was put
into water, strained through a sieve, then thrown into a kettle of
boiling water. It was much toil for little food. Already she had labored
a full hour. I asked for coffee, and she answered she had none but would
buy some when the "store" opened. It grew broad daylight before this
happened and I accepted atole. It was hot, but as tasteless as might be
the water from boiled corn-stalks. There had been much discussion,
supposedly unknown to me, the night before as to how much they dared
charge me. The bill was finally set at twelve centavos (six cents),
eight for supper, three for lodging, and one for breakfast. It was
evidently highly exorbitant, for the family expressed to each other
their astonishment that I paid it without protest.

At the very outset there was a knee-deep river to cross, then miles of a
"gumbo" mud that stuck like bad habits. My feet at times weighed twenty
pounds each. Wild rocky hillsides alternated with breathless
climbs. Many cattle were scattered far and wide over the mountains, but
there was no cultivation. I passed an occasional _rancho_,
villages of six or seven adobe or thatch huts, with sometimes a ruined
brick chapel. Flowers bloomed thickly, morning glories, geraniums,
masses of a dark purple blossom. The "road" was either a mud-hole or a
sharp path of jagged rolling stones in a barren, rocky, tumbled
country. Eleven found me entering another rancho in a wild valley. My
attempts to buy food were several times answered with, "Mas arribita"--
"A little higher up." I came at last to the "restaurant." It was a
cobble-stone hut hung on a sharp hillside, with a hole two feet square
opening on the road. Two men in gay sarapes, with guns and belts of huge
cartridges, reached it at the same time, and we squatted together on the
ground at an angle of the wall below the window and ate with much
exchange of banter the food poked out to us. The two had come that