Though the mine throbbed on, I set off one sunny Sunday morning to walk
to town and the weekly ball game. It was just warm enough for a summer
coat, a breeze blew as at sea, an occasional telephone pole was singing
as with contentment with life in this perfect climate. Groups of
brownish-gray donkeys with loads on their backs passed me or crawled
along far-away trails, followed by men in tight white trousers, their
striped and gay-colored sarapes about their bodies and their huge hats
atop. Over all was a Sunday stillness, broken only by the occasional
bark of a distant dog or a cockcrow that was almost musical as it was
borne by on the wind. Everywhere were mountains piled into the
sky. Valenciana, where so many Spaniards, long since gone to whatever
reward awaited them, waxed rich and built a church now golden brown with
age, sat on its slope across the valley, down in which no one would have
guessed huddled a city of some 60,000 inhabitants. Much nearer and a
bit below drowsed the old town of Calderon, home of many of our peons, a
bright red blanket hung over a stone wall giving a splash of brilliancy
to the vast stretch of grayish, dull-brown, and thirsty green. The road
wound slowly down and ever down, until the gullies grew warmer as the
rising mountains cut off the breeze and left the sun in undisputed
command. Along the way were flowers uncountable, chiefly large, white,
lily-like blossoms growing on a bush, then thick patches of
orange-yellow. Horsemen, Mexicans on burros, peon men, women, and
children afoot were legion. There were no Americans, though I passed
one huge Negro with a great black beard who gave me "Good morning" from
his horse in the tone of a man who had not met an equal before in some
time. At length appeared the emerald-green patch of the upper Presa,
with its statue of Hidalgo, and the cafe-au-lait pond that stores the
city's water, and over the parapet of which hung _guanajuatenses_
watching with wonder the rowboat of the American hospital doctor, the