A native horse, none of which seem noted for their speed, carried me out
to the famous old mining town of La Luz, where the Spaniards first began
digging in this region. The animal made little headway forward, but
fully replaced this by the distance covered up and down. To it a trot
was evidently an endeavor to see how many times and how high it could
jump into the air from the same spot. The ancient Aztecs, seeing us
advancing upon them, would never have made the mistake of fancying man
and horse parts of the same animal. Moreover, the pesky beast had an
incurable predilection for treading, like a small boy "showing off," the
extreme edge of pathways at times not six inches from a sheer fall of
from five hundred to a thousand feet down rock-faced precipices.

Still it was a pleasant three-hour ride in the brilliant sunshine,
winding round and over the hills along pitching and tossing
trails. Peons obsequiously lifted their hats when I passed, which they
do not to a man afoot; a solemn stillness of rough-and-tumble mountains
and valleys, with deep-shadowed little gorges scolloped out of the
otherwise sun-flooded landscape, broad hedges of cactus and pitching
paths, down which the animal picked its way with ease and assurance,
alternated with mighty climbs over a dozen rises, each of which I
fancied the last.

La Luz is a typical town of mountainous Mexico. A long, broken adobe
village lies scattered along a precipitous valley, scores of "roads" and
trails hedged with cactus wind and swoop and climb again away over steep
hills and through deep _barrancos_, troops of peons and donkeys
enlivening them; flowers give a joyful touch, and patches of green and
the climate help to make the place reminiscent of the more thickly
settled portions of Palestine. From the town we could see plainly the