fences to mark these boundaries of some new hacienda or estate. From the
highest point there was a pretty retrospect back on Atequisa and the
railroad and the broad valley almost to far-off Guadalajara, and ahead,
also still far away, Lake Chapala shimmering in the early
sunset. Between lay broad, rolling land, rich with flowers and
shrubbery, and with much cultivation also, one vast field of ripening
Indian corn surely four miles long and half as wide stretching like a
sea to its surrounding hills, about its edge the leaf and branch shacks
of its guardians. Maize, too, covered all the slope down to the
mountain-girdled lake, and far, far away on a point of land, like Tyre
out in the Mediterranean, the twin towers of the church of Chapala stood
out against the dimming lake and the blue-gray range beyond.

Two leagues off it the peasant pointed out the ridge that hid his casita
and his animalitos and his good wife--with her broken arm now--and
regretting that I would not accept his poor hospitality, for I must be
tired, he rode away down a little barranca walled by tall bushes with
brilliant masses of purple, red, and pink flowers and so on up to the
little patch of corn which--yes, surely, I could see a corner of it from
here, and from it, if only I would come, I should see the broad blue
view of Chapala lake, and--My road descended and went down into the
night, plentifully scattered with loose stones. Before it had grown
really dark I found myself casting a shadow ahead, and turned to find an
enormous red moon gazing dreamily at me from the summit of the road
behind. Then came the suburbs and enormous ox-carts loaded with
everything, and donkeys without number passing silent-footed in the
sand, and peons, lacking entirely the half-insolence and pulque-sodden
faces of Guanajuato region, greeted me unfailingly with "Adios" or
"Buenas noches."