Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/104

84 serried ranks, expecting every moment to hear a bullet whizz over our heads.

Here were the most beautiful wild flowers we have yet seen; some purple, white and rose color in one blossom; probably the flower called ocelojo-chitl or viper's head; others bright scarlet; others red, with white and yellow stripes, and with an Indian name, signifying the tiger's flower; some had rose-colored blossoms; others were of the purest white.

We came at last to a road over a mountain, about as bad as anything we had yet seen. Our train of horses and mules, and men in their Mexican dresses, looked very picturesque, winding up and down these steep crags; and here again, forgetful of robbers, each one wandered according to his own fancy, some riding forward, and others lingering behind to pull branches of these beautiful wild blossoms. The horses' heads were covered with flowers of every color, so that they looked like victims adorned for sacrifice. Cn indulged his botanical and geological propensities, occasionally to the great detriment of his companions, as we were anxious to arrive at some resting place before The sun became insupportable. As for the robbers, these gentlemen, who always keep a sharp look-out and rarely endanger their precious persons without some sufficient motive, and who moreover seem to have some magical power of seeing through stone walls and into portmanteaus, were no doubt aware that our luggage would neither have replenished their own nor their ladies wardrobes, and calculated that people who travel for pleasure are not likely to carry any great