Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/335

Rh can be more beautiful or romantic than this road, ascending through these noble forests, whose lofty oaks and gigantic pines clothe the mountains to their highest summits; sometimes so high that, as we look upwards, the trees seem diminished to shrubs and bushes; the sun darting his warm, golden light between the dark green extended branches of these distant forest pyramids, so that they seem to be basking in the very focus of his rays. Untrodden and virgin as these forests appear, an occasional cross, with its withered garland, gives token of life, and also of death; and green and lonely is the grave which the traveller has found among these Alpine solitudes, under the shadows of the dark pine, on a bed of fragrant wild flowers, fanned by the pure air from the mountain tops. The flowers which grow under the shade of the trees are beautiful and gay in their colors. Everywhere there are blue lupins, marigolds, dahlias, and innumerable blossoms with Indian names. Sometimes we dismounted and walked up the steepest parts, to rest our horses and ourselves, but as it was impossible to go fast on these stony paths, it became entirely dark before Angangueo was in sight; and the road which, for a great part of the way, is remarkably good, now led us down a perpendicular descent amongst the trees, covered with rocks and stones, so that the horses stumbled, and one, which afterwards proved to be blind of one eye, and not to see very clearly with the other, fell and threw his rider, who was not hurt. It was near eight o'clock (and we had been on horseback since six in the morning) when, after crossing