Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/98

96 beauty lacks. Hills, mountain-sides, deep cup-like valleys, all are glowing with verdure; and the loving touch of humanity softens the rugged grandeur of Nature. The odd, pretty, miserable houses, with walls of adobe, and roof of thatch or fluted scales of red tiles; the lofty, deep-domed sky, clear and dazzling; the clouds resting ever on far-off mountain-tops; the marshy meadows, with innumerable herds of cattle and swarthy shepherds standing knee-deep in the water, are another and a newer page of fascination. Wild, rocky gorges open sometimes suddenly at the road-side; abrupt canons drop between the hills; deep chasms and sheer precipices leap to unknown depths; but always beyond, the peaceful valleys smile, and the blue mountains keep guard against sense of strife or danger. Wretchedly poor as its inhabitants seem to be, there are compensations. Ignorant of care, untroubled by longing, untortured by ambition, their lot may have more of blessing than we imagine.

On the crest of one hill we looked down a deep ravine to the City of Mexico, thirty-two hundred feet below, and forty miles away. An ocean of overlapping mountains, tossed together like wind-