Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/93

Rh which we were now passing out of, and put on such as is worn in San Francisco.

At every turn on the road we met trains of pack-mules laden with the produce of the country, going down to the coast, or were, for hours, mixed up with similar trains going up from the coast to the interior.



The down trains were loaded with the hard soap of Zapotlan, coarse earthen ware, fruit, sugar, etc., but principally, soap. The up trains were loaded with sugar, rice, and aguardiente, of which there seemed to be no end. One train must have numbered at least two hundred and fifty mules, each loaded with two barrels of the accursed aguardiente, eighteen or twenty gallons in each cask. The poor little mules were utterly exhausted with climbing and descending the barrancas, and were dropping down at intervals of a few rods all along the road. It is estimated that not less