Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/371

 Mexico, called La Soledad, and by others El Desierto, the solitary, or desert place and Wilderness. Were all like it, to live in a wilderness would be better than to live in a City," This wilderness. El Desierto, is situated some fifteen miles from the capital, on the road to Toluca. No railroad was finished to it at the time of my visit, and no regular stage line connects it with the city, and so any one then desiring to visit this abandoned convent of the Carmelites had to do as a party of us, tourists and engineers, did, one pleasant day in June. We chartered a diligence capable of holding fifteen persons, and, leaving Mexico at six in the morning, climbed the hills that led away to this conventual paradise. Thirteen engineers, let loose from a week's confinement in the office, it may be needless to remark, disencumber themselves at once of whatever restraint office rules may have laid upon them, and if the people along the route of our road did not know that we were Americans, it was not altogether the fault of the engineers. Besides ourselves there were ten mules and an experienced driver, one who had driven between Mexico and Toluca for many a year.

Leaving the valley, you say good by to all refreshing vegetation except such as snuggles in secluded valleys or in the gardens of the villages. At the hamlet of Santa Fe, those of the party who were outside exclaimed to those who were inside that they ought to be on the roof, for the view was beautiful beyond their power of praise. And this was no exaggeration, as those of us who were so fortunate as to secure an outside seat going down confessed to ourselves on the way back. A picture alone can convey to my reader the exceeding beauty of this fair valley, with its hills, lakes, towns, cities, and mountains seen through the heavenly atmosphere that blesses this country; only Velasco's pictures could do this to perfection, and one must try to fill in the colors in imagination.

The diligence portion of the route was a small matter, for after we had been safely carried to a miserable village called Caujimalpa, the driver assured us that there his obligation ended, and we must procure beasts of some sort for the remaining distance, about two miles. Now at this village there was a