Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/407

 once came near making the general a prisoner, and all but succeeded in carrying him off captive to the temple of sacrifice, where the great drums of serpent-skin were already beating in anticipation of the event. Ah, if they had! But then there would have been no conquest, and we should have been left without an object for this little journey. Perhaps it was as well for all concerned that he was not taken.

It was noon, and we had climbed up from the valley to an altitude which placed us well inside the zone of tierra fria; we had passed gray and gnarled olive orchards,—successful witnesses to their introduction from Spain,—vineyards, pulque plantations, and scattered villages, and as the sun attained a position directly above the valley we halted for breakfast. Not to seem disrespectful, I will call La Guardia a hamlet, though one house and half a score of huts comprised hamlet and hotel. Chile con carne and chicken, frijoles and tortillas,—the reader most assuredly knows what these are by this time,—washed down by pulque, was the breakfast here given us, for the sum of fifty cents. The hut was rough,