Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/472

464 river running through its centre, here dark and quiet, there foaming over shallows. Brown earth, without a stone appearing in it, indicated fresh cultivation, and little thatched huts, upon various spurs and elevations, told where the cultivators lived. A happy valley this deep-sunken barranca-bottom appears to be; but doubtless there are drawbacks to a perfect state of existence here; the river is not always so quiet, and sometimes rushes up the hillsides and tears away these homes so humble; and as to getting there, if the delight of being secluded is great, the difficulties surrounding it are greater, for the roads leading down from the outer world are long and tortuous, steep and dangerous, scarcely passable even for mules. The principal plant up here is a prickly-pear, growing up like a tree, with red flowers, and the aloe; about them hover butterflies and humming-birds.

While I wrote these notes my mozo went to sleep under a cactus, on a contiguous hill, and the horse dozed by his side. I like these mozos; they are honest and faithful. In the number I have employed, I have not found a faithless one. And then they are so humble; they will hardly address you without touching their hats, and are very grateful for a kindness. Poor fellows! they get little enough of it here. This one had trotted by my side for several miles, and when I gave him a piece of silver he could not understand why I should do so; it was only two reales, yet he was so profuse in his thanks that I galloped away from him to escape them. In returning over the plain he sought out for me some specimens of obsidian,—the volcanic vitreous stone from which the Aztecs used to make their spears, knives, and arrow-heads. It is very plentiful here, and in the hills between these plains and Pachuca there are indications of extensive mines by the Aztecs for the purpose of getting this valuable product, the itzli, which