Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/656

648 he had been over the entire region, and that the whole story was a fabrication. There is indeed a curious natural formation there, worn into holes in which people may have lived, as nomads, or shepherds tending their flocks.

The moon lighted up a country mainly sterile, and daylight did not reveal one more attractive; but at six we reached the Sonora River, and the scenery underwent a most magical change. At seven we ran into the station at Hermosillo, the "beautiful town," and I took refuge and breakfast at the Hotel Cosmopolita, a one-story adobe, hard by the cemetery. This city, situated on the Sonora River, ninety miles from the Gulf of California, contains about 12,000 inhabitants. The soil of the highly cultivated valley of which it occupies the centre produces great crops of wheat, and its gardens are full of fruit in every variety, as oranges, melons, figs, lemons, plantains, dates, and pomegranates. Celebrated alike for its gardens and its lovely doncellas, Hermosillo has one other attraction that overtops them all, in a peculiar conical hill, called El Cerro de la Campana, or "Hill of the Bell," from the sonorous quality of the rock composing it, which gives out a clear ringing sound when pieces of it are struck together. Great masses of cane line the river and the irrigation canals, the acequias, while a verdurous vegetation surrounds and interlaces the adobe dwellings of town and suburbs. It is the distributing centre for the productions of the agricultural country of Northern and Central Sonora, and it also has some mines of local repute in its vicinity.

The climate is hot, though dry, the temperature exceeding 80° and even 100°, with little change throughout the year. The finest buildings of the State are found here, the principal ones being of stone, with the universal portales and arcades, seen in perfection in every Mexican town, a nice little plaza, and a half-wild park, and the population contains the flower of the Sonora aristocracy. In spite of the great heat, and the exceedingly filthy condition of the town, Hermosillo has generally escaped the epidemic diseases that sometimes ravage the coast; but in September, 1883, the vomito, then raging at Guaymas,