Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/290

288

I arrive at Manantial.—Superstitions of the Jarochos.

unfortunate occurrence recorded in the preceding chapter caused me to change my route. It was impossible for me to reach Vera Cruz that day, mounted as I was; so I resolved to pass the night at Manantial, a little village which I supposed to be not more than a mile off. I had thus some time before me, and I thought it could not be better employed than in taking a siesta under the shade of the trees, amid the green solitude in which I found myself. It was a spot in one of the most picturesque forests which cover almost the entire country between Puente Nacional and Vergara. Amid these matted thickets, narrow paths, cut by the hatchet, run in different directions, overshadowed by the almost impenetrable foliage of the trees, while a wall of luxuriant vegetation on each side bars every where the entrance of man, and almost that of the fallow deer. The long, pendent branches twist and interlace their tendrils with the boughs of the neighboring trees. The cocoa-nut-tree covers, with its large leaves, its necklace of green fruit; and the Bourbon palms stretch their branches, covered with shining foliage to the ground; the silk-cotton-tree shows its white flakes of cotton just bursting from the dark green pod. In the deep shade of these in habitants of the forest the friar's cowl abounds with its polished chalice; and at the bottom, as well as the top of this green vault, the gobeas hang their little bell-flowers of variegated colors. Such is the aspect