Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/657

Rh given by Jaillandier was eighty leagues from Vera Cruz.

The descent from the capital to the Pacific coast was more gradual than that to Vera Cruz, but at certain seasons presented difficulties which caused more delay and danger. Jaillandier represents the descent from the heights as perilous; and the accounts of both Navarrete and Humboldt prove that for more than a century and a half but little improved facilities for travelling had been effected on this highway. The former thus describes the route: "This road is indeed bad and troublesome; there are mountains that reach up to the clouds, and as uncouth as may be; mighty rivers, and the summer then beginning, high swoln. Bridges there are none, but abundance of musqueto's, or gnats, that sting cruelly. Passing through Cuernavaca and crossing the Rio de las Balsas in the primitive method employed before the conquest, the party arrived at Chilpancingo, at that time a town of four hundred families. Thence they travelled over a mountain range, continually ascending and descending, and reached Acapulco after ten days of fatiguing journey.

Since these travellers crossed Mexico from ocean to