rfumed pastures of the plains, produce beef of an exquisite flavour,--
a sky always clear,--and, above all, a wonderful sobriety of living,--
enable these dwellers of the desert steppes of Sonora to live, if not in
a state of luxury, at least free from all fear of want. What desires
need trouble a man who sees a blue sky always over his head, and who
finds in the smoke of a cigarette of his own making, a resource against
all the cravings of hunger?

At one part of the year, however, these villages of hovels are
uninhabited--altogether abandoned by their occupants. This is the _dry
season_, during the greater portion of which the cisterns that supply
the villages with water become dried up. The cisterns are fed by the
rains of heaven, and no other water than this can be found throughout
most tracts of the country. When these give out, the settlements have
to be abandoned, and remain until the return of the periodical rains.

In a morning of the year 1830, at the distance of about three days'
journey from Arispe, a man was seated, or rather half reclining, upon
his _serape_ in front of a rude hovel. A few other huts of a similar
character were near, scattered here and there over the ground. It was
evident, from the profound silence that reigned among these dwellings,
and the absence of human forms, or implements of household use, that the
_rancheria_ was abandoned by its half nomad population. Such in reality
was the fact, for it was now the very height of the dry season. Two or
three roads branched out from this miserable group of huts, leading off
into a thick forest which surrounded it on all sides. They were rather
paths than roads, for the tracks which they followed were scarce cleared
of the timber that once grew upon them. At the point of junction of
these roads the individual alluded to had placed himself; and his
attitude of perfect ease told that he was under no apprehension from the
profound and awe-inspiring loneliness of the place. The croak of the
ravens flitting from tree to tree hoarsely uttered in their flight; the
cry of the _chaculucas_ as they welcomed the rising sun, were the only
sounds that broke the stillness of the scene.

Presently the white fog of the night began to rise upward and disappear
under the strength of the sunbeams. Only a few flakes of it still hung
over the tops of the mezquite and iron-wood trees that grew thickly
around the huts.

Near where the man lay, there might