shades of green, and with the crimson
and purple, and violet and bright yellow, and azure and dazzling
white, of the millions of paulinias and convolvoluses and other
flowering plants, from amongst which rise the stately palm-trees, full
a hundred feet high, their majestic green turbans towering like
sultans' heads above the luxuriance of the surrounding flower and
vegetable world. Then the mahogany-trees, the chicozapotes, and again
in the barrancas the candelabra-like cactuses, and higher up the
knotted and majestic live oak. An incessant change of plants, trees,
and climate. We had been five hours in the saddle, and had already
changed our climate three times; passed from the temperate zone, the
_tierra templada_, into the torrid heat of the _tierra muy caliente_.
It was in the latter temperature that we found ourselves at the
expiration of the above-named time, dripping with perspiration,
roasting and stewing in the heat. We were surrounded by a new world of
plants and animals. The borax and mangroves and fern were here as
lofty as forest-trees, whilst the trees themselves shot up like church
steeples. In the thickets around us were numbers of black tigers--we
saw dozens of those cowardly sneaking beasts--iguanas full three feet
long, squirrels double the size of any we had ever seen, and panthers,
and wild pigs, and jackals, and apes and monkeys of every tribe and
description, who threatened and grinned and chattered at us from the
branches of the trees. But what is that yonder to the right, that
stands out so white against the dark blue sky and the bronze-coloured
rocks? A town--Quidricovi, d'ye call it?

We had now ridden a good five or six leagues, and begun to think we
had escaped the _aguas_ or deluge, of which the prospect had so
terrified our friends the Tzapotecans. Rowley calculated, as he went
puffing and grumbling along, that it wouldn't do any harm to let our
beasts draw breath for a minute or two. The scrambling and constant
change of pace rendered necessary by the nature of the road, or rather
track, that we followed, was certainly dreadfully fatiguing both to
man and beast. As for conversation it was out of the question. We had
plenty to do to avoid getting our necks broken, or our teeth knocked
out, as we struggled along, up and down barrancas, through marshes and
thickets, over rocks and fallen trees, and through mimosas and bushes
laced and twined together with thorns and creeping plants--all of