from hunger. From such an event the name of
Zapuri may have been derived. Intelligent Mexicans, whom I consulted,
agree that it means "fight" or "contest" (Spanish, _desafio_).

From a place called Tuaripa, some thirty miles farther south, near the
border of the Tepehuane country, and in the same mountainous region,
I have the following legend, about the Cocoyomes and the serpents:

Two large serpents used to ascend from the river and go up on
the highlands to a little plain between Huerachic and Tuaripa,
and they killed and ate the Cocoyomes, returning each time to the
river. Whenever they were hungry they used to come up again. At last
an old man brought together all the people at the place where the
serpents used to ascend. Here they dug a big hole and filled it with
wood and with large stones, and made a fire and heated the stones until
they became red hot. When the serpents were seen to make their ascent
on the mountain-side, the men took hold of the stones with sticks,
and threw them into the big, wide-open mouths of the serpents, until
the monsters were so full with stones that they burst and fell dead
into the river. Even to this day may be seen the marks on the rocks
where the serpents used to ascend the mountain-side.

Once having again ascended to the highlands, I found rather level
country as far as Guachochic, some forty-five miles off by the track
I followed. The name of the place signifies "blue herons," and the
fine water-course, which originates in the many springs here, was
formerly the abode of many water-birds. The locality thus designated
is to-day a cluster of Mexican ranches, most of them belonging to one
family. There is an old church, but at present no independent Indians
live in Guachochic; the aborigines found about the place are servants
of the Mexicans.

Guachochic lies at an elevation of 7,775 feet and at the southern
end of a mesa, the largest one in the Sierra Madre del Norte, being
twelve miles long and three miles wide. Except on the southern end
this plateau is bordered with stately pine forests. Many Indians live
on the mesa and in the numerous valleys adjoining it, but they are all
"civilised"; that is, contaminated with many Mexico-Christian notions,
and have lost their pristine simplicity.

I had a letter of introduction to the principal personage in
Guachochic, Don Miguel, who enjoys the rare reputation of being just
and helpful toward the Indians; and, being a large land-ow