ers, and a tannery at the river's edge, no diseases originate
here. When cholera reached the mountains some years ago, nobody
died from it. The people simply took a bath in Mexican fashion,
and recovered." Down in the barrancas, however, where the heat often
becomes excessive, the climate is far from healthy, and I have seen
even Indians ill with fever and ague, contracted generally during
the rainy season.

Between these two extremes, on the slopes of the sierra, toward
the warm country, at an elevation of 5,000 feet, I found the most
delightful climate I ever knew. It was like eternal spring, the
air pure and the temperature remarkably even. There is a story of
a Mexican woman, who, settling in this part of the country, broke
her thermometer because the mercury never moved and she therefore
concluded that it was out of order. The pleasantness of the climate
struck me particularly on one occasion, after a prolonged stay in
the invigorating though windy climate of the sierra. I had caught a
cold the night before, and was not feeling very well as I dozed on
the back of my mule while it worked its way down the mountain-side,
but the sleep and the delightful balmy air made me soon feel well
again. At times a mild zephyr played around us, but invariably died
out about sunset. The night was delightfully calm, toward morning
turning slightly cooler, and there was nothing to disturb my sleep
under a big fig-tree but the bits of figs that were thrown down by
the multitudes of bats in its branches. They were gorging themselves
on the fruit, just as we had done the afternoon before.

Journeying on the pine-clad highlands, the traveller finds nothing to
remind him that he is in the southern latitudes, except an occasional
glimpse of an agave between rocks and the fantastic cacti, which,
although so characteristic of Mexican vegetation, are comparatively
scarce in the high sierra. The nopal cactus, whose juicy fruit,
called tuna, and flat leaf-like joints are an important article of
food among the Indians, is found here and there, and is often planted
near the dwellings of the natives. There are also a few species of
_Echinocactus_ and _Mammilaria_, but on the whole the cacti form no
conspicuous feature in the higher altitudes of the sierra.

Along the streamlets which may be found in the numerous small
valleys we met with the slender ash trees, beside alders, shrubs,
_Euonymus_ with brilliant red capsules, willows, etc. Conspic