ny tributaries, waters as many barrancas. The
main one, namely Barranca de San Carlos, is from 4,000 to 4,500 feet
deep, and sinuous in its course. If there were a passable road along
its bottom, the distance from the source of the river to a point
a little below the village of Santa Ana, where Rio Fuerte emerges
from the Sierra, could be easily covered in two days; but as it is,
a man requires at least a week to travel this distance, so much is
he impeded by the roughness of the country.

Having descended into the barranca, which now felt almost uncomfortably
warm, after the piercing winds of the highlands, I first visited
the plateaus on the southern side, where the Indians have still kept
themselves tolerably free from the white man's evil influence and are
very jealous of their land. One night, while camping in a deep arroyo
with very steep sides frowning down on us, one of the Indian carriers
woke us with the startling news: "Get up! A stone is falling and will
strike us!" I heard a noise, and instantly a stone, half the size of
a child's head, hit the informant himself, as he sleepily rose. He
lost his breath, but soon recovered, and no further damage was done.

I secured the necessary carriers and went down again to the river,
which I now followed westward from Nogal for about twenty-five
miles. The elevation at Nogal is 4,450 feet, about 800 feet higher than
the place at which we left the river again. At the outset we came upon
two very hot springs, the water of which had a yellow sediment. The
gorge was narrow throughout. Sometimes its two sides rise almost
perpendicularly, leaving but a narrow passage for the river. We then
had either to wade in the water or to ascend some thousand feet, in
order to continue our way. But generally there was a bank on one side
or the other, and now and then the valley widened, yielding sufficient
space for some bushes, or even a tree to grow, though it soon narrowed
again. In some such spots we found a shrub called baynoro, with long,
flexible branches and light-green leaves. Its small, yellow berries
were as sweet as honey, but they did not agree with the Mexicans,
who had stomach-aches and lost their appetites after eating them. The
Indians made the same complaints, but I felt no ill effects from them.

Along the river we saw the tracks of many raccoons and otters, and
there were also ducks and blue herons.

The colour of the water in the deep places was greyish green,
an