be accessible only at four points. Next morning, while packing the
mules, the father of one of my Mexicans ran up to us with a message
that seemed quite alarming. Immediately after I left San Francisco
yesterday, the Mexican authority at Jesus Maria had come over to tell
me that the Huichols were on the warpath and determined not to allow
me to enter their pueblos. The messenger impressed upon my men the
necessity of turning back and implored them not to run any risk by
accompanying me. The chief packer came hastily to me with this news,
which I at once declared to be false. But the men, nevertheless,
stopped packing, and proposed to go back. They declared that the
Huichols were bad, that they were assassins, that there were many of
them, and that they would kill us all.

Now, what was I to do? To turn back from the tribe the study of which
had been from the outset my principal aim was not to be thought of;
even to delay the trip would be impossible, as the wet season was fast
approaching, in which one cannot travel for months. I tried to reason
with them and to ease their minds by pointing out the great experience
I had had with Indians in general. I also appealed to their manly
pride and courage. "Have we not five rifles?" I said. "Cannot each one
of you fight fifty Indians?" Still they wavered, and it looked as if
they were going to desert me, when the cook courageously exclaimed:
_"Vamos, vamos!"_ ("Let us go on!") They again began to pack, and I
managed to keep my troupe together.

The real danger for me lay in the evil rumours the Mexicans had spread,
and in. the fact that the whites were afraid of me. The Indians do
not follow the "neighbours" in their reasoning; they only think that
a white man of whom even the Mexicans are afraid must certainly be
terrible. The reason why I had chosen this route was that a friend of
mine in far-away Guadalajara had given me a letter of recommendation
to an acquaintance of his, a half-caste, who acted as escribano
(secretary) to the pueblo of San Andres, or, to give its name in full,
San Andres Coamiata. I had been told that this man was temporarily
absent, in which case I should be at the mercy of the strange Indians.

The immediate prospect looked dark enough to make me consider the
advisability of the long detour to the town of Mezquitic, to get
assistance from the government authorities there and to enter the
Huichol country from the east by way of Santa Catarina. Against