tle beast takes the bit in the mouth, and obstinately pursues
his own path! However, as I said before, they are not pleasant animals
when the danger is passed; then they become at times unreasonably
perverse, and persuasions, punchings, or spurrings, only serve to
exhaust strength and temper, without any avail.

Our speed became necessarily slow, the country more and more barren, and
the paths stony and uneven; still we passed from height to height,
gradually ascending, until we came to the base of the great _Barrancas_.
Here, much to my surprise, commenced a well-constructed military road,
very broad, and coped in by a wall of loose stones, winding around the
eastern brow of the _sierra_. In some places near the summit, I am
confident, a dollar could be thrown four thousand feet before striking
the base of the gorge that splits the great chain, asunder. The view was
bird-eyish, and rather good--with the bright green dells below, in
pretty contrast to the red basaltic rocks above--but limited by peaks of
the surrounding heights. The road itself is a far more substantial work
than the traveller is prepared to meet with in this part of Mexico,
where everything relative to easy locomotion appears to have been left
as nature and the mules will it. Still, but little reputation is lost in
the way of consistency; for the moment the mountain is passed, the route
again becomes little better than a sheep path. Although crossing this
fine road caused me some astonishment; yet a little before, I was thrown
into a stupor of amazement, to behold lying in the pathway a long iron
thirty-two pounder gun, of the heaviest ship's calibre and weight! My
_mozos_ informed me, that this was the only one out of six that did not
reach Guadalajara from San Blas--a distance of more than three hundred
miles! They were intended for service in battery, during the revolt of
1825. Each was under the guidance of one hundred and fifty Indians with
animals, and it occupied many months in accomplishing the transit; but
notwithstanding these ample means, I'll venture to affirm that no one in
his natural senses, after making the journey, could be induced to
believe that anything greater than a mule-pack--to say nothing of an
enormous piece of ordnance--could be transported over such numbers of
streams, ravines, paths and mountains! The thing seems nearly
impossible.

We toiled over the Barrancas--threaded the valleys below, when taking
another ascent, we at