this change! It is less than an hour since I parted from
the plains below, and yet the surface-aspect around me is like that of
another land. I halt in a wild spot, and survey it with eyes that
wander and wonder. The leaf is less broad, the foliage less dense, the
jungle more open. There are ridges whose sides are nearly naked of
tree-timber. The palms have disappeared, but in their place grow
kindred forms that in many respects resemble them. They are, in fact,
the palms of the mountains. I behold the great palmetto (_Chamcerops_),
with its fan-like fronds standing out upon long petioles from its lofty
summit; the yuccas, with their bayonet-shaped leaves, ungraceful, but
picturesque, with ponderous clusters of green and pulpy capsules. I
behold the _pita_ aloe, with its tall flower-stalk and thorny
sun-scorched leaves. I behold strange forms of the cactus, with their
glorious wax-like blossoms; the cochineal, the tuna, the opuntias--the
great tree-cactus "Foconoztle" (_Opuntia arborescens_), and the tall
"pitahaya" (_Cereus giganteus_), with columnar shafts and straight
upright arms, like the branches of gigantic candelabra; the
echino-cacti, too--those huge mammals of the vegetable world, resting
their globular or egg-shaped forms, without trunk or stalk, upon the
surface of the earth.

There, too, I behold gigantic thistles (_cardonales_) and mimosas, both
shrubby and arborescent--the tree-mimosa, and the sensitive-plant
(_Mimosa frutescens_), that shrinks at my approach, and closes its
delicate leaflets until I have passed out of sight. This is the
favourite land of the acacia; and immense tracts, covered with its
various species, form impenetrable thickets (_chapparals_). I
distinguish in these thickets the honey-locust, with its long purple
legumes, the "algarobo" (carob-tree), and the thorny "mezquite"; and,
rising over all the rest, I descry the tall, slender stem of the
_Fouquiera splendens_, with panicles of cube-shaped crimson flowers.

There is less of animal life here; but even these wild ridges have their
denizens. The cochineal insect crawls upon the cactus leaf, and huge
winged ants build their clay nests upon the branches of the acacia-tree.
The ant-bear squats upon the ground, and projects his glutinous tongue
over the beaten highway, where the busy insects rob the mimosse of their
aromatic leaves. The armadillo, with his bands and rhomboidal scales,
takes refuge in the dry recesses of t