d forth from the inn. Other travellers,
along with the people of the hostelry inside, with the domestics and
muleteers out of doors, were still slumbering profoundly, and an
imposing silence reigned over the mountain platform on which the venta
stood.

Nothing appeared awake around me save the voices of the _sierras_, that
never sleep--with the sound of distant waterfalls, as they rushed
through vast ravines, keeping up, as it were, an eternal dialogue
between the highest summits of the mountains and the deepest gulfs that
yawned around their bases.

I walked forward to the edge of the table-like platform on which the
venta was built; and halting there stood listening to these mysterious
conversations of nature. And at once it appeared to me that other
sounds were mingling with them--sounds that suggested the presence of
human beings. At first they appeared like the intonations of a hunter's
horn--but of so harsh and hoarse a character, that I could scarcely
believe them to be produced by such an instrument. As a profound
silence succeeded, I began to think my senses had been deceiving me; but
once more the same rude melody broke upon my ears, in a tone that, taken
in connexion with the place where I listened to it, impressed me with an
idea of the supernatural. It had something of the character of those
horns used by the shepherds of the Swiss valleys; and it seemed to
ascend out of the bottom of a deep ravine that yawned far beneath my
feet.

I stepped forward to the extreme edge of the rock, and looked downwards.
Again the hoarse cornet resounded in my ears; and this time so near,
that I no longer doubted as to its proceeding from some human agency.
In fact, the moment after, a man's form appeared ascending from below,
along the narrow pathway that zigzagged up the face of the cliff.

I had scarce time to make this observation, when the man, suddenly
turning the angle of the rock, stood close by my side, where he halted
apparently to recover his breath.

His costume at once revealed to me that he was an Indian; though his
garments, his tall stature, and haughty mien, lent to him an aspect
altogether different from that of most of the Indians I had hitherto
encountered in Mexico. The proud air with which he bore himself, the
fiery expression of his eye, his athletic limbs, and odd apparel, were
none of them in keeping with the abject mien which now characterises the
descendants of the ancient masters of An