igh up on the mountain there was a
deserted house of one room, called the Vaqueria, which had been occupied
years before by men in charge of cattle ranging on the mountain. The
pasturage up there was very fine when we saw it, and there were still
some cattle, descendants of the former domestic herd, which had now
become wild. It was possible to go on horseback as far as the Vaqueria,
though the road was somewhat hazardous in places. Sometimes it was very
narrow with a yawning precipice on one side, hundreds of feet down to a
roaring mountain torrent below, and almost perpendicular walls on the
other side. At one of these places one of our mules loaded with two
sacks of barley, one on each side, the two about as big as he was,
struck his load against the mountain-side and was precipitated to the
bottom. The descent was steep but not perpendicular. The mule rolled
over and over until the bottom was reached, and we supposed of course
the poor animal was dashed to pieces. What was our surprise, not long
after we had gone into bivouac, to see the lost mule, cargo and owner
coming up the ascent. The load had protected the animal from serious
injury; and his owner had gone after him and found a way back to the
path leading up to the hut where we were to stay.

The night at the Vaqueria was one of the most unpleasant I ever knew.
It was very cold and the rain fell in torrents. A little higher up the
rain ceased and snow began. The wind blew with great velocity. The
log-cabin we were in had lost the roof entirely on one side, and on the
other it was hardly better then a sieve. There was little or no sleep
that night. As soon as it was light the next morning, we started to
make the ascent to the summit. The wind continued to blow with violence
and the weather was still cloudy, but there was neither rain nor snow.
The clouds, however, concealed from our view the country below us,
except at times a momentary glimpse could be got through a clear space
between them. The wind carried the loose snow around the mountain-sides
in such volumes as to make it almost impossible to stand up against it.
We labored on and on, until it became evident that the top could not be
reached before night, if at all in such a storm, and we concluded to
return. The descent was easy and rapid, though dangerous, until we got
below the snow line. At the cabin we mounted our horses, and by night
were at Ozumba.

The fatigues of the day and the