ugly disposition. It
was a beautiful little creature, graceful in form and elegantly spotted.
But it snarled and strove to get at everyone who came near it. The
_secretario_ at once told us that Citlaltepec was not the point we ought
to aim for, as it was purely Aztec; our best plan was to go to Tamalin,
where we would find one congregation of Huaxtecs. From there, if we
needed further subjects, we might go to Tancoco, although it did not
belong to this district, but to that of Tuxpan. In the course of our
conversation, I was reminded that Ozuluama is the home of Alejandro
Marcelo, a full-blooded Huaxtec, who once published a book upon the
Huaxtec language. Expressing an interest in meeting this man, he was
sent for. He is far older than I had realized, celebrating his 74th
birthday that very week. He was a man of unusual intelligence and most
gentle manner. At nine o'clock next morning, supplied with new animals,
we started for Tamalin, said to be thirteen leagues distant. We were
well mounted, and the journey was much like that of the preceding day.
For three hours we were impressed with the loneliness of the road; no
people were to be seen anywhere. Here and there, set far back from the
road, were country houses. The road itself was an extremely wide one,
cut through a woods, which consisted for the most part of low and
scrubby trees, with scattered clumps of palm trees here and there.
Usually the trail was single, but where we came on mud patches, many
little trails were distributed over the whole breadth of the road. Here
and there, where there were particularly bad spots, into which our
horses would have sunk knee-deep, we were forced to take trails back
among the trees. While the earlier part of the journey was through
rolling country, we came at noon into a true plain, though wooded. We
found many cross roads, broad and straight, cut through the woods, and
were impressed by the great number of dry _barrancas_ into which we
had to descend, and out of which we had to climb. Most of these were
actually dry, but many of them contained a dirty pool of stagnant water.
At many places, the road was bordered with plants, the leaves of which
somewhat resembled those of the pineapple. They were light green in
color, narrow and long-pointed at the upper end, and spiny along the
sides. This plant, named _guamara_, bears spikes of yellow fruits which
are pointed at the upper end, but in color, size, texture, structure and
tas