After a fortnight’s stay I said good-bye to Santa Teresa.  The alcalde, who had become quite friendly, accompanied me over the llano on which his pueblo lies, extending, interspersed with pine forests, for about three miles west.  He begged me not to forget the Coras when I came to the Governor of the Territory of Tepic, and to ask the Mexican Government to let them keep their old customs, which he had heard they were going to prohibit.  This fear, I think, was unfounded.  He also wanted me to use my influence toward preventing the whites from settling in the vicinity, since they were eager to get at the big forests.

I had found a friend in a Cora called Nuberto, a kind-hearted and frank fellow, sixty years old, who became our guide.  The trail leads along the western side of the Sierra Madre, sometimes only a few yards from where the mountains suddenly give way to the deep and low-lying valleys and foot-hills.  As we approached the end of the day’s journey, a perfectly open view presented itself of the Tierra Caliente below, as far as the Pacific Ocean, which by mules is a week’s journey distant.  The wide expanse before us unfolded a panorama of hills that sank lower and lower toward the west, where the salt lagoons of the coast could be clearly discerned as silver streaks in the reddish-grey mist of the evening.  Acaponeta was right in line with the setting sun.  Here, 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, everything was calm and mild; not a breath of air was stirring.  A prunus was in flower, and oak-trees were growing on the brink of the ridge toward the sea.  In every other direction were to be seen the immense silent pine forests that shelter the Coras, but no trace of human life.  Everything seemed undisturbed, peaceful, quieting, nerve-resting.

Would it not be delightful to settle down here!  Life would be so easy!  The Indians would help me to make a hut.  I would marry one of those beautiful Cora girls, who would be sure to have a cow or two to supply me the civilised drink of milk.  None of the strife and turmoil of the outer world could penetrate into my retreat.  One day would pass as peacefully as its predecessor; never would she disturb the tranquillity of my life, for she is like the lagoon, without ever a ripple on its surface.  Once in a while the spirit of the feasts might inspire her to utter an angry word, but she would not mean much by it, and would soon resume her usual placid role, moving along in the even tenor of her daily life.  What a splendid chance for studying the people, for knowing them thoroughly, and for familiarising myself with all their ancient beliefs and thoughts!  Perhaps I might solve some of the mysteries that shroud the workings of the human mind.  But—­I should have to buy my fame at the price of living on tortillas and pinole and beans!

    “We may live without poetry, music, and art;
    We may live without conscience and live without heart;
    We may live without friends, we may live without books,
    But civilised man cannot live without cooks.”