We used sometimes to see a village or a house three or four miles off, and count upon reaching it in half an hour.  But a few steps further on there would be a barranca, invisible till we came close to it, perhaps not more than a few hundred feet wide, so that it was easy to talk to people on the other bank.  But the bottom of the chasm might be five hundred or a thousand feet below us; and the only way to cross was to ride along the bank, often for miles, until we reached a place where it had been possible to make a steep bridle-path zigzagging down to the stream below, and up again on the other side.  It is only here and there that even such paths can be made, for the walls of rock are generally too steep even for any vegetation, except grass and climbing plants in the crevices.  Our half-hour’s ride, as we supposed it would be, would often extend to two or three hours, for on these slopes two or three barrancas—­large and small—–­have sometimes to be crossed within as many miles.

If our journey had been even slower and more difficult, we should not have regretted it; the country through which we were riding was so beautiful.  There were but few inhabitants, and the landscape was much as nature had left it.  The great volcano of Orizaba came into view now and then with its snowy cone,[23] mountain-streams came rushing along the ravines, and the forests of oaks were covered with innumerable species of orchids and creepers, breaking down the branches with their weight.  Many kinds were already in flower, and their great blossoms of white, purple, blue, and yellow, stood out against the dark green of the oak-leaves.  Wherever a mountain-stream ran down some shady little valley, there were tree-ferns thirty feet high, with the new fronds forming a tuft at the top of the old scarred trunk.  Round the Indian cottages were cactuses with splendid crimson flowers, daturas with brilliant white blossoms, palm- and fruit-trees of fifty kinds.  We stopped at one of the cottages, and bought an armadillo that had just been caught in the woods close by, while routing among his favourite ants’ nests.  He was put into a palm-leaf basket, which held him all but the tip of his long taper tail, which, like the rest of his body, was covered with rings of armour fitting beautifully into one another.  One of our men carried him thus in his arms to Jalapa.

The Mexicans call an armadillo “ayotochtli,” that is, “tortoise-rabbit,” a name which will be appreciated by any one who knows the appearance of the little animal.

The villages and towns we passed were dismal places enough, and the population scanty; but that this had not always been the case was evident from the numerous remains of ancient Indian mound-forts or temples which we passed on our road, indicating the existence of large towns at some former period.  There is a drawing in Lord Kingsborough’s work of a teocalli or pyramid at San Andres Chalchicomula, which we seem