for a long time.  We had excellent horses that kept up a steady jog.  Still, it was after five when we reached Ozuluama.  The journey was for the most part over a llano, thicket-covered and sprinkled, here and there, with groves of palm; the soil was dark clay, which in spots, wet by recent rains, was hard travelling for the animals.  We caught sight of the town, prettily located upon a hill-slope, about an hour before we reached it.  From it, we looked out over an extensive stretch of dark green plains, broken, here and there, by little wooded hillocks, none of them so large as that upon which Ozuluama itself is situated.  Riding to the town-house, the secretario was at once sent for.  He ordered supper, and put a comfortable room, behind the office, at our disposal.  On the back porch, just at our door, was chained a tiger-cat.  It belonged to the jefe, and was a favorite with his little children, but since they had been gone, it had been teased until it had developed an 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