Between these two extremes, on the slopes of the sierra, toward the warm country, at an elevation of 5,000 feet, I found the most delightful climate I ever knew.  It was like eternal spring, the air pure and the temperature remarkably even.  There is a story of a Mexican woman, who, settling in this part of the country, broke her thermometer because the mercury never moved and she therefore concluded that it was out of order.  The pleasantness of the climate struck me particularly on one occasion, after a prolonged stay in the invigorating though windy climate of the sierra.  I had caught a cold the night before, and was not feeling very well as I dozed on the back of my mule while it worked its way down the mountain-side, but the sleep and the delightful balmy air made me soon feel well again.  At times a mild zephyr played around us, but invariably died out about sunset.  The night was delightfully calm, toward morning turning slightly cooler, and there was nothing to disturb my sleep under a big fig-tree but the bits of figs that were thrown down by the multitudes of bats in its branches.  They were gorging themselves on the fruit, just as we had done the afternoon before.

Journeying on the pine-clad highlands, the traveller finds nothing to remind him that he is in the southern latitudes, except an occasional glimpse of an agave between rocks and the fantastic cacti, which, although so characteristic of Mexican vegetation, are comparatively scarce in the high sierra.  The nopal cactus, whose juicy fruit, called tuna, and flat leaf-like joints are an important article of food among the Indians, is found here and there, and is often planted near the dwellings of the natives.  There are also a few species of Echinocactus and Mammilaria, but on the whole the cacti form no conspicuous feature in the higher altitudes of the sierra.

Along the streamlets which may be found in the numerous small valleys we met with the slender ash trees, beside alders, shrubs, Euonymus with brilliant red capsules, willows, etc.  Conspicuous in the landscape was still the madrona, with its pretty, strawberry-like, edible berries.

Flowers on the whole are not abundant in the sierra.  The modest yellow Mimulus along the water-courses is the first to come and the last to go.  Various forms of columbine (Aquilegia) and meadow rue (Thalictrum) should also be remembered.  In August and September I have seen the sloping hills of the sierra north-west of the pueblo of Panalachic (Banalachic; banala = face, i. e., the outline of a prominent rock near by), covered with large crimson flowers, and also certain yellow ones, called baguis, making the country appear like a garden.  I noticed in the same locality two kinds of lovely lilies, one yellow and one containing a single large red flower.  The Tarahumare have names for all these plants.