::::::::3k£ THE MARSHES OF CHAPALA 3^:::::::: 



duplicated in the streets of some tropical city. We 

 crossed a stream by a rickety wooden bridge, and 

 learned that its waters were tlie same as those flow- 

 ing at the bottom of the harranca, crossing the mes- 

 quite wilderness. Here we w^ere near the source of the 

 Rio Santiago, where it flows from Lake Chapala. At 

 one side was moored the little stern-wheeler which 

 every other day carries a few passengers down to the 

 lake and through its entire length of fifty miles to the 

 several hotels at the western end. 



Alono; the muddy shallows of the lake can be found 

 numbers of quaint relics of a by-gone race of people. 

 Strange dishes and three-legged bowls, sinkers and 

 buttons, charms and amulets, objects of unknown use, 

 and now and then little smiling idols of stone, whose 

 cheerful expression, perhaps, gave hope to earnest 

 worshippers hundreds of years before the first Span- 

 ish priest placed foot upon the shores of the New 

 World. 



One should spend a month upon the w^aters of the 

 little river and the mighty lake, learning the secrets 

 of the wild life. What things the giant catfish could 

 reveal, feeling their way among the reed and lily 

 stems ! At the great marsh, where the stream flows 

 from the lake, many ebony rattlesnakes lived a semi- 

 aquatic life, slipping, when disturbed, from the damp 

 mounds, and undulatino- throuoh the black water, like 

 the moccasins in a Florida cypress swamp. 



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