Across the Mexican Mountains 135 



position into which I have been forced demands 

 every hour, and I am never my own master. 



August 8th. Santa Rosa. Today I passed three 

 partridges and two doves, warblers and flycatchers 

 without number, all new, and many most beautiful. 

 Santa Rosa where we are camped is a beautifully 

 situated little village, with a silver mine as its 

 chief interest. There are some fine horses here, 

 possessing more of the Arabian look than any I 

 have seen before in Mexico. With great regret, I 

 exchanged my old favorite Monterey for a mare 

 here worth six or eight dollars. With all my care of 

 Monterey, I could not save his back, and I felt as 

 if parting with a friend, when with his majestic 

 stride, his ears set forward, giving to his small 

 head and curved neck an expression of excitement 

 and fierceness peculiarly his own, he almost sailed 

 through our camp, and winding down a pass lead- 

 ing to the village, left me gazing at the spot where 

 I had seen him last. There is fine grass and plenty 

 of water, and I was told he had gone to a kind 

 master, an Englishman who had drifted out here. 



August lOth. We left our camp after great 

 difficulty in getting our mules together, and at six 

 camped again, fifteen miles only, on our way, for 

 it has been up and down hill all the time. The 

 sunny side of the hills is always very hot to us, 

 and trying to our poor mules. We passed many 

 changes of vegetation but musquit is still the 



