Through the Giant Cactus Forest 127 



but an Americano had arrived, and on the sum- 

 mit of the pile was an American bungalow 

 with its wide piazza destroying the effect. But 

 nothing could detract from the general effect 

 of all these places in the cactus forest. Color 

 was the key-note of the situation, and when we 

 entered a town the natives all seemed to have 

 selected just the colors and tints to give life and 

 beauty to the picture. This was emphasized at 

 Ajiabampo, where, lost and thirty miles out of 

 the way, we rounded up at a blue- and pink- 

 doored adobe out of which came a line of Yaquis 

 bearing on their shoulders goat-skin bags, a 

 picture from the Arabian nights. Each man 

 had on a shirt of a different color pink, blue, 

 green, or light red; each one had beneath his 

 big sombrero a head-kerchief of some striking 

 color; their linen trousers were also of gay 

 hues. 



These Yaquis could not have produced a more 

 startling effect had they practised for years. 

 They came slowly out, stopped about thirty feet 

 from the building, poured out a gleaming stream 

 of green and yellow garbanzas (Mexican peas), 

 turned aside as the major-domo, in a green shirt 

 and yellow headdress, took the account. They 

 directed us to Batequis, another delight and 

 solace to the eye, where a pig pen was the artis- 

 tic piece de resistance. Who but a Yaqui, or 

 a Maya, would have thought of surrounding a 



