80 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



getting our necks broken, or our teeth knocked out, 

 as we struggled along, up and down barrancas, through 

 marshes and thickets, over rocks and fallen trees, and 

 through mimosas and bushes laced and twined to- 

 gether with thorns and creeping plants all of which 

 would have been beautiful in a picture, but was most 

 infernally unpoetical in reality. 



" Vamos ! For la Santissima Madre, vamos ! " 

 yelled our guides, and the cry was taken up by the 

 Mexicans, in a shrill wild tone that jarred strangely 

 upon our ears, and made the horses start and strain 

 forward. Hurrah ! on we go, through thorns and 

 bushes, which scratch and flog us, and tear our 

 clothes to rags. We shall be naked if this lasts long. 

 It is a regular race. In front the two guides, stoop- 

 ing, nodding, bowing, crouching down, first to one 

 side, then to the other, like a couple of mandarins 

 or Indian idols behind them a Tzapotecan in his 

 picturesque capa, then the women, then more Tzapo- 

 tecans. There is little thought about precedence or 

 ceremony ; and Rowley and I, having been in the 

 least hurry to start, find ourselves bringing up the 

 rear of the whole column. 



" Vamos f por la Santissima ! Las ayuas, las 

 aguas ! " is again yelled by twenty voices. Hang 

 the fools ! Can't they be quiet with their eternal 

 vamos ? We can have barely two leagues more to 

 go to reach the rancho, or village, they were talking 

 of, and appearances are not as yet very alarming. It 



