90 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



and by its aid we gained the bank, and began ascend- 

 ing the side of the barranca, composed of rugged, 

 declivitous rocks, affording but scanty foothold. God 

 grant the lasso may prove tough ! The strain on 

 it is fearful. Rowley is a good fifteen stone, and 

 I am no feather ; and in some parts of our perilous 

 ascent the rocks are almost as perpendicular and 

 smooth as a wall of masonry, and we are obliged to 

 cling with our whole weight to the lasso, which 

 seems to stretch, and crack, and grow visibly thinner. 

 ^Nothing but a strip of twisted cow-hide between us 

 and a frightful agonising death on the sharp rocks 

 and in the foaming waters below. But the lasso 

 holds good, and now the chief peril is past : we get 

 some sort of footing a point of rock, or a tree-root 

 to clutch at. Another strain up this rugged slope of 

 granite, another pull at the lasso ; a leap, a last 

 violent effort, and Viva /we are seized under the 

 arms, dragged up, held upon our feet for a moment, 

 and then we sink exhausted to the ground in the 

 midst of the Tzapotecans, mules, arrieros, guides, and 

 women, who are sheltered from the storm in a sort of 

 natural cavern. 



At the moment at which the hillock had given 

 way under Rowley and myself, who were a short 

 distance in rear of the party, the Mexicans had 

 succeeded in attaining firm footing on a broad rocky 

 ledge, a shelf of the precipice that flanked the 

 barranca. Upon this ledge, which gradually widened 



