86 LA ZARCA AND RIO NAZAS, 
out accident, at the town of Cerro Gordo, the 
northernmost settlement in the department 
of Durango ; and the following day we reach- 
ed La Zarca, which is the principal village of 
one of the most extensive haciendas in the 
North. So immense is the amount of cattle 
on this estate, that, as it was rumored, the pro- 
prietor once offered to sell the whole haci- 
enda, stock, etc., for the consideration alone 
of fifty cents for each head of cattle found on 
the estate; but that no person has ever yet 
been able or willing to muster sufficient capi- 
tal to take up the offer. It is very likely, how- 
ever, that if such a proposition was ever made, 
the proprietor intended to include all his stock 
of rats and mice, reptiles and insects—in short, 
every genus of ‘small cattle’ on his premises. 
This estate covers a territory of perhaps a 
hundred miles in length, which comprises 
several flourishing villages. 
In two days more, we reached Rio Nazas, 
a beautiful little river that empties itself into 
Lake Cayman.* Rio Nazas has been cele- 
brated for the growth of cotton, which, owing 
to the mildness of the climate, is sometimes 
planted fresh only every three or four years. 
The light frosts of winter seldom destroy more 
than the upper portion of the stalk, so that 
sent a phenomenon which seems quite: Sede to the inha. 
of our humid malig But the wastage in the sand, ik a 
greater by evaporation in those elevated ment regions, is such oe 
hota no important rises in the lakes pt during unusual 
