106 TRIP TO JESUS-MARIA. 
a Mexican muleteer—and three or four mules 
freighted with specie to be employed in the 
silver trade: a rather scanty convoy for a route 
subject to the inroads both of savages and 
robbers. For transportation, we generally 
pack our specie in sacks made of raw beef- 
hide, which shrinks upon drying, and thus 
presses the contents so 5 sasby as to prevent 
friction. A pair of these packages, usually 
containing between one and two thousand 
dollars each, constitutes an ordinary mule-load 
on the mountain routes. 
The road in this direction leads through the 
roughest mountain passes; and, in some 
places, it winds so close along the borders of 
precipices, that by a single misstep an animal 
might be precipitated several hundred feet. 
Mules, however, are very sure-footed; and 
will often clamber along the most craggy 
cliffs with nearly as much security as the 
goat. I was shown the projecting edge of a 
rock over which the road had formerly passed. 
This shelf was perhaps thirty feet in length 
by only two or three in width. The roa 
which leads into the town of Jesus-Maria from 
the west side of the mountain is also ex- 
tremely perilous and steep, and seems almost 
_ to overhang the houses below. Heavily laden 
mules have sometimes slipped off the track, 
and tumbled headlong into the town. This 
place is even more pent up between ridges 
Zacatecas: the valley is narrower and 
the mountains much higher; while, as is the 
case with that remarkable city, the houses are 
