Trails 209 
In the South-West, the most difficult travel- 
ling is over ‘‘malpais’? country in Arizona 
and the “‘pedragal”” in Mexico. ‘‘Malpais’”’ 
is land covered with small basalt boulders or 
with rough fragments of andesite. It is 
possible to cross such country only with 
extreme slowness and the trail is in reality 
only a direction and not a path. ‘‘Pedragal”’ 
is a lava flow just as it cooled and present- 
ing a cracked ragged surface as broken and 
rough as a vast mass of scrapiron. Of well- 
known trails there are none steeper than those 
of the Grand Cafion. The old Colima trail 
from Tuxpan to Colima has some grades 
perhaps as considerable for a short distance, 
and up these hundreds of mules and burros 
daily plod with salt and cocoanuts and barrels 
of spirits. Of course there are innumerable 
little local trails in the mountains, badly con- 
structed and out of repair, on which you will 
find a place now and then where the angle is 
perhaps fifty degrees and it is barely possible 
for a horse to get up with you, and where, if 
you were to come down on an English saddle, 
you would find yourself astride of the animal’s 
neck and holding on by his ears. The stock 
saddle certainly gives a better seat for trail 
riding than any other, and I believe a more 
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