:::*£ TWO BIRD- LOVERS IN MEXICO W^ 



stumbling on the edge of a slope, it rolls many yards 

 over and over or even head over tail down sheer slojjes. 

 After such an occurrence, when I would expect to 

 gather up my belongings from a mass of mangled 

 mule-flesh, I would instead find the creature perhaps 

 astride of a tree which had broken its fall, or huddled, 

 bruised, but otherwise uninjured, on the next turn of 

 the trail below. When such an accident occurs, the 

 animal seems to gather its head and legs close to its 

 body and, hunching its back, rolls harmlessly on until 

 something stops it. 



More than once I have seen a mule, laden with 

 cocoanuts or sugar, deliberately kneel and slide or roll 

 swiftly down to the next bend in the trail. We should 

 never have believed, if we had not seen it, that animals 

 could survive some of the experiences which befell 

 these mules. In fact they have a remarkable faculty 

 for getting into scrapes which end in a short relief for 

 them, and for getting out of others which do not 

 terminate thus happily for them. 



All day we rode on, always downward and curving 

 gradually around the twin volcanos. They were lode- 

 stones which forever drew our eyes. The black pine 

 forest on the shoulders of the fire mountain kept its 

 denseness and its dark hue to the gray higher slopes of 

 deadly heat. Here and there, wide paths were cut deep 

 down among the pijies, where the hot outpourings had 

 seared and shrivelled everything before them. 



«4 264 ^ "■ 



