A YOUNG NATURALIST. 



From the way in which the old man scanned us, I imagined that 

 I'Encuerado had represented us to him as white sorcerers of no 

 ordinary skill. 



Coyotepec — or "stone wolf" — might have been about seventy 

 years of age. He was born in this ravine, to which he had given 

 the name of the " Mountaiti's Mouth," though I am ignorant of the 

 reason for the designation. He had been taken when very 

 young by one of his uncles to Puebla, but he had soon left the 

 city with the intention of rebuilding the paternal hut, and of 

 knowing nothing of the world beyond his own domain. His six 

 children were all married and lived near him, and the little 

 colony numbered as many as thirty individuals. He was an 

 Indian of the Tlascalan race, as robust and nimble as a man 

 of forty, of middle height, with a brown skin. He wore a hat 

 made of palm-tree straw, and was dressed in a white woollen 

 jacket, fastened in round the waist like a blouse ; cotton drawers, 

 scarcely covering his knees, completed his costume. 



" What is the nearest town to this?" asked Sumichrast. 



" Puebla," was the answer. 



"How far off is it?" 



" About eight days' journey." 



As the usual day's journey of the Indian is ten leagues a day, 

 the distance must have been about eighty leagues. 



The old man could not furnish us with any other geographical 

 information ; he had heard the names of Orizava and Tehuacan, 

 but never having visited these towns, he knew nothing of the 

 distance we were from them. For forty years, with the excepr 

 tion of the relations of his sons and daughters-in-law, who paid 

 him a visit annually, we were the first persons who had dis- 

 turbed his solitude. We availed ourselves of the trunk of a tree 

 to cross the brook, when our guide soon stopped in front of a 

 hut. Four naked children, the eldest of whom might have been 

 ten years old, inspected us with comical curiosity. They had 

 never before seen a white man, and although we were dread- 

 fully bronzed, their surprise was very great. A young woman, 

 whose clothing consisted of a piece of cloth folded round her 

 hips, saluted us in broken Spanish and bid us welcome. The 



