Expedition in Southwestern Mexico 



35 



led through this forest. One morning 

 we met some soldiers escorting three 

 prisoners to a neighboring town. They 

 were quite friendly and appeared to be 

 pleased with our desire to secure a pho- 

 tograph of them. 



From the cool mountain slopes we de- 

 scended southward into the arid tropical 



Photo by Nelson 



Figtree Coiled on Nut Palm 



regions of southern Michoacan. This is 

 mainly a mountainous area with scat- 

 tered plains here and there. The plains 

 are usually like grassy prairies with ir- 

 regular patches of scrubby trees and 

 shrubs about their borders. After cross- 

 ing one of the largest of these plains 



under the intense heat of the tropical sun 

 it was a relief to reach the shelter of 

 overhanging mahogany and other trees 

 near the river at the bottom of a deep 

 canyon . It was a wild and solitary spot , 

 where we camped for about two weeks. 

 Quite unexpectedly we found here the 

 wild turkeys we were in search of. 

 They were rather common in flocks, fre- 

 quenting the sides of the canyon and 

 coming to drink along the river. An- 

 other habitant of this place was a soli- 

 tary old caiman, who lurked in the deep 

 pools of the river and came out for two 

 or three hours at midday to bask in the 

 sun. The caiman of western Mexico 

 ascends the larger rivers, particularly the 

 Balsas and its tributaries, on one of which 

 we were camped, several hundred miles 

 from the sea. 



Owing to the great diversity of phys- 

 ical conditions, the vegetation in Mexico 

 assumes a wonderful variety of form, 

 and presents a never-ending series of 

 novelties to the traveler. On some sun- 

 baked cliffs near our camp in the canyon 

 was a singular agave, growing as though 

 plastered on the bare rock, and quite un- 

 like anything that we had ever seen. 



From this camp we crossed several 

 ranges of hills, sometimes forcing our 

 way, without a trail, through dense 

 jungles of scrubby growth to the re- 

 cently extinct volcano of Jorullo. The 

 summit of this volcano is only a little 

 over 4,000 feet above sea- level, and the 

 basal slopes are overgrown with scrubby 

 arid-tropical vegetation. On the north 

 side of the volcano, however, at about 

 3,500 feet altitude, is a small area of 

 pine and other tree growth only found 

 at a much higher altitude on the slopes 

 of adjacent mountains. Jorullo was 

 visited and described by Humboldt, who 

 collected various new plants there. It 

 is only recently extinct, and there is a 

 bare black bed of lava on the northwest 

 side where the crater wall is broken 

 down. It is a small cone, only rising 

 about 800 or 1 ,000 feet above the general 



