



1 %fc.*V2L , 



ECHIKOCACTU3 McDOWKLLIl 



118 



Here too, was grow- 

 ing a very pretty Agave, 

 known to dealers as 

 Agave Gilbeyi — but to 

 botanists as a variety 

 of A. horrida — a name 

 which it least deserves, 

 Returning to the 

 quaint Spanish-Indian 

 village I found ' ' La 

 Flor de San Diego," 

 ( Laelia autumnalis ), 

 growing luxuriantly on 

 the trees, and found it 

 highly appreciated by 

 the flower-loving in- 

 habitants. Plumieras 

 were brilliant with blossom in the small gardens, beside the coffee 

 and the mango, and a solitary ash grew in one of the streets, like 

 a majestic guardian of the public peace. • 



Night came on, the village of some 1,500 inhabitants, which 

 had once boasted of 15,000, did not possess a single hotel. But 

 a jolly-looking fat woman, living with her aged mother, wel- 

 comed my companion with the greatest effusion, and we were 

 allotted a platform of boards in one corner of the one-roomed 

 house — she and her mother occupying an opposite corner simi- 

 larly provided with a rough board platform. By advancing a 

 few "tlacos'' we secured a modest repast of bread, herb tea. 

 milk and eggs, and in the evening a party of travellers with a 

 burro train, from the City of Mexico, sought hospitality beneath 

 the same roof. Their train of burros, loaded with merchandise, 

 were driven singly through our apartment into a small yard in 

 the rear, where the^ were unloaded, and later fed with corn- 

 stalks which some of the men finally secured of some of the vil- 

 lagers. The six or eight Mexicans that accompanied the train, 

 made their repose in the ruined lean to. which served our fa 

 for a kitchen. 



