Vol. XLII, No. 5 



WASHINGTON 



November, 1922 



THE 



NATBOMAL 

 GEOGfAPfflG 



COPYRIGHT. 1 922. BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. WASHINGTON. D. C. 



ADVENTURING DOWN THE WEST COAST 



OF MEXICO 



By Herbert Corey 



Author of "Across the Equator with the American Navy," "On the Monastir Road," "Andorra, 

 a Unique Republic," etc., in the National Geographic Magazine 



With Illustrations from Photographs by Clifton Adams, Staff Photographer, 

 National Geographic Magazine 



WE TRAMPED about Nogales 

 on the score of little errands 

 that always precede the en- 

 trance to a new country. Before starting 

 down Mexico's west coast we had things 

 to buy, passports to be seen to, and men 

 to talk with. 



Our manners began to improve. Be- 

 fore we knew it, we were beginning our 

 speeches with "Senor" instead of "Hey!" 

 We became addicts of hat-tipping. When 

 we said good-bye to an official, we lifted 

 our hats at his desk and shook hands. 

 He followed us to the door and shook 

 hands again. In the street we turned 

 once more and lifted our hats. 



Before we left Mexico our inherent 

 manliness had become so softened and 

 perverted that we formed the habit of 

 bowing when we entered a restaurant or 

 railway car : 



"Permit us?" we asked. 



The person nearest the door would 

 smile and murmur the permission. It did 

 not mean anything, of course. We knew 

 all the time that he was helpless. He 

 could not have kept us out. But, some- 

 how, the little courtesies lessened the 

 friction of traveling in a strange country. 



Our better selves kept telling us that 

 this politeness was an evidence of Eatin 



insincerity. We knew that our occasional 

 hosts did not mean it when they told us 

 that their houses or horses or spurs or 

 blankets were ours. Yet it broke down 

 our resistance. Eong after I returned to 

 New York I found myself saving, in 

 sheer absent-mindedness, to a bus con- 

 ductor : 



"Thank you." 



"What for?" he very naturally asked. 

 "I didn't do anything for you." 



It seems time to lay more secure bed- 

 plates for this article. The reader has 

 the right to know where we were going 

 and why. Rejoicings over manners must 

 no longer be permitted to sidetrack in- 

 formative matter, but I must have my 

 enthusiasms. One wanders in Mexico in 

 a sort of a haze of history and tradition, 

 and gold and pearls, and opulent futures 

 and blood. It is wholly entrancing. 



LEGENDS AND STORIES OE LOST MINES 



My own emotional indulgence was in 

 listening to the stories of lost mines. 

 Every one on the coast seems to have at 

 least one lost mine. Some rest on tradi- 

 tion only, while others have a sure docu- 

 mentary foundation. 



There is the tale of the mine near 

 Arispe, for instance, the entrance to 



