SIX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 



217 



them, and during this day^s journey saw the 

 only dangerous serpent I had met with in the 

 country : it was of a small size, and brilliantly 

 coloured with alternate rings of black and 

 scarlet. Our guides and several Indians de- 

 clared it to be extremely venomous, but the 

 appearance of its teeth did not prove it ; it is 

 called the coral snake both in the country and 

 by naturalists. 



We took supper, and rested our mules till 

 two o'clock, when travelling over a tolerable 

 road till near daylight, we came to several 

 bad swampy places, where the mules had 

 considerable difficulty in making their way 

 -through the water and mud: one of them 

 fell, and it caused some trouble to raise it 

 and proceed. In another place the litter had 

 to be raised higher on the backs of the mules, 

 to prevent the water from entering ; this part 

 of the road, lying through a low flat morass, 

 will with difficulty be made good for carriages 



