60 



THE MONTE PENULCO 



The suffocating heat, the insect plagues, the unwonted 

 food — what in fact had they been to us, compared to the 

 sum of our enjoyments? We almost felt regret, while 

 mounting the. lofty mountain ladder which was to raise 

 us to another and more temperate zone, that we were 

 turning our backs upon such unparalleled beauty. 



Nevertheless, if I would signalize one evening and one 

 scene, during our ramble in New Spain, which touched 

 our hearts more than another, I should name the Monte 

 Penulco and the setting sun which we there beheld. 



A desolate-looking stone building, in the vicinity of a 

 poor rancho, divided by party walls into a number of 

 comfortless lodgings, here furnished us with accommo- 

 dation: and after seeing that all our retinue had followed 

 us without accident, we left our horses to their repose, 

 and sallied forth for a stroll. 



The swelling crest of the Monte Penulco is said to 

 have been at the time of the Spanish conquest, the site 

 of a large town containing many thousand inhabitants. 

 You look now in vain for the traces, either in the rem- 

 nants of buildings, or inequalities of surface. A solitary 

 stone ruin, of considerable strength, standing in the mid- 

 dle of the wide pastures, is the only vestige of old times ; 

 and that, I have no doubt, like many ruins in this part of 

 the country, which are shown as Indian antiquities, is 

 of Spanish origin. It may either have been a chapel 

 erected for the edification of the new converts, or a fort 

 constructed to overawe the Indian inhabitants. 



In other respects, nature has reclaimed her own, and 

 resumed her quiet sway over the Monte Penulco and its 

 brethren, which exhibit throughout all their varied undu- 

 lations of surface, an unbroken carpet of delicious ver- 

 dure nurtured by the moist mists of the mountains, and 

 beds of gentle flowers, fanned by the pure and elastic air 

 of an eternal spring. 



How sweet we felt the repose of that long still eve- 

 ning upon those green Alpine pastures ! Well might we, 

 as we lay at ease upon the fresh sod, and watched the sun 

 sink among the mountains girdling the horizon, while his 



