RIO OQUILCALCO. 67 



were highly curious. This region, barren as it was, had 

 its vegetable as well as its geological wonders, and they 

 were such as to strike us with astonishment. The whole 

 of the stony surface of the mountains on both sides of the 

 valley of the Rio Oquilcalco, into which we descended, 

 is covered with a profusion of maguey, mimosa, cactus, 

 and gigantic nopal or prickly pear, many of the segments 

 of whose curious lobe-formed growth were from three to 

 four feet in circumference, and the oldest near the ground, 

 which served for stem, as many feet in girth, rising one 

 above another, till they formed a curious but ungraceful 

 tree of fifteen or eighteen feet in height. 



Among the cacti, of which I counted eight distinct 

 species, from the little prickly ball no larger than a wall- 

 nut, to the great white multangular column which rose 

 gracefully in a single shaft, to the height of fifteen feet, 

 two of the larger species might also arrogate the name of 

 trees, and were extremely curious in appearance. 



A rough and tortuous track led us into the arid and 

 stony bed of the Rio Oquilcalco, where, sending the 

 mules forward, we made a diversion to the left, to visit 

 another so-called Indian temple, of much the same char- 

 , acter as those I have already mentioned. A ragged 

 passage of a mountain four leagues across, exhibiting the 

 same phenomena, brought us to our midday halting 

 place, at the pretty Hacienda Guadaloupe, situated in 

 the middle of shady trees, and smiling fields of maize, 

 sugarcane, beans, and so forth, on a clear mountain 

 stream called Rio Grande, which in the rainy season 

 forms a considerable river. The system of irrigation 

 carried on in this vale is productive of great fertility, and 

 many of the fruits and productions of the tierras calu 

 entes are brought to perfection. After an hour's halt, 

 we began the long and rocky ascent of the broad moun- 

 tain of San Ammonica, by which you finally attain the 

 level of the expanse of table land which forms the 

 pedestal of the Sierra Madre. Near the summit, the 

 traveller passes the crater of an extinguished volcano, 

 having long perceived, throughout the whole district, the 



