1892 
Hacienda 
San Marcos 
(Jalisco) 
Apr. 2 
Agosto 
Tie.of 
Plantinar 
(Jalisco) 
Apr. 3 
to 
Apr, 5 
The road houses along the main trails such as we are on are 
called Meson’s. We stopped at the meson de San Marcos. It had 
evidently once served as the hacienda buildings and enclosed a 
large court where the burros, mules, and horses of several pack- 
trains were now penned and being fed on corn stalks which were 
sold at lrjcents for each small bundle. Twenty of these were necess¬ 
ary to feed our 5 animals. Corn was also bought at 9 £ an slmudj 
packs of fruit, sugar, flour, salt, corn, cocoanuts, and other 
commodities were arranged neatly in separate lots,-the owner on a 
trading trip, or man in charge for some merchant sleeping by his 
goods. I obtained a room fronting the court in which were 3 board 
benches for beds, a table, and 2 chairs. Into this they brought a 
light and some water and our quarters were furnished, I ordered 
everything the place afforded for supper and we had chocolate with 
cinnamon, boiled eggs, bread, and beans. 
Found one of my mules very lame this morning so was obliged to 
pack one of the saddle animals and my packer went on foot. 
The road continued on around the mountains parallel to the river 
mentioned yesterday, A few miles from San Marcos we crossed the 
large Barranca de Bettran which is about 500 feet deep with steep 
sides along which a good zig-zag trail paved with large eobble stones 
. 
has been built. This barranca presents many places where it would be 
very difficult for two pack trains to pass, if not impossible. In 
former years, the packers had many bloody fights with machetes here 
in order to secure precedence, and at one time the government had to 
have a soldier guard here to stop this. This and several other 
smaller barrancas along this road have been favorite places for 
bandits to attack their victims and this has continued up to the 
38 
