1893 
Mount 
Orizaba 
outfit. Three or four small rush baskets formed store-house. A rude 
slab bench on one side served as general receptacle of food, etc., etc., 
and a single rough stool made up the furniture. On the bare ground upon 
a fragment of rush mat and less than a pound of dry grass slept the man, 
wife, and boy of 6 or 7, covered only by the cotton clothes they wear 
at day and a serape. Water is at a spring about 600 yards away and is 
✓ 
brought up 2 or 3 quarts at a time as is absolutely necessary. Potatoes 
with a very few tortillas make up their food, with an occasional onion 
or dish of red pepper. 
Looking back across the slopes of fir-clad hills one's eye was drawn 
to the magnificent snowy peak of the w Shining Star”. During our stay at 
» * 
this cabin the 2nd day after our ascent came a fierce storm of hail and 
rain with us and on the peak down to tiiaberline a heavy cover of snow. 
Before we left, a second storm occurred of similar character aeoompan- 
* ** * 
ied by mattering thunder and a few lightning flashes. 
Game of all kinds except mice and birds was scarce. A few squirrels 
and two spo's. Lepus and the common deer of the southern end of the 
plateau, lynxes, and coyotes were the larger animals. Broad-tailed and 
white-eared hummers, flickers, robins, Mex. Bl, birds, white-bellied 
nuthatches, creepers. Pine Siskins, Mexican Crossbills, Mexican Whip¬ 
poorwills, Pipilos, Chipping sparrows, ravens, and juncos made up a 
fauna quite similar to what one might find in the mountains of the 
western United States. 
Cloud Note a t The round-backed cumuli over the plains were but a 
handful at 7 a.m., but grew and spread horizontally until much of the 
country was covered "by them at 10 to 11 a.m* During all this time 
they kept along the level of 16,000 feet stratum. Pram 11 to 12, I was 
almost startled to see that they had suddenly shot up huge columns 
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