VALE OF CUERNAVACA. 169 
the witchcraft that lies in a little good-humor, and a paper of cigarritos. 
Let no one travel through a Spanish country without them. 
About one o'clock, we had again mounted, and riding along a level 
road which winds through the table-land of the mountain-top, we passed 
the Crtjz del Marqtjez, a large stone cross set up not long after the 
conquest, to mai'k the boundary of the estate presented by Montezuma 
to Cortez. At this spot the road is 9,500 feet above the level of the 
sea, and thence commences the descent of the southern mountain-slope 
toward the Vale of Cuernavaca. The pine forest in many places is 
open and arching like a park, and covers a wide sweep of meadow 
and valley. The air soon became milder, the sun warmer, the vege- 
tation more varied, the fields less arid — and yet all was forest scenery, 
apparently untouched by the hand of man. In this respect it presents a 
marked difference from the mountains around the Valley of Mexico, where 
the denser population has destroyed the timber and cultivated the land. 
This road is remarkable for being infested with robbers, but we fortu- 
nately met none. We were probably too strong for the ordinary gangs — 
some fifty shots from a company of foreigners, with double-barrel guns 
and revolving pistols, being dangerous welcome. At the village where 
we breakfasted, there was an ugly-looking band of scoundrels who hung 
around our party the whole time we remained there, watching our mo- 
tions and examining our arms. I cannot conceive a set of figures better 
suited to the landscape that village presented, than these same human 
fungi, who had sprung up amid the surrounding physical desolation, and 
flourished in moral rottenness. Every man looked the rascal, with a 
beard of a month's growth, slouched hats, from under which they scowled 
their stealthy side-glances, sneaking, cat-like tread, and muffled cloaks 
or blankets, that but badly concealed the hilts of knives and machetes. 
None of these gentlemen, however, pursued or encountered us. 
After a slow ride during the afternoon, we suddenly changed our 
climate. We had left the tierras frias, and tierras templadas, (the 
cold and temperate lands,) and had plunged at once, by a rapid descent 
of the mountain, into the tierra caliente, where the sun was raging with 
tropical fervor. The vegetation became entirely different and more luxu- 
riant, and a break among the hills suddenly disclosed to us the Valley ot 
Cuernavaca, bending to the east with its easy bow. The features of this 
valley are entirely different from those of the Valley of Mexico, for, although 
both possess many of the same elements of grandeur and sublimity, in 
the lofty and wide-sweeping mountains ; yet there is a southern gentleness, 
and purple haziness about this, that soften the picture, and are wanting 
in the Vale of Mexico, in the high and rarefied atmosphere of which every 
object, even at the greatest distance, stands out with almost microscopic 
