Sept. 7, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
295 
beneath which boiled and surged the cauldron 
of waters into which the cataract fell. 
Convinced that here the journey ended, so 
far as we were concerned, I followed the ruined 
stairway upward with my eyes, and there, 
perched alongside the falling flood, stood a round 
tower, built of carved stones laid in cement. 
The tower, probably one hundred feet from 
where I stood, could be seen only dimly in the 
fitful glare of the torches, but from it I could 
see a great idol head, its features fixed in a 
fiendish stare, gazing directly at me. Evidently 
this was the guardian spirit of the cavern, and 
the tower into which the hideous head was built 
was the watch tower guarding something more 
valuable beyond, possibly the ruined city of 
which the Indians of the outside world have 
legends. 
Better far than the protection of the idol 
or the watch tower, however, is the broken trail, 
beyond which no human being can pass without 
the aid of wings. In fact, I do not see, without 
changing the course of the river, how any ex¬ 
pedition, no matter how well equipped, could 
reach the tower, though I am planning to try 
again to read the riddle of the city buried by 
nature in the great cavern, if such a city there 
be, and I fully believe it exists. 
After returning to the camp my guide told 
me of still other caves situated some four days’ 
further ride into the mountains, and which white 
man had never seen. To these I determined to 
go, and breaking camp early next morning we 
struck out, following a trail in some places 
scarcely visible, in others so overgrown with 
jungle that we had to cut our way, often re¬ 
quiring two or three hours to cover a mile. 
We passed the cuadrilla of Otatlan, then 
turned up the Teotepec to the Barranca de Chila, 
encountering several bad crossings, due not so 
much to the quantity of water in the river, as 
to the enormous boulders which everywhere 
filled its bed. We camped one night near the 
head of the barranca, at an elevation of 7 500 
feet, and, rolled in our blankets around the fire, 
we could hear the pigs grunting in the jungle 
and the calls of jaguars roaming the hillsides 
far above us. Great owls, bent on their nightly 
hunting, flew over us, while we could hear all 
manner of animals drinking and fighting along 
the banks of the river both above and below the 
camp. 
From this time on we had a constant battle 
with the jungle, often cutting with axes and 
machetes for hours before we could gain a 
single mile. In places where sheer dirt cliffs 
confronted us, we had to cut new trails with 
pick and shovel before we could even lead our 
horses up a few feet to catch the broken trail 
on the mountain side. Sometimes we had to un¬ 
pack, the Indians carrying the mules’ loads for 
long distances, while the animals were brought 
along slowly one at a time. Almost incessant 
rain began to fall in this section, greatly imped¬ 
ing our progress and increasing the danger from 
fevers and other diseases. 
On the third night, however, we encamped 
in a forest of tall pines, most of them more than 
one hundred feet to the first limb and three to 
five feet in diameter. On consulting the instru¬ 
ments I found that our camp was 9,500 feet 
above the sea, and we noted with surprise that 
even at this elevation the jungle did not cease, 
but became even thicker among the giant pines. 
We found countless tracks of wild animals—- 
tiger, mountain lion, wild hogs, bear, deer and 
the little spotted, long-tailed ocelots—but weeds 
from six to ten feet in height, interlaced with 
vines and cane, made hunting an impossibility, 
though one of the guides did succeed in shoot¬ 
ing a brace of wild turkeys from the branches 
of one of the pine trees. 
We found no springs or pools, but the thick 
moss which everywhere coated the ground was 
so soaked with water that one practically stepped 
into a pool every time he put down his foot. 
We saw no evidences in the way of blazed trees 
or recent tracks in the trail that anyone had 
visited the place recently, and huge dead trees, 
fallen across the dim trail, added to our difficul- 
DIORITE BEADS AND ORNAMENT. GREEN IN COLOR, 
SOMETIMES CALLED JADE, TAKEN FROM 
RUINS AT ZUMPANGO DEL RIO. 
ties. Above our camp rose the peak of Cerro 
del Baul, companion mountain to Cerro de Teo¬ 
tepec, and so far innocent of the foot of white 
man on its ancient crest. When the guides told 
me this fact I made up my mind to digress from 
the trip to the caves long enough to stand on 
the summit of the mountain. 
Accordingly we turned upward from the 
camp, reaching the top of the peak, 10,750 feet 
above the sea, shortly after noon. The jungle 
became clearer as we approached the top, until 
we found a comparatively clear space on the apex 
of the cone. It had been raining all forenoon, 
but just as we came out of the forest and stood 
on the summit, the sun burst from the clouds in 
unusual splendor, the curtain of the mists lifted 
from the lower levels, and I gazed on the most 
beautiful landscape it has ever been my lot to 
behold. It was a transformation scene of grand 
and incomparable beauty, exceeding even the 
views said to be obtainable from the summit of 
the neighboring peak—Teotepec. 
Lying to the west was a labyrinth of moun¬ 
tain peaks and barrancas, lying so far below as 
to seem to have been modeled in clay by a giant's 
hand on a giant scale. To the south was a wild, 
unbroken panorama of timber-covered filos. Be¬ 
yond this flashed up an immense break in the 
divide, through which could be seen the blue 
waters of the Pacific Ocean, stretching out to 
the horizon in fascinating, level contrast to the 
wildly broken mass of earth lying below and 
nearer the base of the mountain. On the south¬ 
east, the great peak of Teotepec, rising 11,000 
feet into the air, completed the picture, at which 
we gazed, spell-bound with admiration. 
Here I secured a magnificent collection of 
large, vari-colored orchids, taken from the high¬ 
est trees, and on the open spaces which we found 
on our descent of the other side, we could have 
killed scores of deer, chacalacas (a species of 
pheasant), wild turkeys and wild hogs. As it 
was, we feasted on their meat three times a day 
for two or three days, and then changed to 
ducks, which we killed along the water courses. 
Although this mountain may not have been 
visited at all by modern men, its slopes were 
peopled heavily by the cave dwellers of prehis¬ 
toric days. Hundreds of enormous masses of 
rock had fallen from the cliffs which scar one 
side of the mountain, and lay in all manner of 
positions down the slope. Beneath these the 
members of the dead race had scooped out com¬ 
modious caves, walling the front, and in a few 
instances erecting stone buildings outside. Their 
civilization, however, apparently was low, and I 
found little aside from a few broken pieces of 
pottery to reward my short search. The best 
artifact found was an olla of terra cotta, thirty 
inches long by fourteen inches in diameter, with 
three handles, and roughly made. 
From here we continued two days more to 
Tecomaxochitl, a small Indian village, in all re¬ 
spects like those I have described previously. 
Straight beyond this village for a mile or more 
the guide led the way, skirting the little town 
with the excuse that if we entered and made 
known the object of our visit, undoubtedly \ve 
would be forbidden to enter the caves. On the 
top of this hill I found a number of ruined 
buildings, all small, averaging only nine by 
twenty-four feet, and while digging into the 
floor of one of the ancient buildings, my pick 
went on through and into the entrance to what 
appeared to be a sealed cave. 
Further investigation developed an opening, 
seven feet in length by three feet in height, its 
mouth closed with a thin wall of cut rock, bound 
together with a white cement of a hardness as 
great, if not greater, than that of the rock it¬ 
self. Carving my way into this I found it to be 
a great tomb, some thirty feet long, the roof 
very little higher than the entrance, and the bot¬ 
tom covered with a thin layer of dust, evidently 
volcanic, which must have been in the cave be¬ 
fore its use by the dead tribe which sealed up 
the entrance. 
On top of this dust a ghostly sight met my 
eyes. Skulls covered the bottom of the cave 
so thickly that I could not put down a finger 
without finding a skull. There must have been 
hundreds of them with no other bones, and all 
were in a fine state of preservation. I lifted out 
a number of the skulls, and was surprised to 
see that they did not crumble to dust, though 
they must have been laid in their last resting 
(Continued on page 316). 
