374 LAKES ON THE TABLE-LAND. Book II. 
of Cuesta de Coyachic, is less difficult than might have 
been imagined. An enterprising and wealthy man, Padre 
Gallejo, curate of Coyachic, has had a road made at his own 
expense, proving himself at the same time to be a good 
patriot and a prudent speculator. When we reached the 
valley he sent a boy to require half a dollar from us as a 
toll. The appearance of the road down to the village, with 
its interesting old mission-house, the grotesque rocks and 
ravines of the plateau, with the mountain rising from it 
behind us, were altogether most singular. 
On the other side of the village we found in the valley a 
small "conducta" or caravan encamped, to which, as it 
was going in the same direction with us, we joined our- 
selves, in order not to encounter the dangerous passage of 
the Puerto de las Casas Coloradas alone. We started 
early the next morning with this party. The road ascends 
through oak woods in the broken ground of these clefts in 
the table-land. Their sides are so precipitous near the 
summit that a few steps bring you into what appears 
another country. From the wood, which ceases with the 
cleft in a sharp line, one enters upon a broad grassy 
plain, which branches off in the distance between different 
mountain chains and groups, and which contains a number 
of larger and smaller lakes ; some of these are not far 
from the road. Farther on, in a south-westerly direc- 
tion, the Laguna de los Llanos spreads its extensive surface 
at the foot of the distant mountains belonging to the Sierra 
de los Ojos Azules. To the north, at no great distance, 
yet not visible from the road, lies the Laguna de Castilla, 
the largest lake in North Mexico, surrounded by the richest 
pastures which, irrigated by warm springs, remain green 
winter as well as summer. I was told it was twenty leguas 
in diameter, which must, however, be an exaggeration. It 
