414 
PUERTO DEL PAISANO. 
Book II. 
friend did not accomplish his purpose. This watering- 
place had a good spring, but it was insufficient for our 
animals. Quite near there was an abundance of standing 
water, of a coffee-brown colour, in pits in the ground, 
among which separate bunches of rushes grew. This 
water was so saturated with soda that it tasted like lye, 
and made the skin slippery. Notwithstanding this, our 
animals drank it. The plateau, smooth and sterile, with 
the rushes and waterpits in the foreground, and the rocky 
peak of the Picacho de la Cienaga de Valles in the back- 
ground, formed a most characteristic desert scene. 
We reached the Puerto del Paisano, a mountain pass 
with most interesting scenery, over a plain full of the 
prairie marmot. The mountain chain through which it 
passes forms the eastern limit of the plateau, while from 
the eastern side of this chain the ground sinks into a lower 
level. The precipices and detached rocks of this pass, with 
scattered oaks, form a most interesting landscape. Valleys 
shut in by perpendicular walls, with towering pinnacles, 
intersect these mountain masses ; and single rocks stand 
isolated like obelisks. We thus reached the Ojo del 
Paisano, 1 one of the most beautiful and interesting water- 
ing-places of this neighbourhood. The valley forms a 
space surrounded by steep mountains, opening eastwards 
towards the plain. The mountains are covered with groups 
of evergreen oaks, and there is no lack of grass, although 
this year scarcely any rain had fallen to rouse the slum- 
bering vegetation. In spite of this, however, the scarlet 
blossoms of the Castilleja occurred here and there in the 
valley. 
1 With reference both to the pass 
and to the spring, the word paisano 
means a before-named bird, Geococcyx 
viaticus, the paisano or correcamino 
of the Mexicans — the ground cuckoo. 
