458 VALLEYS AND DEFILES OF THE LIMPIAS. Book III. 
to suffer little from this want, either from the dampness of 
the atmosphere, or that they allayed their thirst with 
snow-water. The next day the weather was again mild, 
the snow was melted, and we continued our journey. 
As I was riding in advance of the caravan, I saw 
three mountain-sheep, one of which I might have killed if 
I had ventured to follow them ; but, at a distance, I 
mistook the animals for bears, and confess that I had no 
desire to encounter three of these beasts alone. When I 
discovered my error they were too high up between the 
rocks. 
We had now entered the Limpia Mountains, from which 
the Limpia Valley opens upon the plain. The Mexi- 
cans call a series of springs and pools of water along a line 
of valleys and defiles " Las Limpias ; " through them 
our route now lay for several days : the word may, per- 
haps, be best translated " the clear waters." This mountain 
forms part of the porphyritic range, over which, in a 
southern section, the road leads to the Presidio del Norte, 
through the pass I have before described, under the name 
of the Puerto del Paisano. The Guadalupe Mountains, 
across which, further north, another route passes from Texas 
to the Rio Grande, are connected with this chain. Another 
part of it bears the name of Sierra del Diablo — u the 
Devil's Mountain," a designation which would not be in- 
appropriate to the entire range. The long rocky passage 
through which the El Paso road crosses the mountains, or, 
perhaps a certain part of it, is called by the North 
Americans the " Wild Rose Pass." It probably more 
especially designates the pass over a certain yoke of moun- 
tains, called by the Mexicans the Cuesta de las Limpias. 
This, however, is not the central pass over the chain : it 
only cuts off a bend and an impassable part of the valley. 
