which two small and well-worn ropes stretched nearly two hundred feet to the remaining pier on the farther bank. A hundred feet below was the Chixoy, foaming over its rocky bed. This we might see to the best advantage; for one by one we sat in a sling hung from

a rickety traveller, and, launching from the cliff, slid rapidly down the slack ropes, and after sliding back at the middle, were hauled up on to the remaining pier. From this structure we descended a rough ladder to the shore, which was sandy and strewed with bowlders and other remains of the action of higher waters. Dizzy as

our own passage was, it was safe enough compared to the crossing of our animals. By the help of Indios, we stretched a rope across, and finally swam all our mules safely. Santiago and the bridge-keeper swam splendidly in the rapid current, and the latter was a fine muscular, lean specimen of manhood. Frank and I swam in as far as we dared, and landed the soaked and frightened animals. The bath was cool, and for the first time we had no thought of alligators. While I photographed the bridge, Frank went to the hamlet of Jocote to get eggs and tortillas, and Santiago boiled our coffee. Beautiful butterflies were hovering over the rounded pumice-stones strewed along the banks; and on a rock were fine Achimenes, the Dorstenia (which resembles botanically a fig turned inside out), and a wild Martynia.

Starting again in the early afternoon, we found the way led up and down through the valley, until we were seven hundred feet above the river, which in one place quite disappeared beneath the limestone ledges, to reappear some distance beyond. On either side the steep slopes were covered with coarse grass; and there were many small, compact aloes, with broad leaves and dried flowerstems here and there. Among the rocks were magueyplants and a few palms, these last seemed quite out of place in this high, dry country. Under the pine-trees the sod was green, and in the small lateral valleys clear brooks improved the pasturage; and here at the head of each larger gulch we found the deserted camps of the mozos de cargo.

After many turns we came at six o'clock to the village of Chicaman, just as the rain began to fall. This hamlet is on the north side of broken hills, and overlooks the