e to my companions, who were toiling up the narrow
mule-path, half a mile to my right. The _Teniente_ dismounted, evidently
with the intention of joining us, but soon got back again into his
saddle,--having experienced, as H. explained, "a sudden recurrence of
palpitation."

Rejoining my companions, I dismissed our guide with a reward which
surprised him, and we pursued our way to the _Portillo_. This name is
given to the point where the path, after winding up the side of the
mountain half-way to its summit, suddenly turns round its brow, and
commences its descent. It is a narrow shelf, in some places scarcely
more than a foot wide, rudely worked in the living rock, which falls
off below in a steep and almost precipitous descent to the river; and
although it did not quite realize the idea we had formed of it from
the description of our guide, it was sufficiently pokerish to inspire
the most daring mountaineer with caution. At any rate, most of our
party dismounted, preferring to lead their mules around the point to
having their heads turned in riding past it. Exposed to the full
force of the winds, which are drawn through this river-valley as
through a funnel, and with a foothold so narrow, it was easy to
believe that neither man nor beast could pass here during the season
of the northers, except at great risk of being dashed down the
declivity.

A little beyond the _Portillo_, the road diverges from the valley
proper of the river, and is carried over an undulating country to the
village of San Antonio del Norte, finely situated on a grassy plain,
of considerable extent, a dependency of the valley of the Goascoran.
We had intended stopping here for the night; but the _cabildo_ was
already filled with a motley crowd of _arrieros_ and others on their
way to San Miguel. A tall _mestizo_, covered with ulcers, sat in the
doorway, and two or three culprits extended their claw-like hands
towards us through the bars of their cage and invoked alms in the
name of the Virgin and all things sacred. We therefore contented
ourselves with a lunch under the corridor of a neighboring house,
and, notwithstanding it was late in the afternoon, pressed forward
towards the little Indian town of San Juan, three leagues distant.

It was a long and rough and weary way, and as night fell without any
sign of a village in front, we began to have a painful suspicion that
we had lost our road,--if a narrow mule-path, often scarcely
traceable, ca