ing and
bowing our heads to avoid the creeping plants that swung and twined
and twisted across the track, intermingled often with huge thorns as
long as a man's arm. These latter stuck out from the trees on which
they grew like so many brown bayonets; and a man who had run up
against one of them, would have been transfixed by it as surely as
though it had been of steel. We pushed on, however, in Indian file,
following the two guides, who kept at the head of the party, and
making our way through places where a wild-cat would have difficulty
in passing; through thickets of mangroves, mimosas, and tall fern, and
cactuses with their thorny leaves full twenty feet long; the path
turning and winding all the while. Now and then a momentary
improvement in the nature of the ground enabled us to catch a glimpse
of the whole column of march. We were struck by its picturesque
appearance, the guides in front acting as pioneers, and looking out on
all sides as cautiously and anxiously as though they had been soldiers
expecting an ambuscade; the graceful forms of the women bowing and
bending over their horses' manes, and often leaving fragments of their
mantillas and rebozas on the branches and thorns of the labyrinth
through which we were struggling. But it was no time to indulge in
contemplation of the picturesque, and of this we were constantly made
aware by the anxious vociferations of the Mexicans. "_Vamos! Por Dios,
vamos!_" cried they, if the slightest symptom of flagging became
visible in the movements of any one of the party; and at the words,
our horses, as though gifted with understanding, pushed forward with
renewed vigour and alacrity.

On we went--up hill and down, in the depths of the valley and over the
soft fetid swamp. That valley of Oaxaca has just as much right to be
called a valley as our Alleghanies would have to be called bottoms. In
the States we should call it a chain of mountains. Out of it rise at
every step hills a good two thousand feet above the level of the
valley, and four or five thousand above that of the sea; but these are
lost sight of, and become flat ground by the force of comparison; that
is, when compared with the gigantic mountains that surround the valley
on all sides like a frame. And what a splendid frame they do compose,
those colossal mountains, in their rich variety of form and colouring!
here shining out like molten gold, there changing to a dark bronze;
covered lower down with various