round in the
midst of the Tzapotecans, mules, arrieros, guides, and women, who are
sheltered from the storm in a sort of natural cavern. At the moment at
which the hillock had given way under Rowley and myself, who were a
short distance in rear of the party, the Mexicans had succeeded in
attaining firm footing on a broad rocky ledge, a shelf of the
precipice that flanked the barranca. Upon this ledge, which gradually
widened into a platform, they found themselves in safety under some
projecting crags that sheltered them completely from the tempest.
Thence they looked down upon the barranca, where they descried Rowley
and myself struggling for our lives in the roaring torrent; and
thence, by knotting several lassos together, they were able to give us
the opportune aid which had rescued us from our desperate situation.
But whether this aid had come soon enough to save our lives was still
a question, or at least for some time appeared to be so. The life
seemed driven out of our bodies by all we had gone through: we were
unable to move a finger, and lay helpless and motionless, with only a
glimmering indistinct perception, not amounting to consciousness, of
what was going on around us. Fatigue, the fever, the immersion in cold
water when reeking with perspiration, the sufferings of all kinds we
had endured in the course of the last twenty hours, had completely
exhausted and broken us down.

The storm did not last long in its violence, but swept onwards,
leaving a broad track of desolation behind it. The Mexicans
recommenced their journey, with the exception of four or five who
remained with us and our arrieros and servants. The village to which
we were proceeding was not above a league off; but even that short
distance Rowley and myself were in no condition to accomplish. The
kind-hearted Tzapotecans made us swallow cordials, stripped off our
drenched and tattered garments, and wrapped us in an abundance of
blankets. We fell into a deep sleep, which lasted all that evening and
the greater part of the night, and so much refreshed us that about an
hour before daybreak we were able to resume our march--at a slow pace,
it is true, and suffering grievously in every part of our bruised and
wounded limbs and bodies, at each jolt or rough motion of the mules on
which we were clinging, rather than sitting.

Our path lay over hill and dale, perpetually rising and falling. We
soon got out of the district or zone that had been swept