idered the purest breed,
but they are found in many different colors, from snow-white and
black-and-white to dark-brown. They are said to have a small cavity
on the top of the head, though according to some authorities this is
not an unfailing mark of the breed, which seems to be indigenous. The
illiterate Mexican, in his tendency to connect everything good with
Montezuma, thinks that the pure dogs of Chihuahua are descendants
of those which were left behind by that regent near Casas Grandes
at the time when he started south, which afterward became wild and
degenerated into the prairie-dogs of to-day.

Another dog indigenous to Mexico is the hairless dog, also a pet,
found throughout the republic among the Mexicans. It is credited with
possessing curative properties, for which reason people keep them in
their beds with them at night.

Chapter XII

The Tarahumares Still Afraid of Me--Don Andres Madrid to the
Rescue--Mexican Robbers Among the Tarahumares--Mode of Burial
in Ancient Caves--Visit to Nonoava--The Indians Change their
Minds about Me, and Regard Me as a Rain-god--What the Tarahumares
Eat--A Pretty Church in the Wilderness--I Find at Last a Reliable
Interpreter and Proceed to Live a l'Indienne.

As I travelled along I found the natives unobliging and afraid of
me. One man who had hid himself, but was after a while forced to
reappear, bluntly asked, "Are you not the man who kills the fat girls
and the children?" At another time I was taken for Pedro Chaparro,
the famous robber, who had notoriously deceived the Indians. The
guide took only a half-hearted interest in me, as he feared that by
being seen with me he was ruining his trade with the natives, who
were especially suspicious about my writing in my note-book, taking
it as a proof of my design to take their land away from them. Still,
I accomplished a good deal and made interesting observations, though
the difficulties under which I had to labour were quite exasperating.

It was a positive relief, when in the beginning of August, six weeks
after my start from Guachochic, I arrived at Guajochic (guajo =
_sancudo_, a small mosquito), one of the stations where the bullion
trains stop on their travels between Batopilas and Carichic. The man
then in charge of this rather lonely looking place, Andres Madrid,
turned out to be very interesting. Born of Tarahumare parents,
in the town of Carichic, he had received quite a liberal