uardianship." He routed
the enemy, leaving on the field more than 15,000 dead insurgents,
without great loss to his own troops. The Indians then sued for peace,
and after their leaders had been duly punished, they were dispersed
to form pueblos. The insurrection lasted over a year, and many bloody
encounters between the natives and their new masters occurred in the
course of the following centuries, the result being that the Indians
in the State of Durango have not been able to maintain themselves,
except in the extreme northern and southern sections.

There was an epidemic of typhoid fever in some of these ranch-villages,
and in one place I saw two dogs hung up in a tree near the road, having
been killed on account of hydrophobia. A strong wind was blowing day
and night on the llanos along the river-course, which annoyed us
not a little. It was a real relief to get up again on the sierra,
about fourteen miles south of Papasquiaro, and find ourselves once
more among the quiet pines and madronas.

Chapter XXV

Winter in the High Sierra--Mines--Pueblo Nuevo and Its Amiable
Padre--A Ball in My Honour--_Sancta Simplicitas_--A Fatiguing
Journey to the Pueblo of Lajas and the Southern Tepehuanes--Don't
Travel After Nightfall!--Five Days Spent in Persuading People
to Pose Before the Camera--The Regime of Old Missionary
Times--Strangers Carefully Excluded--Everybody Contemplating
Marriage is Arrested--Shocking Punishments for Making Love--Bad
Effects of the Severity of the Laws.

The sierra for several days' journey southward is about 9,000 feet
high, and is not inhabited, except in certain seasons by people who
bring their cattle here to graze. I doubt whether anyone ever lived
here permanently. The now extinct tribes, to whose territory this
region belonged, dwelt, no doubt, in the valleys below. The high
plateau consists of small hills, and travelling at first is easy,
but it becomes more and more rough as one approaches the big, broad
Barranca de Ventanas.

Having passed for several days through lonely, cold, and silent woods,
now and then interspersed with a slumbering snow-field, it was a real
pleasure to come suddenly, though only in the beginning of February,
upon plants in full bloom on the high crest that faced the undulating
lowlands of Sinaloa, which spread themselves out below, veiled in
mist. The warm air wafted up from the Hot Country brings about this
remarkable c