the piece
available for its new purpose.

Marching for several days through oaks and mesquites, over hills and
rising country, we reached Nacori, a poor village in the foot-hills of
the Sierra Madre. It is scarcely forty miles from Granados, and lies
at an elevation of 3,700 feet. Our camp, about two miles outside of
the village, was permeated with a delicious odour of acacia blossoms,
and water in the neighbouring mountains, though strongly impregnated
with iron, was quite palatable.

In this region Mr. Hartman found a new form of agave with delicate
stripes of white on the lanceolate leaves that constitute the basal
rosette of the plant. The flower stalk is only twelve or thirteen
inches high, and I should not wonder if this diminutive and beautiful
century plant some day became fashionable in greenhouses. It grows in
large numbers in the crevices of the rocks, the perpendicular walls
of canons often being studded with the bright little rosettes when
the drought has withered all herbaceous vegetation.

From here I made an excursion to an ancient pueblo site. As usual,
there were traces of small dwellings, huts of undressed stone,
and fragments of pottery. We found three mortars and one pestle,
a remarkable number of metates (the stone on which corn is ground),
and the corresponding grinding stones, showing that a large population
must have once lived here, huddled together in a small space.

But the most striking feature of antiquity met thus far on our journey
were curious stone terraces built across the small gullies. They
are called trincheras (trenches). Some of them do not appear to be
very old, and many present the appearance of tumble-down walls, but
the stones of which they are constructed were plainly used in their
natural state. Although many of the boulders are huge and irregular in
shape, they were used just as they were found. The building material
always conformed to the surroundings: in places where conglomerate
containing water-worn boulders abounded, this was used; where porphyry
was prevalent, blocks of that material were employed. There is no
trace of dressing or cutting, but in the mason work considerable
skill is evident. The walls are not vertical, but incline somewhat
toward the slope on which they are erected. The terrace thus formed
is often filled with soil to the height of the wall-top for a space
of from fifteen to twenty feet. Earth taken from them does not show
any colours. Some of t