nd-, and third-class. When
buying tickets we struck acquaintance with a Syrian peddler. Three of
these were travelling together; one of them spoke a little English,
being proficient in profanity. He likes the United States, _per se_, and
does not like Mexico; but he says the latter is the better for trade.
"In the United States, you sell maybe fifteen, twenty-five, fifty cents
a day; here ten, fifteen, twenty-five dollars." The trip lasted three
hours and involved three changes of mules at stations, where we found
all the excitement and bustle of a true railroad station.

The country was, at first, rolling, with a sparse growth of yuccas, many
of which were exceptionally large and fine. On the hills were occasional
_haciendas_. This broken district was succeeded by a genuine desert,
covered with fine dust, which rose, as we rode, in suffocating clouds.
Here the valley began to close in upon us and its slopes were sprinkled
with great cushion cactuses in strange and grotesque forms. After this
desert gorge, we came out into a more open and more fertile district
extending to Tehuacan. Even this, however, was dry and sunburned.

Our party numbered four. We had written and telegraphed to the padre
and expected that he, or Ernst, would meet us in Tehuacan. Neither was
there. No one seemed to know just how far it was to Chila. Replies to
our inquiries ranged from five to ten leagues.[B] Looking for some mode
of conveyance, we refused a coach, offered at fifteen pesos, as the
price seemed high. Hunting horses, we found four, which with a foot
_mozo_ to bring them back, would cost twenty pesos. Telling the owner
that we were not buying horses, but merely renting, we returned to the
proprietor of the coach and stated that we would take it, though his
price was high, and that he should send it without delay to the railroad
station, where our companions were waiting. Upon this the owner of the
coach pretended that he had not understood that there were four of us
(though we had plainly so informed him); his price was for two. If we
were four, he must have forty pesos. A fair price here might be eight
pesos for the coach, or four for horses. So we told the coach owner
that we would walk to Chila, rather than submit to such extortion.
This amused him greatly and he made some facetious observations, which
determined me to actually perform the trip on foot. Returning to the
railroad station, where two of the party were waiting, I annou