abound in the district.  The metate is a sort of little table, hewn out of the basalt, with four little feet, and its surface is curved from the ends to the middle.  The metalpile is of the same material, and like a rolling-pin.  The old-fashioned Mexican pottery I have mentioned already.  It is beautifully made, and very cheap.  They only asked us nine-pence for a great olla, or boiling-pot, that held four or five gallons, and no doubt this was double the market-price.  I never so thoroughly realized before how climate is altered by altitude above the sea as in noticing the fruits and vegetables that were being sold at this little market, within fifteen or twenty miles of which they were all grown.  There were wheat and barley, and the pinones (the fruit of the stone-pine, which grows in Italy, and is largely used instead of almonds); and from these representatives of temperate climates the list extended to bananas and zapotes, grown at the bottom of the great barrancas, 3,000 or 4,000 feet lower in level than the plateau, though in distance but a few miles off.  Three or four thousand miles of latitude would not give a greater difference.

It would never do to be late, and break our necks in one of the awkward water-courses that cut the plateau about in all directions; so we started homewards, soon having to unfasten great-coats and shawls from our saddles, to keep out the cold of the approaching sunset; and so we got back to the hospitable hacienda, and were glad to warm ourselves at the fire.

Next morning, we went off to get a view of the great barranca of Regla.  A ride over the hills brought us to a wood of oaks, with their branches fringed with the long grey Spanish moss, and a profusion of epiphytes clinging to their bark, some splendidly in flower, showing the fantastic shapes and brilliant colours one sees in English orchid-houses.  Cactuses of many species complete the picture of the vegetation in this beautiful spot.  This is at the top of the barranca.  Then imagine a valley a mile or two in width, with sides almost perpendicular and capped with basaltic pillars, and at the bottom a strip of land where the vegetation is of the deepest green of the tropics, with a river winding along among palm-trees and bananas.  This great barranca is between two and three thousand feet deep, and the view is wonderful.  We went down a considerable way by a zig-zag road, my companion collecting armfuls of plants by the way, but unfortunately losing his thermometer, which could not be found, though a long hunt for it produced a great many more plants, and so the trouble was not wasted.  The prickly pear was covered with ripe purple fruit a little way down, and we refreshed ourselves with them, I managing—­in my clumsiness—­to get into my fingers two or three of the little sheaves of needles which are planted on the outside of the fruit, and thus providing myself with occupation for leisure moments for three or four days after in taking them out.