This had made no impression on me when I went over it on horseback, but travelling in an ox-cart was a different matter, and I shall never again forget it.  It was less abrupt than the ascent—­less of vertical zigzag, and more of long steady windings.  It also was excavated in the solid rock.  It was badly neglected, and the cart jolted, and threatened every instant to upset us, or leap into the gulf.  Coming out into a more level district, we passed Paraje and Dolores, reaching Carizal at five, where we stopped for the day.  This is a regular resting place for carreteros, and there were plenty of carts there for the day.

As soon as the oxen were unyoked, I turned out my companions and lay down in the cart, trying to get an hour’s sleep before the sun should rise, as I had not closed my eyes since leaving Union Hidalgo two days before.  I was asleep at once, but in less than an hour was awakened by the assaults of swarms of minute black-flies, whose stings were dreadful.  The rest of the company suffered in the same way, so we all got up and went to work.  A group of carreteros breakfasting, invited me to eat with them—­hard tortillas, atole and salted meat, formed a much better breakfast than we got, a little later, at the house upon the hill where travellers eat their meals.  At this house they had a little parrot which was very tame, and also a chacalacca, which had been hatched by a domestic hen from a captured egg.  This bird is more slender and graceful than a hen, but our landlord informed us that its eggs are much larger than those of the common fowl, and much used for food.  Both this bird and the little parrot regularly fly off with flocks of their wild fellows, but always come back afterward to the house.  This was a most interesting example of an intermediate stage between true wildness and domestication.  There was little doing throughout the day.  Heat, black-flies, and sunlight all made it impossible to sleep; but we took a bath in the running brook, and skinned some birds, and tasted posole for the first time. Posole is a mixture of pounded or ground corn and sugar, of a yellow or brownish color, much like grape-nuts.  It may be eaten dry, but is much more commonly mixed with water.  The indian dips up a jicara full of clear spring water, and then, taking a handful of posole from his pouch, kneads it up until a rather thick, light-yellow liquid results, which is drunk, and is refreshing and satisfying.

Almost all the carreteros at this camp were Juchitecos.  They were great, strong fellows, and almost all of them wore the old-fashioned indian breech-clout of red cotton under their drawers or trousers.  When they were working at their carts, greasing the wheels, or making repairs, they were apt to lay by all their clothing but this simple piece of cloth, and their dark-brown bodies, finely muscled, hard and tough, presented handsome pictures.  The little