In the valleys of the western inclines of the sierra there is nothing suggestive of tropical luxuriance or romance in the landscape, which impresses one chiefly with its towering mountains and vast slopes.  Grass is plentiful enough among the stones and rocks, and groups of fresh green trees indicate where ground is moist and water to be found.  The country is dry, and from January to June there is no rain.  Yet an aloe, which smells like ham, is so full of juice that it drips when a leaf is broken.  This, too, is the home of the agaves, or century-plants, and I know of nothing so astonishing as the gigantic flower-spike that shoots upward from the comparatively small plant called amole.  One fine day in May I came upon one, which I measured.  It was by no means the largest one to be found, but the spike itself, without the stalk, was 15 feet 8 inches in height, and 31 inches in circumference at its thickest part.  It seemed a pity to cut down such a magnificent specimen, but, as I wanted to count the flowers, I had one of my men fell it with a couple of blows of an axe.  After counting the flowers on one section, I estimated that the entire spike bore at least 20,000 beautiful yellow blossoms, each as large as a tulip.  It required two men to carry the spike, and as they walked they were followed by a multitude of humming-birds, which remained fearlessly at work among the flowers of what they evidently considered their own private garden.  They might have to fly miles before finding another like this.  The flower-stalk of the maguey is eaten before it flowers.  It looks like a big bamboo stick, and when roasted in the hot ashes is very palatable, sweet, and tender.

Below the Indian village of Coloradas stands an isolated peak 400 to 500 feet high, in regard to which the Tarahumares have the following legend:  A Tepehuane once cut bamboo reeds and tobacco, down on the river, and being followed up by the Tubars changed himself into this stone.  The man’s girdle can still be made out.

At the village my interpreter asked me for the cover of a copy of London Truth, and for the wrapper on my photographic films, that with these pictures he might adorn the altar of the old adobe church.

The country is but thinly populated east and north of Morelos, and the steepness of the valleys through which the Indians are scattered, makes it difficult to reach them.  At the time of my visit these Indians had absolutely nothing to sell us but the sweet mescal stalks.  In the end of May I reached Morelos, an old mining place, about 1,800 feet above sea-level.