Heights:  a, 14 cm; b, 16.8 cm; c, 18.6 cm; d, 12.2 cm; e, 22 cm; f, 18.5 cm.

a, a very realistic representation of the rain-grub.

c has a black slip.

d is very strong and highly polished, and differs also in colouring from the rest.

PLATE V

Heights:  a, 3.7 cm; b, 9.8 cm; c, 25.6 cm; d, 17 cm; e, 20.7 cm; f, 19.3 cm; g, 19.3 cm.

This brown ware is very handsome, and its ornamentation is strikingly artistic in its simplicity.  See, for instance, Plate V., e.  D, f, and g represent pottery from Casas Grandes, distinguished by a certain solidity and a higher polish.

Chapter V

Second Expedition—­Return to the Sierra—­Parrots in the Snow—­Cave-dwellings at Garabato, the most Beautiful in Northern Mexico—­A Superb View of the Sierra Madre—­The Devil’s Spine Ridge—­Guaynopa, the Famous Old Silver Mine—­Aros River—­On Old Trails—­Adventures of “El Chino”—­Cure for Poison Ivy.

When in the middle of January, 1892, I resumed my explorations, my party was only about one-third as large as it had been the year before.  In pursuance of my plan, I again entered the Sierra Madre, returning to it, as far as Pacheco, by the road on which we had come down to San Diego.  We travelled over freshly-fallen snow a few inches deep, and encountered a party of eight revolutionists from Ascension, among whom I perceived the hardest looking faces I had ever laid eyes on.  All questions regarding their affairs they answered evasively, and I could not help feeling some anxiety for three of the men, who with a Mexican guide, had for some weeks been exploring the country around Chuhuichupa, a discarded cattle range some forty miles south of Pacheco.  Next day I sent a man ahead to warn them against the political fugitives.  The Mormons told me that for more than a fortnight they had been keeping track of these suspicious-looking characters who had been camping in the neighbourhood.

There were repeated falls of snow, and the sierra assumed a thoroughly northern aspect.  Only the multitude of green parrots with pretty red and yellow heads, chattering in the tree-tops and feasting on pine cones, reminded us that we were in southern latitudes.  As all tracks had been obliterated by the snow, I secured a Mormon to guide us southward.

About ten miles south of Pacheco we passed Mound Valley, or “Los Montezumas,” so named after the extraordinary number of montezumas, or mounds, found in the locality, probably not far from a thousand.  Looking at them from a distance, there seemed to be some plan in their arrangement, inasmuch as they formed rows running from north to south.  They are small, and nearly all of them are on the south side of a sloping plain which spread itself over about 500 acres in the midst of densely pine-covered highlands.