He showed me his stately old adobe church, built in missionary times.  The ceiling, however, was infested with myriads of bats, the smell of which was quite sickening, and I was glad to get out again.  With him in this uttermost outpost of Christendom lived his aged mother and six sisters, and they treated us with all the hospitality their very limited means permitted.  We especially enjoyed their home-made macaroni.

In the family of the good priest lived a little Indian orphan girl, about five years old, as nice and sweet a child as one might wish to see.  He was teaching her how to read and write, and she had learned her letters in two months.

The padre, good-natured to officiousness, helped me to get Indians to be photographed, fie also would insist upon arranging them before the camera.  His efforts, however, were directed more toward achieving artistic triumph than scientific truth, and he wanted, for instance, to decorate the Indians with peacock feathers.  He yielded, however, to my suggestion that turkey feathers would be more appropriate, and straightway ordered one of his turkeys to be caught and deprived of some of its tail feathers.  The only way in which I could show my appreciation of the disinterested kindness of the family was by photographing them, too.

It was a new sensation to them, and the ladies asked to have it done next day, as they wanted to arrange their hair and prepare themselves properly.

After them it was the turn of the presidente of the village “to look pleasant,” but at this juncture the camera met with an accident.  The ring holding the lens broke and fell out.  This happening miles away from civilisation was decidedly annoying.  But the sisters proved themselves equal to the occasion.  Their father having been a tinsmith, they had picked up the trade and had tools; and the ring was soldered on so well that it lasted until I returned to the United States the following year.

Norogachic is situated in the most populous part of the Tarahumare country, and its presidente exercises authority over the large surrounding district.  He told me that his municipality counted 4,168 souls, among them about 300 Mexicans.  With the help of a very intelligent Mexican I made a rough calculation of the number of Indians belonging to Tonachic and Guachochic, next neighbours of Norogachic, and estimated in the former 350, and in the latter 250 families.  Counting each family as consisting of eight members, this would give us a population of 4,800.  Thus the most populous part of the Tarahumare country, including the three municipalities of Norogachic, Tonachic, and Guachochic, would contain a population of about 8,500 Indians,

As the presidente of Norogachic is an honourable man and speaks the native language, he exercised great influence over them, and on one occasion, when they had gathered in large numbers and threatened to avenge some abuse, he was able to avert disaster.  Nature had endowed him with the doubtful blessing of bloodshot eyes, a feature generally attributed to powerful sorcerers, and this was perhaps more a point in his favour than otherwise with the Indians.