Sometimes a single peak just gets its head above the level plain by a few hundred feet, while again, great ranges extend for miles, their tops covered with snow in the winter months. However long that level plain may be, it always extends without break or interruption to the next range. A railway would have but little trouble, so far as grades are concerned, in getting through this country. It might be necessary to wind a great deal to avoid hills and mountains, but if the constructors were lavish with rails and ties, and did not mind mileage, the grade would be almost as simple as building on a floor; in fact it is the floor of an old inland ocean.
A profile view of some of these ranges and isolated peaks gives some very grotesque as well as picturesque views, and imaginative people of the Southwest fancy they see many silhouette designs in the crests of the mountains. Faces seem to predominate, and especially is Montezuma's face quite lavishly distributed over this region. I think I can recall at least a half dozen of them in the Southwest since I first visited there in 1867. This unfortunate Aztec monarch must have had a very rocky looking face, or his descendants must have thought exceeding well of him to sculpture him so often, even in fancy, upon the mountain crests.
I went into a little face-making business of my own, so as to keep along in the custom of the country while I was there. The most southerly peak of the Florida range had quite a well-defined face, upturned to the sky, that, to my imagination, looked more like the well-known face of Benjamin Franklin than any other of nature's sculpturing so often portrayed in mountains when assisted by the fancy of man.
Before leaving Las Palomas our material underwent inspection by the customs officials, and no people could have been more polite and considerate than were these officers toward us, giving us our necessary papers without putting us to the inconvenience of unpacking our many boxes and bundles. There is this peculiarity about Mexican frontier customs: after passing the first one you are by no means through with them, for the next two, three, or even four towns may also have customhouse officers. I was in a Mexican town, La Ascencion, and had a wagon unloaded before I knew they had a customhouse. I expected to be shot at reveille the next morning; but instead they politely passed all my personal baggage without even asking to see it, simply examining the papers received at the first customhouse.
PACHECO PEAK.