MEXICAN SAW-MILL.
"The pine forest begins after we leave the plain, and as we go up among the hills the pines are reduced in size, as they always are on the sides of high mountains. Our horses have hard work to scramble up the steep path, but they are evidently accustomed to it and toil on bravely. The guide warns us to be very careful in case we dismount, as the horses have a trick of snatching their bridles out of one's hands and starting down the mountain at the best speed they can make. Fred's horse tried this and succeeded, but he didn't go far, as he was caught by one of the soldiers, who happened to be in the rear, where the path was narrow.
HACIENDA OF TOMACOCO.
"Do not suppose that the trees were small; some of them were two feet and more in diameter and seventy or eighty feet high, and the air was full of the sweet resinous odor for which a pine forest is famous and that is so welcome to most nostrils. For one, I do not know a more charming perfume than that of a forest of pines; and Fred agrees with me in this. It was difficult to realize that we were in Mexico. Had I been brought here blindfolded, and then asked to guess where we were, I should have named New England, Wisconsin, or California long before thinking of the land of the Aztecs. We passed several saw-mills of the most primitive character. They were operated by two men, one standing above the log and the other below it, and alternately pushing and pulling the saw. The cutting was done by the downward stroke of the saw, as in the ordinary saw-mills of the Eastern States.
VOLCANEROS (MINERS).
"Higher and higher seemed the great mountain as we slowly zigzagged in his direction. Sometimes he was hidden from our view by the trees or the shape of the hills, and again he came suddenly before us and seemed to signal us to persevere. Up and up we went; and when we reached Tlamacas we were 13,000 feet above the sea, or more than 4000 feet above the town whence we set out in the forenoon.