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Should it happen to veer round to the eastward, and you see the rocks of Tierra del Fuego lashed by the choppy sea that can run even through a land-locked channel, you will be ready to open two bottles as a thanks-offering. Is this your first trip round by the south?" "Yes, I crossed by way of Panama. Guess a mule-track over the Sierras is a heap better than the Pacific in a gale. Jee-whizz!"
I was pleased with the diversified appearance of vegetation proper to a chalk district, and so unlike what I had been accustomed to in the Midland counties; and still more pleased with the extreme quietness and rusticity of the place. It is not, however, quite so retired a place as a writer in a German periodical makes it, who says that my house can be approached only by a mule-track!
Next morning we are awaked by a blast from a conch-shell. It is 6.30, and the mist still clings in the valley; the sun will not be over the hills for another hour or more, so in the cool we join the labourers on the mule-track to the higher land, and for a mile or more follow a stream into the heart of the estate.
Eames was wont to say, NIHIL QUOD TETIGIT NON ORNAVIT. He took a fancy to this quaint old citadel which, before his day, could only be reached b a rough mule-track easily defended against invaders. After constructing a fine road of access with many twists and turnings, wide enough to admit the passage of two of his roomy state carriages driving abreast, he turned his mind to other improvements.
Foot-passengers like myself suffer no inconvenience by being obliged to follow the shorter and time-honoured mule-track that joins the two places.
When we were there, a few native huts and two or three stone buildings at the edge of the jungle constituted the 'town. We bought some horses, and hired two men a Mexican and a Yankee for our ride to the city of Mexico. There was at that time nothing but a mule-track, and no public conveyance of any kind. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the scenery.
But, as it happened, that next shot was accompanied by many more; and as, fearing to move, he strained his eyes upward, he could see the grey smoke rising, and hear the sound of a bugle, followed by the rush of feet, and he knew that, so far, he had not been seen, but that the strong body of the enemy were hurrying along the mule-track in full pursuit of his friends.
He found it nevertheless. There was the gully and the rough mule-track leading upwards. But there also had been a landslip, quite recent from the marks. A large scar of raw earth had broken across the hillside, which with the snow above it looked like a slice cut out of an iced chocolate-cake. We stared blankly for a second, till we recognized its hopelessness. 'I'm trying for the crags, I said.
There was only a mule-track over it, and no refuge for man or beast; so that wanderers and peddlers, and those whose need for work or desire for battle brought them over that frightful pass, perished in great numbers and were eaten by the bears and the wolves.
There was only a mule-track over it, and no refuge for man or beast; so that wanderers and peddlers, and those whose need for work or desire for battle brought them over that frightful pass, perished in great numbers, and were eaten by the bears and the wolves.
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