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Updated: June 10, 2025
The venison of the deer, and more than thirty small crayfish caught by Lucien and his friend, were a godsend to our larder, and amply made up for the short commons of previous occasions. We watched the sun go down from the top of the hill, and descried on the horizon the bluish line of the Cordillera, with the volcano of Orizava towering up towards the west.
Both fruit and flower exhibit the hues of a perfect development. Man alone seems stunted in his outlines. There is a beautiful stream meandering through the open fields. Its waters are clear and cool. They are the melted snows of Orizava. Upon its banks grow clumps of the cocoa-palm and the majestic plantain.
Reader, could you thus stand upon the summit of Orizava, and look down to the shores of the Mexican Gulf, you would have before you, as on a map, the scene of our "adventures." Anahuac is Mexico. Jornada is a day's journey. Pescador is a fisherman. Vomito is yellow-fever. Carbonero is charcoal-burner. Arriero is mule-driver.
As the usual day's journey of the Indian is ten leagues a day, the distance must have been about eighty leagues. The old man could not furnish us with any other geographical information; he had heard the names of Orizava and Tehuacan, but never having visited these towns, he knew nothing of the distance we were from them.
All I knew was that they had gone up the country perhaps to Cordova or Orizava. Clayley shared my feelings. The bright eyes in the balconies, the sweet voices in the orange-shaded patios of Jalapa, had neither brightness nor music for us. We were both thoroughly miserable.
An isolated fragment hung lowering above the snowy cone of Orizava, like a huge vampire suspended over his sleeping victim. From the great "parent cloud" that rested upon the Sierra Madre, lightning-bolts shot out and forked hither and thither or sank into the detached masses the messengers of the storm-king bearing his fiery mandates across the sky.
We were the first white men who had paid him a visit for six years. His fields produced maize, beans, and tobacco, which his wife and sister-in-law took twice a year to Orizava to exchange for necessaries for housekeeping. He was as happy as possible, and was never tired of praising the charms of forest and plain. But his raptures were not required to convert us to his opinions.
"Don't be frightened, my dear boy! Thank God! stone walls can generally stand against wind. Besides, this hurricane can hardly have been felt at Orizava. At all events, your mamma has more reason to be anxious about us, for she knows that we are far from shelter exposed to all its violence."
I led off my little companion; but when we got into the court-yard, I had to exercise all my authority to make his younger brother give up the stick and hat he had taken possession of. When restitution was effected, the two children kissed each other, and parted friends. At last the outer gate was passed, and our footsteps rang through the quiet streets of Orizava.
Never mind, I can bear witness that you have behaved like a man. What do your legs say?" "That they would be very willing to rest." "You would like to find yourself at Orizava?" "I should rather see a stream, an alligator, and a puma." "You are most unreasonable. I should be contented with the stream."
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