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Updated: August 20, 2024
After a march of several miles, fording numerous streams, and working our way through tangled thickets of nopal and wild maguey, an opening suddenly appeared through the trees. Emerging from the forest, a brilliant scene burst upon us. A large clearing, evidently once cultivated, but now in a state of neglect, stretched out before us.
After Rancho Chiquito, the first town which is reached in the plain of Comayagua, entering it from this direction, is Lamani, a small village, it is true, but delightfully situated in an open meadow, relieved only by fruit-trees and the stems of the nopal or palmated cactus, which here grows to a gigantic size, frequently reaching the height of twenty or thirty feet.
"'The Rancho de las Sombras," read Octavia from a sheet of violently purple typewriting, "'is situated one hundred and ten miles southeast of San Antonio, and thirty-eight miles from its nearest railroad station, Nopal, on the I. and G. N. Ranch, consists of 7,680 acres of well-watered land, with title conferred by State patents, and twenty-two sections, or 14,080 acres, partly under yearly running lease and partly bought under State's twenty-year-purchase act.
Such enormous and freakish-looking growths of this class of plant few can have ever looked on before. The prickly pear "nopal" was the most common, and bore delicious, juicy and refreshing fruit.
Were I to introduce you into the obscure bowels of this temple, and were to ask you which of these bones were those of the powerful Achalchiuhtlanextin, first chief of the ancient Toltecs; of Necaxecmitl, devout worshiper of the gods; if I inquire where is the peerless beauty of the glorious empress Xiuhtzal, where the peaceable Topiltzin, last monarch of the hapless land of Tulan; if I ask you where are the sacred ashes of our first father Xolotl; those of the bounteous Nopal; those of the generous Tlotzin; or even the still warm cinders of my glorious and immortal, though unhappy and luckless father Ixtlilxochitl; if I continued thus questioning about all our august ancestors, what would you reply?
"Here, Nopal," said Sholoc to his oldest nephew, a lad of fifteen, "I will give you a piece of the antler and you can grind it down and make yourself a hunting knife. It is time you ceased to play and became a hunter. I had killed much game when I was your age." "Will you give me some of the brains that I may finish tanning a deerskin?
At 2 p.m. we cut the old trail Tomas was heading us toward, and shortly thereafter entered the mouth of a frightfully rough cañon, its bottom and slopes thickly covered with nopal, sotol, and mesquite, and, later, higher up, with pines, junipers, oaks, and spruces, with here and there groups of great boulders that would easily conceal a regiment.
Others were so anxious to save him unnecessary trouble that they frequented trails he was known to travel, and lay sometimes for hours and days awaiting him, making themselves as comfortable as possible in the meantime behind some convenient boulder or tall nopal, or in the shady recesses of a mesquite thicket. But they might as well have saved all this bother, for the result was the same. Mr.
"Hush, do not waken mother," said Nopal, speaking very softly. "I know that the men will make an offering to Chinigchinich. I am going to watch them. We are old enough, at least I am. Do you want to come?" A star shone in at the top of the jacal, and Payuchi gazed up at it, blinking, while he pulled his thoughts together. "They will punish us if they find us out," said he at length.
As the hoop rolled another boy stepped forward and tried to throw a stick through it, but failed. Then all the players pointed their fingers at him and grunted in scorn. Again Nopal rolled the hoop, and this time the boy threw through the ring, and all the boys, and Payuchi too, gave whoops of delight.
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