The Rifle Rangers. Reid Mayne

I behold strange forms of the cactus, with their glorious wax-like blossoms; the cochineal, the tuna, the opuntias – the great tree-cactus “Foconoztle” (Opuntia arborescens), and the tall “pitahaya” (Cereus giganteus), with columnar shafts and straight upright arms, like the branches of gigantic candelabra; the echino-cacti, too – those huge mammals of the vegetable world, resting their globular or egg-shaped forms, without trunk or stalk, upon the surface of the earth.

      There, too, I behold gigantic thistles (cardonales) and mimosas, both shrubby and arborescent – the tree-mimosa, and the sensitive-plant (Mimosa frutescens), that shrinks at my approach, and closes its delicate leaflets until I have passed out of sight. This is the favourite land of the acacia; and immense tracts, covered with its various species, form impenetrable thickets (chapparals). I distinguish in these thickets the honey-locust, with its long purple legumes, the “algarobo” (carob-tree), and the thorny “mezquite”; and, rising over all the rest, I descry the tall, slender stem of the Fouquiera splendens, with panicles of cube-shaped crimson flowers.

      There is less of animal life here; but even these wild ridges have their denizens. The cochineal insect crawls upon the cactus leaf, and huge winged ants build their clay nests upon the branches of the acacia-tree. The ant-bear squats upon the ground, and projects his glutinous tongue over the beaten highway, where the busy insects rob the mimosse of their aromatic leaves. The armadillo, with his bands and rhomboidal scales, takes refuge in the dry recesses of the rocks, or, clewing himself up, rolls over the cliff to escape his pursuer. Herds of cattle, half wild, roam through the glassy glades or over the tufted ridges, lowing for water; and black vultures (zopilotes) sail through the cloudless heavens, waiting for some scene of death to be enacted in the thickets below.

      Here, too, I pass through scenes of cultivation. Here is the hut of the peon and the rancho of the small proprietor; but they are structures of a more substantial kind than in the region of the palm. They are of stone. Here, too, is the hacienda, with its low white walls and prison-like windows; and the pueblita, with its church and cross and gaily-painted steeple. Here the Indian corn takes the place of the sugarcane, and I ride through wide fields of the broad-leafed tobacco-plant. Here grow the jalap and the guaiacum, the sweet-scented sassafras and the sanitary copaiba.

      I ride onward, climbing steep ridges and descending into chasms (barrancas) that yawn deeply and gloomily. Many of these are thousands of feet in depth; and the road that enables me to reach their bottoms is often no more than a narrow ledge of the impending cliff, running terrace-like over a foaming torrent.

      Still onward and upward I go, until the “foot-hills” are passed, and I enter a defile of the mountains themselves – a pass of the Mexican Andes.

      I ride through, under the shadow of dark forests and rocks of blue porphyry. I emerge upon the other side of the sierra. A new scene opens before my eyes – a scene of such soft loveliness that I suddenly rein up my horse, and gaze upon it with mingled feelings of admiration and astonishment. I am looking upon one of the “valles” of Mexico, those great table-plains that lie within the Cordilleras of the Andes, thousands of feet above ocean-level, and, along with these mountains, stretching from the tropic almost to the shores of the Arctic Sea.

      The plain before me is level, as though its surface were liquid. I see mountains bounding it on all sides; but there are passes through them that lead into other plains (valus). These mountains have no foot-hills. They stand up directly from the plain itself, sometimes with sloping conical sides – sometimes in precipitous cliffs.

      I ride into the plain and survey its features. There is no resemblance to the land I have left – the tierra caliente. I am now in the tierra templada. New objects present themselves – a new aspect is before, a new atmosphere around me. The air is colder, but it is only the temperature of spring. To me it feels chilly, coming so lately from the hot lands below; and I fold my cloak closely around me, and ride on.

      The view is open, for the valu is almost treeless. The scene is no longer wild. The earth has a cultivated aspect – an aspect of civilisation: for these high plateaux – the tierras templadas– are the seat of Mexican civilisation. Here are the towns – the great cities, with their rich cathedrals and convents – here dwells the bulk of the population. Here the rancho is built of unburnt bricks (adobe’s) – a mud cabin, often inclosed by hedges of the columnar cactus. Here are whole villages of such huts, inhabited by the dark-skinned descendants of the ancient Aztecs.

      Fertile fields are around me. I behold the maguey of culture (Agave Americana), in all its giant proportions. The lance-like blades of the zea maize wave with a rich rustling in the breeze, for here that beautiful plant grows in its greatest luxuriance. Immense plains are covered with wheat, with capsicum, and the Spanish bean (frijoles). My eyes are gladdened by the sight of roses climbing along the wall or twining the portal. Here, too, the potato (Solanum tuberosum) flourishes in its native soil; the pear and the pomegranate, the quince and the apple, are seen in the orchard; and the cereals of the temperate zone grow side by side with the Cucurbitacece of the tropics.

      I pass from one valu into another, by crossing a low ridge of the dividing mountains. Mark the change! A surface of green is before me, reaching on all sides to the mountain foot; and upon this roam countless herds, tended by mounted “vaqueros” (herdsmen).

      I pass another ridge, and another valid stretches before me. Again a change! A desert of sand, over the surface of which move tall dun columns of swirling dust, like the gigantic phantoms of some spirit-world. I look into another valle, and behold shining waters – lakes like inland seas – with sedgy shores and surrounded by green savannas, and vast swamps covered with reeds and “tulares” (bulrush).

      Still another plain, black with lava and the scoriae of extinct volcanoes – black, treeless, and herbless – with not an atom of organic matter upon its desolate surface.

      Such are the features of the plateau-land – varied, and vast, and full of wild interest.

      I leave it and climb higher – nearer to the sky – up the steep sides of the Cordilleras – up to the tierra fria.

      I stand ten thousand feet above the level of the ocean. I am under the deep shadows of a forest. Huge trunks grow around me, hindering a distant view. Where am I? Not in the tropic, surely, for these trees are of a northern sylva. I recognise the gnarled limbs and lobed leaves of the oak, the silvery branches of the mountain-ash, the cones and needles of the pine. The wind, as it swirls among the dead leaves, causes me to shiver; and high up among the twigs there is the music of winter in its moaning. Yet I am in the torrid zone; and the same sun that now glances coldly through the boughs of the oak, but a few hours before scorched me as it glistened from the fronds of the palm-tree.

      The forest opens, and I behold hills under culture – fields of hemp and flax, and the hardy cereals of the frigid zone. The rancho of the husbandman is a log cabin, with shingled roof and long projecting eaves, unlike the dwellings either of the great valus or the tierras calientes. I pass the smoking pits of the “carbonero”, and I meet the “arriero” with his “atajo” of mules heavily laden with ice of the glaciers. They are passing with their cargoes, to cool the wine-cups in the great cities of the plains.

      Upward and upward! The oak is left behind, and the pine grows stunted and dwarfish. The wind blows colder and colder. A wintry aspect is around me.

      Upward still. The pine disappears. No vegetable form is seen save the mosses and lichens that cling to the rocks, as within the Arctic Circle. I am on the selvage of the snow – the eternal snow. I walk upon glaciers, and through their translucent mass I behold the lichens growing beneath.

      The scene is bleak and desolate, and I am chilled to the marrow of my bones.

      Excelsior! excelsior! The highest point is not yet reached. Through drifts of snow and over fields of ice, up steep ledges, along the slippery escarpment that overhangs the giddy abysm, with wearied knees, and panting breath, and frozen fingers, onward and upward I go. Ha! I have won the goal. I am on the summit!

      I stand on the “cumbre” of Orizava – the mountain of the “burning star” – more