the Sierra Madre, there can be no doubt that the site which it now occupies was formerly part of the vast forest, which commences about four leagues below San José del Oro.
When once you reach this point, nothing can be more magnificent than the scenery; woods follow woods in endless succession, and wherever there is a break in the mountains, the eye wanders over a wilderness of timber of the most luxuriant growth. With the exception of a few huts in the neighbourhood of San José, and the German amalgamation works at the Encarnacion, there is not a vestige of the hand of man throughout the whole district. The village which formerly existed near San José has disappeared, and the clearings, which afforded a subsistence to the miners, are overgrown with brushwood. Great, indeed, will be the transition, in the course a few years, if the Iron mines are brought into activity, and an European establishment formed, with all the din of restless activity, where nature now reigns in solitude and silence.
From the extreme badness of the roads between Zimapan and the Encarnacion, we did not attempt to take up beds or provisions. Mr. Spangenberg undertook to procure us a sheep upon the spot, with abundance of tortillas, and we trusted to cloaks and a buffalo's skin for a bed. The house was extremely small, and the family of the proprietor large, for it consisted of a wife and four daughters, besides two or three sons. The last were disposed
