north, or nearly so, with trifling variations: on leaving Monterey, we proceeded due west. We started early on the 18th, and although our road was a continual ascent throughout the journey, we performed three leagues. On the 19th we descended over a rough broken road about three leagues; and on the 20th, yoked our cattle early in the morning and drove to Rinconada. Our road in the morning lay through a barranca, which conducted us to a hill: the road is good, but the steepest, I believe, in the world for a carriage. We soon reached, however. El Puerto de los Muertos, the summit of the mountain, which derives its name, the Indians say, from a bloody battle fought there by the first conquerors and the natives. This is the only place by which a carriage can pass from the Tierra Caliente to the Table-land to the north of Jalapa. We stopped a little on the top of the hill to rest the bullocks, and in the evening yoked them again, and reached a rancho, about a league and a half distant from El Puerto.
The next day we drove on smartly, and by twelve o'clock were three leagues on the road, when we halted opposite a large farm-house, the people of which were astonished at the sight of the boilers, and came running to know the use of such tremendous things. The proprietor of the Hacienda also came out to us, to whom Colonel Martinez thought proper to mention our distressed situation, which he was no sooner acquainted with than he rode off to his house, and in about an hour afterwards we received a sufficient quantity of provisions for two days, consisting of beef and mutton, (boiled and roasted,) vegetables, bread, &c. &c. At four o'clock we left this abode of hospitality, and drove two leagues farther, and during the night felt the cold more sensibly than we had hitherto done since leaving the coast. On the 23rd we arrived at Saltillo, twenty-five leagues from Monterey. Saltillo is situated on the side of a hill: the country around presents very different features from those of the Tierra Caliente, where the land is so fertile and the herbage so luxuriant. On this side of the Sierra Madre there is nothing but barren mountains and plains destitute of vegetation. Saltillo contains about twelve thousand inhabitants, and has several good streets, communicating at right angles with the Plaza, in the centre of which is a large
