CHAPTER IV. TACUBAYA. PACHUCA. REAL DEL MONTE.

of horned cattle in an Alpine pass, but I really think a recua of loaded mules among the Andes is worse. A knowing old beast goes first, and the rest come tumbling after him anyhow, with their loads often projecting a foot or two on either side, and banging against anybody or anything. Then, wherever the road is particularly narrow, and there is a precipice of two or three hundred feet to fall over, one or two of them will fall down, or get their packs loose, and so block up the road, and there is a general scrimmage of kicking and shoving behind, till the arrieros can get things straight again. At last we reach the top of a ridge, and see the little settlement of Real del Monte below us. It is more like a Cornish mining village than anything else; but of course the engine-houses, chimneys, and mine-sheds, built by Cornishmen in true Cornish fashion, go a long way towards making up the resemblance. The village is built on the awkwardest bit of ground possible, up and down on the side of a steep ravine, one house apparently standing on the roof of another; and it takes half a mile of real hard climbing to get from the bottom of the town to the top.