CHAPTER II.

researches however formed only an episode in his travels through portions of Mexico, and besides this, his labor was exceedingly great in cutting his way through the dense shrubbery which covers the ground amid a wilderness of trees, matted and woven together with thousands of creepers or plants whose thorns pierced or obstructed him at every moment. He had, moreover, to contend with myriads of annoying insects, and he feared the bite of the poisonous alacranes or the spring of the tiger that sometimes started from the thickets. He received no assistance from the stupid Indians dwelling in the neighborhood. They could not conceive that curiosity alone would prompt any one to encounter the toil and danger which must be endured in explorations in the Tierra Caliente of Mexico, and imagined that the search for gold and buried treasure, rather than antiquities, was his real motive for attempting to penetrate the recesses of their lonely wilderness.