and the former took to climbing upward through thin forests of pine in
which the wind whispered an imitation of some distant, small
waterfall. For some miles there were no houses. Up and down and in and
out of valleys thin with pine we wandered, with now and then a rough
shelter of rubbish and thatch, halting places of traveling Indians or
the guard-houses of their fields, while the sky ahead was always filled
half-way up by peaks of many shapes wooded in every inch with brightest
evergreens. Michoacan is celebrated for its forests.

The population showed no great difference from the peasants elsewhere. I
ran early into their superstitions against photography, however, their
belief, common to many uncivilized races, being that once their image is
reproduced any fate that befalls it must occur to them in person. When I
stepped into a field toward a man behind his wooden plow, he said in a
very decided tone of voice, "No, senor, no quiero!"

"Why not?" I asked.

"Porque no quiero, senor," and he swung the sort of small adze he
carried to break up the clods of the field rather loosely and with a
determined gleam in his eye. I did not want the picture so badly as all
that.

There was no such objection in the straggling town made of thatch and
rubbish I found along the way early in the afternoon. The hut I entered
for food had an unleveled earth floor, many wide cracks in the roof, and
every inch within was black with soot of the cooking-stove--three large
stones with a steaming earthen pot on them. There was _carne de
carnero_, tortillas and water, all for five cents. The weak-kneed
table was spread with a white cloth, there were several awkward,