Mr. de S. said that the first conquerors wanted to make the beautiful plateau resemble in all things the Castilian soil, which in so many places is arid and treeless. However that may be, every authority the country has ever had has taken literally "a whack" at the trees, till these hills are bare and dry. Great stony, waterless gorges separate the immense stretches of maguey--endless, symmetrically planted fields, stretching to barren hills, from which the French, during their occupation, cut the last timber. There is a feudal aspect to the old, high, wall-inclosed haciendas, with their battlements and turret-holes, always the belfry of a chapel showing above. Everything that is needed for the life of the Indian--which isn't much--is contained within their walls, together with the much more costly and complicated machinery of the pulque industry. "_Pulque fino de Apam_" is inscribed on each little blue-and-pink _cantina_. The view, as we turned back, was enchanting, showing us Mexico as it appeared to the conquerors when Cortés first looked upon it and called it "_La más hermosa cosa del mundo_" ("The most beautiful thing in the world"). Beyond--far beyond the enchanting hills to the east, is the drop into the land of coffee and pineapple and banana and a thousand heavy scents unknown to this thin air. Gorgeous but ominous masses of clouds began to roll up on the wide horizon, and shortly afterward over the shining green plain moved a misty wall of fast-approaching rain, and there were deafening peals of thunder, with great white flashes of lightning. In a moment, it seemed, even before the chauffeur could button down the curtains, we were deluged, and the road was a rush of gray water, with a pelting of hail on the motor-top. Some Indians, in the long, thatch-like capes of grass that they wear as raincoats, passed us--the water dripping from the bamboos on to their bare feet. Then began a slipping and skidding down the hill and a search for the nearest shelter. The view toward the great Apam plain was dark and splendid, with here and there a heavy bar of light falling on the fields of maguey. At last we found ourselves within sight of the rather sizable village of Calpulalpam, and decided to ask shelter at the San Cristobal hacienda known to Mr. de S., slipping down the hill in a second cloudburst that made the auto feel like a fly in a millrace. In inconceivable mud, not even an Indian in sight, we went in through the great gate in the feudal-like wall, with a church of baroque design built into it, where we found ourselves in a roughly paved court with an old fountain. The gate was fortunately near the entrance to the dwelling of the _administrador_, a Spaniard, as the _administradores_ nearly always are.