What seemed to be kings were seated in a row of rush-bottomed stools. Gaudy crowns of gilded cardboard, or something stiff and glittering, crowned them, and about them were flung twisted capes, like the Arab burnoose, with the hood falling back. The play was proceeding _con mucha calma_ except for a large Indian, evidently "stage manager," who was trying to bring about some sort of dénouement. Behind was the open church door. It was about twelve o'clock, and the last Mass had been said. A melancholy chanting proceeded from some Indians, their hands tied together, who stood in front of the "kings." It was all strange and unexpected on those heights. The village on the other side of the road was in the sneezing and coughing throes of one of the bronchial epidemics so common in cold or damp weather in the hills. The children were scarcely covered; I can't bear to think of all the little brown backs and thighs in these cold waves. A dreadful, unrestrained-appearing person, in a battered hat and warm red zarape, looking as if he might have been the "father" of the village, towered above them all, everything about him bespeaking pulque. We decided that "song" was what he had given up. Silent Indians, _carboneros_, inhabit these parts, and their fires could be seen high up on the wooded mountainsides. They were coming and going, bent, and almost hidden under great sacks of charcoal. We sped on till we got to a place called La Cima, the highest point, whence I wanted to make a dash for Cuernavaca, in spite of brigands, but the gentlemen and the chauffeur decided against it. Here was a huge stone cross, _La Cruz del Marqués_; solitary and moss-grown, it still stands, marking the boundary of lands once granted to Cortés by the crown, where he passed on the venturesome march to Mexico City from Cuernavaca. I indulged my passion for Cortés by walking around the historic cross and picking an unfamiliar scarlet flower, while the men worried about Zapata and his brigand host, to whom these hills belong in 1911. After some parleying we turned back. But beyond the hills lay the Hot Country, full to the south, its mysterious valleys filled with gorgeous blossoms, where vanilla, myrtle, jalap, cocoa, and smilax grow. Four hours down would have brought us into the fullness of its beauty, to lovely Cuernavaca, once the haunt of kings and emperors, where Cortés pondered on the insecurity of princely favor and planned his expedition to the Mar del Sur.[16] Now it is the capital of Zapata, and shunned since a few months by anybody with anything on his person or anything negotiable in the shape of worldly station. A great bore. My sentiments were all for pressing on with the added thrill of danger.