"I proceeded on my route with my sable attendant, and found the commencement pleasant enough travelling, the road for some distance being paved with large and regularly cut stone. This, however, soon terminated in abundance of sand; the route still continuing dry, and comparatively easy to what I had expected to find it. Soon after we had quitted the paved road, the negro stopped and asked my permission to take a few things to his family, who lived in a small hut to our left. Apprehensive that he was meditating an escape with my luggage, I replied that I had no objection, provided he would leave his basket in my care. He accordingly took the frame off his back, and, separating a small bundle containing provisions from my baggage, he took his departure. I took care, however, to keep him in sight and saw him enter a wretched-looking bamboo-hut at a little distance from the route. He remained absent a considerable time; and, having paid him half his wages in advance, according to the usual custom with these people, who are exceedingly distrustful, I began to fear that he was about to desert me, and therefore called out lustily, until at last I saw him reluctantly emerge from the hut, and make his way towards me. These negroes being constantly in the habit of deserting travellers on the route, and stealing their baggage whenever the opportunity presents itself, I was particularly careful not to lose sight of my attendant. "A few miles further on, I again found myself on a stone road, said to have been paved by Cortes to facilitate the passage of his troops from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast; and, although I have travelled rougher and steeper routes in Lower California, I cannot say that I have ever encountered such a combination of petty difficulties and annoyances. The road is, for the greater part, barely wide enough to admit of one mule passing with its packs, the sides forming steep embankments, composed chiefly of rich clay, out, in many places, of large rocks, through which a passage had evidently been cut with great labor. But little of the country can be seen on either side, owing to the height of these embankments; but now and then the traveller obtains a glimpse of dense thickets, and occasionally of undulating hills, the summits of which are covered with a deep perennial green. The recent rains having poured in torrents down the steep sides of the road, every cavity and crevice was filled with water and mud. Owing to the nature of the soil, and the constant traffic across the route from the time it was originally cut through, innumerable stones and flags had sunk considerably below the level of their original position; whilst a few had retained their places, as if to serve as stepping-stones to the traveller over the wet and mud. It is a task of incessant and wearying exertion, however, even for those who are mounted on mules, to avoid floundering into some of these pitfalls and quagmires at every step they make.