About half-past one on the first day out from Carichic we stopped for our lunch in a grove of beautiful pines in the valley of the Pasigochic, on the banks of a little stream of the same name. As I have said, we had ridden about fifteen miles from Carichic and were all very much in need of rest. Just before lunching we passed a number of Tarahumari Indians of the civilized class, working in a small field of about three or four acres. Even in this small space there were a dozen others hard at work. Their dark, swarthy bodies were almost the color of the rich soil in which they toiled, making their white breechclouts and white straw hats, the only things they wore, look curious enough when they moved about like so many unpoetical ghosts, as seen at a distance. [Illustration: A TARAHUMARI MOUNTAIN HOME.] We were now well into the Sierra Madre range, and although the scenery was so far about the equal of the Alleghanies or Catskills, there was not much level ground for cultivation, and this was eagerly seized by the working natives, not only to raise crops for their own use, but to have some to sell; for from six to seven days' travel to the southwest was the richest silver district in the world, where all kinds of produce brought fabulous prices that would have enriched an American farmer in one season--flour forty cents a pound and other things in proportion. Indeed one of the best distinctions that could be made between the wild and civilized Tarahumaris is the fact that the former knows nothing of money nor makes any attempt to secure it, bartering directly by exchange with the civilized native for those things he wants and does not make; while the latter makes money his medium of exchange, and seems to thoroughly appreciate its value. The midday lunch for a party of Mexicans moving through the mountains is quite long by comparison with American parties under like circumstances. It was two hours before we got away again. There are probably two reasons for this, one being that the midday is generally warmer with them than with us, although this did not apply to us in the cool, timbered regions of the high sierras; while the second reason is clearly found in the fact that they seldom feed their mules on these mountain trips, and must give them time to graze a fair-sized meal at noon. The Mexican packs and unpacks the mules twice a day, the American but once; for by feeding grain he can keep going until they want to camp, making it much earlier than his Mexican brother, who, starting at three o'clock, has to go until six or seven to make a respectable afternoon's march. By three o'clock the American is generally in camp, having made the same distance and having done half the work. It is doubtful, however, if American mules would do as well here under like circumstances.