The Pacific ports of this fertile belt are Mazatlan, Guaymas, and Topolobampo. At the latter point an American colony was founded some years ago, of which the reading public heard considerable, not very favorable to that country as a colonization district, and with a great deal of aspersion thrown at the colonizers. There was so much crimination and recrimination by the two sides that I do not believe anybody ever obtained a clear idea of how matters stood there. The fact is about this: A colony was put in a part of an extremely rich country with the ultimate expectation that a railway would be completed from that point to the Rio Grande and to Eastern connections. Had the railway been finished, every colonist with enough gray matter in his brain to know his way home would have made a competence at least, and probably a fortune. This is just as sure as that fortunes have elsewhere been made through the development by railways of new, rich countries. But with its failure there was no halfway ground to stand on, so that in this instance there arose such an amount of misty accusation and rejoinder that many people in an indefinite way laid all the blame on the country; a most erroneous conclusion. When a railway is completed through this country there will be the usual amount of money made that such circumstances justify, but only by those who have selected the right time for it. [Illustration: A CIVILIZED TARAHUMARI COOKING.] As I have already said, the main portion of the large pack train was started ahead to give it an opportunity to rest a little before attempting to climb the steep mountain trail, and, after reaching the cumbra, or crest, another breathing spell before starting on their long journey. It was now nearing the rainy season, and even if we made haste we would only just escape this unpleasant and rather dangerous time in the high sierras, for there the floods pour down and often carry out large portions of the trail on the steep and narrow mountain passes. Our pack train consisted, all told, of about seventy or eighty mules, twenty to thirty of them loaded with silver bricks for Chihuahua, the rest of the train being the pack and riding mules of the various drivers and attendants of the "conductor," as the principal personage in charge of the bullion is called.