After bidding adieu to our hospitable host and the many friends at the great hacienda, we started quite late in the afternoon to ride about eight or nine miles up the Batopilas River to a station of the Batopilas Mining Company called the Potrero. On either side the Batopilas lifts its banks from four to five and even to six thousand feet above the river bed, making a wonderfully beautiful panorama of rugged mountain scenery as you wind along, sometimes climbing up a few hundred feet and then descending to the water's edge to cross at some favorable ford. For the cañon through its entire length is very narrow, and in some places there is only room for the rushing river with the trail hugging the banks or finding a foothold for the mules on the steep, broken mountain side. I hardly know which looks the more impressive, to stand upon the crest of a high cañon or to wind through its depths and look up at its beetling sides, which seem to cleave the clouds. Whatever be the point of view, from top or bottom, with the usual discontent of human beings in all things, the observer will always wish he were at the other place, from which, as he imagines, something better could be seen. At the Potrero I found a good, substantial log house, built and maintained by the Batopilas Company, and used by them as a shelter for members of their pack trains, instead of depending on the sky for a covering. One end of the house was divided off, where grain was stored for all the animals. There was also a storeroom for provisions of various kinds, thus saving much packing over the rough mountain trail. These houses, I learned, had been built about every thirty-five miles along the trail, and at each a trusty Indian lived to care for them. They were a great comfort, and seemed even luxurious after a hard all-day ride on the rough trail. At each was a large corral or pen, into which the mules were turned for their feed, and this too was a saving of labor and time to the packers, and allowed one to make a much earlier start, as well as to omit the long noon camp of the Mexicans. In each of the houses was an immense fireplace, which, on the arrival of the party, was piled with pitch-pine, and a most welcome blaze and warmth soon thawed out the coldest.