The strength of these little, brown-skinned cargadors is wonderful. Short in stature and with thin legs and arms they look very insignificant. They cannot lift a very heavy weight, but they can make their fairer-skinned brother cry out in astonishment at the load they will carry when it is once adjusted on their back. The average load for a cargo mule is one hundred and fifty pounds. A cargador will start on a journey of two hundred or more miles with such a load and will cover more miles in a day over a rough mountain trail than a mule. At the station you will see the little cargador pick up a heavy trunk that you can scarcely move and start off with it at a faster pace than you care to walk. They always move in a peculiar jog-trot, and can usually keep it up for a long time. Up and down hill they go at an even pace, and will average about six miles per hour. For short distances some cargadors will carry as great a load as five hundred pounds, a seemingly impossible burden for so slender a body. The strength in the back is a matter of training extending over many centuries. The Aztecs had no beasts of burden and the baggage of their armies was always carried by cargadors. The Spanish conquerors were obliged to adopt the same methods. Now, although there are mules and burros in great numbers, the cargador is still the great burden bearer and takes the place of the fast freight in the commerce of those sections away from the railway lines. A traveller can take his mule and send his baggage by a cargador, and the latter will reach the same stopping place each night and sometimes ahead of the man on the mule. Many cargadors carry their loads in a frame, supported by a broad leather band across the forehead. When thus loaded they cannot turn their heads and they do not seem to hear well, so that I have feared many times they would be run over by the careless drivers. If there are several together they trot along in the middle of the road in Indian file. If going on a long journey they carry along enough tortillas for the entire trip, and must always be given enough time to make these preparations. Several times a day they will stop and make a fire, prepare their coffee, and eat their tortillas and fruit if it can be obtained. At night they will sleep out in the open air under a porch, if possible; if this shelter cannot be had, then they will lay themselves down to rest under the brilliant starlit canopy of this tropical clime. [Illustration: A CARGADOR]