The sun had scarce risen, when we left this spot and hastened back to the road across the ridge. Our cattle walked quickly along the path in the cool morning breeze, and at about nine o'clock Guadaloupe hills lay to the north-west, while the western mountains on the opposite side of the Puerco opened, and allowed us a view through a broad pass of the Rio Grande and Paso del Norté. This is the only easily accessible pass through the Cordilleras, through which, too, ere many years elapse, the locomotive will snort from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Between this pass and the mountains on which we were standing, stretched out the rich green valleys on both sides of the Puerco, and through it we saw in the extreme distance the blue contour of the mountain ranges beyond the Rio Grande. Though it was so grand up here, we longed to be down below on the banks of the Puerco, and resolved to seize the first opportunity of descending afforded us by a direct path. During the whole day, however, we only found indistinct traces where buffaloes had descended the western slopes, till at about four P.M. we found a very practicable path, which crossed ours from east to west, and which we went down. It was at places so steep that we were obliged to lead our horses, and the latter slipped down on their hind-quarters after us: then again it wound round crags, past precipices, and between isolated peaks, up hill and down, until about sunset we reached, greatly fatigued, a rivulet, upon which our cattle greedily fell. The path ran down from the spring, and we followed it for about half an hour, till about nightfall we reached a small leafy coppice, in which we camped. Tiger and Owl were of opinion that the path led down to the valley, as it ran past the springs, and because a path corresponding with it had run down the eastern side of the mountains.