At about two in the afternoon the little band reached the outskirts of the forest, and boldly rode beneath its covert. The journey then became more difficult, and, before all, more fatiguing, through the roots, shrubs, and lianas which at each instant barred the passage, and which the horses could only clear with the utmost difficulty. The Stag, however, without neglecting entirely the precautions employed by the Indians when they are on the war trail, in order to throw out their enemies, felt so certain, however, that the white men would not venture into the formidable solitudes of Apacheria, owing to the innumerable obstacles which would rise at each step before them, and, above all, through their ignorance of the topography of this country, the last lurking place of the Indian braves, that he wasted but little time in masking his trail, and continued to advance almost in a straight line. After marching thus for about two hours, crossing ravines and scaling hills, they reached a completely unwooded spot, over which were scattered shapeless ruins, proving that at a doubtless extremely remote period the place had been inhabited. These ruins, spread over a very considerable space, preserved a certain degree of symmetry; the walls, still standing, showed by their thickness and the care with which they were built, as well as materials employed, that an important town must have stood here once on a time. In the centre stood a _teocali_ which time had respected, on the top of which were the ruins of a temple, whose vast and massive proportions testified to its ancient splendour, which was now eternally fled. There was something at once gloomy and majestic in the sight of these ruins suddenly rising in the midst of a virgin forest. They were the last traces of a forgotten world, whose memory the present inhabitants of the country have lost, and trample on their dust with a careless foot. The Stag had selected these ruins to camp in. The warriors therefore established themselves in this city, probably founded by the Chichimecs at the period when, compelled by the hand of God, they performed their great migration, building in the course of their mysterious halts those formidable cities whose imposing ruins are still visible in different parts of New Spain. The Comanches during their vagabond rambles about the desert had many times camped at this solitary spot, whose strong position offered them a shelter against the attacks of their numerous enemies, men and wild beasts, that incessantly prowl about in search of a facile prey. It was at the summit of the teocali, in the ruins of the temple, which had heard the death cries of many victims offered as a holocaust to the implacable and sanguinary Hiutzilopochtli, the god of war, that the chief resolved to establish his camp.