The Rio Gila may be considered the northern limit of this state: on the east and west it is bounded by the Sierra Madre and the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre beyond Durango divides into two chains; the principal continues the grand direction from north to south; the other tends towards the west, running along, in the rear of the states of Durango and Guadalajara, all the regions which terminate at the Pacific. This branch of the Cordilleras forms the southern limits of Sonora. Nature seems to have taken a delight in lavishing her benefits upon this country. The climate is clear, temperate, salubrious; gold, silver, the most fertile soil, the most delicious fruits, and medicinal herbs abound; there are to be found the most efficacious balms, insects the most useful for dyeing, the rarest marbles, the most precious stones, as well as game and fish of all sorts. But in the vast solitudes of the Rio Gila and the Sierra Madre, the independent Indians, the Comanches, Pawnees, Pimas, Opatas, and Apaches, have declared a rude war against the white race, and in their implacable and incessant incursions, make them pay dearly for the possession of all those riches of which their ancestors despoiled the natives, and which they incessantly endeavour to recover again without ceasing. The three principal cities of the Sonora are Guaymas, Hermosillo, and Arispe. Hermosillo, anciently Pitic, and which the expedition of the Count de Raouset Boulbon has rendered famous, is the _entrepôt_ of the Mexican commerce of the Pacific, and numbers more than nine thousand inhabitants. This city, built upon a plateau which sinks towards the north, in a gentle declivity to the sea, leans and shelters itself against a hill named El Cerro de la Campana (Mountain of the Bell), whose summit is crowned with enormous blocks of stone, which, when struck, render a clear metallic sound. In other respects, like its other American sisters, this ciudad is dirty, built of pisé bricks, and presents to the astonished eyes of the traveller a mixture of ruins, negligence, and desolation which saddens the soul. On the day in which this story commences, that is to say, the 17th January, 1817, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, a time when the ordinary population are taking the _siesta_ in the most retired apartments of their dwellings, the city of Hermosillo, generally so calm and quiet, presented an unusual aspect. A vast number of leperos, gambusinos, contrabandists, and, above all, of rateros, were crowded together, with cries, menaces, and wild howlings, in the Calle del Rosario (Street of the Rosary). A few Spanish soldiers,--at that period Mexico had not shaken off the yoke of the mother country,--were endeavouring in vain to re-establish order and disperse the crowd, by striking heavily, right and left, with the shafts of their lances, all the individuals who came in their way.