The afternoon was hot, dust was deep, and a heavy wind blew it up into our faces in clouds.

The sun was already setting when we rode into Santa Maria Tule, and we went at once to see the famous cypress tree, which no one in the party, save myself, had seen.

It seems now to be a single tree, but was perhaps, originally, three; at present it displays a single, vast trunk, buttressed with heavy irregular projecting columns.

So irregular is this enormous mass that no two persons taking its girth exactly agree.

We measured it four feet above the ground and made the circumference one hundred and sixty feet.