THE LAND OF THE MIXES (1896) Santa Maria was the last Zapotec town; we were on the border of the country of the Mixes.

Starting at seven next morning, we followed a dizzy trail up the mountain side to the summit.

Beyond that the road went down and up many a slope.

A norther was on; cold wind swept over the crest, penetrating and piercing; cloud masses hung upon the higher summits; and now and again sheets of fine, thin mist were swept down upon us by the wind; this mist was too thin to darken the air, but on the surface of the driving sheets rainbows floated.

The ridge, which for a time we followed, was covered with a thicket of purple-leaved oaks, which were completely overgrown with bromelias and other air-plants.
From here, we passed into a mountain country that beggars description.
I know and love the Carolina mountains--their graceful forms, their sparkling streams and springs, the lovely sky stretched above them; but the millionaires are welcome to their "land of the sky"; we have our land of the Mixes, and to it they will never come.