Usually several such shelters would be near together, and the venders had gay times, chatting, laughing and singing.

Such houses and roadside-selling are common through the whole Tarascan region.
[Illustration: TARASCAN WOMEN; JANICHO] Soon after passing Escondidas, we began a descent, which seemed absolutely endless.

Time after time we thought we had reached the bottom, only to find that we were on a terrace from which another drop led us still further down.

On and on into this bottomless pit we descended to Ziracuaretaro, a striking town.

Banana plantings surrounded the houses; orange-trees covered with their golden spheres reared themselves to the unusual height of thirty feet or more; _mameys_, with their strange nut-brown fruits, and coffee-trees, loaded to breaking, were abundant.