the rest of the hill was of a dirty blueish tinge. About one mile before you enter Petic, there is a small Indian town, of the Seres tribe, four hundred in number. These Indians were formerly very numerous, and occupied all the country between Petic and the coast; they were by far the most cruel of all the Northern Indians, but from their wars with the Tiburones and the troops of the Presidios, they have been almost exterminated. I was told they used to form ambuscades near the road from Guaymas, and to shoot the unwary traveller as he passed with poisoned arrows; they never spared a captive, but always put him to death. They were, however, not less cowardly than cruel, and if a person detected one of them with his bow drawn, he would immediately retreat and look out for another position, from whence he could strike his blow unseen.
Petic is a city with eight thousand inhabitants, situated in a plain near the confluence of the rivers Dolores and Sonora, which rivers, singular as the fact may appear, are entirely lost in the deep sands below Petic, and have no entrance into the Gulf unless by some subterraneous channel. The town is very singularly built, for there is no appearance of a street, the houses being scattered in every direction, with as little attempt at order as if they had been blown together in a storm. In the centre is a large square, with the church on one side, and some good houses on the others; indeed there are many excellent houses in Petic, particularly anew one built by an old Spaniard, by name Monteverde, which is like a palace, and is adorned with a great number of paintings and prints; it is in a style superior to any thing that I had met with since I left Guadalaxara. On the east side of the town is a very high hill, of a kind of lime-stone, the height may be two hundred and fifty feet, very difficult of access; near the summit, if you strike the rock with a small stone or piece of iron or wood, it will ring like a bell so loud as to be heard over the town, from which singularity it is called La Campana.
Petic is the depôt of commerce for the whole of Upper Sonora and the port of Guaymas, from which place all the imported goods are brought, and exchanged for the produce of the Interior. The merchants are very rich, the neighbourhood is fertile and well cultivated, and affords abundance of the neces-
