“On your way, out of here, let's go, get on home, bunch of tomboys!”And, clapping his hands, he would scattered them exactly as one does a flock of chickens.

Sometimes, having first gotten Agustina's permission, Santa would go by herself to the edge of the Pedregal, a marvelous place, still only half explored, unique in the Mexican Republic. A volcanic landscape dotted with bushes, colossal monoliths, and sloping stones so smooth that not even goats could pause when crossing them, the Pedregal possesses serpentine, crystal-clear streams that flow from unknown springs, disappearing occasionally, only to reappear some distance away, then plummet silently and permanently into cavernous openings that the weeds disguise with seemingly criminal intent. There are dark grottos full of brambles and wide, misshapen leaves, and crevices so deep as to seem bottomless, their rocky, vertical walls covered with twisting, fantastical cactuses. Out of the mysterious depths of these crevices, when one drops a stone into them, fly corpulent, sinister-looking birds that rise into the sky in slow, wide spirals. One discovers low areas, accessible at the cost of only a few bumps and scratches, that some farmer has been able to sow with corn or barley, or even with elegant sprigs of wheat that bend flirtatiously in the breeze. Here and there: a maguey plant, and, overlooking the cliffs and precipices, leafy pirú trees that beckon with their delicious but dangerous shade, which some people say causes a headache or even madness in those who shelter there. Teeming anthills poke up in places, their busy comings and goings quite perceptible, and from cracks in the frozen lava flows emerge fishhook cactuses that defend their tasty fruit with blood-thirsty spines. Everywhere, there is dense brush that tears one's clothing, a home to vipers and tarantulas, harboring even mountain lions and the threat of death. Everywhere, there are haunted places, suffering souls that restlessly wander the tortured earth after dusk. Everywhere, enchanting spots, colorful names—the lovers' fountain, the sparrow hawk's nest, the skull, the deer. There is a road, or at least, a path widened by the passage of an occasional cart that has spurned the camino real and seeks a shortcut to San Angel through this lonely, out-of-the-way location. Over toward Tizapán, there is a hacienda lost in the solitude, its buildings surrounded by small herds of cattle and sheep that graze tranquilly in the primitive peace of the place, untended except by fierce shepherd dogs who lunge furiously at anyone who approaches. There are also stallions standing by themselves and mares escorted by their playful colts, who occasionally race away only to return, before long, to nip at their mothers and, then, brusquely nurse with half-hidden faces. At certain points, lovely, poetic panoramas: to the west, the tile-covered domes of the old Carmelite convent; to the east, the Ajusco volcano, as blue as a deep, calm bay, standing above the other mountains on the horizon. And over this entire, colossal volcanic desert, this petrified ocean rippled by stony waves, hang the legends everyone has heard: tales of homicides never solved or punished; of patriot hideouts during the wars of independence; of French and Yankee invaders who entered and wished they never had; even a scientific legend whereby the Pedregal was produced in a single cyclopean eruption, evidence of which extends all the way to distant Acapulco … and who knows how many others! A confusion of real events and old wives' tales, of truths and inventions, that, after so many years, have become totally mixed together, so that it is now impossible to discover where fact ends and fiction begins.