text:  Presently the mules became visible apparently no bigger than dogs clambering slowly up the steep and rocky path; then were heard the long cadences of the muleteer's rude but not unmusical song; and at last the active figures of the muleteers themselves with their fantastical garb and five hundred buttons the variegated accoutrements of the mules with their worsted plumes and tufts and frippery and many-coloured saddle-cloths and even the trabucos that were slung behind the saddles were all distinguishable