you don't live?"

"Absolutely, no!"

"But you eat?"

"Very little. We are very poor."

"Well, what do you eat?"

"Cheese, _frijoles_, and an egg now and then."

"But, no _tortillas_?"

"No. We planted the last kernel of maize two days ago."

And so it was. The little stock of dried grass and maize-stalks
stored up from the present rainy season had long ago been consumed,
and the maize itself, which is here the real staff of life, had run
short,--and that, too, in a country where three crops a year might
easily be produced by a very moderate expenditure of labor in the way
of tillage and irrigation.

Fortunately for our poor animals, Dolores had provided against
contingencies like this, and taken in a supply of maize at La Union.
As for ourselves, what with a few eggs and _frijoles_, furnished by
the _alcalde_, in addition to the stock of edibles, pickled oysters
and other luxuries, prepared for us by Dona Maria, we contrived to
fare right sumptuously in Goascoran. We afterwards found out,
experimentally, what it was not to live, in the sense intended to be
conveyed by the unfortunate _alguazil_ and the impetuous _alcalde_,
and which H. declared logically meant to be without _tortillas_--But
we could never make out why the alcalde should call the _alguazil_ "a
beast," and beat him over his shoulders with a cane, withal.

Goascoran is a small town, of about four hundred inhabitants, and
boasts a tolerably genteel church and a comfortable _cabildo_. It is
situated on the left bank of the river to which it gives its name,
and which here still maintains its character of a broad and beautiful
stream. On the opposite side from the town rises a high, picturesque
bluff, at the foot of which the river gathers its waters in deep,
dark pools with mirror-like surfaces, disturbed only by the splash of
fishes springing at their prey, or by the sudden dash of water-fowls
settling from their arrowy flight in a little cloud of spray.

I have alluded to the castellated Rock of Goascoran, which, however,
is only a type of the general features of the surrounding country.
The prevailing rock is sandstone, and it is broken up in fantastic
peaks, or great cubical blocks with flat tops and vertical walls,
resembling the mesas of New Mexico. At night, their dark masses,
rising on every hand, might be mistaken for frowning fortresses or
massive strongholds of the Middle Ages. They seem to mark the line
where the volcanic forces wh