sacred lottery-tickets, which turned out blanks, and tickets for
indulgences, which, I greatly fear, will not prove more valuable; and
so rode home along the dusty causeway to breakfast.

As means of learning what sort of books the poorer classes in Mexico
preferred, we overhauled with great diligence the book-stalls, of which
there are a few, especially under the arcades (Portales) near the great
square. The Mexican public have not much cheap literature to read; and
the scanty list of such popular works is half filled with Our Lady of
Guadalupe, and other miracle-books of the same kind. Father Ripalda's
Catechism has a large circulation, and is apparently the one in general
use in the country. Zavala speaks of this catechism as containing the
maxims of blind obedience to king and pope; but my more modern edition
has scarcely anything to say about the Pope, and nothing at all about
the government. Of late years, indeed, the Pope has not counted for
much, politically, in Mexico; and on one occasion his Holiness found,
when he tried to interfere about church-benefices, that his authority
was rather nominal than real. On the whole, nothing in the Catechism
struck me so much as the multiplication-table, which, to my unspeakable
astonishment, turned up in the middle of the book; a table of fractions
followed; and then it began again with the Holy Trinity.

To continue our catalogue; there are the almanacks, which contain rules
for foretelling the weather by the moon's quarters, but none of the
other fooleries which we find in those that circulate in England among
the less educated classes. It is curious to notice how the taste for
putting sonnets and other dreary poems at the beginnings and ends of
books has survived in these Spanish countries. What used to be known in
England as "a copy of verses" is still appreciated here, and almanacks,
newspapers, religious books, even programmes of plays and bull-fights,
are full of such dismal compositions. We ought to be thankful that the
fashion has long since gone out with us (except in the religions tract,
where it still survives). It is not merely apropos of sonnets, but of
thousands of other things, that in these countries one is brought, in a
manner, face to face with England as it used to be; and very trifling
matters become interesting when viewed in this light. The last item in
the list comprises translations, principally of French novels, those
being preferred in which the