just
stand in a cheese-plate. The Boots of the hotel went out and caught a
fine scorpion for our amusement; he brought it into our room wrapped in
a piece of brown paper, and was on the point of letting it out on our
table for us to see it run. We protested against this, and had it put
into a tumbler and covered it up with a book.

The inner _patio_ of the hotel was surrounded with the usual arcade,
into which the rooms opened. Close to our door was a long table, with a
green cloth, where the Jalapenians were constantly playing _monte_,
from nine in the morning till late at night. All classes were
represented there, from the muleteer who came to lose his hard-earned
dollars, to the rich shopkeepers and planters of the town and
neighbourhood.

I went early one afternoon to the house of the principal agent for the
Vera Cruz carriers, to arrange for sending down our heavy packages to
the coast. There was no one at the office but a girl. I enquired for
the master--"_Esta jugando_,"--"He is playing," she said. I need not
have gone so far to look for him, for he was sitting just outside our
bedroom door, and indeed had been there all day. Before he condescended
to arrange our business, he waited to see the fate of the dollar he had
just put down, and which I was glad to see he lost.

Jalapa was not always the stagnant place it is now. Its pleasant houses
and gardens date from a period when it was a town of some importance.
In old times the only practicable road from Vera Cruz to Mexico passed
this way; and Jalapa was the entrepot where the merchants had their
warehouses, and from whence the trains of mules distributed the
European merchandise from the coast to the different markets of the
country. By this arrangement, the carrying from the coast was done by a
small number of muleteers, who were seasoned to the climate, while the
great mass of traders and carriers were not obliged to descend from the
healthy region. This was of the more importance, because, though the
pure Indians are not liable to the attacks of yellow fever, the disease
is as deadly to the other inhabitants of the high lands as to
Europeans; and even those of the _mestizos_ who have the least
admixture of white blood are subject to it. Of late years, this system
has been given up, and the carriers from the high lands go down to the
coast to fetch their loads, and every year they leave some of their
number in the church-yards of the City of the Dead; whil