with all your might, with the _toro_
close at your heels; and, if the horse falls, it may cost his life or
his rider's.

We thus find the horned cattle flourishing at every elevation, from the
sea-level to the mountain-pastures ten thousand feet above it. Horses
and sheep show less adaptability to this variety of climates. The
horses and mules come mostly from the States of the North, at a level
of from 5,000 to 8,000 feet; that remarkable country of which
Humboldt's observation gives us the best idea, when he says that,
although there are no made roads, wheel-carriages can travel distances
of a thousand miles over gently-undulating prairies, without meeting
any obstruction on the way.

Numbers of sheep are reared in the mountains, principally for the sake
of the tallow, for the consumption of tallow-candles in the mines is
enormous. The owners scarcely care at all for the rest of the animal;
and popular scandal accuses the sheep-farmers of driving their flocks
straight into the melting-coppers, without going through the
preliminary ceremony of killing them. People told us that the tallow
made in the cold regions loses its consistency when brought down into
hotter climates, but we had no means of ascertaining the truth of this.

Artificial lighting by means of tallow was not known to the ancient
Mexicans, who could not indeed have procured tallow except from the fat
of deer and smaller animals.

Bernal Diaz tells how the Spanish invaders used to dress their wounds
with "Indian Ointment." He explains the nature of this preparation in
another place. The Spaniards could get no oil in the country, nor
anything else to make salve with, so they took some fat Indian who had
just been killed in battle, and simply boiled him down.

Our ride next morning was but a few hours, the journey being so divided
in order that the passengers may reach Vera Cruz before the heat of the
day begins. We passed over a dreary district, generally too dry for
anything but cactus and acacias, but now and then, when a little water
was to be found, displaying clumps of bamboos with their elegant
feathery tufts. Then the railway took us through the dismal downs, with
their swamps and sand-hills, and so into Vera Cruz.

The English merchants we had already made acquaintance with were as
kind and hospitable as ever, and I found an Englishman, whom we had
known before, going as far as Havana by the same packet. The yellow
fever was unusually late t