nts; most of its
houses are wooden ones, and its streets are long, broad, and straight.
There are about 4000 troops under General Bee in its immediate vicinity.
Its prosperity was much injured when Matamoros was declared a free port.

After crossing the Rio Grande, a wide dusty road, about a mile in
length, leads to Matamoros, which is a Mexican city of about 9000
inhabitants. Its houses are not much better than those at Brownsville,
and they bear many marks of the numerous revolutions which are
continually taking place there. Even the British Consulate is riddled
with the bullets fired in 1861-2.

The Mexicans look very much like their Indian forefathers, their faces
being extremely dark, and their hair black and straight. They wear hats
with the most enormous brims, and delight in covering their jackets and
leather breeches with embroidery.

Some of the women are rather good-looking, but they plaster their heads
with grease, and paint their faces too much. Their dress is rather like
the Andalucian. When I went to the cathedral, I found it crammed with
kneeling women; an effigy of our Saviour was being taken down from the
cross and put into a golden coffin, the priest haranguing all the time
about His sufferings, and all the women howling most dismally as if they
were being beaten.

Matamoros is now infested with numbers of Jews, whose industry spoils
the trade of the established merchants, to the great rage of the latter.

It suffers much from drought, and there had been no rain to speak of for
eleven months.

I am told that it is a common thing in Mexico for the diligence to
arrive at its destination with the blinds down. This is a sure sign that
the travellers, both male and female, have been stripped by robbers
nearly to the skin. A certain quantity of clothing is then, as a matter
of course, thrown in at the window, to enable them to descend. Mr
Behnsen and Mr Maloney told me they had seen this happen several times;
and Mr Oetling declared that he himself, with three ladies, arrived at
the city of Mexico in this predicament.

* * * * *

_4th April_ (Saturday).--I crossed the river at 9 A.M., and got a
carriage at the Mexican side to take my baggage and myself to the
Consulate at Matamoros. The driver ill-treated his half-starved animals
most cruelly. The Mexicans are even worse than the Spaniards in this
respect.

I called on Mr Oetling, the Prussian Consul, who is one of