ly around
their legs. "I say, my fine fellows, are there any horses to be had?"
_Quien sabe! Senor, hay muchos!_ they both replied in a breath; but
nothing more satisfactory could I learn. The boys never came back! the
mistress became less civil after getting paid for her breakfasts; and
after vainly waiting an hour, I felt convinced there was not a
four-legged brute in the hamlet, or that the two-legged ones were too
lazy to find them. Selecting the best of our spavined jades, we stumped
slowly on, and a league beyond came to a post-house; here a good-natured
dame, in the absence of her helpmate, mounted a mule, and soon drove up
a cavallada. Transferring the saddles to better beasts, and followed by
a diminutive elf, to bring them back, we continued our journey. The
roads became smoother, and less broken; the country presented a more
smiling aspect: green fields of grain, and cultivated plantations of the
argave, covered the sides of hills and valleys. Pursuing a course
through a well-watered district, without any evidences visible of
volcanic origin, our road was suddenly closed by a very curious lava
formation--an elevation not in the highest parts more than eighty
feet--springing strangely and abruptly from the table land of the vale.
There were acres upon acres of black volcanic masses thrown up into the
most fantastic shapes; there were churches and altars, castles and
coaches, figures of men and monkeys--with clusters of straight, slender
cactus, in full flower, shooting far above all--rearing their white and
red torch-like heads, as if to light up the black congregation below;
which from a distance struck me as bearing a miniature resemblance to
the Giant's Causeway. We passed this barrier, over a deep cut of
slippery aqueous lava, when we again debouched into the _vega_, took a
lave in a cool, clear torrent, and then came on at a great pace to the
town of Aguacatlan.

From a hasty glance it appeared a nice place, and we drew up at a
spacious meson, facing a pretty plaza, lined by magnificent rows of
elms, with a handsome church in front. All looked gay withal: troops of
vagabonds and girls were passing and repassing the portals. In a lofty
hall of the Fonda, I had an excellent supper, washed down by a flask of
capital bordeaux, which, the maestro informed me, had lain an unsaleable
drug on his hands for eleven years. Passing from the sala to a shop in
the building, I found a crowd of idlers, absorbing cigarill