-want anything else--she murmured,
with a pretty, petulant frown; "No! no! _amigita! mil gracias_, forgive
me for detaining you from the mass;" her face brightened joyously, and
readjusting her little flowing ribosa, she tripped away to her
devotions.

Horses were soon at the door, and passing beside the now-deserted booths
and shade, we once more became exposed to the burning glare of the
tropical sun. During the afternoon, light showers of rain chased us
along the road--a great relief from breathing the light sandy dust of
the parched soil; but as night came on, and our track led through
interminable forests of sycamores, closely woven with thousands of
creeping vines and parasitical plants, the very light and air were shut
out, and what with myriads of stinging insects, heat and dust, I thought
of never surviving. Two tours past midnight we emerged from these
sultry groves, and reached the village of Esquinapa, where, changing
steeds, I was attended by an old post boy, named Tomas; and from the
moment I unceremoniously disturbed his slumbers until we parted, he
never ceased singing and rhyming. He would have made a character for
Cervantes. Awaking with a couplet on his tongue, he followed it up by a
trite Spanish proverb, hit off scores of doggerel, like an
improvisatore, on my name, and, indeed, with his joyous, hearty old
laughter, that acted like an epidemic in every scar and wrinkle of his
fine bronzed face--with generous bonhommie and good humor, he kept me
full of merriment the nine leagues we travelled; and I have only to
regret, for my own satisfaction, not having noted some of his poetical
sallies.

We gained the Rio Rosario before dawn, and halted between two channels,
on a dry pebbly spot, where, throwing myself from the saddle, I plunged
into the running water, and then, with a little mound of sand for a
pillow, took the first half-hours sleep since leaving Tepic. At sunrise,
old Tomas aroused me with a verse and song, and fording the remaining
fork of the river, we entered Rosario. It is a place of some importance,
with a number of substantial public buildings--internal custom house, a
tobacco monopoly, and barracks for a military commandancia; in fact less
provincial, more modernized with cafes, shops, sociedads, and
well-constructed houses than any town of the Tierra Caliente, save
Mazatlan. While awaiting a relay, I was regaled by the gentlemanly
administrador of the Duana with a cup of delicious ch