atives of Old Spain.

Remember--Creoles are _not_ people with negro or African blood in their
veins. There is a misconception on this head in England, and elsewhere.
The African races of America are either negroes, mulattoes, quadroons,
quinteroons, or mestizoes; but the "Creoles" are of European blood,
though born in America. Remember this. Don Pablo Romero--for that was
the name of our traveller--was a Creole, a native of Cuzco, which, as
you know, was the ancient capital of the Incas of Peru.

Don Pablo, as already stated, was nearly forty years of age. Perhaps he
looked older. His life had not been spent in idleness. Much study,
combined with a good deal of suffering and care, had made many of those
lines that rob the face of its youthful appearance. Still, although his
look was serious, and just then sad, his eye was occasionally seen to
brighten, and his light elastic step showed that he was full of vigour
and manhood. He had a moustache, very full and black, but his whiskers
were clean shaven, and his hair cut short, after the fashion of most
people in Spanish America.

He wore velvet pantaloons, trimmed at the bottoms with black stamped
leather, and upon his feet were strong boots of a reddish yellow
colour--that is, the natural colour of the tanned hide before it has
been stained. A dark jacket, closely buttoned, covered the upper-part of
his body, and a scarlet silk sash encircled his waist, the long fringed
ends hanging down over the left hip. In this sash were stuck a Spanish
knife and a pair of pistols, richly ornamented with silver mountings.

But all these things were concealed from the view by a capacious poncho,
which is a garment that in South America serves as a cloak by day and a
blanket by night. It is nearly of the size and shape of an ordinary
blanket, with a slit in the centre, through which the head is passed,
leaving the ends to hang down. Instead of being of uniform colour,
several bright colours are usually woven into the poncho, forming a
variety of patterns. In Mexico a very similar garment--the serape--is
almost universally worn. The poncho of Don Pablo was a costly one, woven
by hand, and out of the finest wool of the vicuna, for that is the
native country of this useful and curious animal.

Such a poncho would cost 20_l._, and would not only keep out cold, but
would turn rain like a "macintosh." Don Pablo's hat was also curious and
costly. It was one of those known as "Panama," or "G