rude hospitality, and I
have listened with pleasure to their wild traditions. I soon found
that, like other Indians, they draw from a supernatural "dream-world"
the fortitude that enables them to bear without a murmur their hard lot
in the present. They readily embraced the superstitions of the
Spaniards, and rendered to the virgin of Guadalupe the adoration they
had formerly bestowed upon their own gods. Their conversion may be
summed up in the words of Humboldt: "Dogma has not succeeded to dogma,
but ceremony to ceremony. The natives know nothing of religion but the
external forms of worship. Fond of whatever is connected with a
prescribed order of ceremonies, they find in the Christian religion
particular enjoyment. The festivals of the Church, the fire-works with
which they are accompanied, the processions mingled with whimsical
disguises, are a most fertile source of amusement to the lower Indians."

THE VALLEY OF MEXICO.

There has been a great deal of poetry and very little plain prose
written about the valley of Mexico. At an early morning hour I stood
upon the heights of Rio Frio; at another morning, as already said, at
the Cross of the Marquis; again, upon the highest peak of the Tepeyaca,
behind Guadalupe, I saw a tropical morning sun disengage itself from
the snowy mountains. From these three favored spots I have looked upon
the valley, where dry land and pools of water seemed equally to compose
the magnificent panorama. Immense mirrors of every conceivable shape
and form were reflecting back the rays of the sun, while the green
shores in which they were set enhanced the effect. The white walls, and
domes, and spires of the distant city heightened the effect of a
picture that can only be fully appreciated by those who have looked
downward through the pure atmosphere of such a lofty position; but when
I came down to the common level, the charm was broken. Instead of
lakelets and crystal springs, I found only pools of surface-water which
the rains had left; and the canals were but the ditches from which, on
either side, the dirt had been taken to build the causeway through the
marsh, and were now covered with a coat of green. These lakes have no
outlet, and as evaporation only takes up pure water, all the animal,
vegetable, and mineral matter that is carried in is left to stagnate
and putrefy in the ponds and ditches.

A practical "man of the times," with more common sense than poetry in
his composition,