ene; and all the passions of love and hate,
ambition, avarice, and revenge, have had existence there. The hearts
stirred by them are long since cold, and the actions to which they gave
birth are not chronicled by human pen. They live only in legends that
sound more like romance than real history.

"And yet these legends are less than a century old! One century ago,
from the summit of yonder mountain could have been seen, not only the
settlement of San Ildefonso, but a score of others--cities, and towns,
and villages--where to-day the eye cannot trace a vestige of
civilisation. Even the names of these cities are forgotten, and their
histories buried among their ruins!

"The Indian has wreaked his revenge upon the murderers of Moctezuma!
Had the Saxon permitted him to continue his war of retaliation, in one
century more--nay, in half that time--the descendants of Cortez and his
conquerors would have disappeared from the land of Anahuac!

"Listen to the `Legend of San Ildefonso'!"

CHAPTER TWO.

Perhaps in no country has religion so many devoted days as in Mexico.
The "fiestas" are supposed to have a good effect in Christianising the
natives, and the saints' calendar has been considerably enlarged in that
pseudo-holy land. Nearly every week supplies a festival, with all its
mummery of banners, and processions, and priests dressed as if for the
altar-scene in "Pizarro," and squibs, and fireworks, and silly citizens
kneeling in the dust, and hats off all round. Very much like a London
Guy-Fawkes procession is the whole affair, and of about like influence
upon the morals of the community.

Of course the _padres_ do not get up these ceremonial exhibitions for
mere amusement--not they. There are various little "blessings," and
"indultos," and sprinklings of sacred water, to be distributed on these
occasions--not _gratuitously_--and the wretched believer is preciously
"plucked" while he is in the penitent mood--at the same time he is
promised a short and easy route to heaven.

As to any solemnity in the character of the ceremonials, there is
nothing of the sort. They are in reality days of amusement; and it is
not uncommon to see the kneeling devotee struggling to keep down the
cackle of his fighting-cock, which, full-galved, he carries under the
folds of his _serape_! All this under the roof of the sacred temple of
God!

On days of fiesta, the church genuflexions are soon over; and then the
gambling-booth