t in the actual
possession of fortune, a young man of good expectations, by reason of
the wages that would be due to him from us; but the great difficulty
was to get ready money to pay the padre. Bernaldo was afraid to ask for
it, and the matter was not communicated to us until at the moment of
setting out. It was entirely against hacienda law to marry off the
estate; Don Simon would not like it; and, in the hurry and confusion of
setting out, we had no time to deliberate; we therefore sent him on
before us, and I am sorry to be obliged to say that this violence to
his affections never made it necessary to change the appellation which
we had given him very early after he came into our possession, namely,
the fat boy.

We found among our carriers another youthful example of blighted
affections, but recovering. He was a lad of about Bernaldo's age, to
wit, sixteen, but had been married two years before, was a father, a
widower, and about to be married again. The story was told us in his
hearing, and, from his smiles at different parts of it, it was
difficult to judge which he considered the most amusing; and we had
still another interesting person, being a runaway Indian, who had been
caught and brought back but a few days before, and upon whom the major
domo charged all the others to keep a good look-out.

Our road lay through the same great forest in which the ruins stood. At
the distance of a league we descended from the high ground, and reached
a small aguada. From this place the road for some distance was hilly
until we came out upon a great savanna covered with a growth of bushes,
which rose above our heads so thick that they met across the path,
excluding every breath of air, without shielding as from the sun, and
exceedingly difficult and disagreeable to ride through. At one o'clock
we reached the suburbs of the rancho of Puut. The settlement was a long
line of straggling huts, which, as we rode through them under the blaze
of a vertical sun, seemed to have no end. Mr. Catherwood stopped at one
of them for a cup of water, and I rode on till I reached an open plain,
forming a sort of square with thatched houses, and on one side a
thatched church. I inquired of a woman peeping out of a door for the
casa real, and was directed to a ruined hut on the same side, at the
door, or, rather, at the doorway of which I dismounted, but had hardly
crossed the threshold when I saw my white pantaloons speckled with
little jumpi