ear each other. The cura seemed
in no hurry, but I had some scruples about keeping the congregation
waiting, and returned to the casa real.

Here a scene had just taken place, of which nothing but the noise of
the bell prevented my having some previous knowledge. The cacique had
sent for an Indian to carry our load, but the latter refused to obey,
and was insolent to the cacique, who in a rage, ordered him to be put
into the stocks. When I entered, the recusant, sullen and silent, was
waiting the execution of his sentence, and in a few minutes he was
lying on his back on the ground, with both legs secured in the stocks
above his knees. The cacique sent for another, and in the mean time an
old woman came in with a roll of tortillas, and a piteous expression of
face. She was the mother of the prisoner, and took her seat on the
stocks to remain with him and comfort him; and, as the man rolled his
head on the ground, and the woman looked wonderingly at us, we
reproached ourselves as the cause of his disaster, and endeavoured to
procure his release, but the cacique would not listen to us. He said
that the man was punished, not for refusing to go with us, although
bound to do so on account of indebtedness to the village but for
insolence to himself. He was evidently one who would not allow his
authority to be trifled with; and seeing that, without helping the
Indian, we might lose the benefit of the cacique's good dispositions in
our favour, we were fain to desist. At length, though evidently with
some difficulty, he procured another Indian. As we mounted, we made a
final effort in behalf of the poor fellow in the stocks; and, though
apparently unable to comprehend why we should take any interest in the
matter, the cacique promised to release him.

This over, we found that we had thrown another family into confusion.
The wife and a little daughter of our carrier accompanied him to the
top of a hill beyond the village, where they bade him farewell as if he
was setting out on a long and dangerous journey. The attachment of the
Indian to his home is a striking feature of his character. The
affection which grows up between the sexes was supposed by the early
writers upon the character of the Indians not to exist among them, and
probably the sentiment and refinement of it do not; but circumstances
and habit bind together the Indian man and woman as strongly as any
known ties. When the Indian grows up to manhood he requires a woma