acienda_ into a
convalescent smallpox hospital, of which she was to be the nurse and
I the doctor. Indeed she refused to abandon this mad scheme until
I pointed out that in the event of any of our patients dying, most
probably we should both be murdered for wizards with the evil eye. As a
matter of fact, without medicine or assistance we could have done little
or nothing.

Oh, what a pestilence was that of which for three weeks or so we were
the daily witnesses, for from the flat roof of the _hacienda_ we could
see straight on to the _plaza_ of the little town. And when at night we
could not see, still we could hear the wails of the dying and bereaved,
the eternal clang of the church bells, rung to scare away the demon of
disease, and the midnight masses chanted by the priests, that grew faint
and fainter as their brotherhood dwindled, until at last they ceased.
And so it went on in the tainted, stricken place until the living were
not enough to bury the dead, or to do more than carry food and water to
the sick.

It would seem that about twelve years before a philanthropic American
enthusiast, armed with a letter of recommendation from whoever at that
date was President of Mexico, and escorted by a small guard, descended
upon San Jose to vaccinate it. For a few days all went well, for the
enthusiast was a good doctor, who understood how to treat ophthalmia and
to operate for squint, both of which complaints were prevalent in San
Jose. Then his first vaccination patients developed vesicles, and the
trouble began. The end of the matter was that the local priests, a very
ignorant class of men, interfered, declaring that smallpox was a trial
sent from Heaven which it was impious to combat, and that in any case
vaccination was the worse disease of the two.

As the _viruela_ had scarcely visited San Jose within the memory of man
and the vesicles looked alarming, the population, true children of the
Church, agreed with their pastors, and, from purely religious motives,
hooted and stoned the philanthropic "Americano" and his guard out of the
district. Now they and their innocent children were reaping the fruits
of the piety of these conscientious objectors.

After the first fortnight this existence in an atmosphere of disease
became absolutely terrible to me. Not an hour of the day passed that I
did not imagine some symptom of smallpox, and every morning when we met
at breakfast I glanced at Emma with anxiety. The shadow of