with slight connecting links; and resembling, by
their vivid colouring, and graphic and characteristic details, some
admirably painted and gorgeous panorama, of which the materials exhibit
infinite variety and the most striking contrasts.

We cannot hope, in our translation, to do full justice to so able an
original; and the less so as, in the extracts given, we are compelled to
take considerable liberties in the way of abridgement. We are,
nevertheless, desirous of following the fortunes of Don Manuel as far as
the author acquaints us with them; previously to which, however, we will
lay before our readers one or two fragments, having little connexion with
the plot of the book, but highly illustrative of the singular state of
Mexican society and manners at the period referred to. We commence with a
striking sketch of the Leperos, as they appeared when assembled outside
the city of Mexico, awaiting the arrival of Vicente Guerero and the
patriot army.

* * * * *

The morning of the ninth of February 1812, had scarcely dawned, when the
entire multitude of those wretched beings, known by the name of Leperos,
left the city of Mexico, and advanced along the Ajotla road as far as the
chain of volcanic hills already alluded to.

The road in question forms, with the land adjacent to it, one of the most
dreary portions of the rich valley of Mexico or Tenochtitlan; and the
swampy ground through which it passes, and which is only exchanged, beyond
the hillocks, for a stratum of lava, exhibited, even in the most palmy
days of Mexican splendour, the same gloomy and desert character as at the
period here referred to. Wretched huts, inhabited by half-naked Indians,
who either worked at the _desague_,[7] or gained a scanty existence by
fishing, and here and there a spot of ground planted with vegetables, were
the most agreeable objects to be met with; while the low grounds lay
entirely waste, even the obtuse Indians being deterred by their poisonous
exhalations from attempting their cultivation.

It was along this road, early upon the above-named morning, that hordes of
brown, squalid, sullen-looking beings, equally debased in mind and body,
were seen advancing; dragging themselves listlessly along, now slowly,
then more rapidly, in the direction of the hills. It was a disgusting,
and at the same time a lamentable sight, to behold this mass of filth,
misery, and degradation, which came crawling and li