compatriots for
Aguas Calientes: whether he put himself to any inconvenience or not in
regard to my movements, I did not hear or care, so true is the adage,
"sacabo il pericolo, adio il santo." All I ever learned of his after
history, was that a month later he was made prisoner by the troops of
General Bustamente, and immediately shot. Thus being relieved of the
good father, I gathered courage to proceed, and mounting, we gave spur
for San Juan de Lagos; we had but a league's travel, and I was soon put
out of suspense, for on descending a steep hill, which led down to the
town, we encountered a number of arrieros, who gave the pleasing
intelligence, that the place had declared in favor of the existing
government, and the towns people had driven the agents of Paredes
outside, and thus we rode to a meson without molestation. I noticed
about eighty citizen soldiers drawn up in front of the church, listening
to the harangue of a clerical gentleman, attired in a stove-pipe hat and
flowing gown.

There was not a _remuda_--change--to be had for love or money in San
Juan de Lagos; all the horses having been secured and carried into the
country during the pronunciamentos; after a bowl of frijoles and
tortillas, we were obliged to remount our wearied beasts, and toil
slowly onward.

The same evening we reached the town of San Miguel, when another of
these infernal pronunciamentos was brewing, but a polite old gentleman
procured me a relay, and away we rattled over a dry undulating
champaigne country to Mirondillo, where finding another remuda, and
leaving Cerro Gordo on the left, the full moon lighted us safely into
Tepetitlan. Here I proposed tarrying, but the meson was so filthy and
detestable--so full of fleas and uncomfortable, that wearied as I was,
after vainly trying to sleep on a table, I ordered fresh horses, and
departed at midnight. In two hours, becoming too sleepy to keep the
saddle, notwithstanding Jose made his _macarte_ fast to my steed's neck
and towed us some distance, we fell in with an encampment of arrieros
and their mules, who, after a strict sance, very kindly allowed us to
bivouac near their fires.

In no other part of the world do I believe there can be found such a
worthy, brave, hardworking, and industrious class of persons as the
arrieros of Mexico; they are proverbial for honesty, and there is
scarcely an instance known where they have proved unfaithful; trusted
for weeks and months with the most