y poor old
mustang here ended a twelve days' journey, over mountains and plains of
_pedregal_, without a shoe to his hoofs.

A party of Californians, who had been stopping here for some weeks, had
left the day before, and I was ushered into French society, in which to
form my first impressions of Mexico. Still, there was an exquisite
pleasure in once more getting clean, and eating food cooked after a
civilized manner. Not that I had in any wise become tired of drinking
porridge, extracted from corn, called _atola_, or dissatisfied with
eating bits of fowl, which the maid of honor to General Garay so
ingeniously served up with her fingers, after having it well flavored
with Cayenne or Chili pepper! He that does not love Chili must keep out
of Spanish America. And he will prove a poor traveler who can not sit
down with a good appetite to a supper of small black beans (_frijoles_),
and a dozen Indian cakes (_tortillas_), as thin and as tough as a
drum-head, which serve the double purpose of spoon and plate.

ABODE IN MEXICO.

My room was on the roof, and when my inner and outer man was fully in
order, I used to walk till a late hour of the day upon the paved
house-top, now leaning against the parapet and looking up to the
snow-covered mountains, whose shadowy forms could be made out even by
moonlight, and upon the shadowy towers and domes of the city. Thus
pleasant days and weeks flew on. Sometimes I rode about the valley,
carefully searching after the relics of times past, and at other times
surveying the curiosities of the city. Once this order was broken in
upon, in order to accompany that noble-hearted man and excellent
embassador, Governor Letcher, to the palace, where I had an interview
with Arista, then the President of Mexico, who strikingly resembled our
own President of that day, Millard Fillmore.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Visit to Contreras and San Angel.--The End of a brave Soldier.--A
Place of Skulls.--A New England Dinner.--An Adventure with
Robbers--doubtful.--Reasons for revisiting Mexico.--The Battle at
the Mountain of Crosses.--A peculiar Variety of the Cactus.--Three
Men gibbeted for robbing a Bishop.---A Court upon Horseback.--The
retreat of Cortez to Otumba.--A venerable Cypress Grove.--Unexpectedly
comfortable Quarters.--An English Dinner at Tezcuco.--Pleasures
unknown to the Kings of Tezcuco.--Relics of Tezcuco.--The Appearance
of the Virgin Mary at Tezcuco.--The Causeways of Mexico.

A RIDE