an monks and a convent; seven of these
monks I was assured were living at home with their families and
children, but the eighth, who happened to be a cripple, lived in the
convent. A major in the guard was pointed out to me, who, having
committed a murder, took sanctuary in the church, where he remained
several days, when--and we have his own word for it--the Virgin Mary
appeared to him and freely forgave him. On this news getting abroad,
there was great rejoicing in Tezcuco that the Virgin had at last
visited them. From being stigmatized as a murderer, the object of this
visit was almost adored as a saint, and became one of the principal men
of the village, and was created a major in the new corps.

After I had surveyed the salt-works and the glassworks, I turned my
horse's head toward Mexico by the road along the eastern shore, so that
I made the complete circuit of Lake Tezcuco.

Thus far my visit to the royal city of Tezcuco had been perfectly
successful, except in the attempts made to convince the young
Englishman that I was not a dead-shot with the rifle; and I started
home with a slight shade upon my veracity for denying my ability to
pierce the centre of the bull's-eye. But otherwise it was a
disagreeable parting to all of us. As I returned by the east side of
the lake, the splendid high farming-lands that extend from the shore to
the foot of the mountain were strikingly in contrast with the flatness
and barrenness of the plain on the water-side, which is so slightly
elevated above the level of the salt water that a few inches of rise in
the laguna spreads out an immense sheet of saline water, and yet there
is not a solitary evaporating vat where there is an unlimited demand
for the evaporated article at fourteen shillings the _aroba_.

Cortez speaks of the fine fields of corn on the east side of the lake.
But they could not have been finer in his day than they are at present,
though they furnished him with the supplies that supported his army. I
reached the head of Tezcuco at noontide, where the heavy water of the
salt lake was driving up toward the fresh water, as described by
Cortez, but it was under the pressure of a strong north wind.

THE AZTEC CAUSEWAYS.

Now that I am on the new causeway, broad and spacious like all the
others, it may be well to conclude the discussion of the physical
condition of this valley by determining the size of the old Aztec
causeways.

An island embosomed in a marsh has