not a book to lend me. She produced a volume of the State Laws that belonged to her husband (he being a magistrate as well as our landlord of Squankum), and a collection of old almanacks from a square hole over the kitchen fire-place; the same hole containing also the duster, and the two smoothing irons. None of these almanacks were of later date than the year 1792: and in less than an hour I had gone through all the receipts, anecdotes, verses, and admonitions against drunkenness, and had nothing left to read but the list of District Courts, and the rates of postage throughout the Union. What would I now have given for the flattest novel that ever issued from the Minerva Press! I could even have read one of Mrs. Meeke's.

Four days and four nights passed away in unvaried sameness, only that the bride became more touchy, the knitting was finished, our stock of words had nearly run out, and our stock of provisions was beginning to fail. The last day, the eatables became scanty (some of them had long ceased to be fresh); the sporting failed, or perhaps the powder and shot: and had we remained any longer, our nic party would indeed have had "no pic-nic to pic." Therefore it was

concluded that we should all turn our steps homeward.

When the time of departure arrived, there was a wonderful brightening of faces and loosening of tongues: and I began to think that in their own houses and with all their comforts about them, the members of our party might, perhaps, be very agreeable people. It was singular, however, that they had not yet learned the difference between pleasure and pain; for I found that they still designed, next season, to pay a visit in a similar manner to the same place, as they had done for many successive summers."Habit is second nature," and they had a habit of going to Squan.

XVIII.

THE ROBBER REGION OF MEXICO.

THE little town of Magdalena, where I breakfasted, sits behind the lake, at the foot of a glen, through which the road again enters the hills. The waters of a clear stream trickle down through its streets, and keep green the gardens of splendid orange trees which gleam behind the grey adobe walls. At the meson I gave Prieto a sheaf of oja and two hours' rest before starting for the town of Tequila. "No quiere uste tomar ausilio? hay muchos ladrones en el camino" (Don't you want a guard?—the road is full of robbers), asked the vaquero of the house. "Every traveller," he continued, "takes a guard as far as Tequila, for which he pays each man a dollar." I told him I had no particular fear of the robbers, and would try it alone. "You are very courageous," he remarked,

"but you will certainly be attacked, unless you take me as an ausilio."

Soon after leaving the town I met a conducta of a hundred soldiers, escorting about fifty specie-laden mules. The officers were finely mounted, but the men, most of whom had broad swarthy Indian faces, trudged along in the dust. Some of them greeted me with "Como va, paisano?" some with "How do you do?" and others with a round English oath, but all imagining, apparently, that they had made the same salutation. As I was passing, a tawny individual, riding by one of the officers, turned about and addressed me in English. He was an American, who had been several years in the country, and now on his way to California, concerning which he wanted some information. withstanding he was bound to San Blas, and had all his funds packed on one of the mules, he seemed still undecided whether to embark for San Francisco; and like most of the other emigrants I met, insisted strongly on my opinion as to the likelihood of his success. The road now entered a narrow pass, following the dry bed of a stream, whose channel was worn about twenty feet deep in the earth. Its many abrupt twists and windings afforded unequalled chances for the guerillas,

Not

especially as the pass was nearly three leagues in length, without a single habitation on the road. My friend, Lieut. Beale, was chased by a party of robbers, in this very place, on his express journey across Mexico, in the summer of 1848. I did not meet with a single soul, although it was not later than the middle of the afternoon. The recent passing of the conducta had probably frightened the robbers away from the vicinity.

After riding two hours in the hot afternoon sun, which shone down into the path, a sudden turn disclosed to me a startling change of scenery. From the depths of the scorched hills, I came at once upon the edge of a bluff several hundred feet high, down which the road wound in a steep and tortuous descent. Below and before me extended a plain of twenty miles in length, entirely covered with fields of the maguey. At my very feet lay the city of Tequila, so near that it seemed a stone might be thrown upon the square towers of its cathedral. The streets, the gardens, the housetops, and the motley groups of the populace, were as completely unveiled to my observation as if Asmodeus had been my travelling companion. Around the plain, which now lay basking in the mellow light of the low sun, ran a circle of mural moun