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112 stated his intention of returning to El Jícaro to make a night of it. For half an hour my husband and Gorgonio persisted in the discouraging task of arguing with a drunken man, and I could hear Gorgonio repeating to him his favourite phrases that the Señora was "muy distinguida" and "muy delicada" and very much averse to sleeping in a verandah; but it made no impression on him, and everyone's patience was exhausted when by some lucky stratagem my husband managed to get possession of the key, and the schoolmaster was too muddle-headed to demand it back again. It was a happy moment for us, but a sad one for the poor horse, for the two drunken men managed to scramble on his back again and set off for El Jícaro. The road was monotonously straight, and there was a brilliant moon overhead, but long after we were comfortably in bed we heard them shouting as they passed and repassed the house in their efforts to find the right way.

The night was still and sultry and we were up at dawn and got off as soon as possible, but the morning air had no freshness in it and the sun seemed to assert its full power from the moment it showed above the horizon. Our road lay through a parched and waterless land. Here and there were dotted the wretched tumble-down cabins of the miserable, sallow-faced, fever-stricken half-castes, who must find it hard enough to make a living. Indeed, in contrast with that of these poor people, the condition of the half-caste population we had met with in other parts of the country was one of riches and thrift.

After riding for about four leagues we were thoroughly baked through and were glad to find shelter from the sun in the verandah of the only respectable-looking house in the little village of La Reforma. The people of the house were kind and attentive and gave us such food as they had, but could not accommodate us with a room, nor could Gorgonio find food enough for the mules. As soon as the sun sank low in the west we set out again to cross the waterless plain, the Llano de la Fragua, a journey best made by night, for the track is even more shadeless than that we had just traversed, and the arid ground supports little vegetation but cacti and euphorbiae and scrubby prickly bushes, which vie with one another in ugliness. The sun set in a blaze of glory and we bid him farewell with a sense of relief. Saving the starlight the night was dark, but fortunately the road was broad and well marked by hedges of vicious-looking organ-pipe cactus. We were favoured with a breeze increasing in freshness as the night drew on, and our mules made good time over the plain, so that by 9 o'clock we had reached the river which runs within a mile of the town. Just at this moment the moon rose and in the half-light the stream looked black and formidable, and our men hesitated and began to discuss the situation, as none