Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/332

312 of our approach, and we were most kindly received. The house is clean and pretty, and tired as we were, the sala boasting of an old piano, tempted us to try a waltz, while they were preparing supper. The man who waited at table, before he removed the things, popped down upon his knees, and recited a long prayer aloud. The gentlemen had one apartment prepared for them—we another, in which, nay, even in the large four-posted and well-curtained bed allotted to us, Madame Yturbide had slept when on her way to Mexico before her coronation. The Señora M also shewed us her picture, and spoke of her and the Emperor with great enthusiasm.

This morning we rose by candle-light at five o'clock, with the prospect of a long ride, having to reach the Trojes of Anganguco, a mining district, (Trojes literally mean granaries) fourteen leagues from El Pilar. The morning was cold and raw, with a dense fog covering the plains, so that we could scarcely see each other's faces, and found our mangas particularly agreeable. We were riding quickly across these ugly, marshy wastes, when a curious animal crossed our path, a zorillo, or epatl as the Indians call it, and which Bouffon mentions under the generic name of Mouffetes. It looks like a brown and white fox, with an enormous tail, which it holds up like a great feather in the air. It is known not only for the beauty of its skin, but for the horrible and pestilential odor with which it defends itself when attacked, and which poisons the air for miles around. Notwithstanding the warnings of the mozos as to its peculiar mode of defence, the gentlemen