Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/226

 We lounged for an hour or two in Laborde's beautiful garden, watching the sunset over the western glen, and found it difficult to leave even for the promise of a dinner. While we had been on our morning visit to the hacienda, the diligence arrived from Mexico, and the hungry passengers, who had travelled since three o'clock almost without food, made a deep inroad in the larder. It required some energy to repair this havoc, and as our dinner had been ordered at six o'clock, I took occasion to pay my respects to the cook-maid. With the aid of a little cash and persuasion, I managed to preserve our own stores untouched until we penetrate farther into the country, where, in all likelihood, we will need them more.

After dinner, we took a walk by moonlight through the town. The night was as cloudless and serene, as one of our summer evenings by the sea-shore.

Antonio, the broken-nosed hero, and owner of the cur, proposed that we should go to see a fandango, at the house of one of the burghers, who was his friend. He led the way, through several streets, to a neat dwelling in the midst of a garden, where we found a row of elderly ladies strung on high-backed chairs against the wall, while a dozen young and pretty ones (by the light of a couple of starved tallow candles,) received the compliments of as many of the village beaux. Two or three musicians were seated in a corner strumming their bandalones and going through a half hour of preparatory tuning, while the company gathered. At length, when all had assembled, the schoolmaster—a veteran and a bachelor, the briskest and busiest man of the party—constituted himself master of ceremonies for the evening, and insisted on our joining in a contra dance, got up expressly for the strangers. Du Roslan and myself joined the dance, on my principle of "taking people as they are, and doing as they do," besides that I think it always in the worst taste to leave men, no matter how humble or poor they may be, under the impression that you have visited them as curiosities. After footing it through, we handed the servants a couple of dollars to bring in refreshments of "Perfect-love" and "Noyau" for the ladies, and something more likely to be relished by the gentlemen. This we understood was not contrary to the rules of "good society;"—so they sipped and became livelier. A couple took the floor—the lady with castanets and the man chanting an air to the guitar. Another pair followed their example, while the remainder formed a cotillon, to the twang of the rest of the instruments. The Cuernavacans seemed wide awake, for once at least, and we stole off quietly at midnight, in the midst of an uproar of music and merriment.

20th September. At four o'clock, day was just breaking and the moon still shining, when we passed through the suburbs of Cuernavaca. As we reached the highlands of the plateau, where the barranca breaks precipitously, the sun rose. There had been no rain during the night; the sky was perfectly clear, and in the distance lay the mountains of the