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Rh facility for irrigation, crops of maize are grown, which, in a good year, increase in the ratio of 400 fanegas for every one that is put into the ground.

The Hacienda of Ăcŏcōtlăn has little to recommend it but its situation: nothing, however, can be finer than this. The balcony of the great Sala, or stateroom, in which we were lodged, commands a view of five mountains, two of which are upwards of two thousand feet higher than the highest mountain in Europe. We saw Ŏrĭzāvă with its peak couleur de rose, reflecting the last rays of the setting sun;—the Coffre de Pĕrōtĕ already half sunk into obscurity;—the Mălīnchĕ quite in the shade before us; and the two great Volcanos which separate La Puebla from Mexico, (Pŏpŏcătēpĕtl and Ĭstăccīhuătl,) with an occasional ray of light playing upon their snowy summits. We were all admiring the magnificence of this scene, when the silence around us was broken in the most unexpected manner. A long file of Indians returning from the labours of the day, drew up in a line before the house, and began to chant the Ave Maria, or evening hymn. The music was very simple, and few of the voices good, yet the whole, like the Ranz des vaches of the Swiss, derived an interest from the splendid scenery around, and made an impression, which much sweeter strains, under other circumstances, might have failed to produce.

Our host at Ăcŏcōtlăn was a most respectable man; one of the numerous class of minor