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226 gesticulations of these ladies, when animated by a little Pulque on their return home, their extreme volubility, and the energy which they display in their quarrels with the tribes of children which they carry about with them, form a curious contrast to their melancholy looks, and extreme taciturnity at all other times. They are, however, a very hardy race, and capable of supporting great fatigue. I have often met, when returning from my rides, whole files of men and women, all loaded, the men with baskets, the women with a couple of children each, setting out from Mexico at five in the evening, to return to their villages, which I usually found, upon inquiry, to be seven or eight miles off; and this they accomplish in an hour and a half, by continuing steadily at a long Indian trot, which many of them are able to keep up for a surprising distance. If a question be asked of the leader, the whole party stops, and when it is answered, they proceed again together at the same uniform pace.

Amongst the many curious scenes that Mexico presented at the end of 1823, I know none with which we were more struck than the Alameda. As compared with the Prado of Madrid, it was, indeed, deprived of its brightest ornament, the women; for few or none of the ladies of Mexico ever appear in public on foot; but to compensate this, it had the merit of being totally unlike any thing that we had ever seen before. On a Sunday, or Dia de Fiesta, the avenues were crowded with enormous coaches,