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406 worn down by the rough and rocky roads; and as to any little additional motion during the process, it so seldom falls to the lot of a Mexican traveller to glide over the country with the sort of even movement to which Mr. Mac Adam's labours have accustomed people in England, that a few jolts more or less are really not perceptible.

After this description, my readers will not be surprised to hear that none of our party ever entered the coach as long as they were able to sit a horse; and that Mrs. Ward, far from finding it a relief, endeavoured, from the first, to extend her daily rides until she was enabled to perform nearly the whole distance on horseback: which she so far accomplished that she must, I think, have ridden fourteen hundred miles out of the two thousand, to which the aggregate of our journey may have amounted. Between a passo horse and a carriage, on such roads, it is impossible to hesitate, except when the sun is so powerful as to render the protection of a roof desirable, and this, in the winter months, on the Table-land, is not often the case. The dust, which is at times exceedingly distressing when riding, cannot be avoided: it had the effect of making us extend our line of march considerably; and, on a windy day, there was often a space of nearly half a mile between the head and rear of the column: the necessity for this increased as our live-stock augmented, which it did prodigiously upon the road; for when we got into the breeding countries, where