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226 kidnaping market for them to trust themselves so far from town overnight. So the place is deserted except for fêtes, when a body of troops is detached for their protection. A little less glory and a little less danger would be desirable.

Another favorite drive is southward. The exit is less agreeable, but once out of town the trip is more natural and more delightful. We pass on our horses, no other mode is appropriate, hardly any other possible, by the great square, southward. One route leads us to the Penyan, a hill overlooking the lake, full of caves and of robbers, whose horrid lair is surpassed by their more horrid aspect. It does not seem possible that human beings can fall so low. The Indians of the plains are hardly as fierce and degraded as these children, perhaps, of Montezuma and Cortez. There is but little comfort in pausing among them; for you must give baksheesh as surely as if at the Pyramids, and you may not get off with what you are willing to give. The views hardly repay the risk. So let us turn to a more agreeable company and scenery.

Leave the city by the south-western gate. You will have hard work to find it. The straightness of the streets gets so narrow and short that it has all the effect of crookedness, as a straight line cut into an infinite number of short straight lines may become a circle. So these bits and threads of lanes have all the bewilderment of Cologne, the head of crooked towns. The streets are as dirty and the huts as poor as it is possible for either to be, and we gladly reach the gate and touch the open fields. Level and low lies the land. The road is hard, though pulpy.

The canal is soon struck. This is the feeder of the city. Along its watery way for five hundred years, perhaps more, have the people and the produce of the region come to town. It is the oldest canal in the world, unless China ranks it, which is doubtful. It is not a canal for horses; the boats are pushed along by the boatmen.

Garden "truck" is the chief freight, though green lucern grasses, for the horses of the town, frequently load heavily the little craft. Pleasure and carriage boats ply the waters, long, narrow,