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 Rh slopes. The air is warm and breezy. The fields lie twenty miles from hill to hill across our bows, and twelve from stem to stern. They are used for grazing, and were for a long while the favorite place for raising bulls for the bull-fights. These having been suppressed, the bull-raising has gone with them, and the splendid pastures are devoted to more honorable and peaceful grazing and tillage. I shall long remember with refreshing delight that posta, as the run of our team is called, across the airy plains of Cazadero.

We drive through the puerta of Palmillas, or gate of a gentleman of that name, and alight for breakfast at a high, cool, pleasant hacienda, where we get a warm and edible meal of the usual course: soup, three meats, salad, beans, dulce (or sweetmeats), and coffee, for one dollar. It is worth the money to us, though it cost the landlord hardly a quarter of that sum.

A blacksmith shop near the gate beguiled me of a few moments, and taught me a few lessons. An Indian boy was fusing some bits of iron in the usual fashion of his tribe. On the wall of the smithy hung a picture of the Virgin of Gaudalupe, and also one entitled "Misterio de la Santissima Trinidad," which was itself a sermon. The Father Almighty was depicted as a venerable man with gray beard, long locks, gown, and a triple crown on his head—the mitre of the pope. The Dove sat on his breast; and between his knees, with his arms over each begowned leg, on the ground half kneeling, half squatting, sat the Second Person in the Trinity, nearly naked, his wounded side exposed, his sad face crowned with a circlet of thorns. This cheap print is sold by the priests to devout lads like this; for a necklace of beads and charm attached beneath his open shirt showed that he was an honest devotee. I left that little smithy with a deeper ardor to give to this lad and his people a better Gospel than this idolatrous one.