Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/82

 78 The host has loaned us blankets and pillows, and we make our beds on the racking seats. The roads are bad here, and no mistake; at least they seem so in that two of the clock in the morning. Napoleon said that two-of-the-clock-in-the-morning courage was the most difficult to find. I agree with him. For the first time since starting I began to wish I had not come. The coach was cold, and knocked us about; the road was rough; the flambeau burned out; and aches and chills, and sleepiness without sleep, and perils by robbers, all made a mixture that required more than that sort of courage to face.

But we were in for it, and there was no retreat. Like Cortez, when climbing this same range, we had burned our boats behind us. Nulla vestigia retrorsum. So on we drag our slow length. The mules seem terribly lazy. We are sure that the mule-boy does not stone the head ones enough, nor the driver lash the rear ones. I had enjoyed (I fear I must confess it), when sitting on the top in the afternoon, seeing the boy shy stones at the three front mules. There are three tiers of mules—two in the hills, three before them, and three in front. The three leaders can not be reached by the driver's lash, and so the boy who accompanies him picks up a bag of stones, and lets them drive, one at a time, hitting the creature every time, and just where he aims—flank, neck, or ear. They did not seem to mind it much, cringing a little, and picking up a little, but not much of either.

The robbers do not make their appearance, the only disappointment we suffer. The weary hours drag along from two to five, when

 Night's candles are burned out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-top."

How great the change that comes over the tired half-sleepers! My companion had fulfilled one Scripture, and I, having compelled him to go with me to Orizaba, went twice the distance of his own accord. He wakes and chatters. Madame the cigarettist rouses and rises. As a fond lover said on a fonder occasion, "Up rose the sun, and up rose Emily," so is it here. Popocatepetl puts