Page:Six Months In Mexico.pdf/138

136 nightly by a good band. The water-carriers were getting their supply from one of the large basins; they were also different from others we have seen. They have a long pole across their shoulders, and suspended from each end is a bucket containing the water, after the style of the milkmaids in the States. It seems strange that though every city has its water-carriers and that every one in the same town carries exactly alike, yet in no two towns do they carry in the same manner.

I cannot forget to introduce you to the pleasant gentleman we met on the train. He is Mr. A. Baker, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Vera Cruz. He speaks fluently fifteen different languages, and when I asked him if he was not very proud of the fact, he replied: "Yes, until I met a waiter in a restaurant who could speak eighteen." He is a widower, and came here accompanied by his only son, while his three daughters are at school in Europe. The common expression made of him here is, that "he is good enough for an American." Now you can judge how agreeable he is. He has been knighted three different times, and was colonel in two different armies, yet he is still plain Mr. Baker. "Oh, I had ancestors," he said, jokingly, as we were discussing people's little vanities, "and they came over in the ship of the conquerors, also. My forefather was a cook. One day the bread was exhausted, and there was no way to procure more, so the cook made some pancakes, and waited in terror while they were taken in to his majesty. At last he got a summons to appear before him; trembling and expecting to be beheaded, the poor fellow sank at his sovereign's feet, when, instead of a sentence to be executed, he heard: 'Rise, Sir Baker.' Since then that has been the family name."

Accompanied by Mr. Baker, we started north to see a waterfall, and to take the train at the next station. We got in a car and went winding in between the high mountains from which the black marble is quarried until we reached a stretch of land, where we alighted and crossed the fields until we came to that wonderful stream. The water is quite cold and mineral, and as clear as crystal, one being able to see the bottom at the depth of twenty feet as though there was no water intervening. Down where the water was more shallow were several