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206 sacrifice"—whose disappearance is recorded, and return to earth so clearly expected by the Mexicans, has well been termed the "most mysterious and inexplicable personage in the Mexican mythology;" and the mind becomes perfectly bewildered in attempting to glean probabilities from the scattered traditions concerning his history, or to reconcile his various attributes.

La Puebla, to which we repaired in the course of the morning, has been called the City of Angels, from the legend which records the assistance given by those beings in the construction of the cathedral. It may with much more reason be termed the "City of Bigots," for in no part of Mexico is hatred against those of another faith so undisguised, as the stones hurled against many a European traveller testify. And, if an anecdote which was related me in the capital was true, it would seem that even the irresponsible hide of a brute beast might not shield it from lapidation, if the owner was known to have been bred and nurtured without the pale of the church.

Some time since two English dray horses were procured by a European resident in Mexico, and unshipped at Vera Cruz; colossal, big-boned, muscular animals, compared with which the Mexican breed were but shelties. They may have found their long voyage disagreeable, but they were doomed to find their land journey to the capital yet more so. Wherever they passed, there was a perfect ferment among the populace. The heretical horses!—there was no possibility of smuggling them through the country, or of concealing their unfortunate lineage. They were everywhere regarded with detestation. They and their grooms were loaded with maledictions at Vera Cruz—pelted at Jalapa—execrated and pelted at Perote—execrated, pelted, and stoned, with might and main, at La Puebla de los Angeles—and hardly escaped with their lives, to be repelted and restoned on their arrival at their journey's end. There, however, they arrived; but for any use they were to the possessor, they might as well have been peaceably employed in starting casks in London among their fellow heretics, biped and quadruped; for they had to be