Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/230

222 not too many for comfort, but enough to furnish a spice of adventure and satisfy your appetite for blood; but if you were at all timid, and abhorred the thought of bloodshed, why that road was just a walk-over, there was not a robber within one hundred miles.

Well, in short, there was Hooper, just as lively as when I last left him on board ship, and with a host of friends down to see him off. The reception he gave me was most cordial, for Hooper is from Buncombe County, and he at once dragged me up and introduced me to his party of friends. In five minutes, it was arranged that I was to occupy the room he had just vacated at the hotel; I was introduced and consigned to the landlady thereof, and as comfortably settled as if I had known them a century. The train rolled out, bearing the generous-hearted Hooper, and his friends took me in charge and led the way to the hotel.

It is not always that one so easily effects an entrance into a strange city in a new country. The room assigned me was one after my own heart, a walled-off corner of a house-top, commanding a wide-spread view of stone-walls and roofs, and of the entire valley of Mexico. Moreover there was, right within a stone's throw, the grand cathedral, and the plaza that had been once adorned with the more ancient temple of the Aztecs. I was landed right in the centre of historic Mexico, in a position most favorable for studying and enjoying it, without previous care or wearisome house-hunting. Surely, it seems sometimes as though it were always best to drift with the stream, when once launched upon it. Gathering here my various "traps" about me, I intrenched myself in this stronghold, purposing to sally forth and attack the city leisurely, as Cortés did, putting behind me a portion at a time, till all should be conquered.

My room, as I have said, was secluded, on the roof. There was no other here, and access to it was by a single stairway, through the kitchen and servants' quarters. A single door and window gave abundant light and air; but there were also two small square holes,—one through the door and one through the thick stone wall. These were closed by means of sliding