friend hinted, to the portmanteaus, wearing
apparel, and other spoils of travellers who
had been waited upon in the stage coach
by a select body of the Mala gente. Pedro
came, saw, and purchased. He was a man
of few words. "Twenty dollars" — pesos
fuertes — he said, and he drew a gold ounce
from his sash and spun it into the air.
"Arriba!" cried Pedro Hilo, "Heads."
Heads it was, and the administrador stuck
to his text of twenty dollars. A doubloon
—scarcely four pounds — is not much for a
berline, albeit the thing was woefully the
worse for wear; but what was to be done
with it? The bargain was concluded, and
the Canonigo pocketed the gold ounce.

As we were leaving Sant' Augustin del
Palmar, our omnibus escort making a
brilliant show with their scarlet pantaloons
and bright guns and bayonets, we passed
the determined Catalan, who was girding
himself up to ascend the roof of the downward-bound
diligence. "I wish we had a
few soldiers with us," he remarked, as he
took in another reef of his parti-coloured
sash. "A prod from a bayonet now and
then might remind the postilion that it is
his duty to drive his mules, and not to go
to sleep under his monstrous millstone of a
hat. Who ever saw such a sombrero save
upon a picador in the bull-ring? In
Barcelona such hats would be put down by
the police. I have paid for my place in
the interior," he continued, "but the
malpractices of the postilion and the mayoral
—who, I am assured, is in league with all
the gangs of brigands between here and
Cordova — can no longer be tolerated. I
intend to mount the roof; and the first
time that pig-headed driver goes to sleep
again, I propose to myself to blow out his
brains." So he went away, significantly
slapping a pouch of untanned leather at
his hip, and which I surmise contained
his Colt's revolver. A determined fellow,
this Juan Estrellada from Catalonia, and
the very man to be useful in a street
pronunciamiento. I fancy that he was
somewhat nettled that no practical upshot should
have followed his proposal to rob the fonda
and throw the landlord out of window, and
that he was anxious, before he reached
Vera Cruz, to do something, the memory
of wliich posterity would not willingly let
die.

The Canonigo was excellent company,
but his excessive temperance somewhat
alarmed me. His "desayuno" — literally
breakfast — would be taken at about four
o'clock in the morning; for we always
recommenced our journey at daybreak. Then
he would take a cup of chocolate— a brown
aromatic gruel mixed thick and slab — with
one tiny loaf of Indian corn bread. And
nor bite nor sup would he take again until
sunset. The worst of it was that we were
not always sure of finding supper when we
reached the town or village where we had
elected to stay the night. The Canonigo,
however, seemed totally indifferent to our
lighting upon an Egypt without any corn
in it. His supper was always ready, and
it seemed to serve him in lieu of dinner,
and lunch, and all beside. He produced
his grass-woven cigar-case and begun to
smoke. Not papelitos, mind. Everybody
in Mexico — man, woman, or child, Spaniard,
half-caste, or Indian — inhales the fumes of
tobacco wrapped in paper all day long.
But the Canonigo was a smoker of puros,
the biggest of Cabañas. They didn't
make him sallow, they didn't make him
nervous; and he never complained of
headache at least through smoking. On one
occasion the worthy gentleman made the
confession, "Tengo mala cabeza" — My
head is bad. It was on the night before
we arrived at Amosoque. We chanced to
put up at a venta kept by a Frenchman,
whose wife was a capital cook, and
whose cellar was, moreover, stocked with
capital wine. He gave us an excellent
supper, and we subsequently "cracked"—
I believe that is the correctly convivial
expression — sundry bottles of that very sound
Burgundy wine called Moulin-à-vent.
Well, we were four to drink it, and the
temperate canon would scarcely count as
one. He had a thimbleful, however — two
thimblefuls, perhaps — nay, a bumper and
a half — and the cockles of his good old
heart were warmed. In his merriment he
sang a wonderful song, setting forth how a
donkey, wandering in a field, once fell
upon a flute in which a shepherd had
"left" a tune. The donkey trolled, and
the tune "came out;" whereupon "Aha!"
brays the conceited animal, "who shall say
that donkeys cannot play the flute?"

Then the Canonigo, merging into another
mood, like Alexander at his feast, began to
tell us about the saints — of the wonders
worked by St. Lampsacus and St. Hyacinth,
St. Petronilla and St. Jago of Compostella.
And then he fell asleep, and I
can't help thinking that he woke up the
next morning slightly flustered about the
"cabeza," and that the Moulin-à-vent
might have had something to do with the
severity with which he spoke about the