These tireless little seekers after knowledge were not released from their arduous duties until six in the evening; eleven long hours, excepting the noon-day recess, sitting there, rebozo-wrapped and book-absorbed.
It was an exaggeration of our "old field" system, and these little Mexicans enjoy a great advantage over their white neighbors; punishment of any kind being prohibited by law, and their "tender thoughts" and "young ideas" are spared the painful necessity of
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NEVADO DE TOLUCA
being taught to "shoot" by the aid and persuasive eloquence of a hickory switch.
By means of tram-cars, we made a charming trip to the Hacienda de la Huerta (plantation of the Garden), the most productive in the Valley of Toluca. We ascended a hundred feet to the mile for nine miles, and shivered with cold as we went. The hacienda is at the foot of the Nevado de Toluca, a perpetually snow-capped mountain, which aided us in the delusion that we had entered the arctic regions.