from the Prima Donna down to the Joueur du fagote, and even to the tailor who makes the opera dresses, and his wife. This rich padre, it is said, spends a great part of his fortune in entertaining actors and singers. La Castellan, (permission to that effect having been obtained from the manager, for it is against their agreement to perform in private houses,) sang several airs to the piano, with much expression, especially from Robert le Diable; and Nina Pazza per Amore; but I prefer her voice in the theatre. She is not at all beautiful, but has a charming face, with a very musical expression.
We returned home by moonlight, the most flattering medium through which Mexico can be viewed; with its broad and silent streets, and splendid old buildings, whose decay and abandonment are softened by the silvery light; its ancient churches, from which the notes of the organ occasionally come pealing forth, mingled with faint blasts of music borne on the night wind from some distant procession; or with the soft music of a hymn from some neighboring convent. The white-robed monk—the veiled female—even the ragged beggar, adds to the picture; by daylight his rags are too visible. Frequently, as the carriages roll along to the Opera, or as, at a late hour, they return from it, they are suddenly stopped by the appearance of the mysterious coach, with its piebald mules, and the Eye surrounded by rays of light on its panels; a melancholy apparition, for it has come from the house of mourning, probably from the bed of death. Then, by the moonlight, the kneeling figures on the pavement seem as if carved
