place or people sink so low or soar so high as to get out of the reach of alcohol. We do not admire their looks or their bamboo like homes. Both are as bad as bad can be. It is hardly possible to make these men better till their condition is bettered. Grace is needed here, and then will come law, protection, progress. These horrid huts must first have family prayers, and then they will have goodly apparel, books, comfort, small farms of their own out of these broad farms, and true prosperity. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into this harvest.
This is the favorite robber haunt along the road. Stages are frequently overhauled between here and Queretaro. Only yesterday was there such a visit to the coach. Though government troops in large numbers are lazily lounging in that city, and though a few score of riders could clean out the whole pest, yet they are undisturbed, and the travelers are left to the cruelty of their tender mercies.
As we enter their paveless street, they eye us from under the coats of dirt upon their faces, and evidently reckon on some game in that stage for their rifles. When the mules are changed, the driver rushes from the stables with the usual whirl and mad display with which he enters and leaves the towns. But in this case it is evident that his scare adds wings to his speed. We fly through the village and in among the stunted oaks of a moderate hill-slope, up the rough road, hardly abating our speed, for such oaks are splendid for ambuscade, and we scarcely walk our tired mules until we emerge from the last low thicket that overhangs the valley and the city of Queretaro. The meadows of St. John are gone with their beauty, not unlike that of the St. John at Cambridge, England. The sun is setting in our eyes, sending a blaze like that of a furnace into the clouds he is looking down upon. What would not Turner have given to have seen that copper-smelting glow? No tint of canvas could approach it.
Far down the steep incline lies the city. One seldom sees a lovelier sight than this. We run down, over rocks and boulders, the terrible road knocking the passengers, if not the coach, to
