my new companions ere I began to feel the want of some amusement to dissipate the ennui attendant upon a slow and monotonous march through a desert country. The captain was assuredly a merry companion, but his jokes were trite and commonplace. The stories and songs of a muleteer who took the lead in that kind of entertainment in our little troop were infinitely more agreeable to me. He was a man of about thirty years of age, called Victoriano. He had traveled this road for several years, and had a story for every halting-place. In the evening, under a starry sky, when the mules, relieved from their burdens, munched their maize under the mantas which served them for a rack; when round the bivouac fires the sentinels mounted guard over the treasure committed to their care, and the other soldiers slept upon their arms, the captain and I always had a new pleasure in listening to Victoriano, whose unflagging spirit found vent in pleasant stories, or in songs accompanied by the mandolin.
I pitied then the travelers I saw whirled along in the diligence like a flash of lightning, their horses galloping at the top of their speed, while the passengers very likely would be pointing us out to their friends as the only remnant existing of the old Mexican manners. A few more vices, I said to myself, and a few less charms, are the only results of this parody of civilization, which, up to the present time, has destroyed every thing and constructed nothing. On these evenings, round our watch-fire, living at once the life of a muleteer and that of a soldier, I still experienced with out alloy, even though on my way to Europe, the feelings incident to life in the Eastern deserts.
Since our departure from Puebla, Acajete, the hacienda of San Juan, Tepeaca, and Santa Gertrudis (for
