work. The children, all speaking; at once, were learning to spell out of some old bills of Congress. Several moral sentences were written on the wall in very independent orthography. Cn having remarked to the master that they were ill-spelt, he seemed very much astonished, and even inclined to doubt the fact. I thought it was one of those cases where ignorance is bliss, and fear the observation may have cost the young man a night's rest.
A row of grinning skulls was ranged round the wall of the church-yard, and the sexton, who gave us admittance to the church, taking up one to shew it off, it all crumbled into dust, which filled the air like a cloud.
At the posada they gave us rancid sheep's milk, cheese, and biscuits so hard that Cn asked the host, if they were made in the same year with the church, at which he seemed mightily pleased, and could not stop laughing till we got into the carriage.
Soon after leaving San Juan, we were met by the Señora de , in an open carriage, coming with her children to meet us, and though she had travelled since sunrise from her hacienda, she appeared as if freshly dressed for an evening party; her dress, amber-colored crape, trimmed with white blonde, short sleeves and décoltée; a set of beautiful Neapolitan strawberry-coral, set in gold, straw-colored satin shoes, and a little China crape shawl, embroidered in bright flowers; her hair dressed and uncovered.
We stopped at their hacienda of Sopayuca, an old house, standing solitarily in the midst of great fields of maguey. It has a small deserted garden adjoining,
