jeopardy every hour. But the jeopardy is no worse than it was in England a century ago, when Dick Turpin reigned, and John Wesley traveled. Methodism will help do for this country yet what she helped mightily to do for England; make it safe everywhere. There are three prayers a day all over the land by all the people, and life is not safe three miles from any town. Yet it should be also said that most of the people are not robbers in act or sympathy. They are toiling, law-abiding, obedient, respectful. I have seen no Indian that looked ugly or dangerous. They treat you with great respect, take off their hats as you pass them on the road, and say, Bueno dios, señor, or Adios,señor, in the most courteous manner. The robbers are of their complexion, but not of their nature. These are getting less and less. They were created by poverty and politics, and with the cessation of pronunciamentos and the coming in of railroads they will die.
The Valley of San Juan is one of the loveliest I have ever seen. Irrigated by the rivers that come from the hills in the edge of Tierras Calientes, it glows in green as perfect as Cortez's emeralds. For more than twenty miles its enchantments lie under the eye. Trees are sprinkled over it; haciendas glitter here and there, white ships anchored in a green sea. There was one field of wheat which was not less than a hundred acres of level and rich color. I would say two hundred acres did I not wish to keep within bounds. This was a bit only of the big farm. Two of these haciendas belong to one man. They contain severally twelve square leagues, or over thirty square miles, and twenty-two square leagues, or about sixty square miles. They are called Ajuchitlan cito and Ajuchitlan grande, or small and great Ajuchitlan. Rodriquez y Helquera is the fortunate, or unfortunate, possessor of these vast tracts—well on to half the valley, and which ownership makes the people poor and robbers.
We pass two miserable villages, Arroyasecca and Sauz, fringing the magnificent fields with the rags of humanity, and stop at Colorado, the chief robber haunt, whose scowling gentry are sitting round a beer-table, or its Mexican equivalent, a pulqui stand. No
