tures contrasted strikingly with the vacant faces of the other monks. His face, which sometimes-betrayed painful dejection, sometimes a fanatical joy, reminded me at times of the wonderful legends and dismal stories which I had been reading in the convent library. Was I right in my conjectures about this singular personage? Despairing of success in my endeavors to induce the monk to break silence, I resolved to question Fray Serapio about him; and, with the hope of meeting the jolly Franciscan, I directed my steps to one of the most charming spots in the environs of Mexico, the canal of Viga.
CHAPTER II.
The Viga Canal.
Nowhere in Mexico could there be found a spot which presents an appearance more different, according to the seasons of the year, than the Viga Canal. No place is by turns more solitary or more crowded, more noisy or more silent. This canal, about twenty-four miles long, mixes its waters with the lake on which Chalco stands, and forms a means of transport and communication between that town and Mexico. A broad open road, planted with aspens and poplars, runs along its sleeping waters. If the pedestrian did not observe, at some distance from the highway, the buildings which inclose the bull-ring, and, farther off, the towers of the Cathedral, above which shoot up the two mighty volcanoes of Mexico, he might fancy him self three hundred miles from the city. Some country houses, whose inhabitants are always invisible;
