had fallen during the night, except in the freshness it had imparted to the luxuriant vegetation of the valley.
Before breakfast I sallied forth for a walk over the town. Cuernavaca lies on a tongue of land jutting out into the lap of the valley. On its western side, a narrow glen has been scooped out by the water which descends from the mountains, and its sides are thickly covered with the richest verdure. To the east, the city again slopes rapidly, and then as rapidly rises. I walked down this valley street past the church built by Cortéz, (an old picturesque edifice, filled with nooks and corners,) where they were chanting a morning mass. In the yard of the Palace, or Casa Municipal, at the end of the street, a body of dismounted cavalry soldiers was going through the sword exercise. From this I went to the Plaza in front of it, at present nearly covered with a large wooden amphitheater, that had been devoted to bull fights during the recent national holydays. Around the edges of this edifice, the Indians and small farmers spread out their mats, covered with fine fruits and vegetables of the tierra caliente. I passed up and down a number of the steep and narrow streets, bordered with ranges of one-story houses, open and cool and fronted usually with balconies and porches screening them from the scorching sun. The softer and gentler appearance of the people, as compared with those of the Valley of Mexico, struck me forcibly. The whole has a Neapolitan air. The gardens are numerous and full of flowers. By the street sides, small canals continually pour along the cool and clear waters from the mountains.
At nine o'clock I returned to breakfast, and found it rather better than our last night's supper. While this meal was preparing, I strolled out into the garden back of the hotel.
The house once belonged to a convent, and was occupied by monks; but many years since it was purchased by a certain Joseph Laborde, who played a bold part in the mine-gambling which once agitated the Mexicans with its speculative excitement.
In 1743, Laborde came, as a poor youth, to Mexico, and by a fortunate venture in the mine of the Cañada del Real de Tapujahua, he gained immense wealth. After building a church in Tasco which cost him near half a million, he was suddenly reduced to the greatest misery, both by unlucky speculations, and the failure of mines from which he had drawn an annual revenue of between two and three hundred thousand marks. The Archbishop, however, permitted him to dispose of a golden soleil, enriched with diamonds, which, in his palmy days, he had presented to his church at Tasco; and with the produce of the sale, which amounted to nigh one hundred thousand dollars, he returned once more to Zacatecas. This district was at that period nearly abandoned as a mining country and produced annually but fifty thousand marks of silver. But Laborde immediately undertook the celebrated mine of Quebradilla, and in working it, lost again, nearly all his capital. Yet was he not to be deterred.
