sand about a league from Veracruz, with the coachmen stretched at full length by the side of their mules, and fast asleep; a measure to which our English servants told me that they had had recourse the very moment that a difficulty occurred in advancing. With the assistance of the guard, means were taken to awaken them; but seeing that it was useless for me to remain, I rode on, leaving a sous officier, and four men to bring them up; and rejoicing to think, that however necessary the carriages might prove in the Capital, all the members of our party were young, and active enough to be able to dispense with them upon the road. Even in the present improved state of the communications, they are a continual source of embarrassment on a journey, for English axletrees are not at all adapted to Mexican roads, and if a wheel or a spring be injured, there is no possibility of getting it repaired: but in 1823, there was hardly a single league between Veracruz and Pĕrōtĕ, in which some vexatious delay did not occur to make us regret that we had burthened ourselves with such incumbrances at all.
We found at Sānta Fē the first specimen of the sort of accommodations that we were to expect on our journey through the Tierra Caliente of Mexico. The village was composed of five or six Indian huts, rather more spacious than some which we afterwards met with, but built of bamboos, and thatched with palm-leaves, with a portico of similar materials before the door. The canes of which the sides are
