The Enchanted Lake lies near, reflecting in its translucent depths the tropic growths surrounding it, and suggesting the romantic and shadowy traditions of the past.
Two hundred Indian aborigines constitute the entire population of San Pablo. They live by tilling the soil in the old-time honest way. The parents of Benito Juarez cultivated their few acres and tended their cattle with the rest, in happy equality. Amid these primitive surroundings the champion of Mexican independence and reform, on March 21, 1806, first saw the light. He never knew a mother's love, she having died at his birth, leaving him to the care of his grandmother and uncle. Here he lived until he was twelve years of age, and was so thoroughly an Indian that not one word of Spanish had ever passed his lips.
About this time he attracted the attention of a worthy citizen of Oaxaca, who took him into his service, and recognizing the boy's talents, determined to give him the best possible educational advantages. He placed him in the ecclesiastical seminary, with a view to the priesthood, but finding that profession repugnant to his tastes, within a year he threw off the robes and turned to the law. He entered the college of Oaxaca, where he pursued his legal studies, teaching at the same time. Here he graduated with honors, and in 1834 was admitted to the bar. During these years he distinguished himself in every branch of study, and his conduct was most exemplary.
He did not long pursue the practice of law, but devoted himself to political affairs. Quite early he began to study the welfare of his country, being deeply imbued with a sense of the importance of a radical change in affairs. The Conservatives imprisoned him for his outspoken utterances, but the effect was to add strength to his vigorous thought.
In 1842 he became chief justice of the Republic, which office he held for three years. He was made governor of his own State in 1847, and remained so until 1852, on every possible occasion introducing liberal measures and useful reforms. As a determined enemy to des-
