in his sacerdotal dress. Such an instance of courtesy towards heretics, was too remarkable not to be most gratefully acknowledged, and we remained for some time receiving and returning compliments, to the great edification of a crowd of by-standers, who all regarded us with intense curiosity. We did not reach Nŏpălūcă till dusk, when we found excellent quarters at the house of one of the Regidores of the town, Don Raymundo Gŏnsālĕz, whose wife and three daughters were all employed in preparing supper for us, with their own fair hands. We were much pleased with the appearance of the town, which is clean and pretty: the houses are indeed, only built of Tapia, or rammed earth; but as the walls are kept white-washed, and in good repair, there is nothing to denote the humble materials of which they are formed. The land about the town is subdivided into a multiplicity of small enclosures, which it was quite pleasing to see once more, after the deserts over which our eyes had been roaming for two whole days. They indicated habits of industry, of which we had seen but few traces; for in the Tierra Caliente, it was rather the bounty of Nature, than the exertions of the inhabitants, that we had found cause to admire: their indolence seemed to increase exactly in the same ratio, as the facility with which their wants were supplied. But on the Table-land, the necessaries of life are not to be obtained without some efforts: the fertility of the soil is great, but it requires the hand of the culti-
