tunately found an excellent Venta, about four o'clock, and waited with great anxiety for the appearance of the coach, which was expected to arrive before ten. Midnight came, but nothing was heard of it; and at three in the morning Mrs. Ward became so uneasy for want of her child, which was still at the breast, that I resolved to go myself in search of it on horseback. I accordingly set off with one servant, well armed, (for our host had been alarming us with stories of robbers,) and after a gallop of twenty miles I found our unfortunate coach just where we had left it on the preceding morning. The wheel sent from San Juan did not fit the axle, and they had been forced to carry the old wheel to a Hacienda about five leagues off, where there was a carpenter's shop, in order to get it repaired. As there was little hope that this would be speedily effected, I took the youngest child from its nurse, and making a sort of scarf with a Tapalo, or long Indian shawl that she lent me, I deposited in it my little charge, and having secured it still farther with a silk sash, I put my horse into a gentle canter, and took once more the road to the town. The child was a good deal astonished at first with the novelty of its situation, but the motion put it to sleep, and, with an occasional squall or two, we reached Săn Juan in perfect safety about nine o'clock, after a ride rather longer than it often falls to the lot of a little creature of five months old to undertake. The carriage did not come in till two in the afternoon, the poor mules being quite
