Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/73

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ROUGH RIDING.
69

VIEW OF ORIZABA.

and the stage reels to and fro among the stones and pits like a very drunken man, and the passengers follow its example. A half mile of such a tumble and we strike the pavement, which is not much better. The whipped-up mules fly over its boulders, and we jump up and down like a small boy on a high-trotting horse. The street is long—very long it seems to us—the houses of one story, and of no especial beauty that we could see in our unseemly dancing.

At last, "after much turmoil," we fly ferociously up to a long high wall, pierced with long high windows, well protected with long high bars, a single story, and striped prettily in fancy colors. At the big portal we stop, with a jounce worse than all that preceded, and beggars of every degree welcome us to the Hotel Diligencias of Orizaba. How they whine and grin and show off their horrid