flopped it with my handkerchief, and off it popt through a hole in the partition of the room which was composed of matting and broken reed-work, and constituted the head of the bed: whilst imagining what kind of animal it could possibly be, the matting was again slightly raised, and I immediately discovered my mistake:--it was merely the negress's head which had inadvertently borrowed a part of my pillow, placed in close contact with her own on the other side of this moveable partition: I could not be offended with the whimsical tête-à-tête, though it was certainly a very extraordinary intrusion.

We travelled nine leagues without drawing bit, when we stopped at a hamlet, called El Oratorio, to lunch. I confess I was half asleep when I set off, and the servants seemed to be quite so, for they had left the lunch behind them which they had been sitting up all night to dress. We passed through a barrier which appeared like a small turnpike gate, and came on a green

a

lawn, shaded with two or three large trees, under which we reposed, consoling our appetites with maize-fritters, tomates, and other light refreshments which the place afforded. Six leagues from hence, is the village of Los Esclavos, which we reached about five o'clock in the evening; passing over a fine stone bridge of five arches thrown

a foaming cataract rather than a river. This architectural work, which appeared to be the only one that I had seen, since my landing, as a structure worthy of remark, and as testifying the civilization of the country, was erected so late as the year 1792, and repaired in 1810. The village itself is a poor place, consisting, chiefly, of Indians who are employed in agriculture. It was formerly of much greater consequence; and, independently of the bridge, the road in and out of the town is not only good, but has the appearance of being actually kept in repair ;-a circumstance which, I since understood, is, in some mea

a

sure, the fact, and so much the more remarkable, as it is, probably, almost the only road that is repaired throughout the whole of the continent of South America.

On proceeding out of the town towards the capital, you ascend a hill about a mile and a half long, a little winding, with ditches on the sides to carry off the water, and with plastered embankments, surmounted by a railing : it had quite a European look, and only wanted the Brighton Rocket or Birmingham Balloon to come rattling down it at the rate of seventeen miles an hour, to assure you that it was a veritable piece of M‘Adamism. What added to the delusion, on my part, was the meeting with two sportsmen with shootingjackets and guns, who were getting over the fence into the road, as we passed: a boy accompanied them, carrying a fawn which they had just killed, and which we, of course, wished to purchase, seeing that we were in the habit of living chiefly by

pot-luck: our request was ungraciously refused, the object of it being retained and carried off rather in an unmannerly way: it was, doubtlessly, the lord of the manor and his game keepers that we had fallen in with.

CHAPTER IX.

Short notice of the Village of Zuaquiniquiniqui

lapa.--Arrive at the Capital.

To make short of our disappointment, we reached Zuaquiniquiniquilapa, and took possession of a large empty house which occupied one side of the Plaza or grand square. It was a building with a deep viranda in front, ascended by three steps, which ran the whole length of it, and leading into a hall equally long and about half the breadth, which might be about fifteen feet: it was a sort of town hall, and now let out for the accommodation of travellers. The men here wore short white drawers, with a supplementary kind of pouch hanging down behind, below the knees, like a hood fixed on to a regular pair of smallclothes. There seemed to be neither utility nor ornament in this species of dress: the