and for sand they have a substitute, which I never heard of or saw anywhere else. It seems that a short distance from Tezcuco there is a deposit of hydrated silica, which is brought down in great blocks by the Indians; and this, when calcined, answers the purpose perfectly, as there is scarcely any iron in it. In its natural state it resembles beeswax in colour.
It is worth while to describe the Casa Grande, which is strikingly different from our European notions of the “great house” of the village. As we enter by the gate, we find ourselves in a patio—an open quadrangle surrounded by a covered walk—a cloister in fact, into which open the rooms inhabited by the family.
The second quadrangle, which opens into the first, is devoted to stables, kitchen, &c. The outer wall which surrounds the whole is very thick, and the entire building is built of mud bricks baked in the sun, and has no upper storey at all.
It is a Pompeian house on a large scale, and suits the climate perfectly. The Aztec palaces we read so much of were built in just the same way. The roofs slope inwards from the sides of the quadrangle, and drain into the open space in the middle.
One afternoon, a tremendous tropical rain-storm showed us how necessary it was to have the covered walk round the quadrangle raised considerably above this open square in the middle, which a few minutes of such rain converted into a pond.
As for ourselves, we spent many very pleasant days at the Casa Grande, and thoroughly approved of the arrangement of the house, except that the four corners of the patio were provokingly alike, and the doors of the rooms also, so that we were as much bothered as the captain of the forty thieves to find our own doors, or any door except Mr. Millard’s, whose name was indicated—with more regard to pronunciation than spelling—with a 1 and nine 0’s chalked on it.