generally set in together; so that to stay longer would have been too great a risk.
Our first stage was to Tezcuco, across the lake in a canoe, just as we had been before. We noticed on our way to the canoes, a church, apparently from one to two centuries old, with the following doggerel inscription in huge letters over the portico, which shows that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is by no means a recent institution in Mexico:
Antes de entrar afirma con tu vida,
S. Maria fué sin pecado concebida:
Which may be translated into verse of equal quality,
Confess on thy life before coming in,
That blessed Saint Mary was conceived without sin.
Nothing particular happened on our journey, except that a well-dressed Mexican turned up at the landing-place, wanting a passage, and as we had taken a canoe for ourselves, we offered to let him come with us. He was a well-bred young man, speaking one or two languages besides his own; and he presently informed us that he was going on a visit to a rich old lady at Tezcuco, whose name was Doña Maria Lopez, or something of the kind. When we drove away from the other end of the lake, towards Tezcuco, we took him as far as the road leading to the old lady’s house; when he rather astonished us by hinting that he should like to go on with us to the Casa Grande, and could walk back. At the same time, it struck us that the youth, though so well dressed, had no luggage; and we began to understand the queer expression of the coachman’s face when he saw him get into the carriage with us. So we stopped at the corner of the road, and the young gentleman had to get out.
At the Casa Grande, our friends laughed at us immensely when we told them of the incident, and offered us twenty to one that he would come