My companion sent to the Art-exhibition at Manchester a couple of pairs of the ordinary spurs of the country, such as we ourselves and everybody else wore. They were put among the mediæval armour, and excited great admiration in that capacity!
We slept at Nopalucán that night, and rode on next day to San Antonio de Abajo, a little out-of-the-way village at the foot of the mountain of Orizaba. Our principal adventure in the day’s ride was that, finding that our road made a détour of a mile or so round a beautiful piece of green turf, we boldly struck across it, and nearly lamed our horses thereby; for the ground was completely undermined by moles, and at every third step the horses’ feet went into a deep hole. We had to get off and lead them back to the road.
Orizaba is the great feature in the scenery of this district of Mexico. It is one point in the line of volcanos which stretches across the continent from east to west. It is a conical mountain, like Popocatepetl, and about the same height; measurements vary from twenty feet higher to sixty feet lower. The crater has fallen in on