clear there. It is hardly hotter in summer than in England, and not even hot enough for the mosquitoes, which are not to be found here though they swarm in the plain below. This warm damp climate changes but little in the course of the year. There are no seasons, in our sense of the word, for spring lasts through the year.
We walked out on the first afternoon of our arrival; and sat on stone seats on a piece of green turf surrounded by trees, that reminded us pleasantly of the village-greens of England. There we talked with the children of an English acquaintance who had been settled for many years in the town, and had married a Mexican lady. They were fine lads; but, as very often happens in such cases, they could only speak the language of the country. Nothing can show more clearly how thoroughly a foreigner yields to the influences around him, when he settles in a country and marries among its people. An Englishman’s own character, for instance, may remain to some extent; but his children are scarcely English in language or in feeling, and in the next generation there is nothing foreign about his descendants but the name.