Three or four dirty fellows stood round as we alighted, wrapped in their serapes—great woollen blankets, the universal wear of the Mexicans of the plateaus. One end of the serape was thrown across from shoulder to shoulder, and hid the lower part of their faces; and the broad-brimmed Mexican sombrero was slouched over their eyes; we particularly disliked the look of them as they stood watching us and our baggage going into the inn. A few minutes after, we returned to the court-yard to complete our observation of them, but they were all gone.
A party of Spaniards and Mexicans were at the other table in the sala when we marched in, and as soon as we had taken off the edge of our fierce hunger, we began to compare notes with them.
“Had a pleasant journey from Mexico?”
They all answered at once, delighted to find an audience to whom to tell their sorrows, as men always are under such circumstances. It appeared that they had reached Huamantla an hour or two before us, and to their surprise and delight no robbers had appeared. But between the outskirts of the town and the inn, the cords behind the diligence were cut, and every particle of luggage had disappeared.
At the inn-gate they got out and discovered their loss. They set upon the Administrador of the diligence-company, who sympathized deeply with them, but had no more substantial comfort to offer. They declared the driver must have been an accomplice, and the driver was sent for, for them to wreak their fury upon. He appeared with his mouth full of beans, and told them, as soon as he could speak, that they ought to be very thankful they had come off so easily, and, looking at them with an expression of infinite disgust, returned to his supper; they followed his example, and seemed to have at last found consolation in hot dishes and Catalan wine. It was wonderful to hear of the fine things that were in the lost portmanteaus,—the rings, the gold watches, the rouleaux of dollars, the “papers of the utmost importance.”