AGUASCALIENTES, 93 
by the authorities, but appeared to be on fa- 
miliar terms with many of the principal dig- 
nitaries of the city. Notwithstanding all our 
apprehensions, however, we arrived at our 
place of destination without even the novelty 
of an incident to swell our budget of gossip. 
The city of Aguascalientes is beautifully 
situated in a level plain, and would appear 
to contain about twenty thousand inhabitants, 
who are principally engaged in the manufac- 
ture of rebozos and other textures mostly of 
cotton. Assoon as I found myself sufficiently 
at leisure I visited the famous warm spring 
(a70 caliente) in the suburbs, from which the 
city derives itseuphonious name. I followed 
up the aceguia that led from the spriffe—a 
ditch four or five feet wide, through which 
flowed a stream three or four feet in depth. 
The water was precisely of that agreeable 
temperature to afford the luxury of a good 
bath, which I had hoped to enjoy; but every 
few paces [ found men, women, and children, 
submerged in the acequia; and when [ arriv- 
ed at the basin, it was so choked up with 
girls and full-grown women, who were pad- 
dling about with all the nonchalance of a 
gang of ducks, that I was forced to relinquish 
my long-pr treat. 
It had been originally my intention to con- 
tinue on to Leon, another manufacturing town 
some seventy or eighty miles from Aguas- 
calientes; but, hearing that Santa Anna had 
just arived there with a large army, on his | 
way to Zacatecas to quell an insurrection, I 
