432 SANTA CRUZ TO LA MAGDALENA. 
one of the streets, the whole distance not exceeding 
a quarter of a mile, the image was carried back to 
the church and laid on the shelf until the next year ; 
and so the grand fiesta ended. 
We dined to-day with our Castilian friend, Sefior 
Gonzales; and at his house we met several Mexican 
gentlemen, among them Don Ilarion Garcia, whom we 
saw at our camp on the San Pedro. 
La Magdalena is the best built town we had yet 
seen; the houses are chiefly of adobe, though some 
are of brick, and nearly all are stuccoed and white- 
washed. Many are colored yellow and otherwise 
ornamented, in a manner exhibiting considerable taste. 
The permanent population does not exceed fifteen 
hundred souls, which number, during the days of the 
festival of San Francisco, is swelled to ten or twelve 
thousand. 
