248 JOURNAL. 
about four o’clock we rode homewards, the distance being four long 
leagues. The tints on the mountains were beautiful to-night, — from 
almost black purple to the purest rose-colour; and there were some 
sudden and deep sounds from the eastward, that might have been the 
falls of avalanches, or the voice of some of the. half-extinguished 
volcanoes in the neighbourhood. 
Don Justo met us about a mile and a half from the house, and on 
our arrival at the door we found two strange cavaliers. One was 
E——, whose gay cheerful spirit makes him welcome every where. He 
introduced to us a man, dressed in the coarsest decent dress of the 
country, by the title of Juan de Bonaventura; a farmer on his own 
estate, and a good man, though unfortunately a tonto, 1. e. a half-witted 
clown. When we entered the house, and I saw the tonto by the full 
light, I thought that nature does indeed sometimes play the huswife, 
in bestowing such a form and such features on one without a mind. 
However, we assembled and took tea, after having changed our riding 
dresses; and Mr. de Roos, Dofia Rosario, and Don Lucas, formed 
one group on the ottoman in the corner, where Don Lucas’s guitar 
and songs made them very merry. Don Jose Antonio and Don Justo 
were not with us, Don Justo not being well. Dotia Ana Maria and I, 
therefore, sat at the table, where she had her work and I my drawing, 
with E and the tonto. We talked of all manner of things, and 
now and then, from civility, I appealed to the handsome fool, whose 
answers were more like Shakspeare’s Touchstone than those of any 
fool I have met: and still I wondered at such a gracious outside, 
where “ every god had seemed to set his seal,” coupled with so weak 
a mind. It made me quite melancholy, and I was glad to go to supper ; 
where Don Lucas’s buffooneries furnished a natural laugh, while 
those forced by the tonto are melancholy ; and I went to bed actually 
sad. 
12th. — On rising to-day, I found that Don Lucas had set off, in 
the fog and rain, for the city, without taking leave of us; so adieu to 
our dancing. I employed the morning in writing up my journal, 
going into the dairy, and making enquiries concerning the tonto, 
