TLACOLULA. 



55 



he was guilty of having meditated the most culpable 

 homicide. For my part they looked to me far too much 

 like distant family connections, to allow me for an instant 

 to harbour the wish of taking away their lives. 



The church of Tlacolula, a dingy stone structure, stands 

 prominently in the middle of the valley. 



These Indian villages, though they have ostensibly the 

 power of self-government in matters relating to them- 

 selves, as the alcades and other petty functionaries are 

 appointed from the inhabitants, are in fact governed by 

 the priest, who here, as elsewhere, is of the mixed race ; 

 and a fiery, fagot-bearing, heretic-hating, determined, 

 beetle-browed clerk, we found the Cura of Tlacolula to 

 be. I thought him very much inclined to act the in- 

 quisitor with us, till he discovered that we were ex- 

 tremely inoffensive and civilly inclined, and able to fur- 

 nish him with a bonus of percussion caps, which he 

 greedily coveted and obtained, after which he gave us 

 his blessing, and left us to pass the night in peace.* 



So far we had come without any great degree of 

 trouble, or any more serious contretems than such as 

 we might well have expected. Our preconceived good 

 opinion of Espindola had never been shaken for an in- 

 stant ; and our respect for and our confidence in him 

 grew day by day. His mules, though of various tempers, 

 were strong and good, and did their work well. He 

 generally led the youngest and giddiest by the lasso, and 

 the rest followed in their order. The art of packing 

 a mule is quite a science ; and it was singular to see, 

 how, after the first day's trial — when the trial was made, 

 which of the heterogeneous and multiform objects com- 

 posing our baggage would ride best in company, or were 



* There exists more than one mode of reaching the village of Tlaco- 

 lula from Tampico ; and I am inclined to think a yet shorter than that 

 described, viz., by Los Huevas, the village of Tantayanca and La Pesca, 

 which, by the calculation of the author of " Notes on Mexico," brings 

 you here in seven days, and after a journey of fifty-three leagues. 



We had been up to this evening also seven days on the road from 

 Tampico Alta, and had come, by our arriero's computation, fifty-nine 

 leagues. But our object was to go the most picturesque road, and that 

 we undoubtedly did. 



