1C6 



MEXICO. 



ing after morning I directed my glass to him, but no per- 

 ceptible vapour dimmed the clear silver outline of his 

 snowy summit. He was at rest, and he may perhaps' 

 sleep for ages. 



LETTER VI. 



We had not been many days in the city of Mexico, 

 when we made the discovery, that notwithstanding the 

 excellent letters of introduction with which we had been 

 furnished in Europe and the United States — as far as 

 the natives of the country were concerned, we should 

 have to be the contrivers of our own amusements. 



It is true, our calls were returned and our cards ac- 

 knowledged. We exchanged compliments ; bartered 

 bows, polite speeches, and grateful acknowledgments, 

 for the boiling-hot, rapturous expressions of ecstasy of 

 our Mexican acquaintances, at the unlooked-for happiness 

 of seeing us in this world. We smiled in delight, in the 

 very extremity of gratitude, at the devotion with which 

 the palaces, the horses, the very lives of our noble male 

 friends, were seemingly placed at our command without 

 any reserve. 



It appeared as if every other duty or pleasure was to 

 be relinquished for the felicity of cultivating our friend- 

 ship. We received a thousand compliments, w r hich the 

 gayest of our European admirers never had the w it to 

 conceive, or the effrontery to utter. On one or two oc- 

 casions, we had the ecstasy of presenting a comely black- 

 eyed dama or signorita with a balmy cigarita; and of 

 receiving it again from her delicate hand, after it had 

 been consecrated by a preliminary whiff. 



And how then ? — why, after the first interview some 

 of the most impassioned of our acquaintances were never 

 again heard of. Others evidently kept out of our way. 

 Two or three who had travelled in Europe were again 



