A DESERTED HACIENDA, 



203 



ed, and not a person in sight. Moving on to the 

 high stone structure forming the platform of the well, 

 I saw a little boy, dressed in a straw hat, dozing on 

 an old horse, which was creeping round with the 

 well-beam, drawing in broken buckets a slow stream 

 of water, for which no one came. At sight of me 

 he rose from the neck of his horse, and tried to stop 

 him, but the old animal seemed so used to going 

 round that he could not stop, and the little fellow 

 looked as if he expected to be going till some one 

 came to take him off. All had gone to the fiesta, 

 and were now swelling the great crowd I had left 

 in the village. It was an immense change from the 

 thronged fair to the solitude of this desolate hacien- 

 da. I sat down under a large seybo tree overshad- 

 owing the well, and ate a roll of bread and an or- 

 ange, after which I strolled back to the gate, and, to 

 my surprise, found only one horse. My guide had 

 mounted his and returned to his hacienda. I walk- 

 ed into the factory, returned to the well, and at- 

 tempted speech with the boy, but the old horse 

 started forward and carried him away from me ; I 

 lay down on the platform of the well ; the creaking 

 of the beam served as a sort of lullaby, and I had 

 made such progress that I was not very eager to be 

 interrupted, when an Indian lad arrived, who had 

 been hunted up by my missing guide, and directed 

 to show me the ruins. This fact, however, he 

 would not have been able to communicate, but, for- 

 tunately, he was accompanied by an Indian who 



