266 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



mated, and intelligent countenance, manly, and at the 

 same time mild, and belonged to the once powerful 

 order of Franciscan friars, now reduced in this re- 

 gion to himself and a few companions. After the 

 destruction of the convent at Merida, and the scat- 

 tering of the friars, his friends procured for him the 

 necessary papers to enable him to secularize, but he 

 would not abandon the brotherhood in its waning 

 fortunes, and still wore the long blue gown, the cord, 

 and cross of the Franciscan monks. By the regu- 

 lations of his order, all the receipts of his curacy be- 

 longed to the brotherhood, deducting only forty dol- 

 lars per month for himself. With this pittance, he 

 could live and extend hospitality to strangers. His 

 friends urged him to secularize, engaging to procure 

 for him a better curacy, but he steadily refused ; he 

 never expected to be rich, and did not wish to be ; 

 he had enough for his wants, and did not desire 

 more. He was content with his village and with 

 the people ; he was the friend of everybody, and 

 everybody was his friend ; in short, for a man not 

 indolent, but, on the contrary, unusually active both 

 in mind and body, he was, without affectation or 

 parade, more entirely contented with his lot than 

 any man I ever knew. The quiet and seclusion of 

 his village did not afford sufficient employment for his 

 active mind, but, fortunately for science and for me, 

 and strangely enough as it was considered, he had 

 turned his attention to the antiquities of the country. 

 He could neither go far from home, nor be absent 



