TO XALAPA, 13 
tionmg, besides a table, a dozen chairs, knives, plates and forks, a few 
strings of Weathersfield onions, and flexibility of limbs and countenance 
to grace the thousand shrugs, apologies, compliments, humbug and grim- 
aces necessary to make a successful innkeeper in a Spanish country. 
At Plan our guard left us — as the lieutenant's command extended no 
farther. Our host of the flexible face and productive cookery, insisted 
that there was not much danger, besides which there were no troops on the 
station ; so he bowed us to the coach door, and declared for the fiftieth 
time that he had been delighted to see us, hoped we would not fail to call 
again if we returned, and assured us that he only kept a few choice bottles 
of his claret for such "caballeros " as we were ! 
What with sour wine, sour spirits, and imposition, I doubt much if there 
was ever an angrier coach-load on any highway. We were effectually 
ill-tempered, and we looked to our primings with the full disposition to 
defend ourselves nobly. It would have fared ill with any one who had 
ventured to attack us during our first hour's ride. In addition to this, our 
road, as soon as it left the river, ascended rapidly and passed over a track 
which would in any other country be called the bed of a mountain stream, 
so rough and jagged was its surface. Although it is the duty of the Gov- 
ernment to keep this highway in order, yet as the chief travelling is on 
horseback, and the principal part of merchandise is transported on mules, 
no one cares how these animals get along. Sure-footed and slow, they 
toil patiently am.ong the rents and rocks, and their drivers are too well used 
to the inconveniences to complain. Besides this, in case of insurrections, 
it is better for the roads to be in bad condition, as it prevents easy com- 
munication between the several parts of Mexico, and the disjointed stones 
serve to form, as they have often done, breastworks and forts for the insur- 
gents. 
But over this mass of ruin we were obliged to jolt in the ascent of the 
mountain, during the whole afternoon, meeting in the course of it fifty 
wagons laden with heavy machinery for factories near Mexico. 
I must not forget to mention one redeeming spot in the gloomy even- 
ing. On looking back as we were near the summit of the mountain, 1 
caught a glimpse of the plains and hills over which we had been all day 
toiling. The view was uninterrupted. Before us lay valley upon val- 
ley, in one long graceful descending sweep of woodland and meadow, 
until they dwindled away in the sands to the east, and the whole was 
blent, near the horizon, with the blue waves of the Gulf of Mexico. Just 
then the sun broke out from the region of clouds which we were rapidly 
approaching in our ascent, and gilding, for a moment, the whole lowland 
prospect, I could almost fancy I saw the sparkle of the wave crests as 
they broke on the distant and barren shore. 
At the village on the mountain we could get no guard. This is said 
to be a very dangerous pass ; but the commanding officer told us he had 
been stationed here for two weeks, during which he had scoured the moun- 
tains in every direction, and believed his district to be free from robbers. 
