PEROTE. 21 
On one side of the gateway is the fonda, or eating part of the establish- 
ment, where two or three women were employed cooking sundry strange 
looking messes. We signified our hunger, and wexe soon called to table. 
Several officers of the garrison, as well as the stage-load coming from 
. Mexico, were there before us. The cooking had been done with char- 
coal, over furnaces, and the color of the cooks, their clothes, the food, 
and the hearth was identical ; a warning, as in France, never to enter the 
kitchen before meals. The meats had been good, but were perfectly be- 
devilled by the culinary imps. Garlic, onions, grease, chile, and God 
knows what of other nasty compounds, had flavored the food like nothing 
else in the world but Perote cookery. We tasted, however, of every dish, 
and that taste answered to allay appetite if not to assuage hunger ; espe- 
cially as the table-cloth had served many a wayfarer since its last wash- 
ing, (if it had ever been washed,) and had, besides, doubtless been used 
for duster, (if they ever dust.) The waiter, too, was a boy, in sooty rao-s, 
who hardly knew the meaning of a plate, and had never heard of other 
forks but his fingers. 
Disgusted, as you may well suppose we were with this supper, I did 
not remain long at table. We were a set of baulked, hungry men, and 
withal, tired and peevish. I put my face for a moment outside of the gate, 
to take a walk, as the night was beautiful ; but S pulled me back 
again, with a hmt at the notorious reputation of Perote. It was not 
eight o'clock, but the town was already still as death. Its population had 
slunk home to their cheerless dwellings, and the streets were as deserted 
as those of Pompeii, save where a ragged rascal now and then skulked 
along in the shadow of the houses, buried up in his broad- brimmed som- 
brero and dirty blanket. 
We therefore at once retired to our cells ; I threw myself on the bed 
wrapped in my cloak, in dread of a vigorous attack from the fleas, and 
slept without^ moving until the driver called us at midnight to start for 
Puebla. Being already dressed, I required no time for my toilet, and I 
doubt much if hair-brushes, orris tooth-powder, or the sweet savors of the 
Rue Vivienne, were ever thought of by a parting guest at Perote ! 
In half an hour we were once more in the coach galloping out of the 
town, followed by three dragoons furnished by the officer we had met at 
supper, who seemed to entertain as poor an opinion as we did of this 
citadel of vagabondism. 
Although the sky had been clear and the stars were shining brightly 
when we retired to bed, a mist was now hanging in low clouds over the 
plain. The road was, however, smooth and level, and we scampered 
along nimbly, fear adding stings to our coachman's lash, inasmuch as he 
was the driver of a diligence that had been robbed last spring, and had 
received a ball between his shoulders, from the effects of which he had 
just sufficiently recovered to drive on his first trip since the conflict. 
We galloped during the whole night, stopping only for a moment to change 
horses ; nor did we meet a living thing except a pack of jackals, that 
