174 MEXICO. 
and where you require no covering except to shelter you in sleep and 
showers, you may readily imagine that the dwellings of the people are 
exceedingly slight. A few canes stuck on end, and a thatch of cane, 
complete them. 
But the broad-leaved plantain, the thready pride of China, the feath- 
ery palm, bending over them, and matted together by lacing vines and 
creeping plants covered with blossoms — these form the real dwellings. 
The whole, in fact, would look like a picture from Paul and Virginia — 
but for the figures ! Unkempt men, indolent and lounging ; begrimed 
women, surrounded by a set of naked little imps as begrimed as they; 
and all crawling or rolling over the filth of their earthen floors, or on 
dirty hides stretched over sticks for a bed. A handful of corn, a bunch 
of plantains, or a pan of beans picked from the nearest bushes, is their 
daily food ; and here they burrow, like so many animals, from youth to 
manhood, from manhood to the grave. 
After leaving the city, our road lay for some distance along the high 
table-land, and at length struck into the glen which passes from the west 
of Cuernavaca, where, for tlie first time in Mexico, I actually lost the 
high-road. Imagine the channel of a mountain-stream down the side of 
an Alleghany mountain, with its stones chafed out of all order, and 
many of them worn into deep clefts by the continual tread of mules fol- 
lowing each other, over one path, for centuries. This was the main turn- 
pike of the country to the port of Acapulco, and several of our party 
managed to continue on horseback while descending the ravine ; but out 
of respect both for myself and the animal I bestrode, I dismounted, and 
climbed over the rocks and gullies to the bottom of the glen, where we 
crossed a swift stream on a bridge. Ascending from this to the ridge on 
the opposite side, in rather a scrambling manner, we entered the domain 
of the hacienda* of Temisco, the buildings of which we shortly reached 
after passing through an Indian village, where most of the laborers on 
the estate reside. 
This is one of the oldest establishments of note in the Republic, and 
passed, not many years since, into the hands of the present owners for the 
sum of -$300,000. The houses (consisting oi" the main dwelling, a large 
chapel, and all the requisite out-buildings for grinding the cane and re-> 
fining the sugar,) were erected shortly after the conquest, and their walls 
bear yet the marks of the bullets with which the refractory owner was 
assailed during one of the numerous revolts in Mexico. He stood out 
stoutly against the enemy, and mustering his faithful Indians within the 
walls of his court-yard, repulsed the insurgents. 
* " Hacienda," is the name given fo all estates or plantations in contradistinction to "' Rancho," a farm. 
