206 MEXICO. 
fields are arid — the grain small and unproductive — and the whole has a 
waste and moor-like appearance. The Indians seem even dirtier, if pos- 
sible, than those we have left behind us, and the patient, mules travel over 
the long and dreary sands as if in a new Arabia. 
Passing through several mud-walled villages, we came at length upon 
the Vera Cruz road and reached the town of Ayotla, seven leagues from 
Mexico, about four in the afternoon. Here we found Pedro waiting for 
us at the door of the inn, having passed through the village of Tenango 
while we were enjoying our tortillas and milk within doors. 
We rest here during part of to-night, and to-morrow at daylight we 
intend to reach home, after a journey of just three hundred miles on 
horseback, without robbery, accident or illness. 
There are no beds for us to-night, so 1 shall stretch myself on the floor 
with my saddle-bags for a pillow. How relative are all our comforts, 
or ideas of comfort ! If a man is really hungry he can eat unbuttered 
bread. If a man is really sleepy he can repose on a floor, and the hard- 
ness of the planks will never wake him. We begin life by finding noth- 
ing soft enough but our mother's bosom — we go on to the cradle — we rise 
to the crib — we aspire to the cot — and, at last, arrive at the dignity of a 
French bedstead with mattress and tambour ! We think we never can 
sleep out of this last extreme of modern comfort — and, scarcely even out 
of our own. Yet nothing is easier. I commenced this journey, little 
more than a week ago, by sleeping on a sacking-bottom — and, after going 
through all the variations of tressels, canes, beds, cots, and hammock, at 
last came down to the floor and my saddle-bags, where I slept just as 
soundly and refreshingly. 
Yet I would recommend every one who is about to travel through the 
tierra caliente, to procure a hammock of Sisal grass. With this, he is 
entirely his own master ; and surely no mode of sleeping is more luxuri- 
ous in a hot climate. You swing it from the rafters of the room — it is 
above the floor, clear of the walls and free from insects — it bends to each 
motion of the body, fitting neatly to every part of your frame — you set it 
in motion, and while it swings you to sleep, it fans and refreshes by its 
gentle waving through the air. 
Besides the beautiful scenery through which I have passed during this 
journey, nothing has impressed me so favorably as the unaffected hospi- 
tality we met with everywhere, whether we came introduced or not. The 
old phrase " Mi casa, Seiior, esta muy a su disposicion :" " My house is 
entirely at your service," was not a phrase of course — a mere formula to 
be gone through and forgotten. Their houses, their animals, their serv- 
