rewards offered for them to the peasants, though they caused dead locusts to be brought by tons, seemed hardly to diminish their numbers.  Firing guns had some slight effect in driving off the swarms of locusts; and in some places the reports of muskets were to be heard, at short intervals, all day long.  Some idea of the destruction caused by the locusts may be formed from the fact that in six weeks they doubled the price of grain in the district.  Fortunately, they only appear in such numbers about once in half a century.

We had ridden a hundred miles over a rough country in the last forty-eight hours, and were glad to get a rest at Orizaba; but on the morning of the third day we were in the saddle again, accompanied by a new friend, the English administrador of the cotton-mill at Orizaba.  Until we left the high-road, the country seemed well cultivated, with plantations of tobacco, coffee, and sugar-cane; but as soon as we turned into by-paths and struck across country, we found woods and grassy patches, but little tilled ground, until we arrived at the Indian village which we had gone out of our way to visit, Amatlan, that is to say, “The place of paper.”

In its arrangement this village was like the one that I have already described, with its scattered huts of canes and palm-leaf thatch; but the vegetation indicated a more tropical climate.  Large fields, the joint property of the community, were cultivated with pine-apples in close rows, now just ripening; and bananas, with broad leaves and heavy clusters of fruit, were growing in the little garden belonging to each hut.  The inhabitants stared at us sulkily, and gave short answers to our questions.  We went to the cottage of the Indian alcalde, who declared that there was nothing to eat or drink in the village, though we were standing in his doorway and could see the strings of plantains hanging to the roof, and the old women were hard at work cooking.  However, when Mr. G. explained who he was, the old man became more placable; and we were soon sitting on mats and benches inside the hut, on the best of terms with the whole village.  The life of these people is simple enough, and not unsuited to their beautiful climate.  The white men have never interfered much with them; and it has been their pride for centuries to keep as much as possible from associating with Europeans, whom they politely speak of as coyotes, jackals.  The priest was a mestizo, and, as the Alcalde said, he was the only coyote in the settlement; but his sacred office neutralized the dislike that his parishioners felt for his race.

These Indian communities always rejoiced in being able to produce for themselves almost everything necessary for their simple wants; but of late years the law of supply and demand has begun to undermine this principle, and the cotton-cloth, spun and woven at home, is yielding to the cheaper material supplied by the factories.  Though so averse to receiving Europeans among them, they do not object to go themselves to work for good wages on the plantations.  Those who leave their native place, however, bring back with them tastes and wants hitherto unknown, and inconsistent with their primitive way of life.