Mr. Christy sat up till daybreak to see me off, filling up his time by writing letters and pressing plants.  When I was gone, he lay down in his bed, in rather a dreamy state of mind, looking up at the ceiling.  There was a large beam just above his head, and at one side of it a hole, which struck him as being a suitable place for a scorpion to come out of.  This idea had come into his head from the sight of the specimen in the tumbler on the table, who had with great difficulty been drowned in aguardiente.  Presently something moved in the hole, and the spectator below instantly became wide awake.  Then came out a claw and a head, and finally the body and tail of a very fine scorpion, two inches and a half long.  It was rather an awkward moment, for it was not safe to move suddenly, for fear of startling the creature, whose footing seemed anything but secure; and if he fell, he would naturally sting whatever he might come in contact with.  However, he met with no accident on his way, and getting into another hole, about a yard off, he drew up his tail after him and disappeared.  Mr. Christy slipped out of his bed with a sense of considerable relief; and having ascertained that there were no holes in the ceiling above the bed on the other side of the room, he turned in there, and went comfortably to sleep.

My only companion in the Diligence was a German shopman from Vera Cruz, who was sociable, but not of an instructive turn of conversation.  When we had descended for a few hours, the heat became intolerable.  Scarcely any habitation but a few Indian cane-huts by the way-side, with bananas and palm-trees.  We stopped, about three in the afternoon, at a rancho in a small village, and did not start again until next morning, a little before day-break.  Negroes and people of negro descent began to abound in this congenial climate.  I remember especially the waiting-maid at the rancho, who was a “white negress,” as they are called.  Her hair and features showed her African origin; but her hair was like white wool, and her face and hands were as colourless as those of a dead body.  This animated corpse was healthy enough, however; and this peculiarity of the skin is, it seems, not very uncommon.

The coast-regions through which I was passing abound in horned cattle, but they are mostly far away from the high-roads.  In spite of the intense heat of the climate they thrive as well as in the higher lands.  Some are tolerably tame, and are kept within bounds by the vaqueros; but the greater proportion, numbering tens of thousands, roam wild about the country.  In comparison with these cattle of the tierra caliente, the fiercest beasts of the plateaus are safe and quiet creatures.  The only way of bringing them into the corral is by using tame animals for decoys, just as wild elephants are caught.

Our man Martin, who had once been a vaquero on the Vera Cruz coast, used to look upon the bulls of the high lands with great contempt.  If you chase them they run away, he said.  If you lazo a bull of the hot country, you have to gallop off with all your might, with the toro close at your heels; and, if the horse falls, it may cost his life or his rider’s.