difference of level between the lake and the plain that surrounds it, that the slightest rise in the height of the water makes an immense difference in the size of the lake; and even a strong wind will drive the water over great tracts of ground, from which it retires when the gale ceases.  It must have been this, or something similar, that set Cortes upon writing home to Spain that the lakes were like inland seas, and even had tides like the ocean.  Of course, this impregnation with salts is ruinous to the soil, which will produce nothing in such places but tufts of coarse grass; and the shores of the lake are the most dismal districts one can imagine.  All the lakes, however, are not so salt as Tezcuco; Chalco, for instance, is a fresh-water lake, and there the fertility of the shores is very great, as I have already had occasion to notice.

As soon as the novelty of this kind of travelling had worn off, we began to find it dull, and retired under our awning to breakfast and bitter beer; which latter luxury, thanks to a suitable climate and an English brewer, is very well understood in Mexico, and is even accepted as a great institution by the Mexicans themselves.

We were just getting into a drowsy state, when an unusual bustle among the crew brought us out of our den, and we found that three hours of assiduous poling had taken us half-way across the lake, just six miles—­a good test of the value of the Aztec system of navigation.  Here was a wooden cross set up in the water; and here, from time out of mind, the boatmen have been used to sing a little hymn to the Madonna, by whose favour we had got so far, and hoped to get safe to the end of our voyage.  Very well they sang it too, and the scene was as striking as it was unexpected to us.  It seemed to us, however, to be making a great matter of crossing a piece of water only a few feet deep; but Mr. Millard assured us, that when a sudden gale came on, it was a particularly unpleasant place to be afloat in a Mexican canoe, which, being flat-bottomed, has no hold at all on the water, and from its shape is quite unmanageable in a wind.  He himself was once caught in this way, and kept out all night, with a “heavy sea” on the lake, the boat drifting helplessly, and threatening to overturn every moment, and that in places where the water was quite deep enough to drown them all.  The Indians lost their heads entirely, and throwing down their poles fell on their knees, and joined in the chorus with the women and children and the rest of the helpless brown people, beating their breasts, and presenting medals and prints of our Lady of Guadalupe to each wave as it dashed into them.  The wind dropped, however, and Mr. Millard got safe to Tezcuco next morning; but, instead of receiving sympathy for his misfortunes when he got there, found that the idea of a tempest on the lake was reckoned a mere joke, and that the drawing-room of the Casa Grande had been decorated with a fancy portrait of himself, hanging to the half-way cross, with his legs in the water, and underneath, a poetical description of his sufferings to the tune of “Malbrouke s’en va-t-en guerre, ne sais quand reviendra.”