there was a Madonna hanging on one wall, and a Saint looking at her from the other; and against a door near the foot of my bed, stood a rocking-chair, which on my conscience I believe must have been worth at least a dollar and a half.  As the door was fastened up, this rocking-chair was the favorite resort of my first morning visitor, all subsequent callers having to choose between the window-sill, the matting, and the bedstead.

’As for the neatness and cleanliness of my sanctum, it was marvelous—­for Mexico.  I don’t remember ever seeing more than ten scorpions at one time there, and two or three tarantulas on the ceiling were too much a matter of course to attract notice.  Still, I had been so long away from civilized society, and endured so many privations, that I confess, notwithstanding the attractions that my home offered, I spent but little of my time there, for I was warmly received by several American families, and gladly availed myself of their hospitality and friendly attentions.  To own the honest truth, ere a month had elapsed, I had so well compensated myself for past privations, that I had a serious attack of illness.

’To this illness was I indebted for my second interview with my worthy landlady, Donna Teresa Lopez, who had been invisible since the day on which my lucky stars first guided me to her roof.  This worthy woman, who was somewhere between forty and sixty years of age, (Mexican women, be it understood, when once they pass thirty, enter on a career of the most ambiguous antiquity,) had two branches of business, of which she claimed a thorough knowledge—­tobacco and medicine.  My sickness, therefore, was to her a source of intense gratification.  She was everlastingly bringing me some new remedy of her own invention, in spite of which, thanks be to God, and a good constitution, I at length rallied, and grew gradually convalescent.

’One night, while lying half-asleep and half-awake, dreamily promising myself, if the weather were favorable on the morrow, that I would venture out of doors, I fancied I heard a voice, muttering words in my own mother tongue.  I rose, and resting on my elbow, listened attentively—­but then a profound silence reigned around me.  Persuaded, that feeble as I still was, I had mistaken a dream for a reality, I languidly let my head fall back upon my pillow.  Scarcely a minute, however, had elapsed, ere a voice whose tone denoted anguish and distress, and which seemed to come from the middle of the room, exclaimed, in distinct English:  ’My God! my God! take pity on my anguish, and in mercy help me!’

’Assured this time that I was no longer dreaming, I started up again, and laboring under much excitement, cried out:  ‘Who is there?’

’Again all was perfectly silent.  Just as I was about to jump out of bed and explore the mystery, my eye fell upon a faint streak of light, which glimmered through a crack in the door behind my rocking-chair, near the foot of my bed.  From the same direction, also, came the sound of a nervous, unequal, jerking tread, which fully explained a portion of the mystery.  It was pretty evident, first, that I had a neighbor; secondly, that he spoke English; and thirdly, that he was either a somnambulist or a soliloquist.