I mentioned the water-bottles as part of our equipment.  They are gourds, which are throttled with bandages while young, so as to make them grow into the shape of bottles with necks.  Then they are hung up to dry; and the inside being cleaned out through a small hole near the stalk, they are ready for use, holding two or three pints of water.  A couple of inches of a corn-cob (the inside of a ear of Indian corn) makes a capital cork; and the bottle is hung by a loop of string to the pummel of the saddle, where it swings about without fear of breaking.  One may see gourds, prepared in just the same way, in Italy, hanging up under the eaves of the little farm-houses, among the festoons of red and yellow ears of Indian corn; and indeed the gourd-bottle is a regular institution of Southern Europe.

We sent Antonio on with the horses to Cuernavaca, and started by the Diligence early one morning, accompanied by one of our English friends, whom I will call—­as every-one else did—­Don Guillermo.  It is the regular thing here, as in Spain, to call everybody by his or her Christian name.  You may have known Don Antonio or Don Felipe for weeks before you happen to hear their surnames.

The road ran at first over the plain, among great water-meadows, with herds of cattle pasturing, and fields of wheat and maize.  Ploughing was going on, after the primitive fashion of the country, with two oxen yoked to each plough.  The yoke is fastened to the horns of the oxen, and to the centre of the yoke a pole is attached.  At the other end of this pole is the plough itself, which consists of a wooden stake with an iron point and a handle.  The driver holds the handle in one hand and his goad in the other (a long reed with an iron point), and so they toil along, making a long scratch as they go.  A man follows the plough, and drops in single grains of Indian corn, about three feet apart.  The furrows are three feet from one another, so that each stalk occupies some nine square feet of ground.  When the plants are growing up they dig between them, and heap up round each stalk a little mound of earth.

We passed many little houses consisting of one square room, built of mud-bricks, with mud-mortar stuck full of little stones; without windows, but generally possessing the luxury of a chimney, with a couple of bricks forming an arch over it to keep out the rain.  Glimpses of men smoking cigarettes at the doors, half-naked brown children rolling in the dirt, and women on their knees inside, hard at work grinding the corn for those eternal tortillas.

At San Juan de Dios Mr. Christy climbed to the top of the Diligence, behind the conductor, who sat with a large black leather bag full of stones on the footboard before him.  Whenever one of the nine mules showed a disposition to shirk his work, a heavy stone came flying at him, always hitting him in a tender place, for long practice had made the conductor almost as good a shot as the goat-herds in the mountains, who are said to be able to hit their goats on whichever horn they please, and so to steer them straight when they seem inclined to stray.  But our conductor simply threw the stones, whereas the goat-herd uses the aloe-fibre honda, or sling, that one sees hanging by dozens in the Mexican shops.