It was afternoon when we left Xochicalco and rode on over a gently undulating country, crossing streams here and there, and had our breakfast at Miacatlan under a shed in front of the village shop, where all the activity of the little Indian town seemed to be concentrated.  By the road-side were beautiful tamarind-trees with their dark green foliage, and the mamei-tree as large as a fine English horse-chestnut, and not unlike it at a distance.  On the branches were hanging the great mameis, just like the inside of cocoa-nuts when the inner shell has been cracked off.  It appeared that Nature was not acquainted with M. De La Fontaine’s works, or she would probably have got a hint from the fable of the acorn and the pumpkin, and not have hung mameis and cocoa-nuts at such a dangerous height.

[Illustration:  AZTEC HEAD IN TERRA-COTTA. (From Mr. Christy’s Collection.)]

CHAPTER VIII.

COCOYOTLA.  CACAHUAMILPAN.  CHALMA.  OCULAN.  TENANCINGO.  TOLUCA.

[Illustration:  IXTCALCO CHURCH.]

A little before dark we came to the hacienda of Santa Rosita de Cocoyotla, another sugar-plantation which was to be our head-quarters for some days to come.  We presented our letter of introduction from the owner of the estate, and the two administradors received us with open arms.  We were conducted into the strangers’ sleeping-room, a long barrack-like apartment with stone walls and a stone floor that seemed refreshingly dark and cool; we could look out through its barred windows into the garden, where a rapid little stream of water running along the channel just outside made a pleasant gurgling sound.  Appearances were delusive, however, and it was only the change from the outside that made us feel the inside cool and pleasant.  For days our clothes clung to us as if we had been drowned, and the pocket-handkerchiefs with which we mopped our faces had to be hung on chair-backs to dry.  Except in the early morning, there was no coolness in that sweltering place.

In one corner of our room I discerned a brown toad of monstrous size squatting in great comfort on the damp flags.  He was as big as a trussed chicken, and looked something like one in the twilight.  We pointed him out to the administrador, who brought in two fierce watchdogs, but the toad set up his back and spirted his acrid liquor, and the dogs could not be got to go near him.  We stirred him up with a bamboo and drove him into the garden, but he left his portrait painted in slime upon our floor.

The Indian choir chanted the Oracion as we had heard it the night before at Temisco, and then came the calling over of the raya.  After that we walked about the place, and sat talking in the open corridor.  Owners of estates, and indeed all white folks living in this part of the country were beginning to feel very anxious about their position, and not without reason.  Ordinary political events excite but little