no robbers had appeared.  But between the outskirts of the town and the inn, the cords behind the diligence were cut, and every particle of luggage had disappeared.  At the inn-gate they got out and discovered their loss.  They set upon the Administrador of the diligence-company, who sympathized deeply with them, but had no more substantial comfort to offer.  They declared the driver must have been an accomplice, and the driver was sent for, for them to wreak their fury upon.  He appeared with his mouth full of beans, and told them, as soon as he could speak, that they ought to be very thankful they had come off so easily, and, looking at them with an expression of infinite disgust, returned to his supper; they followed his example, and seemed to have at last found consolation in hot dishes and Catalan wine.  It was wonderful to hear of the fine things that were in the lost portmanteaus,—­the rings, the gold watches, the rouleaux of dollars, the “papers of the utmost importance.”

I am afraid the Spanish American has not always a very strict regard for truth.

These gentlemen had indeed got off easily, as the driver said; for the last diligence from Vera Cruz, with our steamboat acquaintances in it, had been stopped just outside this very town of Huamantla as they left it before daylight in the morning.  The robbers were but three, but they had plundered the unfortunate travellers as effectually as thirty could have done.  Now, all this was very pretty to hear as a tale, but not satisfactory to travellers who were going by the same road the next morning; and in the disagreeable barrack-room where our beds stood in long lines, we, the nine passengers of the “up” diligence, held a council, standing, like Mr. Macaulay’s senators, and there decided on a most Christian line of conduct—­that when the three bore down upon us, and the muzzle of the inevitable escopeta was poked in at our window, we would descend meekly, and at the command of “boca abajo,” ("mouth downwards,”) we would humiliate ourselves with our noses in the dirt, and be robbed quietly.  Having thus decided beforehand, according to the etiquette of the road, whether we were to fight or submit, and being tired with a long day’s journey, we all turned in, and were fast asleep in a moment.

It seemed that almost directly afterwards the dirtiest man possible came round, and shook us till we were conscious; and we washed in the customary saucers, by the light of a real, flaring, smoking, Spanish lamp with a beak, exactly what the Romans used in Pompeii, except that this is of brass, not bronze.

With our eyes still half-shut we crawled into the kitchen for our morning chocolate, and demanded our bill.  Such a bill!  One of us, a stout Spaniard, sent for the landlord and abused him in a set speech.  The “patron” divested his countenance of every trace of expression, scratched his head through his greasy nightcap, and stood listening patiently.  The stout man grew fiercer and fiercer, and wound up with a climax.  “If we meet with the robbers,” said he, rolling himself up in his great cloak, “we must tell them that we have passed through your worship’s hands, and there is none left for them.”  The landlord bowed gravely, saw us into the diligence, and hoped we should have a fortunate journey, and meet with no novelty on the road.  A “novelty” in Spanish countries means a misfortune.