a positive pleasure in possessing and handling guns and pistols, whether they are likely to be of any use or not.  Indeed, while travelling through the western and southern States of America, where such things are very generally carried, I was the possessor of a five-barrelled revolver, and admit that I derived an amount of mild satisfaction from carrying it about, and shooting at a mark with it, that amply compensated for the loss of two dollars I incurred by selling it to a Jew at New Orleans.

We rode on to Regla, soon finding that our guide had never been there before; so, next morning, we kept the two horses and dismissed him with ignominy.  A fine road leads from the Real to Regla, for all the silver-ore from the mines is conveyed there to have the silver separated from it.  My notes of our ride mention a great water-wheel:  sections of porphyritic rocks, with enormous masses of alluvial soil lying upon them:  steep ravines:  arroyos, cut by mountain-streams, and forests of pine-trees—­a thoroughly Alpine district altogether.  At Regla it became evident that our letter of introduction was not a mere complimentary affair.  There is not even a village there; it is only a great hacienda, belonging to the Company, with the huts of the workmen built near it.  The Company, represented by Mr. Bell, received us with the greatest hospitality.  Almost before the letter was opened our horses and mozo were off to the stables, our room was ready, and our dinner being prepared as fast as might be.  What a pleasant evening we had, after our long day’s work!  We had a great wood-fire, and sat by it, talking and looking at Mr. Bell’s photographs and minerals, which serve as an amusement in his leisure-hours.  The Company’s Administrador leads rather a peculiar life here.  There is no want of work or responsibility; he has two or three hundred Indians to manage, almost all of whom will steal and cheat without the slightest scruple, if they can but get a chance; he has to assay the ores, superintend a variety of processes which require the greatest skill and judgment, and he is in charge of property to the value of several hundred thousand pounds.  Then a man must have a constitution of iron to live in a place where the air is so rarefied, and where the temperature varies thirty and forty degrees between morning and noon.  As for society, he must find it in his own family; for even the better class of Mexicans are on so different a level, intellectually, from an educated Englishman, that their society bores him utterly, and he had rather be left in solitude than have to talk to them.  Well, it is a great advantage to travellers that circumstances fix pleasant people in such out-of-the-way places.