[Illustration:  THE ROBES WORN BY THE WOMEN OF MEXICO; AND THE SERAPE WORN BY THE MEN.]

While we were away at the Real del Monte, the news had reached Mexico that Puebla had capitulated, and that the rebel leader had fled.  The victory was celebrated in the capital with the most triumphal entries, harangues, bull-fights, and illuminations done to order.  If you had a house in one of the principal streets, the police would make you illuminate it, whether you liked or not.  The newspapers loudly proclaimed the triumph of the constitutional principle, and the inauguration of a reign of law and order that was never to cease.

As for the newspapers, indeed, one looked in vain in them for any free expression of public opinion.  They were all either suppressed, or converted into the merest mouthpieces of the government.  The telegraph was under the strictest surveillance, and no messages were allowed to be sent which the government did not consider favourable to their interests; a precaution which rather defeated itself, as the people soon ceased to believe any public news at all.  In all these mean little shifts, which we in England consider as the special property of despotic governments, the authorities of the Mexican Republic showed themselves great proficients.

We were left, therefore, to form what idea we could of the real state of Mexican affairs, from the private information received by our friends.  Just for once it may be worth while to give a few details, not because the people engaged were specially interesting, but because the affair may serve to give an idea of the condition of the country.

President Comonfort, not a bad sort of man, as it seemed, but not “strong enough for the place,” and with an empty treasury, tried to make a stand against the clergy and the army, who stood firm against any attempt at reform—­knowing, with a certain instinct, that, if any real reform once began, their own unreasonable privileges would soon be attacked.  So the clergy and part of the army set up an anti-president, one Haro; and he installed himself at Puebla, which is the second city of the Republic, and there Comonfort besieged him.  So far I have already described the doings of the “reaccionarios.”

The newspapers gave wonderful accounts of attacks and repulses, and reckoned the killed on both sides at 2,500.  There were 10,000 regular troops, and 10,000 irregulars (very irregular troops indeed); and these were commanded by a complete regiment of officers, and forty generals.  This is reckoning both sides; but as, on pretty good authority (Tejada’s statistical table), the troops in the Republic are only reckoned at 12,000, no doubt the above numbers are much exaggerated.  As for the 2,500 killed, the fact is that the siege was a mere farce; and, judging by what we heard at the time in Mexico, and soon afterwards in Puebla itself, 25 was a much more correct estimate:  and some facetious people reduced