A FUNERAL OF THE MEXICANS.

OUR lodging was opposite the church of Tula, at which, hearing music in the evening, I found a crowd of people with a young woman who was bearing on her head a little dead child, dressed in coloured papers so arranged as to represent a robe, and tied to a board by a white handkerchief. Round the body were stuck a profusion of artificial flowers; the face was uncovered, and the little hands tied together as if in prayer. A fiddler and a man playing on a guitar accompanied the crowd to the churchpoor; and the mother having entered for a few minutes again appeared with

her child, and walked off, accompanied by her friends, to the burying-place.

The father followed with another man, who assisted him with a lighted piece of wood in throwing up hand-rockets, of which he bore a large bundle under his

arm.

The whole ceremony was one of cheerfulness and gaiety, since all children who die young are supposed to escape purgatory, and to become "Angelitos" at once. I was informed that the burial would be followed by a fandango, in token of rejoicing that the babe had been taken from this world.— It is doubtless the duty of Christians to be resigned to their afflictions; but I am sure that few English women could carry their first and only infant to its grave, with smiling countenances; and I equally can answer for the inability of the men to throw up rejoicing rockets when their first-born is taken from them, I entered the church, which was neat, and, according to custom, crowded with images; before one of these a sallow wretched man was kneeling, with his arms extended for so long a time that it became

⚫ Little angels.

painful to look upon him, and I left him to perform his agonizing penance ungazed upon by the eye of curiosity, since whatever may be the errors of the creed which imposes bodily suffering as an atonement for sin, his was an act of fervent piety, and, as such, was sacred. Hence I visited a school, attracted by the noise of seventeen little boys repeating at the full stretch of their variously toned throats the "Ordinanzas" of the Church, each one bawling with all his zeal, and with all his strength. Their master, a fat, lazy, good-tempered looking man, fairly lost his patience in endeavouring to make me hear, through the din, his questions as to whether the Spaniards would come again and hang all the revolutionists ;" and soon gave them their dismissal, after they had knelt down and rapidly screamed out two prayers which he named to them; each child then came and inclined his shoulder to receive the blessings of the master and the stranger, and after this very pretty little ceremony they all ran off whooping and hallooing down the street. I saw but one book in this extraordinary seat of learning; but the master very seriously assured me, that several of the boys could nevertheless read.

A FEAST DAY AT VETA GRANDE.

ON our first feast day the village of Veta Grande appeared to have undergone some magical change, and to be peopled by a different race from those who had figured during the week. Fine shawls, brilliant coloured gowns, silk stockings and white satin shoes, were flashing like so many meteors amongst the mud huts, and in the evening I accepted an invitation to go to an exhibition of Maromeros, or rope-dancers, in company with two maiden ladies, sisters of a certain Don Jesus, who kept a little shop, and was one of the principal gentlemen in the town. It was a fine moonlight night, and we walked to a small mud amphitheatre usually appropriated to cockfights, where we found the tight rope stretched, and a numerous party coloured audience assembled. The theatre was open to the clear starry sky, and illuminated by four flaming piles of the Ocote or candle wood, placed in iron cradles on the summits of tall poles. The whole scene was very novel and striking to me, as the miners and villagers lay extended and lounging on the earthern seats wrapped in their variously striped serapes; while five of the "militia" moved about in the crowd to preserve order.

The ladies kept us plentifully supplied with cigars, which they also smoked abundantly, and in our turn we purchac

ed sugar-plums and sweet cakes for them during the very short intervals of smoking.

The rope-dancing was tolerable, particularly by a very fat old woman gorgeously attired, who seemed in a terrible fright lest she should have a fall. A boy of about twelve years of age quite astonished us by his activity and the variety of his postures and contortions, which far exceeded any thing of the kind I had ever seen in Europe. The tumblers were attended by a clown, who with a blackened face and much talking greatly delighted the company. The performances were closed by a "Comedia" in front of a ragged sheet.

THE CIGAR MANUFACTORY AT VILLA
NUEVA.

THE town of Villa Nueva is neatly built, possesses some good shops, and has a population, according to Don José, of 6000 souls. It is one of the dépôts of tobacco, which under the new as well as the old regime is a strict government monopoly. While the mules were being saddled, Don Jose very obligingly accompanied me to the "Fabrica -a large well-arranged house, in which 400 men and 350 women are constantly employed in the manufacture of " Cigarros.' "This is the name given to those formed of cut tobacco enveloped in paper, while the term "Puros" is applied to the rolled tobacco leaf which in Europe is commonly called a cigar. Distinct portions of the house with separate entrances are appropriated to the sexes, who are distributed in long rooms having several rows of benches. Each labourer has a small basket with a certain weight of rasped tobacco, and sufficient papers ready cut to contain it when made into cigars; and when this proportion is disposed of, it is rigorously weighed and registered. From three to four reales is the average price of a day's labour, which commences at 5 A. M. and ends at the same hour in the afternoon. The expedition with which some of the most active people rolled the cigars was quite extraordinary, and there are many who complete 4000 in a day. The product of the last four days and a half had been 121,309" Cajas or paper parcels, each containing thirty-two cigars, making a total of 3,881,888! the expen ses of working which was 1115 dollars. The cajas are sent to the market packed in chests, each containing 4,300. The distribution of labour at this establishment is very well arranged; from the makers the cigars are carried to the counting room, where they are expeditiously made into cajas, and pasted in a paper bearing the stamped seal of government.

The

work-people are strictly examined, that they neither introduce liquor or weapons, and both sexes are searched nearly to the skin before retiring for the night, for which purpose female searchers," Registradoras," are stationed at one door, and men at the other.

MEXICAN ROPE DANCERS.

As this was the pay day for the native labourers, the evening was in consequence devoted to merriment, which was quite a contrast to those Saturdays meetings which I had seen at Zacatecas.-A party of itinerant Maromeros (or rope dancers) held their exhibition in the large walled yard of a once splendid mansion, in the Mining district Bolanos, to about eight hundred people; which was considered as a very full house," the receipts, at a medio (or three-pence) for each person, amounting to fifty dollars. The performance, which was exceedingly bad, was nevertheless highly applauded by the spectators, who were sitting or lying in a confused multitude on the bare ground; while some few persons of distinction had taken the precaution to provide themselves with chairs and stools. During the exhibition of the tight rope dancers, the spectators derived a continual fund of gratification from the Pallase or clown, who particularly delighted the most respectable inhabitants by the recital of a coarse story. While a half Indian was performing some clumsy evolutions on the rope, the band, in obedience to a signal, suddenly ceased; and the dancer having dropped himself into a sitting posture on the cord, pulled off his high embroidered cap, and very gravely thus bespoke us: "Caballeros y Señoras (Gentlemen and Ladies,) I beg (suplico) that as I am about to throw a somerset, you will subscribe some money to be devoted to the service of celebrating the holy sacrament of the most Holy Mass." All arose :-the men took off their hats with the utmost gravity;-a general silence prevailed for a moment, and the vaulter, who evidently was in great dismay, attempted to throw his promised caper. Unluckily, however, he failed, tumbled on his nose, and no money was subscribed for the "solemn and most holy sacrament," forasmuch as the articles had not been fulfilled. To this succeeded fireworks, tumbling by two little boys, and performances on the slack rope; in which the unsuccessful vaulter astonished me by hanging with the rope at full swing and high above the ground, by one hand, by his heels, his toes, the back of his neck, and lastly by his teeth. He concluded with a performance which is said to have been exhibited by order of

Montezuma for the amusement of Cortez and his officers, and which I cannot better describe than in the words of the Abbé Clavigero, substituting however boys for men. "One man laid himself upon his back on the ground, and raising up his feet, took a beam upon them, or a piece of wood, which was thick, round, and about eight feet in length. He tossed it up to a certain height, and as it fell, he received and tossed it up again with his feet. Taking it afterwards between his feet, he turned it rapidly round, and what is more, he did so with two men" (boys) "sitting astride upon it, one upon each extremity of the beam." The feat, however, was in the present instance accompanied by a lively tune from the band, to which the performer kept excellent time, while he danced, with his feet elevated beneath the beam, a very neat and difficult figure throughout the exhibition. While all these gaieties were going forward, two or three men constantly occupied themselves in picking their way through the crowd, and bawling lustily "sweetmeats and cakes for sale," and one old fellow particularly pleased me, by his energetic yet conciliating appeals to the gallantry of the gentlemen present, to purchase a kind of "Pan dulce" which was squeezed into the semblance of pigs—" What! Caballeros! does no one buy my pigs for the ladies? What! no pigs for the señoras?" an appeal which had such effect upon the Bolaños beaux, that many a fair mouth soon blew forth its cloud of smoke, relinquished its cigar, and swallowed a puerco."

66

The spectators,

Our evening's entertainments,-all for the price of three-pence, were concluded by two comedies in front of three sheets, which performed the part of scenery. One was tolerably good, being a mutilation of Moliére's "Mariage Force," the other, which was highly applauded, I will not describe. although a parcel of Indians and halfcasts, the greater part without shirts, would have taught a lesson of quiet and goodbreeding to our London audiences, much as we pride ourselves on our superior politeness and decorum, I never indeed saw so large a body of people more perfectly well-behaved, silent, and goodhumoured.

JERUSALEM DELIVERED

THE SUBJECT OF THE ILLUSTRATION

POURTRAYS Erminia on her courser, fleetly pursuing her way along the sedgy side of the river Jordan, when flying from the Christians. She is supposed to