the open door of a house in which were tables piled with gold and silver, and men around playing what, in the opinion of my old adviser of the loteria, was a game worth learning. We returned to the house, and found, what in our haste to be at the fiesta we had paid no attention to, that Doña Micaela could give us but one room, and that a small one, and near the door. As we expected to remain some days in Merida, we determined the next morning to take a house and go to housekeeping. While arranging ourselves for the night, we heard a loud, unnatural noise at the door, and, going out, found rolling over the pavement the Cerberus of the mansion, an old Indian miserably deformed, with his legs drawn up, his back down, his neck and head thrust forward, and his eyes starting from their sockets; he was entertaining himself with an outrageous soliloquy in the Maya tongue, and at our appearance he pitched his voice higher than before. Signs and threats had no effect. Secure in his deformity, he seemed to feel a malicious pleasure that he had it in his power to annoy us. We gave up, and while he continued rolling out tremendous Maya, we fell asleep. So passed our first night in Merida.

CHAPTER II.

Housekeeping.—Description of a Bull-ring.—A Bull-fight.—Spectators.—Brutal Torments inflicted on the Bulls.—Serious Accidents.—A noble Beast.—An exciting Scene.—Victims to Bull-fighting.—Danger and Ferocity of Bull-fights.—Effects on moral Character.—Grand Mass.—A grand Procession.—The Alameda.—Calezas.—A Concert, and its Arrangements.—Fête of Todos Santos.—A singular Custom.—An Incident.

Early the next morning the carreta arrived with our luggage, and, to avoid the trouble of loading and unloading, we directed it to remain at the door, and set out immediately to look for a house. We had not much time, and, consequently, but little choice; but, with the help of Doña Micaela, in half an hour we found one that answered our purpose. We returned and started the carreta; an Indian followed, carrying on his head a table, and on the top of it a washhand-basin; another with three chairs, all Doña Micaela's, and we closed the procession.

Our house was in the street of the Flamingo. Like most of the houses in Merida, it was built of stone, and had one story; the front was about thirty feet and had a sala covering the whole, about twenty feet in depth. The ceiling was perhaps eighteen feet high, and the walls had wooden knobs for fastening hammocks. Behind the sala was a broad corridor, opening on a courtyard, at one side of which was a sleeping-room, and at the back of that a comeder or eating-room. The floors were all of hard cement. The courtyard was about thirty feet square, with high stone walls, and a well in the centre. Next, running across the lot, was a kitchen, with a sleeping-room for servants, and back of that another courtyard, forty feet deep, with stone walls fifteen feet high; and in order that my inquiring fellow-citizens may form some idea of the comparative value of real estate in Merida and New-York, I mention that the rent was four dollars per month, which for three persons we did not consider extravagant. We had our own travelling beds, the table, washhand-basin, and chairs set up, and before breakfast our house was furnished.

In the mean time the fiesta of San Cristoval was going on. Grand mass was over, and the next ceremony in order was a corrida de toros or bull-fight, to commence at ten o'clock.

The Plaza de Toros, or, in English, the bull-ring, was in the square of the church of San Cristoval. The enclosure or place for spectators occupied nearly the whole of the square, a strange and very original structure, which in its principles would astonish a European architect. It was a gigantic circular scaffold, perhaps fifteen hundred feet in circumference, capable of containing four or five thousand persons, erected and held together without the use of a single nail, being made of rude poles, just as they were cut in the woods, and tied together with withes. The interior was enclosed by long poles, crossing and interlacing each other, leaving only an opening for the door, and was divided in like manner by poles into boxes. The whole formed a gigantic frame of rustic lattice-work, admirably adapted for that hot climate, as it admitted a free circulation of air. The top was covered with an arbour made of the leaves of the American palm. The whole structure was simple and curious. Every Indian could assist in building it, and when the fiesta was over it could be torn down, and the materials used for firewood.

The corrida had begun when we arrived on the ground, and the place was already thronged. There was a great choice of seats, as one side was exposed to the full blaze of the sun. Over the doors were written Palco No. 1, Palco No. 2, &c., and each box had a separate proprietor, who stood in the doorway, with a little rickety step-ladder of three or four steps, inviting customers. One of them undertook to provide for us, and for two reals apiece we were conducted to front seats. It was, if possible, hotter than at the loteria, and in the movement and confusion of passing us to our seats, the great scaffold trembled, and seemed actually swaying to and fro under its living load.

The spectators were of all classes, colours, and ages, from gray heads to children asleep in their mother's arms; and next to me was a half-blooded maternal head of a family, with the key of her house in her hand, her children tacked in between the legs of her neighbours, or under their chairs. At the feet of those sitting on the front seats was a row of boys and girls, with their little heads poked through the railing; and all around hung down a variegated fringe-work of black and white legs. Opposite, and on the top of the scaffold, was a band of music, the leader of which wore a shining black mask, caricaturing a negro.

A bull was in the ring, two barbed darts trimmed with blue and yellow paper were hanging from his flanks, and his neck was pierced with wounds, from which ran down streams of blood. The picadores stood aloof with bloody spears in their hands; a mounted dragoon was master of ceremonies, and there were, besides, eight or ten vaqueros, or cattle-tenders, from the neighbouring haciendas, hard riders, and brought up to deal with cattle that run wild in the woods. These were dressed in pink-coloured shirt and trousers, and wore small hats of straw platted thick, with low round crowns, and narrow brims turned up at the side. Their saddles had large leathern flaps, covering half the body of the horse, and each had a lazo, or coil of rope, in his hand, and a pair of enormous iron spurs, perhaps six inches long, and weighing two or three pounds, which, contrasted with their small horses, gave a sort of Bombastes Furioso character to their appearance. By the order of the dragoon, these vaqueros, striking their coils of rope against the large flaps of their saddles, started the bull, and, chasing him round the ring, with a few throws of the lazo caught him by the horns and dragged him to a post at one side of the ring, where, riding off with the rope, they hauled his head down to the ground close against the post. Keeping it down in that position, some of the others passed a rope twice round his body just behind the fore legs, and, securing it on the back, passed it under his tail, and returning it, crossed it with the coils around his body. Two or three men on each side then hauled upon the rope, which cut into and compressed the bull's chest, and by its tightness under the tail almost lifted his hind legs from off the ground. This was to excite and madden him. The poor animal bellowed, threw himself on the ground, and kicked and