race, and in their implacable and incessant incursions, make them pay dearly for the possession of all those riches of which their ancestors despoiled the natives, and which they incessantly endeavour to recover again without ceasing.

The three principal cities of the Sonora are Guaymas, Hermosillo, and Arispe.

Hermosillo, anciently Pitic, and which the expedition of the Count de Raouset Boulbon has rendered famous, is the entrepôt of the Mexican commerce of the Pacific, and numbers more than nine thousand inhabitants.

This city, built upon a plateau which sinks towards the north, in a gentle declivity to the sea, leans and shelters itself against a hill named El Cerro de la Campana (Mountain of the Bell), whose summit is crowned with enormous blocks of stone, which, when struck, render a clear metallic sound.

In other respects, like its other American sisters, this ciudad is dirty, built of pisé bricks, and presents to the astonished eyes of the traveller a mixture of ruins, negligence, and desolation which saddens the soul.

On the day in which this story commences, that is to say, the 17th January, 1817, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, a time when the ordinary population are taking the siesta in the most retired apartments of their dwellings, the city of Hermosillo, generally so calm and quiet, presented an unusual aspect.

A vast number of leperos, gambusinos, contrabandists, and, above all, of rateros, were crowded together, with cries, menaces, and wild howlings, in the Calle del Rosario (Street of the Rosary). A few Spanish soldiers,—at that period Mexico had not shaken off the yoke of the mother country,—were endeavouring in vain to re-establish order and disperse the crowd, by striking heavily, right and left, with the shafts of their lances, all the individuals who came in their way.

But the tumult, far from diminishing, on the contrary rapidly increased; the Hiaquis Indians, in particular, mingled with the crowd, yelled and gesticulated in a truly frightful manner.

The windows of the houses were filled with the heads of men and women, who, with looks directed towards the Cerro de la Campana, from the foot of which arose thick clouds of smoke in large volumes towards the heavens, seemed to be in expectation of some extraordinary event.

All at once loud cries were heard; the crowd divided in two, like an overripe pomegranate, everyone throwing himself on one side or the other, with marks of the greatest terror; and a young man, or a boy rather, for he was scarcely sixteen, appeared, borne along like a whirlwind by the furious gallop of a half wild horse.

"Stop him!" cried some.

"Lasso him!" cried others.

"Válgame Dios!" the women murmured, crossing themselves. "It is the demon himself."

But everyone, instead of stopping him, got out of his way as quickly as he could; the bold boy continued his rapid course, with a jeering smile upon his lips, his face inflamed, his eye sparkling, and distributing, right and left, smart blows with his chicote on all who ventured too near him, or whose unfortunate destiny prevented them from getting out of his way as fast as they would have wished.

"Eh! eh! Caspita!" (said, as the boy jostled him in passing, a vaquero with a stupid countenance and athletic limbs,) "Devil take the madman, he nearly knocked me down! Eh! but," he added, after having cast a glance at the young man, "if I mistake not, that is Rafaël, my neighbour's son! Wait a moment, picaro!"

While speaking this aside between his teeth, the vaquero unrolled the lasso which he wore fastened to his belt, and set off running in the direction of the horseman.

The crowd, who understood his intention, applauded with enthusiasm.

"Bravo, bravo!" they cried.

"Don't miss him, Cornejo!" some vaqueros encouragingly shouted, clapping their hands.

Cornejo, since we know the name of this interesting personage, gained insensibly upon the boy, before whom obstacles multiplied more and more.

Warned of the perils which threatened him, by the cries of the spectators, the horseman turned his head.

Then he saw the vaquero.

A livid paleness covered his countenance; he felt that he was lost.

"Let me escape, Cornejo," he cried, choking with tears.

"No, no!" the crowd howled; "lasso him! lasso him!"

The populace took great interest in this manhunt; they feared to find themselves cheated of a spectacle which gave them much satisfaction.

"Surrender," the giant replied; "or else, I warn you, I will lasso you like a ciboto."

"I will not surrender," the boy said resolutely.

The two speakers still held on their way, the one on foot, the other on horseback.

The crowd followed, howling with pleasure. The masses are thus everywhere—barbarous and without pity.

"Leave me, I say," the boy resumed, "or I swear by the blessed souls of purgatory, that evil will befall you!"

The vaquero sneered, and whirled his lasso round his head.

"Be warned, Rafaël," he said; "for the last time, will you surrender?"

"No! a thousand times no!" the boy cried, passionately.

"By the grace of God, then!" said the vaquero.

The lasso whizzed and flew through the air.

But a strange thing happened at the same moment.

Rafaël stopped his horse short, as if it had been changed into a block of granite; and, springing from the saddle, he bounded like a tiger upon the giant, whom the shock bore down upon the sand; and before anybody could oppose him, he plunged into his throat the knife which all Mexicans wear in their belts.

A long stream of blood spouted into the face of the boy, the vaquero writhed about for a few seconds, and then remained motionless.

He was dead!

The crowd uttered a cry of horror and fear.

Quick as lightning, the boy had regained his saddle, and recommenced his desperate course, brandishing his knife, and laughing with the grin of a demon.

When, after the first moment of stupor had passed, the people turned to pursue the murderer, he had disappeared. No one could tell which way he had gone. As is generally the case under such circumstances, the juez de letras (criminal judge), accompanied by a crowd of ragged alguaciles, arrived on the spot where the murder had been committed when it was too late.

The juez de letras, Don Inigo Tormentes Albaceyte, was a man of some fifty years of age, short and stout, with an apoplectic face, who took snuff out of a gold box enriched with diamonds, and concealed under an apparent bonhomie a profound avarice backed by excessive cunning and a coolness which nothing could move.

Contrary to what might have been expected, the worthy magistrate did not appear the least in the world disconcerted by the flight of the assassin; he shook his head two or three times, cast a glance round the crowd, and winked his little grey eye,—

"Poor Cornejo!" he said, stuffing his nose philosophically with snuff: "this was sure to happen to him some day or other."

"Yes," said a lepero, "he was neatly killed!"

"That is what I was thinking," the judge replied; "he who gave this blow knew what he was about; the fellow is a practised hand."

"Humph!" the lepero replied, with a shrug of his shoulders, "he is a boy."

"Bah!" the judge said, with feigned astonishment, and casting an under-glance at the speaker; "a boy!"

"Little more," the lepero added, proud of being thus listened to; "it was Rafaël, Don Ramón's eldest son."

"Ah! ah! ah!" the judge said, with a secret satisfaction. "But no," he went on, "that is not possible; Rafaël is but sixteen at most; he would never have been so foolish as to quarrel with Cornejo, who, by only grasping his arm, could have disabled him."

"Nevertheless, it was as I tell your excellency,—we all saw it. Rafaël had been playing at monte, at Don Aguillar's, and it appears that luck was not