Early in the morning your servant knocks at your door, and brings in a little cup of coffee or chocolate and a small roll, which _desayuno_--literally breakfast--you discuss while dressing.

Going down into the courtyard, you find your horse waiting for you, and off you go for an hour or two's ride, and back to a dejeuner-a-la-fourchette somewhere between ten and one o'clock.

Then you have seven or eight hours before dinner, so that a good deal of work may be got into a day so divided.

Things are managed very differently in country places, but this is the fashion in the capital among the higher class, that is, of course, the class of people who put on dress-coats in the evening.
When we had been a day or two in Mexico, we took our first ride to Tacubaya and Chapultepec.

Mexican saddles and bridles were a novelty to us, but when we come to describe our Mexican and his appurtenances it will be time enough to speak of them.
The barricades in the streets constructed during the last revolution of two or three weeks back had not yet been removed, but an opening at one side allowed men and horses to get past.