You have either got the bridle between your teeth or have let it go altogether, and with your left hand you give your horse a crack with the whip; he goes forward with a bound, and the bull, losing his balance by the sudden jerk behind, rolls over on the ground, and gets up, looking very uncomfortable.

The faster the bull gallops, the easier it is to throw him over; and two boys of twelve or fourteen years of age coleared a couple of young bulls in the arena, in great style, pitching them over in all directions.

The farmers and landed proprietors are immensely fond of both these sports, which the bulls--by the way--seem to dislike most thoroughly; but this exhibition in the bull-ring was better than what one generally sees, and the leperos were loud in their expressions of delight.
When we had been a week or two in the city of Mexico, we decided upon making an excursion to the great silver mining district of the Real del Monte.

Some of our English friends were leaving for England, and had engaged the whole of the Diligence to Pachuca, going from thence up to the Real, and thence to Tampico, with all the pomp and circumstance of a train of carriages and an armed escort.

We were invited to go with them as far as Pachuca; and accordingly we rose very early on the 28th of March, got some chocolate under difficulties, and started in the Diligence, seven grown-up people, and a baby, who was very good, and was spoken of and to as "leoncito." On the high plateaus of Mexico, the children of European parents grow up as healthy and strong as at home; it is only in the districts at a lower elevation above the sea, on the coasts for instance, that they do not thrive.