CHAPTER VI.
TEZCUCO.
Across the lake of Tezcuco is Tezcuco itself, a great city and the capital of a kingdom at the time of the Conquest, and famous for its palaces and its learned men.

Now it is an insignificant Spanish town, built, indeed, to a great extent, of the stones of the old buildings.
Mr.Bowring, who has evaporating-works at the edge of the lake, and lives in the "Casa Grande"-- the Great House, just outside Tezcuco, has invited us to pay him a visit; so we get up early one April morning, and drive down to the street of the Solitude of Holy Cross (Calle de la Soledad de Santa Cruz).

There we find Mr.Millard, a Frenchman, who is an _employe_ of Mr.Bowling's, and is going back to Tezcuco with us; and we walk down to the canal with him, half a dozen Indian porters with baskets following us, and trotting along in the queer shuffling way that is habitual to them.

At the landing-place we find a number of canoes, and a crowd of Indians, men and women, in scanty cotton garments which show the dirt in an unpleasant manner.

A canoe is going to Tezcuco, a sort of regular packet-boat, in fact; and of this canoe Mr.Millard has retained for us three the stern half, over which is stretched an awning of aloe-fibre cloth.