But when we got into our saddles in the early morning, we forgot all these little miseries, and started merrily on our expedition to the great stalactitic cave of Cacahuamilpan.
Our day's journey had two objects; one was to see the cave, and the other to visit the village close by,--one of the genuine unmixed Indian communities, where even the Alcalde and the Cura, the temporal and spiritual heads of the society, are both of pure Indian blood, and white influence has never been much felt.
[Illustration: INDIANS MAKING & BAKING TORTILLAS.

(After Models made by a Native Artist.)] A ride of two or three hours from the hacienda brought us into a mountainous district, and there we found the village of Cacahuamilpan on the slope of a hill.

In the midst of neat trim gardens stood the little white church, and the ranches of the inhabitants, cottages of one room, with walls of canes which one can see through in all directions, and roofs of thatch, with the ground smoothed and trodden hard for a floor.

Everything seemed clean and prosperous, and there was a bright sunny look about the whole place; but to Englishmen, accustomed to the innumerable appliances of civilized life, it seems surprising how very few and simple are the wants of these people.

The inventory of their whole possessions will only occupy a few lines.