It was little more than a village; but as gay, as picturesque, and as bright as a scene in an opera--two double rows of painted houses forming a large oval, the space between them laid out as a garden with straight walks and fountains and clipped shrubs, after the fashion of Versailles; in the centre a church and two other buildings, one of which, as the abbe told me, was a school, the other his own dwelling.
The people we met saluted him with great humility, and he returned their salutations quite _en grand seigneur_, even, as I thought, somewhat haughtily.

One woman knelt in the road, kissed his hand, and asked for his blessing, which he gave like the superior being she obviously considered him.

It was the same in the village.

Everybody whom we met or passed stood still and uncovered.

There could be no question who was master in San Cristobal.