It was the first time we had really heard a _huehuetl_.

The player used two sticks with padded heads, beating with great force in excellent time.

The booming of the instruments was audible to a great distance.

The whole village had gathered, and in a momentary lull in the music, I told the people of the ancient use of the _huehuetl_; that Bernal Diaz, in his history of the Conquest of Mexico, tells us what feelings filled the hearts of the Spaniards, when they heard the great _huehuetl_, in the temple of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan; then it was chiefly beaten when human victims were being sacrificed to the gods, and the soldiers knew that some fellow-countryman, or a Tlaxcalan ally, was dying.

Never have I given a public lecture, that was listened to with more attention or greater appreciation.
[Illustration: THE VILLAGE AND ITS SAINT; LOS REYES] [Illustration: CUEZCOMATE, OR GRANARY; SAN NICOLAS PANOTLA] The day we measured women at San Estevan, we found an indian mason there at work, whom we had measured at Tlaxcala, and with whom, on one occasion, we had some conversation.