[48] These huts are constructed of bamboos, wattled so as to admit both air and light freely.
[49] Before the independence of Mexico this bridge was called Puente del Rey (the King's Bridge).
[50] The game called monte is thus divided.
[51] The peasants of the sea-coast and the country round Vera Cruz are so called.
[52] These hats, which take their name from the place where they are made, are often worth from £10 to £12 each.
CHAPTER II.
I arrive at Manantial.—Superstitions of the Jarochos.
The unfortunate occurrence recorded in the preceding chapter caused me to change my route. It was impossible for me to reach Vera Cruz that day, mounted as I was; so I resolved to pass the night at Manantial, a little village which I supposed to be not more than a mile off. I had thus some time before me, and I thought it could not be better employed than in taking a siesta under the shade of the trees, amid the green solitude in which I found myself. It was a spot in one of the most picturesque forests which cover almost the entire country between Puente Nacional and Vergara. Amid these matted thickets, narrow paths, cut by the hatchet, run in different directions, overshadowed by the almost impenetrable foliage of the trees, while a wall of luxuriant vegetation on each side bars every where the entrance of man, and almost that of the fallow deer. The long, pendent branches twist and interlace their tendrils with the boughs of the neighboring trees. The cocoa-nut-tree covers, with its large leaves, its necklace of green fruit; and the Bourbon palms stretch their branches, covered with shining foliage to the ground; the silk-cotton-tree shows its white flakes of cotton just bursting from the dark green pod. In the deep shade of these inhabitants of the forest the friar's cowl abounds with its polished chalice; and at the bottom, as well as the top of this green vault, the gobeas hang their little bell-flowers of variegated colors. Such is the aspect of these woods—an appearance, however, which assumes a different phase according to the hour of the day. At midday the rank vegetation droops under the scorching rays of the sun, from the palm, with its towering crest, to the lowly moss which covers the ground. A hot breeze at that time rushes through the thickets, and appears to arrest every where the progress of vegetation; wild beasts, birds, insects, and plants—all animated nature, in fact, seems to languish under this stifling heat; but when the sun's rays no longer gild the tree-tops, and the vapors rise slowly from the ground, to fall back again in dew, these forests and their denizens, once so silent, start again into life.