"I am a proud fool," he replied with affecting frankness; "misery renders me so susceptible that I fancy people are ever trying to humiliate me. I accept your gracious invitation as frankly as it is offered. Perhaps I may be able to prove my gratitude to you ere long."
The colonel paid no great attention to these words, because, just at the moment, the party arrived at the mesón of San Juan, whose lighted windows had revealed its proximity to the travellers for some time past.
[1] Let us live without annoyance in a happy calm: playing is my star, singing and laughing.
[2] When the spangled birds are dumb, and the attentive earth listens to the rivers that bear their tribute to the sea by the weak light—.
[II.—EL MESÓN DE SAN JUAN.]
A great deal has been written about the cool and inhospitable way in which Spanish and Sicilian landlords receive the travellers whom Providence sends them; but it is evident to us that those who write in such wise are not acquainted, even by hearsay, with the mesoneros or Mexican hosts. Were it so, they would doubtlessly, at their own risk and peril, have rehabilitated those worthy fellows, to discharge the whole weight of their indignation on the huéspedes of New Spain.
It is a justice to render to the Spanish and Sicilian landlords, that if they are utterly unable to satisfy in any way the exigencies of travellers, by giving the latter the provisions they demand, still they greet them with so affable a countenance, and veil their refusal under such an exquisite politeness, that in nine cases out of ten the traveller is compelled to allow that he was himself to blame for not laying in the necessary provisions, and therefore sups on apologies.
In Mexico things are very different. On the few high roads formerly constructed by the Spaniards, and which the neglect of the different governments that succeeded them has left in such a state that they will soon disappear completely, there stand, at long distances from each other, vast buildings which resemble fortresses, for they are nearly all surrounded by embattled and loopholed walls. These buildings are the mesones, or inns.
The interior is composed, first, of an enormous court, with a noria, or well, intended to water the horses. Corrals for the beasts of burden occupy the four corners of this yard. In a separate building are the travellers' cuartos; that is to say, miserable dens furnished only with a frame of oak, covered with a cowhide, which serves as a bed. These cuartos are numbered, and all open on long corridors. Each traveller is obliged to bring with him the indispensable bedding, for the host only supplies the alfalfa for the horses' provender, and water from the noria.