The scenery was exceedingly beautiful as well as peaceful. There was nothing whatever to suggest that a dreadful war was going on. There were houses of friends to stop at, instead of hotels. There were towns and villages of some importance to be rapidly investigated by a tourist like Ned, from New York by way of England, and now a good young Mexican for the time being. Then there was an exciting evening, when all who were on horseback rode ahead of the wagons and on into the city, which occupies the site of the wonderful Tenochtitlan, which was captured by Hernando Cortes and his daring adventurers ever so long ago. From that time onward, during a number of busy days, Ned became better and better satisfied with the fact that his father had sent him across the sea to learn all that he could of Mexico and the Mexicans. CHAPTER X. PICTURES OF THE PAST "Oh, how I wish we had some news from the war!" exclaimed Ned. "Well," said Senorita Felicia, doubtfully, "there isn't much, but I suppose there is some almost ready to come." "I'm tired of waiting for it," replied Ned, "and if there isn't to be any war news, I wish I had some books!" The thought that was in Ned Crawford's mind had broken out suddenly, as he sat at the dinner-table of Senora Mercedes Paez, at the end of those first days after his arrival in the city of Mexico. There were a number of persons at the table, and at the head of it was Senora Paez herself. She was shorter and stouter, but she was every ounce as stately and imposing as was even Senora Tassara. In front of her sat one affair which had, from the beginning of his visit in that house, made him feel more at home than he might otherwise have done. He had become used to it, and it seemed like an old friend. That Seville coffee-urn had ornamented the table in the house at Vera Cruz, his first refuge after he came ashore out of the destructive norther. It had winked at him from a similar post of honor in the country-house out in Puebla, and Senora Tassara had affectionately brought it with her to the residence of her city cousin. She had said that she thought it would be safer here, even if the city should be captured by those terrible robbers, the Americans. They could not be intending to steal and melt up all the old silver in Mexico. "Why, Senor Carfora!" exclaimed Senorita Felicia, indignantly. "Did you not know? Aunt Paez has piles and piles of books. They are up in the library. If you wish to read them, she will let you go there. I had forgotten that you know how to read. He may do it, may he not, Aunt Mercedes?" "Of course he may," replied the senora, "but it is a curious idea for a boy of his age." "Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Ned. "But what I'd like to have are some books that tell about old Mexico and about the city of Tenochtitlan, that stood here before the Spaniards came. I've been all around everywhere. I've seen the swamps and the lakes and the walls and forts and everything. The great cathedral--"