The road in question forms, with the land adjacent to it, one of the most dreary portions of the rich valley of Mexico or Tenochtitlan; and the swampy ground through which it passes, and which is only exchanged, beyond the hillocks, for a stratum of lava, exhibited, even in the most palmy days of Mexican splendour, the same gloomy and desert character as at the period here referred to. Wretched huts, inhabited by half-naked Indians, who either worked at the _desague_,[7] or gained a scanty existence by fishing, and here and there a spot of ground planted with vegetables, were the most agreeable objects to be met with; while the low grounds lay entirely waste, even the obtuse Indians being deterred by their poisonous exhalations from attempting their cultivation. It was along this road, early upon the above-named morning, that hordes of brown, squalid, sullen-looking beings, equally debased in mind and body, were seen advancing; dragging themselves listlessly along, now slowly, then more rapidly, in the direction of the hills. It was a disgusting, and at the same time a lamentable sight, to behold this mass of filth, misery, and degradation, which came crawling and limping along, scarcely human in aught except the form of those who composed it. The majority of the Leperos were completely naked, unless the fragments of tattered blankets that hung in shreds over their shoulders could be reckoned as clothing. Here and there might be seen a thread-bare jacket or _manga_, or a pair of ragged calico trousers; while the _sombrero de petate_, or straw-hat, was worn by nearly all of them. The women had their long lank hair hanging loose about their persons, forming their chief covering, with the exception of some scanty rags fastened round their hips. In groups of twenty to a hundred, some of several hundreds, on they came, all wearing that vacant look which is the attribute of the degraded and cretin-like Indian of the Tenochtitlan valley; but which was now modified by an uneasy restlessness that seemed to impel them irresistibly towards the Rio Frio mountains. There was something strange and mysterious in the deportment of this sombre-looking mob; no shout, no laugh--none of those boisterous outbreaks commonly witnessed amongst numerous assemblages of the lower classes. On most of their callous, but naturally by no means stupid, physiognomies, the expression was one of spite and cunning, combined with indications of a secret and anxious expectation. Over the whole column, which was at least a mile in extent, hung clouds of smoke, more or less thick according to the greater or less density of the crowd. Destitute and wretchedly poor as the Leperos were, they had, nevertheless, managed to provide themselves, almost without exception, with one article of luxury; men, women, and children, all had cigars, and the smoke of the tobacco was by far the most endurable of the odours emitted by this rank multitude.