"You can make your penance here, young man, at the Convent of the Missions. There are holy men who will give you all good counsel; and I will myself speak to them for you." I was about to decline this polite intervention, when a quiet gesture from Donna Maria arrested my words, and made me accept the offer, with thanks. Thus chatting, we reached the suburbs of Bexar, and soon entered the main street of that town. And here let me record a strange feature of the life of this land, which, although one that I soon became accustomed to, had a most singular aspect to my eyes on first acquaintance. It was a hot and sultry night of June, the air as dry and parched as of a summer day in our English climate; and we found that the whole population had their beds disposed along the streets, and were sleeping for the benefit of the cool night air,--al fresco. There was no moon, nor any lamplight, but by the glimmering stars we could see this strange encampment, which barely left a passage in the middle for the mule-carts. Some of the groups were irresistibly droll: here was an old lady, with a yellow-and-red handkerchief round her head, snoring away, while a negro wench waved a plaintan-bough to and fro to keep off the mosquitoes, which thronged the spot from the inducement of a little glimmering lamp to the Virgin over the bed. There was a thin, lantern-jawed old fellow sipping his chocolate before he resigned himself to sleep. Now and then there would be a faint scream and a muttered apology as some one, feeling his way to his nest, had fallen over the couch of a sleeper. Mothers were nursing babies, nurses were singing others to rest; social spirits were recalling the last strains of recent convivialities; while others, less genially given, were uttering their "Carambas" in all the vindictive anger of broken slumber. Now and then a devotional attitude might be detected, and even some little glimpses caught of some fair form making her toilet for the night, and throwing back her dishevelled hair to peer at the passing strangers. Such were the scenes that even a brief transit presented; a longer sojourn and a little more light had doubtless discovered still more singular ones. We halted at the gate of a large, gloomy-looking building which the Friar informed me was the "Venta Nazionale," the chief inn of the town; and by dint of much knocking, and various interlocutions between Fra Miguel and a black, four stories high, the gates were at length opened. Faint, hungry, and tired, I had hoped that we should have supped in company, and thus recompensed me for my share of the successful issue of the journey; but the Fra, giving his orders hastily, wished me an abrupt "good night," and led his niece up the narrow stairs, leaving me and my mare in the gloomy entrance, like things whose services were no longer needed.