Nevertheless, his lot is no bad one. With plenty of the best and fattest meat to eat, whether of beef or venison, of bear or mountain mutton; with good wine and brandy of home make, and plenty of it; fruit of all climes in great abundance; wheaten or com bread to suit his palate; a tractable flock of natives to guide, and assisted in the task by three brother shepherds; far from the strife of politics or party--secure from hostile attack (not quite, by the by), and eating, drinking, and sleeping away his time, one would think that Fray Augustin Ignacio Sabanal-Morales-y Fuentes had little to trouble him, and had no cause to regret even the vega of Castilian Ebro, held by his family since the days of el Campéador. One evening Fray Augustin sat upon an adobe bench, under the fig-tree shadowing the porch of the Mission. He was dressed in a goat-skin jerkin, softly and beautifully dressed, and descending to his hips, under which his only covering--tell it not in Gath!--was a long linen shirt, reaching to his knees, and lately procured from Puebla de los Angeles, as a sacerdotal garment. Boots, stockings, or unmentionables he had none. A cigarito, of tobacco rolled in com shuck, was occasionally placed between his lips; whereupon huge clouds of smoke rushed in columns from his mouth and nostrils. His face was of a golden yellow color, relieved by arched and very black eyebrows; his shaven chin was of most respectable duplicity--his corporation of orthodox dimensions. Several Indians and half-bred Mexican women were pounding Indian corn on metates near at hand; whilst sundry beef-fed urchins of whitey-brown complexion sported before the door, exhibiting, as they passed Fray Augustin, a curious resemblance to the strongly-marked features of that worthy padre. They were probably his nieces and nephews--a class of relations often possessed in numbers by priests and monks. The three remaining brothers were absent from the Mission: Fray Bernardo, hunting elk in the sierra; Fray José, gallivanting at Puebla de los Angeles, ten days' journey distant; Fray Cris-toval, lassoing colts upon the plain. Augustin, thus left to his own resources, had just eaten his vespertine frijolitos and chile Colorado, and was enjoying a post-coenal smoke of fragrant pouche under the shadow of his own fig-tree. Whilst thus employed, an Indian dressed in Mexican attire approached him hat in hand, and, making a reverential bow, asked his directions concerning domestic business of the Mission. "Hola! friend José," cried Fray Augustin, in a thick guttural voice, "_pensaba yo_--I was thinking that it was very nearly this time three years ago when those _malditos Americanos_ came by here and ran off with so many of our cavallada." "True, reverend father," answered the administrator, "just three years ago, all but fifteen days: I remember it well. _Maldit os sean_--curse them!" "How many did we kill, José?"