At Guaxaca de Menonville acted with caution, and did not betray any undue anxiety respecting the cochineals. Yet he provided himself with chests large enough for their conveyance together with the plants on which they fed. Under pretence of buying flowers, he went into a garden where there was a beautiful nopalerie, and while they were making up the bouquet he had ordered, he took the opportunity of observing the arrangement of the nopals. They were planted four feet apart in lines, the lines being six feet asunder. The nopalerie belonged to a negro, and it was here that a purchase might in all probability be effected. On another occasion, therefore, de Menonville took two Indian servants, each bearing a large hamper, and repaired very early in the morning to the garden. He left his servants at the entrance, and entered alone. The negro proprietor had scarcely risen, but he came forward in a frank and agreeable manner. De Menonville then told him, that being a physician, he was anxious to make an ointment of his own invention for the cure of gout, and for this purpose he wished to purchase some branches of nopals laden with cochineal, for which he was willing to pay whatever the owner should demand, provided he might make his own selection of the branches suitable to his purpose. The Indian willingly complied, and accordingly the hampers were brought in, and eight fine branches, each two feet high and so loaded with cochineals as to be quite white, were speedily cut, packed, and covered with cloths. He then asked him how much he had to pay; the negro answered that he could not possibly sell them for less than two _reals_. Our traveller fully believed him, and would have purchased them, if necessary, at a much larger sum. That the negro might not think him dissatisfied with the bargain, he gave him a piaster (value eight reals), telling him he had no change, and therefore he should give him the rest to drink his health. The good old negro rubbed his eyes, thinking he was still dreaming, and then loaded de Menonville with thanks, while the latter brought in his two Indians, gave them the hampers to carry, and then set off as fast as possible. “My heart,” he says, “beat quickly, for it seemed to me that I had carried off the golden fleece, but might yet be pursued by the furious dragon who kept guard over it. All along the road I kept saying, ‘At last they are in my power;’ and I could willingly have sung for joy if I had not been afraid of being heard. I arrived at my inn quite out of breath, without having met a single person in the streets; it was about sunrise; no one was awake in the house, and I crept quietly to my room, where I arranged my nopals, with inexpressible delight, in the caskets I had purchased for that purpose.” [Illustration: COCHINEAL CACTUS. ]