Well, the coach started. The _peon_ who held the mules' heads--a necessary precaution--let go, and the half-broken animals bounded forward along the rough and dusty road, in a way which rendered both the _padre_ and myself quite speechless for a space. However, they soon settled down into their rapid jog-trot, and I found my companion quite loquacious. His mission had been to marry a number of _peones_ at the _hacienda_, who, at such places, where the visits of a representative of the Church are apt to be few and delayed, have to wait for the Church's blessing for some time, and then receive it in batches. This delay, however, does not necessarily cause a postponement of their matrimonial relations in other respects--as, indeed, the reverend father informed me! Other interesting matters and views of men (and women) and their customs the _padre_ unfolded as we went along, drawn from his professional experience, and recounted, perhaps, with more freedom to a foreigner who understood his language, and doubtless rendered of more facile delivery by the frequent investigations of the contents of the bottles which he made as the day wore on. As evening approached my coach halted at a small village at the foot of a range of hills which intersected the desert, in order that the mules might water. The inhabitants of the place, eager for the least distraction, approached; and, learning that a _padre_ was within the vehicle, the women and girls crowded round to receive the good man's benediction and kiss his hand, which he graciously extended from the carriage window. But the throng was considerable, and our stay short, and it seemed that many of them would not be able to kiss the brown hand of the priest. And now I absolve myself from having done it on purpose! My own hand lay upon the sill of the window upon my side of the coach, and suddenly I felt the pressure of a pair of lips upon it! Looking out, I saw that some of the girls and women had come round to that side of the vehicle, and, doubtless, supposing that I was also a padre, had begun to kiss my hand. A certain feeling of pity or delicacy caused me to refrain from removing it--let them be happy in thinking they were also the recipient of some attention; and so I left it there. No one peered into the gloom of the vehicle's interior, or the supposed _padre_ would have been discovered as a clean-shaven young Englishman, dressed, not in priestly black and cassock, but in riding garments! And when the vehicle started I did not consider it necessary to inform my companion of the _role_ I had unwittingly played.