Impressive and melancholy is the nightfall upon the Great Plateau. The opalescent tints of the dying day, and the scarlet curtains flung across the Occident at the sun's exit give place to that indescribable depth of purple of the high upland's sky. The faint ranges of hills which bound the distant horizon take on those diminishing shades which their respective distances assign them, and stand delicately, ethereally, against the waning colours of the sunset, whilst the foreground rocks are silhouetted violet-black against the desert floor. The long shadows which were projected across the wilderness, and the roseate flush which the setting sun had cast upon the westward-facing escarpments behind us, have both disappeared together. Impenetrable gloom lurks beneath the faces of the cliffs, the mournful howl of the _coyotes_ comes across the plain, and their slinking forms emerge from the shadow of the rocks. There is a shapeless heap, the carcass of some dead mule or ox, some jetsam of the desert, lying near at hand, at which my horse was uneasy as I drew rein in contemplation, and which explains the nearness of the beasts of prey, and the long line of _zopilotes_, or buzzards, which I had observed to cross the fading gleam of the firmament. All is solitary, deserted, peaceful. The day is done, the night has come, "in which no man can work." At daylight the uncultivated desert gives place to human habitations; and we approach the _hacienda_ of a large landowner, with its irrigated plantations, and adobe buildings which form the abodes of the workers. All around are vast fields of _maguey_, or plantations of cotton, stretching as far as can be seen. Great herds of cattle, rounded up by picturesque _vaqueros_ with silver-garnished saddles and strange hats and whirling lassoes, paw the dusty ground, shortly to writhe beneath the hot imprint of the branding-iron. Long irrigation ditches, brimming with water from some distant river, and fringed with trees, wind away among the plantations; and white-clad _peones_, hoe in hand, tend the long furrows whose parallel lines are lost in perspective. Centre of the whole panorama is the dwelling-house of the _hacendado_, the owner of the lands; and almost of the bodies and souls of the inhabitants! Quaint and old-world, the place and its atmosphere transport the imagination to past centuries, for the aspect of the whole still bears the stamp of its mediaeval beginning, save where the new Mexican millionaire-landowner has planted some luxurious abode, replete with modern convenience.