Upon our return to the house, we found a table spread with the rarest collection of tropical fruits and luxuries which I had yet seen, and which might have excited the envy of a king. We had “frescas” compounded from the marañon, the orange, and the juice of the cocoanut, slightly dashed with aguardiente, the coolest and most refreshing imaginable; and melons—such melons! And when we came to lie down in our respective hammocks, beneath the shaded corridor, for the afternoon siesta, it was unanimously voted that, with our present limited information on the subject of Paradise, we should be quite willing to accept perpetual youth and hacienda life “_down_,” rather than incur the risk of attaining the former! “Opinions may differ about the propriety of confessing it,” said W., “but really,” and he took a long and lazy pull at his cigar, “I think this is quite good enough for a miserable sinner like myself!” The smoke wreathed slowly up from each hammock, the mill clattered drowsily, and we slept until the cool evening wind, gathering strength as the sun declined, began to rustle amongst the orange trees which grew beside the corridor, and the creaking carts, which had stood idle during the heat of the day, again began to move in the direction of the cane fields. A hacienda dinner, and a cheery ride townward, in the twilight, completed the day; and we went to bed that night, with a most satisfactory conception of hacienda life. I had flattered myself that my visit to El Viejo was unknown beyond the family with which we were stopping; I had, in fact, stipulated with our host, that our incognito should be rigidly preserved. He was, therefore, a good deal embarrassed, and I was not a little annoyed, when he announced the next morning at breakfast, that the municipality of the town had been there, before I was up, to say that they should do themselves the honor to pay their respects to “El Ministro” in form, at the early hour of ten o’clock. There was now no alternative but to submit to the arrangement, and make the best of what we would gladly have prevented. Punctual to the moment, when the clock struck the appointed hour, a band of musicos, preceded by half a dozen fellows firing bombas, emerged from the cabildo, on the opposite side of the square, in the direction of our house. They were followed by the municipal and spiritual fathers of the town, the former with their red sashes and gold-headed canes, and the latter in their black robes and broad-brimmed hats, after whom came a mingled mass of men, women, and children. The musicos played with an energy befitting the occasion, and the men with the bombas managed to keep up an incessant discharge. The musicos, the municipality, and the priests, with a very select few of the prominent citizens, alone entered the sala. The populace had to content themselves with gazing in turns through the open windows and doors. Amongst the ecclesiastics was the Dean REMIJO SALAZAR, one of the