"It don't astonish me," said he; "the Zapoteques are still more pagan than Christian, and given to superstitious practices to a greater degree than any other Indians in Mexico. Our Catholic _curas_ in their villages are there only for the name of the thing, and as a matter of formality. The business of the worthy padres among them must be a perfect sinecure. I fancy I understand what the fellow meant, well enough. Whenever a Zapoteque woman is about to add one to the number of their community, the expectant father of the child assembles all his relations in his cabin; and, having traced out the figures of certain animals on the floor, he rubs them out one after another in their turn. That which is being blotted out, at the precise moment when the child is born, is called its _tona_. They believe that, ever after, the life of the newborn is connected in some mysterious manner with that of the animal which is its _tona_; and that when the latter dies so will the former! The child thus consecrated to the tona, while growing up, seeks out some animal of the kind, takes care of it, and pays respect to it, as the negroes of Africa do to their _fetish_." "It is to be presumed, then, that the Indian father will make choice only of such animals as may be gifted with longevity?" The captain made no reply to my suggestion, farther than to say that the Zapoteque Indians were a brave race, easily disciplined, and out of whom excellent soldiers had been made during the war of the Revolution. After a hasty _desayuno_ at the venta, my travelling companion and I resumed our journey; and, crossing the second great chain of the Mexican Andes, at the end of six days of fatiguing travel we reached the ancient town of Tepic. Here it was necessary for me to remain some time, awaiting the arrival of important letters which I expected to receive from the capital of Mexico. During the first week of my stay at Tepic, I saw but very little of my fellow-voyager--who was all the time busy with his own affairs, and most part of it absent from the little _fonda_ where we had taken up our abode. What these affairs might be, God only knows; but I could not help thinking that the worthy ex-captain of guerilleros carried on his commercial transactions, as in past times he had his military ones--a little after the partisan fashion, and not altogether in accordance with legal rules. After all, it was no affair of mine. What most concerned me, was that with all his running about he had not yet been able to meet with his friend, Don Cornelio Lantejas--whom no one in Tepic seemed to know anything of--and I was beginning to suspect that the existence of this individual was as problematical as the business of the captain himself, when a lucky chance led to the discovery of the ex-aide-de-camp of Morelos. "Don Ruperto appears to have gone crazy," said Dona Faustina, our hostess of the fonda, one morning as I seated myself to breakfast. "Why, Dona Faustina?" I inquired.