Nothing is to be seen but, at rare intervals, ironwood, gum, and Peru trees, with red and spicy clusters, nopales, and cactuses, the only trees that can possibly grow in a soil calcined by the incandescent rays of a perpendicular sun. At distances are visible, as if in bitter derision, the long poles of cisterns, with a leathern bucket, twisted and shrivelled, at one extremity, and at the other stones fastened by straps; but the cisterns are dry, and the bottom of them is merely a black slimy crust, in which myriads of unclean animals disport; whirlwinds of a fine and impalpable dust, raised by the least breath of wind, choke the panting traveller, and under every blade of dried grass the grasshoppers call with fury for the beneficent night dews. When, however, with great labour, the traveller has covered six leagues of this burning solitude, the eye reposes with delight upon a splendid oasis, which appears all at once to rise from the bosom of the sands. This Eden is the Hacienda del Milagro. At the time our history took place, this hacienda, one of the richest and largest in the province, was composed of a two storied house, built of _tapia_ and _adobes_, with a terrace roof of reeds, covered with beaten earth. Access to the hacienda was gained by passing through an immense court, the entrance of which shaped like an arched portico, was furnished with strong folding gates, and a postern on one side. Pour chambers completed the front; the windows had gratings of gilded iron, and shutters inside; they were glazed, an almost unheard-of luxury in that country at that time; on the four sides of the court, or patio, were the apartments for the peons and children, &c. The ground floor of the principal house was composed of three apartments; a kind of grand vestibule furnished with antique fauteuils and canopies covered with stamped Cordovan leather, with a large nopal table and some stools; upon the walls hung, in gilded frames, several old full-length portraits, representing the members of the family; while the beams of the ceiling, left in relief, were decorated with a profusion of carvings.