Is there no palace, no lordly mansion, to correspond? No. Nor palace nor cottage sends up its smoke. No human form appears within this wild paradise. Herds of deer roam over its surface, the stately elk reposes within the shade of its leafy groves, but no human being is there. Perhaps the foot of man never-- Stay! there is one by our side who tells a different tale. Hear him. "That is the valley of San Ildefonso." Wild though it appears, it was once the abode of civilised man. Near its centre you may note some irregular masses scattered over the ground. But for the trees and rank weeds that cover them, you might there behold the ruins of a city. "Yes! on that spot once stood a town, large and prosperous. There was a _Presidio_ with the flag of Spain flying from its battlements; there was a grand Mission-house of the Jesuit padres; and dwellings of rich miners and `hacendados' studded the valley far above and below. A busy populace moved upon the scene; and all the passions of love and hate, ambition, avarice, and revenge, have had existence there. The hearts stirred by them are long since cold, and the actions to which they gave birth are not chronicled by human pen. They live only in legends that sound more like romance than real history. "And yet these legends are less than a century old! One century ago, from the summit of yonder mountain could have been seen, not only the settlement of San Ildefonso, but a score of others--cities, and towns, and villages--where to-day the eye cannot trace a vestige of civilisation. Even the names of these cities are forgotten, and their histories buried among their ruins! "The Indian has wreaked his revenge upon the murderers of Moctezuma! Had the Saxon permitted him to continue his war of retaliation, in one century more--nay, in half that time--the descendants of Cortez and his conquerors would have disappeared from the land of Anahuac! "Listen to the `Legend of San Ildefonso'!" CHAPTER TWO. Perhaps in no country has religion so many devoted days as in Mexico. The "fiestas" are supposed to have a good effect in Christianising the natives, and the saints' calendar has been considerably enlarged in that pseudo-holy land. Nearly every week supplies a festival, with all its mummery of banners, and processions, and priests dressed as if for the altar-scene in "Pizarro," and squibs, and fireworks, and silly citizens kneeling in the dust, and hats off all round. Very much like a London Guy-Fawkes procession is the whole affair, and of about like influence upon the morals of the community. Of course the _padres_ do not get up these ceremonial exhibitions for mere amusement--not they. There are various little "blessings," and "indultos," and sprinklings of sacred water, to be distributed on these occasions--not _gratuitously_--and the wretched believer is preciously "plucked" while he is in the penitent mood--at the same time he is promised a short and easy route to heaven.