Calleja. San Miguel el Grande. Hacienda of the Jesuits. Burned Hacienda. Lodged in a Stable. The Comet. Superstition concerning it. Mexicans meet Danger with a Prayer. Cruel Treatment. Mexican Officers. Lasso. Lice. Fleas: Advantage of. Locked up. Protest. Quartered in a Corral. Villanous Conduct of the Colonel. Valley of Mexico. Arrival at Tacubaya. Description of. General Jackson's Birthday. Friends visit us. Mr. Cursin. Captain West. Mr. Packenham: Interview with.

March 1st. Placed under charge of Colonel Terris, of the fourth regiment of infantry, and started for Mexico, in company with Captain Reese and his party of sixteen, who had arrived in San Luis Potosi a few days after us. To-day marched five leagues to a hacienda de Plata, a silver estate, which had previously been worked with much profit, but now, like a majority of the mines of Mexico, in disuse for the purposes of making silver. "Rich as the mines of Potosi" has long been a proverb; but if the proverb were now reversed, it would be more appropriate.

March 2d. Marched nine leagues to a hacienda, where we were halted about two hours, and kept standing in front of the buildings in the open road, and in the most intensely-burning sun, while the soldiers of the regiment had taken advantage of a few [188] feet of shade upon the north side of a wall to repose for the time. As was customary with the savage old officer in command, he had sent his servant ahead and prepared dinner for himself and other officers, which they were enjoying within the cool and ample apartments of the building; after which they retired to their siesta, not only regardless of our comfort, but perfectly indifferent whether we ate or not. We gave the corporal of our guard money to purchase for us something to eat; after much delay, he brought a few eggs and frijoles (beans), not more for our eighteen companions than two could have eaten. After about two hours the officers made their appearance, refreshed from their siesta, and marched us five leagues farther to the hacienda Xaral,1 a large place containing about nine thousand souls, and one of many other, though smaller, haciendas belonging to the old Marquis de Xaral, who resided at this place. Here we were quartered in an unfurnished room in the meson (inn), and had the great satisfaction of buying with our own money enough to eat, which always came to us at two or three prices over and above what the Mexicans would pay for it; for frequently the officer of the guard, and always the orderly appointed to do our purchasing, had his profits to make.

As we expected, we did not see the excellent old marquis; for some of our companions, who the year previous had been with the Santa Fé prisoners, were most grateful for his benevolence to them on that occasion, [189] as he has since been to the main body of our Mier men when passing his residence. Two of his sons, with many other citizens, came to our quarters and looked into our prison-room at us, with about the same amount of curiosity that people ordinarily look into a cage of monkeys or lions, with possibly this difference in their moral reflections: