CHAPTER XVIII.

FRESH FIELDS.

A NEW GOLD-MINE-AN UNTRUSTWORTHY

ADVISER-SEIZED WITH SERIOUS ILLNESS-TRIES THE SULPHUR BATHS AT PUEBLA-THE MANUFACTURE OF ANTIQUITIES-THE BANDITS OF MALINCHÉ-A YANKEE DRUMMER'S PROWESS-THE PYRAMID AT CHOLULA—-RETURN TO WORK-NEGOTIATES A MINING PROPERTY IN THE STATE OF CHIAPAS-AN UNPLEASANT JOURNEY-INSECT PESTS-WONDERFUL RELICS OF A BYGONE CIVILISATION-A SACRED SNAKE -DISTRESS OF A BRITISH TOURIST-ON THE LOOK-OUT FOR ANTIQUITIES-THE INGENUOUS AMERICAN TOURIST.

AMID a press of serious work, the next unprofitable affair in which Jack was concerned was a vigorous search for a non-existent mine. A Cuban of his acquaintance came to him one day with a long story about a gold-mine he had accidentally discovered on the hacienda of a mutual friend, and he gave so many circumstantial details that the matter seemed worth looking into, especially as the hacienda was considered one of the best in Mexico, and would therefore compensate for the

day's journey to it, even if nothing further transpired. It was situated in the hot country; and when Jack and his companion and guide first caught sight of it, the former at least thought he had never seen anything so gorgeous as its fertile beauty. The old grey house was surrounded by acres of orange-trees, with every path through them lined with leafy bananas, while a clearing in front was overgrown with tall, sweet-scented flowers. Through the entire grounds wandered streams of clear water, giving a fresh appearance to the vegetation seldom seen in the tropics. From the flat roof of the hacienda there was a view for a painter to dream of-miles of rich land covered with sugarcane, walled in by pine-clad hills; while far above them all towered the stately white cone of Popocatepetl.

The travellers arrived too late to do anything on the first day; and after the long, hot ride to the place, they found half an hour's communion with a cool creek, supper, and bed most refreshing. Next morning, however, they were up early in order to have time to examine the mine before the midday heat set in, when, according to a Mexican saying, "none but dogs and Englishmen go out." They went first to the place where the Cuban said he had made his discovery, searching carefully for

VAGUE LOCALITY OF THE MINE.

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the opening, while he explained at length his reasons for feeling sure that the mine was an old one which had been worked and then abandoned by the Spaniards, in accordance with their usual custom when they had taken out the richest of the ore. He talked so much and so graphically about his find, that Jack scarcely liked at first to point out the obvious fact that he seemed a little vague as to its locality, for the most minute search of the ground he indicated failed to show anything which by any stretch of imagination could be taken for a mine.

He appeared at last to awake to this fact himself, and began making investigations a little farther afield-with the same lack of result; until, late in the afternoon, hot, tired, and on the verge of sunstroke, Jack declined to go another step, and added that he did not believe there had ever been any mine, as it is not a sort of thing you can easily mislay! The Cuban protested that he had seen it; but whether he was mad, or whether he was playing a bad practical joke from which he suffered equally with his victim, it is impossible to say. Jack inclined to the former opinion, which may be considered charitable of him, as he went back to Mexico in a very bad temper, with a scorpion in his portmanteau. Moreover, from being out in the sun all day he contracted a bad attack of fever; and be

sides, he must have been near some of the "poison ivy," which makes life a burden in the California foot-hills, for he was poisoned from head to foot. He was seriously ill for weeks; and after a long struggle to keep at work in spite of everything, he was at last obliged to give it up and go to Puebla to try the effect of the sulphur-springs for which the place is famed.

So

The springs bubble up into huge artificial baths, and as long as he could spend the morning reading his newspaper, with the tepid water up to his neck, the invalid was fairly comfortable; though the certainty of having to dry himself on a towel which would be small for a baby in arms was not inviting from any but a Mexican point of view. But the worst was, that the moment he left his harbour of refuge, the terrible irritation began again in full force. at last he had to call in a local doctor, who scouted the idea of poison ivy, and suggested that haven for the destitute in medical science— rheumatic gout. Finding himself at fault there, he next inquired carefully into the ancestry near and remote of his patient, saying gravely that it was a sad oversight on the part of any man not to make himself fully acquainted with the details of his great-grandmother's constitution.

THE TOWN OF PUEBLA.

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After listening to the small amount of information Jack was able to give him on the point in question, he said that he had come to the conclusion the invalid was suffering from snake-bite! He treasured this idea as an inspiration of genius, and was with difficulty weaned from it, and induced to suggest some remedy for an irritated skin. It was only among first causes that he lost himself, with effects he was at home; so he ordered bran-baths, which proved to be so efficacious that the patient soon began to take some interest in life again, and prepared to enjoy wandering about the quaint old streets and worn fortified walls of Puebla.

The manufactory of antiquities he found very instructive: it is said that when one of the Astors visited Mexico, Puebla was nearly ruined by the strain on its resources. But best of all in the historical city is the curious old blue pottery of distinctly oriental design, fragments of which may still be found in back slums and out-of-the-way places. The story goes that, on settling themselves at Puebla, the first monks who went over from Spain soon discovered a similarity in the clay to that used in their own country for pottery. They thereupon built works, and made a large revenue from the manufacture of graceful and beautiful