let them take their last look, they of her, and she of them. As they got in, we all crowded to the balconies to see her take leave of her house, her aunts saying, "Yes, child, despidete de tu casa, take leave of your house, for you will never see it again !" Then came sobs from the sisters, and many of the gentlemen, ashamed of their emotion, hastily quitted the room. I hope, for the sake of humanity, I did not rightly interpret the look of constrained anguish which the poor girl threw from the window of the carriage at the home of her childhood.

They drove off, and the relations prepared to walk in procession to the church. I walked with the Count S- -o, the others followed in pairs. The church was very brilliantly illuminated, and as we entered, the band was playing one of Strauss's waltzes! The crowd was so tremendous that we were nearly squeezed to a jelly in getting to our places. I was carried off my feet between two fat Señoras in mantillas and shaking diamond pendants, exactly as if I had been packed between two movable feather-beds.

They gave me, however, an excellent place, quite close to the grating, beside the Countess de So, that is to say, a place to kneel on. A great bustle and much preparation seemed to be going on within the convent, and veiled figures were flitting about, whispering, arranging, &c. Sometimes a skinny old dame would come close to the grating, and lifting up her veil, bestow upon the pensive public a generous view of a very haughty and very wrinkled visage of some seventy years standing, and beckon into the church for the major-domo of the convent (an excellent and profitable situation by the way), or for padre this or that. Some of the holy ladies recognised and spoke to me through the grating.

But at the discharge of fireworks outside the church the curtain was dropped, for this was the signal that the nun and her mother had arrived. An opening was made in the crowd as they passed into the church; and the girl, kneeling down, was questioned by the bishop, but I could not make out the dialogue, which was carried on in a low voice. She then passed into the convent by a side door, and her mother, quite exhausted and nearly in hysterics, was supported through the crowd to a place beside us, in front of the grating. The music struck up; the curtain was again drawn aside. The scene was as striking here as in the convent of the Santa Teresa, but not so lugubrious. The nuns, all ranged around, and carrying lighted tapers in their hands, were dressed in mantles of bright blue, with a gold plate on the left shoulder. Their faces, however, were covered with deep black veils. The girl, kneeling in front, and also bearing a heavy lighted taper, looked beautiful, with her dark hair and rich dress, and the long black lashes resting on her glowing face. The churchmen near the illuminated and magnificently-decked altar formed, as usual, a brilliant back-ground to the picture. The ceremony was the same as on the former occasion, but there was no

sermon.

The most terrible thing to witness was the last, straining, anxious look which the mother gave her daughter through the grating. She had seen her child pressed to the arms of strangers, and welcomed to her new home. She was no longer hers. All the sweet ties of nature had been rudely severed, and she had been forced to consign her, in the very bloom of youth and beauty, at the very age in which she most required a mother's care, and when she had but just fulfilled the promise of her childhood, to a living tomb. Still, as long as the curtain had not fallen, she could gaze upon her, as upon one on whom, though dead, the coffin-lid is not yet closed.

But while the new-made nun was in a blaze of light, and distinct on the foreground, so that we could mark each varying expression of her face, the crowd in the church, and the comparative faintness of the light, probably made it difficult for her to distinguish her mother; for, knowing that the end was at hand, she looked anxiously and hurriedly into the church, without seeming able to fix her eyes on any particular object; while her mother seemed as if her eyes were glazed, so intently were they fixed upon her daughter.

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Suddenly, and without any preparation, down fell the black curtain like a pall, and the sobs and tears of the family broke forth. One beautiful little child was carried out almost in fits. Water was brought to the poor mother; and at last, making our way with difficulty through the dense crowd, we got into the sacristy. declare," said the Countess to me, wiping her eyes, "it is worse than a marriage!" I expressed my horror at the sacrifice of a girl so young, that she could not possibly have known her own mind. Almost all the ladies agreed with me, especially all who had daughters, but many of the old gentlemen were of a different opinion. The young men were decidedly of my way of thinking, but many young girls, who were conversing together, seemed rather to envy their friend, who had looked so pretty and graceful, and "so happy,' and whose dress "suited her so well," and to have no objection to "go, and do likewise."

I had the honour of a presentation to the bishop, a fat and portly prelate, with good manners, and well besuiting his priestly garments. I amused myself, while we waited for the carriages, by looking over a pamphlet which lay on the table, containing the ceremonial of the veil-taking. When we rose to go, all the ladies of the highest rank devoutly kissed the bishop's hand; and I went home, thinking by what law of God a child can thus be dragged from the mother who bore and bred her, and immured in a cloister for life, amongst strangers, to whom she has no tie, and towards whom she owes no duty. That a convent may be a blessed shelter from the calamities of life, a haven for the unprotected, a resting-place for the weary, a safe and holy asylum, where a new family and kind friends await those whose natural ties are broken and whose early friends are gone, I am willing to admit;/but it is not in the flower of youth that the warm heart should be consigned to the cold cloister. / Let the young

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take their chance of sunshine or of storm: the calm and shady retreat is for helpless and unprotected old age.

to whom I described one of these ceremonies, wrote some verses, suggested by my account of them, which I send you.

In tropic gorgeousness, the Lord of Day

To the bright chambers of the west retired,
And with the glory of his parting ray

The hundred domes of Mexico he fired,
When I, with vague and solemn awe inspired,
Entered the Incarnation's sacred fane.

The vaulted roof, the dim aisle far retired,
Echoed the deep-toned organ's holy strain,

Which through the incensed air did mournfully complain.

The veiling curtain suddenly withdrew,
Op'ning a glorious altar to the sight,
Where crimson intermixed its regal hue

With gold and jewels that outblazed the light

Of the huge tapers near them flaming bright

From golden stands-the bishop, mitre-crowned,

Stood stately near-in order due around

The sisterhood knelt down, their brows upon the ground.

The novice entered: to her doom she went,

Gems on her robes, and flowers upon her brow.

Virgin of tender years, poor innocent!

Pause, ere thou speak th' irrevocable vow.

What if thy heart should change, thy spirit fail?

She kneels. The black-robed sisters cease to bow.
They raise a hymn which seems a funeral wail,

While o'er the pageant falls the dark, lugubrious veil.

Again the veil is up. On earth she lies,

With the drear mantle of the pall spread o'er,
The new-made nun, the living sacrifice,

Dead to this world of our's for evermore!
The sun his parting rays has ceased to pour,
As loth to lend his light to such a scene.
The sisters raise her from the sacred floor,
Supporting her their holy arms between ;
The mitred priest stands up with patriarchal mien,

And speaks the benediction; all is done.

A life-in-death must her long years consume.
She clasped her new-made sisters one by one.
As the black shadows their embraces gave

They seemed like spectres from their place of doom,
Stealing from out eternal night's blind cave,

To meet their comrade new, and hail her to the grave.

The curtain fell again, the scene was o'er,

The pageant gone-its glitter and its pride,

And it would be a pageant and no more,

But for the maid miscalled the Heavenly Bride.

If I, an utter stranger, unallied

To her by slightest ties, some grief sustain,

What feels the yearning mother, from whose side
Is torn the child whom she hath reared in vain,

To share her joys no more, no more to sooth her pain!

LETTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

San Agustin-The Gambling Fête-The_Beauties of the Village-The Road from Mexico-Entry to San Agustin-The Gambling Houses-San Antonio -The Pedregal-Last day of the Fête-The Cock-pit-The Boxes-The Cock-fight-Decorum-Comparisons-Dinner-Ball at Calvario-House of General Moran-View of the Gambling Tables—The Advocate-Ball at the Plaza de Gallos-Return to Mexico-Reflections-Conversation between two Ministers.

15th June.

SINCE my last letter we have been at San Agustin de las Cuevas, which, when I last saw it, was a deserted village, but which during three days in the year presents the appearance of a vast bee-hive or ant-hill. San Agustin! At the name how many hearts throb with emotion! How many hands are mechanically thrust into empty pockets! How many visions of long-vanished golden ounces flit before aching eyes! What faint crowing of wounded cocks! What tinkling of guitars and blowing of horns come upon the ear! Some, indeed, there be, who can look round upon their well-stored hacienda and easy rolling carriages, and remember the day, when with threadbare coat, and stake of three modest ounces, they first courted Fortune's favours, and who, being then indigent, and enjoying an indifferent reputation, found themselves, at the conclusion of a few successive San Agustins, the fortunate proprietors of gold, and land, and houses; and, moreover, with an unimpeachable fame; for he who can fling gold dust in his neighbour's eyes, prevents him from seeing too clearly. But these favourites of the blind goddess are few and far between; and they have for the most part, with a view to greater security, become holders or sharers of banks at San Agustin, thus investing their fortune in a secure fund; more so decidedly, if we may believe the newspaper reports, than in the bank of the United States at this present writing.

Time, in its revolutions whirling all things out of their places, has made no change in the annual fête of San Agustin. Fashions alter. The graceful mantilla gradually gives place to the ungraceful bonnet. The old painted coach, moving slowly like a caravan, with Guido's Aurora painted on its gaudy panels, is dismissed for the London-built carriage. Old customs have passed away. The ladies no longer sit on the door-sills, eating roast duck with their fingers, or with the aid of tortillas. Even the Chinampas have become stationary, and have occasionally joined the continent. But the annual fête of San Agustin is built on a more solid foundation than taste or custom, or floating soil. It is founded upon that love

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of gambling, which is said to be a passion inherent in our nature, and which is certainly impregnated with the Mexican constitution, in man, woman, and child. The beggars gamble at the corners of the streets or under the arches; the little boys gamble in groups in the villages; the coachmen and footmen gamble at the doors of the theatre while waiting for their masters.

But while their hand is thus kept in all the year round, there are three days sacredly set apart annually, in which every accommodation is given to those who are bent upon ruining themselves or their neighbours; whilst every zest that society can afford, is held out to render the temptation more alluring. As religion is called in to sanctify every thing, right or wrong; as the robber will plant a cross at the mouth of his cave, and the pulque shops do occasionally call themselves "Pulquerias of the Most Holy Virgin," so this season of gambling is fixed for the fête of Pascua (Whitsunday), and the churches and the gambling-houses are thrown open simultaneously.

The village is in itself pretty and picturesque; and, as a stone at its entry informs us, was built by the active Viceroy Revillagigedo, with the product, as - assured us, of two lotteries. It is charmingly situated, in the midst of handsome villas and orchards, whose high walls, overtopped by fruit-trees, border the narrow lanes. At this season the trees are loaded with the yellow chabacano and the purple plum, already ripe; while the pear trees are bending under the weight of their fruit. The gardens are full of flowers; the roses in their last bloom, covering the ground with their pink leaves, and jasmine and sweet-peas in profusion, making the air fragrant. The rainy season has scarce set in, though frequent showers have laid the dust, and refreshed the air. The country villas are filled with all that is gayest and most distinguished in Mexico, and every house and every room in the village has been hired for months in advance. The ladies are in their most elegant toilets, and looking forward to a delightful whirl of dancing, cock-fighting, gambling, dining, dressing, and driving about.

The high-road leading from Mexico to San Agustin is covered with vehicles of every description; carriages, diligences, hackneycoaches, carts, and carratelas. Those who are not fortunate enough to possess any wheeled conveyance, come out on horse, ass, or mule; single, double, or treble, if necessary; and many hundreds, with visions of silver before their eyes, and a few clacos (pence), hid under their rags, trudge out on foot. The President himself, in carriage and six, and attended by his aids-de-camp, sanctions by his presence the amusements of the fête. The Mexican generals and other officers, follow in his wake, and the gratifying spectacle may not unfrequently be seen, of the president leaning from his box in the plaza de gallos, and betting upon a cock, with a coatless, bootless, hatless, and probably worthless ragamuffin in the pit. Every one, therefore, however humble his degree, has the pleasure, while