hours sooner.

However, "All's well that ends well." I thought of Christmas in "Merrie
England," and of our family gatherings in the olden time, and as if one had
not travelled enough in the body, began travelling in the mind, away to far
different, and distant, and long gone-by scenes, fell asleep at length with
my thoughts in Scotland, and wakened in Mexico!

By daylight we find our house very pretty, with a large garden adjoining,
full of flowers, and rosebushes in the courtyard, but being all on the
ground-floor, it is somewhat damp, and the weather, though beautiful, is so
cool in the morning, that carpets, and I sometimes think even a _soupcon_
of fire, would not be amiss. The former we shall soon procure, but there
are neither chimneys nor grates, and I have no doubt a fire would be
disagreeable for more than an hour or so in the morning. The house stands
alone, with a large court before it, and opposite to it passes the great
stone aqueduct, a magnificent work of the Spaniards, though not more so,
probably, than those which supplied the ancient Tenochtitlan with water.
Behind it we see nothing but several old houses, with trees, so that we
seem almost in the country. To the right is one large building, with garden
and olive-ground, where the English legation formerly lived, a palace in
size, since occupied by Santa Anna, and which now belongs to Senor Perez
Galvez; a house which we shall be glad to have, if the proprietor will
consent to let it.

But what most attracts our attention are the curious and picturesque groups
of figures which we see from the windows--men bronze-colour, with nothing
but a piece of blanket thrown round them, carrying lightly on their heads
earthen basins, precisely the colour of their own skin, so that they look
altogether like figures of terra cotta: these basins filled with sweetmeats