There are a few bushes growing outside the walls, and there we found the Nopal bush, the great prickly pear--the same that has established itself all round the shores of the Mediterranean--growing in crevices of rocks, and cracks in lava-beds, and barren places where nothing else will live.

But what made us notice these Nopals was, that they were covered with what looked like little white cocoons, out of which, when they were pressed, came a drop of deep crimson fluid.

This is the cochineal insect, but only the wild variety; the fine kind, which is used for dye, and conies from the province of Oajaca, miles off, is covered only with a mealy powder.

There the Indians cultivate great plantations of Nopals, and spread the insects over them with immense care, even removing them, and carrying them up into the mountains in baskets when the rainy season begins in the plains, and bringing them back when it is over.
On Friday, the 14th of March, at three o'clock in the morning, we took our places in a strong American-built diligence, holding nine inside, and began our journey by being dragged along the railroad--which was commenced with great energy some time ago, and got fifteen miles on its way to the capital, at which point it has stopped ever since.

When day broke we had left the railroad, and were jolting along through a parched sandy plain, thinly covered with acacias, nopals, and other kinds of cactus, bignonias, and the great tree-euphorbia, with which we had been so familiar in Cuba, with its smooth limbs and huge white flowers.