of brown beans), chile con carne, rice, stews of stray scraps of meat
and the leavings of the butcher-shops. These were dished up in brown
glazed jars and eaten with strips of tortilla folded between the
fingers, as the Arab eats with _gkebis_. Indeed there were many
things reminiscent of the markets and streets of Damascus, more customs
similar to those of the Moor than the Spaniard could have brought over,
and the brown, wrinkled old women much resembled those of Palestine,
though their noses were flatter and their features heavier.

Yet it was a good-natured crowd. In all my wandering in it I heard not
an unpleasant word, not a jest at my expense, almost no evidence of
anti-foreign feeling, which seems not indigenous to the peon, but
implanted in him by those of ulterior motives. Nor did they once ask
alms or attempt to push misery forward. The least charitable would be
strongly tempted to succor any one of the throng individually, but here
a hundred dollars in American money divided into Mexican centavos would
hardly go round. Here and there were pulquerias full of besotted,
shouting men--and who would not drink to drown such misery?

There was not a male of any species but had his colored blanket, red,
purple, Indian-yellow, generally with two black stripes, the poorer with
a strip of old carpet. These they wound about their bodies, folding them
across the chest, the arms hugged together inside in such a way as to
bring a corner across the mouth and nose, leaving their pipe-stem legs
below, and wandered thus dismally about in the frequent spurts of cold
rain. Now and then a lowest of the low passed in the cast-off remnants
of "European" clothes, which were evidently considered far inferior to
peon garb, however bedraggled. Bare or sandaled feet seemed impervious
to cold, again like the Arab, as was also this fear of the raw air and
half covering of the face that gave a Mohammedan touch, especially to