the women. To me the atmosphere was no different than late October in
the States. The peons evidently never shaved, though there were many
miserable little barber-shops. On the farther outskirts of the hawkers
were long rows of shanties, shacks made of everything under the sun,
flattened tin cans, scraps of rubbish, two sticks holding up a couple of
ragged bags under which huddled old women with scraps of cactus and
bundles of tiny fagots.

Scattered through the throng were several "readers." One half-Indian
woman I passed many times was reading incessantly, with the speed of a
Frenchman, from printed strips of cheap colored paper which she offered
for sale at a cent each. They were political in nature, often in verse,
insulting in treatment, and mixed with a crass obscenity at which the
dismal multitude laughed bestially. Three musicians, one with a rude
harp, a boy striking a triangle steel, sang mournful dirges similar to
those of Andalusia. The peons listened to both music and reading
motionless, with expressionless faces, with never a "move on" from the
policeman, who seemed the least obstrusive of mortals.

San Luis Potosi has many large rich churches, misery and pseudo-religion
being common joint-legacies of Spanish rule. Small chance these
creatures would have of feeling at home in a place so different from
their earthly surroundings as the Christian heaven. The thump of church
bells, some with the voice of battered old tin pans, broke out
frequently. Now and then one of these dregs of humanity crept into
church for a nap, but the huge edifices showed no other sign of
usefulness. On the whole there was little appearance of "religion." A
few women were seen in the churches, a book-seller sold no novels and
little literature but "mucho de religion," but the great majority gave
no outward sign of belonging to any faith. Priests were not often seen