and the Indian who carries the heaviest of them to a mine ten miles away
and two thousand feet above the city over the rockiest trails considers
himself well paid at thirty cents. Six peons dog-trotted by from the
municipal slaughter-house with a steer on their backs: four carried a
quarter each; one the head and skin; and the last, heart, stomach, and
intestines. Horseshoers worked in the open streets, using whatever shoes
they had on hand without adjustment, paring down the hoofs of the animal
to fit them. Here and there a policeman on his beat was languidly
occupied in making brushes, like the prisoners of the Alondiga, and two
I saw whiling away the time making lace! Several of them tagged my
footsteps, eager for some errand. One feels no great sense of security
in a country whose boyish, uneducated, and ragged guardians of order
cringe around like beggar boys hoping for a copper.

Saturday is beggar's day, when those who seek alms more or less
surreptitiously during the week are permitted to pass in procession
along the shops, many of which disburse on this day a fixed sum, as high
as twenty dollars, in copper centavos. Now and then the mule-cars bowled
over a laden ass, which sat up calmly on its haunches, front feet in the
air, until the obstruction passed. All those of Indian blood were
notable for their strong white teeth, not one of which they seem ever to
lose. In the church a bit higher up several bedraggled women and
pulque-besotted peons knelt before a disgusting representation of the
Crucifixion. The figure had real hair, beard, eyebrows, and even
eyelashes, with several mortal wounds, barked knees and shins, half the
body smeared with red paint as blood, all in all fit only for the
morgue. Farther on, drowsed the post-office, noted like all south of the
Rio Grande for its unreliability. Unregistered packages seldom arrive at
their destination, groceries sent from the States to American residents
are at least half eaten en route. A man of the North unacquainted with