The New Mexicans, both men and women, had a great fondness for
jewelry, dress, and amusements; of the latter, the fandango was the
principal, which was held in the most fashionable place of resort,
where every belle and beauty in the town presented herself,
attired in the most costly manner, and displaying her jewelled
ornaments to the best advantage. To this place of recreation
and pleasure, generally a large, capacious saloon or interior court,
all classes of persons were allowed to come, without charge and
without invitation. The festivities usually commenced about nine
o'clock in the evening, and the tolling of the church bells was
the signal for the ladies to make their entrance, which they did
almost simultaneously.

New Mexican ladies were famous for their gaudy dresses, but it must
be confessed they did not exercise good taste. Their robes were
made without bodies; a skirt only, and a long, loose, flowing scarf
or reboso dexterously thrown about the head and shoulders, so as to
supersede both the use of dress-bodies and bonnets.

There was very little order maintained at these fandangoes, and still
less attention paid to the rules of etiquette. A kind of swinging,
gallopade waltz was the favourite dance, the cotillion not being
much in vogue. Read Byron's graphic description of the waltz,
and then stretch your imagination to its utmost tension, and you
will perhaps have some faint conception of the Mexican fandango.
Such familiarity of position as was indulged in would be repugnant
to the refined rules of polite society in the eastern cities;
but with the New Mexicans, in those early times, nothing was
considered to be a greater accomplishment than that of being able