Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/343

 Rh lame through an accident, and therefore unable to mount his horse, or to go far on foot, seemed singularly gentle and kind-hearted. The house is one of the prettiest and most cheerful we have seen yet; but we passed a great stone building on the road, which the proprietor of San Bartolo is having constructed for one of his family, which, if it keep its promise, will be a palace when finished. The principal produce of this hacienda is pimiento, the capsicum. There is the pimiento dulce and the pimiento picante, the sweet fruit of the common capsicum, and the fruit of the bird pepper capsicum. The Spaniards gave to all these peppers the name of chile, which they borrowed from the Indian word quauhchilli, and which, to the native Mexicans, is as necessary an ingredient of food as salt is to us. At dinner we had the greatest variety of fine fruit, and pulque, which is particularly good in this neighborhood. They also make here a quantity of excellent cheese.

After dinner they proceeded to amuse us with the colear of the bulls, of which amusement, the Mexicans throughout the whole Republic, are passionately fond. They collect a herd, single out several, gallop after them on horseback; and he who is most skilful, catches the bull by the tail, passes it under his own right leg, turns it round the high pummel of his saddle, and wheeling his horse round at right angles by a sudden movement, the bull falls on his face. Even boys of ten years old joined in this sport. It is no wonder that the Mexicans are such centaurs, seeming to form part and parcel of their horses, accustomed as they are from childhood to these dangerous