Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/41

Rh The man coolly tore a piece off a handkerchief, shook the blood off his finger with a slight grimace, bound it up in a moment and dashed away upon a new venture. One Mexican, extraordinarily handsome, with eyes like an eagle, but very thin and pale, is, they say, so covered from head to foot with wounds received in different bull-fights, that he cannot live long; yet this man was the most enthusiastic of them all. His master tried to dissuade him from joining in the sport this year; but he broke forth into such pathetic entreaties, conjuring him "by the life of the Señorita," &c., that he could not withhold his consent.

After an enormous number of bulls had been caught and labelled, we went to breakfast. We found a tent prepared for us, formed of boughs of trees intertwined with garlands of white moss, like that which covers the cypresses at Chapultepec, and beautifully ornamented with red blossoms and scarlet berries. We sat down upon heaps of white moss, softer than any cushion. The Indians had cooked meat under the stones for us, which I found horrible, smelling and tasting of smoke. But we had also boiled fowls, and quantities of burning chile, hot tortillas, atole or atolli as the Indians call it, a species of cakes made of very fine maize and water, and sweetened with sugar or honey; embarrado, a favorite composition of meat and chili, very like mud, as the name imports, which I have not yet made up my mind to endure; quantities of fresh tunas, granaditas, bananas, aguacates, and other fruits, besides pulque à discretion.