Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/113

 Spaniard takes it with the nonchalance of eastern fatalism. Nothing disconcerts, disturbs, or forces him to utter an exclamation of pleasure or a sigh of pain—but he sits in stoic silence receiving his ounces, if he win, without eagerness, or seeing them swell the bank without sorrow, if he lose.

The game of monté has become part of the very nature of the inhabitants of Southern America. Accustomed in the olden times under the Colonial Government, to immense wealth, "wealth (as the old people describe it,) in which they literally swam," gold lost its value and became but a counter, by means of which they passed their idle hours in an agreeable excitement that never ruffled or elated them. This habitual regard for the game has descended from sire to son, and the keeping of a table, or its ownership, is not esteemed disreputable, as in other countries. On the contrary, the largest sums are avowedly furnished by most respectable bankers, and the sport is held to be a species of legitimate trade.

Yet, great is the distress produced in Mexico by gambling. While a hundred establishments are opened in St. Augustin for three days, there are not less than hundreds, in the city of Mexico, open daily during the whole year! The consequence is, that although the wealthiest and boldest betters, who venture their 200, 400, or even 1000 doubloons on a single card at St. Augustin, play only there, or but once or twice a year, yet the constant drain on the small gamblers is kept up day after day and night after night in the Capital. Is it to be wondered then, amid a nation of such habits—so prodigal, proud, and easily ruined, that persons who venture and lose their all on a single stake, or habitually live by the risks of fortune, betake themselves at last to the road, and rob with the pistol instead of the cards? Both are short cuts to fortune or the gallows.

We adjourned, at two o'clock, from the gambling-houses to the Cock-Pit. The President, General Santa Anna, and General Bravo, with their suites, occupied one of the centre boxes of the theatre, while the rest were filled with the beauty and fashion of Mexico. It is the vogue for women of family and respectability to attend these festivals, their great object being to outshine each other in the splendor and variety of their garments. The rage is to have one dress for mass at ten o'clock, one for the cock-pit, another for the ball at the Calvario, and a fourth for the ball in the evening. These again must be different on each succeeding day of the festival!

The cocks were brought into the centre of the pit within the ring, the President's fowls being generally those first put on the earth. They were then thrown off for a spring at each other, and taken up again before the betting began. Brokers went round, proclaiming the amount placed in their hands to bet on any particular fowl. Whenever a bet was offered