Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/211

 164 huge Spanish spur, to which is attached a small ball of finely-tempered steel, that strikes against the long rowels at every tread of the man or beast, and rings like a fairy bell,



you have a complete picture of a Mexican horseman, equipped at every point and ready for the road. If he has to fight, he has his weapons; if to feed, he has his laden mule; if it rain, he dons his serape and armas de agua, and rides secure from storm and wind; and if he arrives at an Indian hut, after a long and toilsome journey, and no bed is ready to receive him, he spreads the skins on the earthen floor—his saddle is his pillow, and his blanket a counterpane. He is the compendium of a perfect travelling household.

In this guise were most of us equipped when we mustered in the great square—except, that for leathern jackets, we had substituted blue cloth, and had strapped our serapes on the pillions behind us.

All were punctual to the minute, and the arriéro, together with Gomez, and Antonio, the two other servants, were sent on to the Garrita to pass our carga mules. Gomez was a stanch, wooden-faced old trooper, who had done good service in the troublous times in Mexico; Ramon, a Spaniard,—a thin, hatchet-visaged, boasting, slashing rogue,—who had fought through many a guerilla party of the Peninsular war; and Antonio, a sort of weazened supernumerary, with a game leg, a broken nose, a toothless upper gum, a devilish leering eye, and a pepper-and-salt cur as worthless as his master, who amused himself during the whole of our journey by running bulls, tearing sheep, worrying fowls, and taking twice as much exercise as was necessary.