Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/547

Rh Those killed at the Siērră are upon the account of the Administrador, for all the principal "dependientes" upon the Count's estates receive a very small salary, in lieu of which they are allowed to keep a certain quantity of live stock upon the land. Many of the Rancheros, who have only four or five dollars a month in money, possess as many as a thousand goats, with an "atajo" of eighty or a hundred horses. The Administrador during our stay was killing one hundred goats every day; and he informed me that his mătānză, (or killing season,) usually lasted a month. The hides and tallow are disposed of for his exclusive benefit, and the profits are sufficiently large to afford him a very comfortable maintenance.

A supply of maize, for the consumption of the estate, is grown about the Hacienda, and there is likewise a great annual shearhig, which produces between four and five thousand arrobas of wool.

We passed the whole of the 8th of December at Siērră Hĕrmōsă, in the vain hope of hearing something of our lost mules, and proceeded on the 9th to the Hacienda del Mēzquītĕ, which derives its name from the thorny shrub that forms the only apology for vegetation upon the road. The distance is seventeen leagues, but with the exception of Cāñăs, an estacion de Gănādŏ Măyōr, (literally a station for cattle,) with a large Noria, and some trees, which, with a plot of fresh-looking grass in the immediate vicinity of the water, form an agreeable