Page:Notes of the Mexican war 1846-47-48.djvu/539

Rh This evening Col. Jack Hayes with his command arrived from Puebla City, they being out scouting and hunting up guerillas.

Thursday, April 20, 1848.—This morning Alburtus Welsh, Zach. Taylor and myself went to the city in a coach which is now running again. It was Holy Thursday, which is a great day amongst the Mexicans. At every corner we came to, the streets were arched over with bowers made of green. Under these arches the Mexicans offered for sale ice cream and other refreshments. The holydays and festivals are conducted here a good deal like those at home, with all kinds of amusements and eatables. It has the effect of bringing all classes of people together. At home most of our poor people are clad equal with the rich, but here in this country I can see no change in the poor classes. They have the one dress (that is, what is of it) constantly on, and I don't believe that they ever change; keep it on until entirely worn out.

As I stated before, at these holydays or festivals all classes of people congregate, and I can count five different classes. First, are the real white foreigners, who are mostly very wealthy; second, are a class of whites, and are the living descendants of the Spaniards, they are sometimes called Creoles; third, are those who call themselves white, and are partly mixed; fourth, are the Indians and leperos, who sometimes lives in huts, villages, and outskirts of all towns in Mexico; fifth, are the Mestizos or mixed Indian, who look like some of our mixed negroes in the South, called mulattos; but of all the classes of men is the leperos, who are the most miserable set of living beings you ever heard tell of, they are the remnants of the Comanche tribe of Indians, and go through the streets-of cities with only a blanket wrapped around them. The leperos, it will be remembered, were that portion of the mob of Mexico, which fired on our troops, and which has since had a hand in most of the assassinations of our soldiers.

Nobody can tell the poor lepero's occupation. God only knows how he lives, or what he lives on. He has almost as