Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/374

362 had fairly begun. She was a bright, laughing girl, who was only following, as they say here, la costumbre de la pais (the custom of the country). How is it worse for girls than boys? Men and women drink together. They can as properly indulge in this vice. Not far from sunrise we pass the beautiful hacienda of Laguna Seca (Dry Lake). It relieves the uncultured dreariness of the landscape with its finish and fineness of luxuriant green. The gate towers of stone are prettily capped and pointed in colored mortars. Its large plaza is swept clean. A pretty little pond, faced, walled, and encircled with trees, increases its attractiveness, and even the huts of the laborers are made into cottages. A dozen or more stand end to the street, neatly built and thatched. I was surprised at this, for it was the first attempt I had seen on any hacienda to make the home of the work-people attractive. It soon dies away; for only a few rods off is a cluster of as mean huts as any in the worst spots on the roadside. It would cost too much to fix all the homes of the people that way. These are specimens of what might be done and will yet be done; for all these dens are to be yet pleasant and comfortable homes.

Leaving this partly perfect spot, we soon get into the thick of the hills. The open pass which I had thought yesterday would accompany us all the way gives out, or we turn away from it. The spurs of the hills hug us, and we wind around and around them for several leagues. The soil is parched, cleft, barren, save of the perpetual cactus and mesquite. We get at last away from these too-close embraces, pass some plowed fields, and large thickets of the mesquite, and change mules at the poor station of Solis, a mere rancho. The scenery broadens, and in a few leagues we scamper through the quite good-sized village of La Vega de Gaudalupe.

A bit of a rancho of two or three huts, called La Punta, is our next stopping-place. It is our breakfasting- place also. It is a new experience to enter an adobe hut for breakfast, but traveling is intended for new experiences. So hunger drives me to the white table-cloth, the clean earth floor, and the bill of fare. A brisk and pleasant lady serves the table, assisted by a not so brisk