Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/141

Rh, just before night-fall. Some of the fair occupants drive up and down in carriages, while others dismount, and, seated on the banquettes, pass their time in chatting with their friends, male and female, saluting each acquaintance who passes.

The young men ride around upon gaily caparisoned horses, and the young ladies frequently exhibit their love of odd adventure, by hiring one of the clumsy ox-carts of the country, and, a dozen of them together, riding up and down the paseo, singing light songs and playing on the guitar, their gallants riding near them on horseback and keeping up a running fire of chaffing and pleasant conversation, or bending from their saddles to whisper the story we have all heard and told, into willing ears as occasion offers. This is one of the oddest customs of the country.

Leaving my seat in the carriage in which we visited the paseo, to take one beside a fair young country-woman of mine, to ride back to the city, I noticed a fullloaded Colt's revolver lying on the cushion by her side. "Oh! that is nothing; I always bring one out here when I come, as this is a noted place for robbers, who sometimes jump out of the cane-brake, and rob a carriage before assistance can arrive," she said nonchalantly in reply to my look of inquiry. "Pleasant place to visit and enjoy one's self in! I think I hear you say. Well, all that may be, but when you have nowhere else to go, what can you do; one must have some recreation you know!" I said "Please pass me," and we rode home.

Notwithstanding the slaughter of brigands by the State troops acting under the authority of the civil tribunals, the business of kidnapping citizens and carrying them off into the mountains to be held for