Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/94

88 than twenty thousand mules are constantly employed transporting goods over the road between Colima and Guadalajara and intermediate points, and as each carries at least two hundred and fifty or three hundred pounds, the aggregate amount must be enormous. Many of the smaller trains which we met were loaded with coarse rush matting, used for covering floors, or earthen jars, and were driven by Indian families, men, women, and children, on foot, who appeared to be doing business on their own account. In many cases a mule would have goods worth not more than three dollars on his back, and the family must be poor indeed to go so far for so little money. We must have met or passed at least fifteen hundred or two thousand mules during the day.

We passed also several Mexican families of the better class, traveling on horseback and attended by numerous servants, all well armed. The women, invariably, had their heads covered with rebosas, or large handkerchiefs under their broad-brimmed hats, hiding all their hair and most of their faces, so fearful do they seem to be of any exposure to the air when traveling, though when at home, they go, bare headed, in the hottest sun, or coldest breeze to church, theater or promenade, all the year around.

Passing at a distance the magnificent hacienda of Huescalapa, which appeared like an immense white palace, we saw soon after night-fall, the long rows of paper lanterns which adorned every house, and were strung across every street in Zapotlan, giving to the tumble-down old city an air of enchantment. The illumination was in honor of the feast of San Jose of which saint this was the anniversary.