Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/264

236 through his teeth, his eyebrows were large and bushy, and his thick and grizzled hair hung in a tangled mass far over his face. In short, he was a very passable impersonation of a human bear; for his manners were coarse and heavy, his speeches and exclamations grovelling and guttural, and he kept aloof from the rest, dogged, uncomplying, and wonderfully ill-conditioned.

In his two opposite neighbours, also, the animal propensities appeared greatly to preponderate. The eyes of the first were sunk in stupid vacancy, his features relaxed in inane dejection, his mouth moist and slightly open, and his person jaded and neglected: his morning's draught of aguardiente had been too strong for him; and he was all but highly intoxicated. The vacant look of his comrade might have been traced to habitual over-eating and over-smoking; and he talked and dozed upon his seat by turns. He had the most glowing complexion, and was perhaps the stoutest beneath the sash of any person present; and possessed decidedly the reddest and fullest ears and neck, in addition. He was