Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/133

Rh of their day's adventures for the supply of their daily food brisk exercise and free air combine to give them most voracious appetites; and they are not very nice in their mode of gratifying them—a huge steak or joint from a recently slain ox, broiled with the hide upon it, upon an impromptu wood and earthen fire, affording them a ready and substantial meal. Sometimes a little maize, or hard tortilla cake, is added to this; but more commonly is it partaken of without any such accompaniments. The bare and rugged earth supplies them with an ample couch, upon which they sleep undisturbed by dreams or nightmare—unless it happen that the wolves in the neighbourhood are unusually bold and hungry; while their only covering is the canopy of heaven—unless there be a tree, or grove of trees, in the vicinity: not a very usual occurrence there.

The wild-cattle themselves are a shaggy set of independent, impulsive, roving blades. There is something absolutely comical in the mixture of innocence and suspicion, of fierceness and vacancy, observable in their countenances. They are sociable together, too, and fair in their conduct to one another; each