Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/46

24 himself with a double-jointed knife or while his flesh creeps and recoils in counterfeit horror from the playful nibblings and twining embraces of his harmless friends the serpents.

In front of a gaming-house also the performances of Indian dancing girls attract considerable attention. Some of them are but very scantily draped; but this does not appear at all to offend the numerous bystanders. These girls have been familiar with seasons of want and misery, alternated with scenes of glitter and dissipation, from their infancy. The history of one of them would be pitiable in the extreme. Their joyous laughter and smiling grimaces are evidently assumed: one of them glances with ardently longing eyes towards the dish of frijoles and chilé which has just been borne past; the voice of another seems almost to have failed her from excessive weakness; and a third has been compelled to support herself against a portion of the door, from exhaustion, in the midst of an unusually brilliant feat. But they laugh and sing, and dance and caper—often coarsely, jinglin their tambourines and triangles; and the multitudes around care for nothing else,