Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/747

Rh prosecution of agriculture; inasmuch as the peon, if free, can never be depended upon, if he gets a few dollars or shillings in his pocket, and there is a place for him to gamble within from fifty to one hundred miles' distance. It is to be noted, however, that, wherever Mexico comes in contact with the outside world, the peon system tends to decay; and in the northern Slates of Mexico, where American ideas are finding their way among the people, and the construction of railways has increased the opportunities for employment, and raised wages, it is already practically abandoned. On each estate, or hacienda, there are buildings, or collections of buildings, typical of the country, borrowed originally, so far as the idea was concerned, in part undoubtedly from Old Spain, and in part prompted by the necessities for defense from attack under which the country has been occupied and settled, which are also called haciendas, the term being apparently used indifferently to designate both a large landed estate, as well as the buildings, which, like the old feudal castles, represent the ownership and the center of operations on the estate. They are usually huge rectangular structures—walls or buildings—of stone or adobe, intended often to serve the purpose, if needs be, of actual fortresses, and completely inclosing an inner square, or court-yard, the entrance to which is through one or more massive gates, which, when closed at night, are rarely opened until morning. Within the court, upon one side, built up against an exterior wall, is usually a series of adobe structures—low, windowless, single apartments—where the peons and their families, with their dogs and pigs, live; while upon the other sides are larger structures for the use or residence of the owner and his family, or the superintendent of the estate; with generally also a chapel and accommodations for the priest, places for the storage of produce, and the keeping of animals; and one or more apartments entirely destitute of furniture or of any means of lighting or ventilation, save through the entrance or doorway from the court-yard, which are devoted to the reception of such travelers as may demand and receive hospitality to the extent of shelter from the night, or protection from outside marauders. Such places hardly deserve the name of inns, but either these poor accommodations or camping out is the traveler's only alternative. They put one in mind of the caravansaries of the East, or better of the inns or posadas of Spain, which Don Quixote and his attendant Sancho Panza frequented, with the court-yard then, as now, all ready for tossing Sancho in a blanket in presence of the whole population. In some cases the hacienda is an irregular pile of adobe buildings without symmetry, order, or convenience; and in others, where the estate is large and the laborers numerous (as is often the case), only the most important buildings are inclosed within the wall—the peons, whose poverty is generally a sufficient safeguard against robbery, living outside and constituting a scattered village community. The owners of the large Mexican estates rarely live upon them, but make their homes