Page:Six Months In Mexico.pdf/193

Rh friends when in town, as it would be a great breach of decorum for a family to call on a visitor before he or she came to their house. If two or more people meet in a room and are not acquainted they must speak, but not shake hands; they can converse until some one comes, when they will accept an introduction and embrace, as if they had just that instant met. When one occupies a bench in the park with a stranger neither must depart without bidding the other farewell, and very often while murmuring adieus they clasp hands and lift hats.

Mexicans in talking employ a number of signs which mean as much to them and are as plainly understood as English words would be to us. They speak their sign language gracefully; indeed, they are a very graceful people, and yet they never study it or give it a thought. When they want a waiter in a restaurant, or a man on streets, they never call or whistle, as we would do, but simply clap the hands several times and the wanted party comes. The system is very convenient, and far more pleasing than the American pan. When wishing to beckon any one, they throw the hand from them in the same manner as Americans do if they want any one to move on. To go away, they hold the fingers together and move them toward the body.

They never say that a man is drunk; it sounds vulgar, and as they will "get that way," they merely place the index finger on the temple and incline the head slightly toward the person meant. They could never be abrupt enough to say any one was crazy or had no brains, so they touch the forehead, between the eyebrows, with the first finger. To speak of money they form a circle of the thumb and forefinger; to ask you to take a drink or tell the servants to bring one, the thumb is turned toward the mouth; to ask you to wait a little while, the first finger is held within a quarter of an inch of the thumb. To hold the palm upward, and slowly move the palm backward and forward says as plain as English “I am going to whip my wife," or "I whip my wife.” If they want you to play a game at cards, they close both fists and hold them tightly together. Touching the thumb rapidly with the four fingers closed means you have much or many of anything, like many friends. Making a scissors sign with the fist and second finger means you are