Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/227

 seen, in the dry season, perpendicular columns of sand and dust dancing on the surface, like water-spouts over the sea.

At the station of Huamantla, an adobe village with a large white church, one hundred miles from Mexico, as at every stopping-place on the line, groups of horsemen in leather jackets and trousers, and wide sombreros, are drawn up along the track. These are the "rural guards," who have a truly rural look indeed, and who, being better paid than the regular soldiers

who accompany every train by the car-full, are supposed to be of greater service in case of an emergency. In fact, the regulars have been known to be perfectly oblivious of the existence of robbers, even when the latter were firing guns and pistols within a hundred feet of them, and depriving passengers of their entire possessions!

Apizaco is another adobe village, one hundred and seventy-