Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/289

 and in this latter capacity, often in the charge of great conductas, or trains, of treasure-laden animals, have always proved honest and trustworthy messengers.

The Mestizos are of pleasant countenance, when of good extraction, of full figure, with complexions which, though swarthy, are yet fresh, and sometimes rosy. As servants, the Mestizos are generally faithful, not over fond of ablution, but having high regard for their masters and mistresses. Always aspiring, the Mestizo is rapidly drawing away from the Indian progenitor, and assimilates with the white race; it is said that Mestizos of the third generation cannot be distinguished from the Creoles themselves. As politicians, they have ever been successful, taking to law, also, as naturally as to the profession of arms. Not alone in point of numerical superiority, but as regards the real possession of powder, through peculiar fitness for holding political office, the Mestizos are the dominant people of Mexico to-day.

But there is a class of Mestizos which a truthful delineation of Mexican society compels me to mention, not so creditable to Mexico by half as the poorest and most degraded of the Indians. I speak of the Lepero. The union of the worst of the Spanish with the worst of the Aztec race produced a progeny that exhibited all the vices, without a single virtue, of the parent stock. Time, instead of ameliorating, has hardened him, and the miserable lepero is the vilest specimen of humanity, the most degraded, most devoid of principle and honor, to be found on the American continent. And what is the lepero? Let Brantz Mayer, a close observer of the Mexicans for quite a length of time, answer this question: "Blacken a man in the sun, let his hair grow long and tangled, and become filled with vermin; let him plod about the streets in all kinds of dirt for years, and never know the use of brush or towel, or water even, except in storms; let him put on a pair of leather breeches at twenty, and wear them until forty without change or ablution; and over all place a torn and blackened hat, and a tattered blanket begrimed with abominations; let him have wild eyes and shining teeth, features pinched by famine into sharpness, and