Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/11

Rh in quest of a new master who can put down the master of the night before, quite indifferent as to political principles, mistaking disorder for liberty, and never suspecting that the continual assaults of anarchy may bring down one day the worm-eaten structure of their rotten republic, although it has not been in existence more than twenty-five years.

Every evening, however, at the first peals of the Angelus, all noise ceases, as if by enchantment, in the Plaza Mayor. The crowd becomes hushed and silent. When the last toll of the bell dies away, the din recommences. The crowd disperses in every direction, carriages rattle off, horsemen gallop away, foot-passengers hurry hither and thither, but not always nimbly enough to escape the sword or lasso of the bold thieves who murder or rob their hapless victims, and whose audacity is such that, even in open day, and with crowds looking on, they have been known to commit their crimes. At nightfall the square is deserted; a few promenaders scurry along in the moonlight; others remain seated, or swing lazily upon the iron chains, which, separated by granite pillars, run round the sagrario. The day is past, the scenes of the night begin, and the léperos become for a few hours masters of the city.

The lépero is a type, and that the strangest, of Mexican society. The attentive observer, who has seen Mexico stirring with the joyous excitement that precedes the Oracion, and then abandoned to the