Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/12

 10 silence which the night brings on, can alone tell what is singular and formidable in the character of this Mexican lazzarone. At once brave and cowardly, calm and violent, fanatic and incredulous, with just such a belief in God as to have a wholesome terror for the devil, a continual gambler, quarrelsome by nature, with a sobriety only equaled by the intemperance to which he sometimes delivers himself, the lépero can accommodate himself to every turn of fortune, as his humor or idleness inclines him. Porter, stone-mason, teamster, street-pavior, hawker, the lépero is everything at different times. A thief sometimes by inclination, he practices his favorite calling every where, in the churches, at processions, and in theatres; his life is only one struggle with justice, which is not herself safe from his larcenies. Lavish when he finds himself master of a little money, he is not the less resigned or courageous when he has none. Has he gained in the morning a sufficiency for the expenses of the day? he drops work immediately. Often his precarious resources fail him entirely. Tranquil then, and submissive, and careless about thieves, he wraps himself in his torn cloak, and lies down at the corner of the pavement or in a door-way. There, rattling his jarana (a little mandolin), and looking with stoical serenity at the pulqueria (public-house), where he has no credit, he listens distractedly to the hissing of some savory stew which they are preparing for some more favored being, tightens the belt round his stomach, and, after breakfasting off a sunbeam, he sups off a cigar, and sleeps quietly without thinking of the morrow.

I will confess my weakness: among this motley crowd, idle and brawling as it was, my attention was more engaged with the miserable tatterdemalions than