Some of our teams were curiously mixed. One consisted of three donkeys, two mules, and three bronchos. Most of them were partly composed of mules. Some were poor, others were remarkably good. Particularly noteworthy was the performance of a level team of sturdy bronchos, that we picked up late in the afternoon, and that of a fine team of mules that took us into Magdalena on the following morning. The stages were about sixteen and eighteen miles respectively, but with the exception of a few short stoppages, caused by trouble with the harness, were covered at full gallop; notwithstanding which, the teams pulled up almost as fresh as they had started.
In one instance a deficiency of stock necessitated the lassoing and breaking in of a horse that had never been used before. He fought gallantly for nearly half-an-hour, and several times was thrown half-strangled on the ground, when the lasso was loosened and he was given a few minutes to recover. Eventually he allowed himself to be harnessed, and once in the team had to go with the rest. I must do our driver the justice to say that he handled the ribbons with admirable skill and boldness.
To add to the interest of the trip, it was expected that we should be stopped by cow-boys. These gentlemen had lately "gone through" the coaches with great regularity, and, in anticipation of trouble, our whip and second whip were armed to the teeth. Fortunately, the journey was without incident of this kind.
With demoniacal yells, and a furious cracking of both whips, we dashed into Magdalena, and pulled up in the plaza. It was Sunday. The good people were just issuing from church. Mexican maidens, in white or brilliant robes, trooped out in twos and threes, and hand in hand went laughingly homewards. And here I feel the scribbling traveller's temptation to romance. A fanciful picture of some dark-eyed beauty, with proud Castilian features, and bewitching dignity and grace of manner, would fit my tale so well. Besides, in a Mexican sketch, one expects a pretty woman, even as one looks for lions in African, and elephants in Indian scenery. But I was so disgusted in this respect myself, that it will be of some satisfaction to me to have you disappointed also. Expect, therefore, no glowing description of female loveliness from me. Good-looking women doubtless exist in Mexico; but, in the few miles that I went over the border on this occasion, I saw none. A hazy recollection of flowers in connection with this scene of church-going damsels haunts me, but whether they were worn in the hair, or in the dress, or simply carried, I no longer remember. Men in their coloured zarapas, and broad-brimmed hats, chatted and smoked the eternal cigarette. Old women in black robes loitered in knots (very like old wives elsewhere) and gossiped. The commandante and a few officials sat on one of the old, carved stone seats. A few miners loafed before the "American Hotel," kept by a plump, jovial, masterful American woman, and her subdued matter-of-fact English husband, by name Bennett. Here I breakfasted, and in the afternoon rode out, twenty-three miles, to the mine of a friend of mine, whom I had come down to visit.
Past the Sierra Ventana (so called on account of the hole that completely perforates one shoulder of it), and over wave after wave of rolling country, sparsely covered with mesketis-bush, my guide and I rode on towards some hills in the distance; and dusk had fallen and night had come when we ascended the spur on which the mine was situated. The stalwart form of my friend (whom I will call by his local sobriquet, Don Cabeza) appeared at his cottage door as I drew up, and, not expecting me, in the dark he took me to be a new hand in quest of work.
"Buenas nochas, señor, said I.
"Buenas nochas."
"Habla V. Castellano?"
"No hablo so much as all that comes to."
Then I burst out laughing.