This Eden is the Hacienda del Milagro.
At the time our history took place, this hacienda, one of the richest and largest in the province, was composed of a two storied house, built of tapia and adobes, with a terrace roof of reeds, covered with beaten earth.
Access to the hacienda was gained by passing through an immense court, the entrance of which shaped like an arched portico, was furnished with strong folding gates, and a postern on one side. Pour chambers completed the front; the windows had gratings of gilded iron, and shutters inside; they were glazed, an almost unheard-of luxury in that country at that time; on the four sides of the court, or patio, were the apartments for the peons and children, &c.
The ground floor of the principal house was composed of three apartments; a kind of grand vestibule furnished with antique fauteuils and canopies covered with stamped Cordovan leather, with a large nopal table and some stools; upon the walls hung, in gilded frames, several old full-length portraits, representing the members of the family; while the beams of the ceiling, left in relief, were decorated with a profusion of carvings.
Two folding doors opened into the saloon; the side in front of the patio was raised about a foot above the rest of the floor; it was covered by a carpet, and contained a row of curiously carved low stools ornamented with, crimson velvet, and cushions for the feet; there was also a little square table, eighteen inches high, serving as a work table. This portion of the saloon is reserved for the ladies, who there sit cross-legged, in the Moorish fashion; on the other side of the saloon were chairs covered with the same stuff as the stools and the cushions. Facing the entrance of the saloon was the principal bedchamber, with an alcove at the back of a daïs, upon which stood a bed of ceremony, ornamented with an infinity of gildings and brocade curtains, with tassels and fringes of gold and silver; the sheets and pillowcases were of the most beautiful linen, bordered with wide lace.
Behind the principal house was a second patio, in which were the kitchens and the corral; beyond this court was an immense garden, surrounded by walls, and more than a hundred perches in length, laid out in the English fashion, and containing the most remarkable exotic plants and trees.
It was holiday time at the hacienda.
It was the period of the matanza del ganado (slaughtering of cattle). The peons had formed, at a few paces from the hacienda, an enclosure, in which, after driving the beasts, they separated the lean from the fat, which they drove out, one by one, from the enclosure.
A vaquero, armed with a sharp instrument in the form of a crescent, furnished with points placed at the distance of a foot apart, and who was concealed behind the door of the enclosure, cut, with great address, the hamstrings of the poor beasts, as they passed before him.
If by chance he missed a stroke, which he rarely did, a second vaquero, mounted on horseback, galloped after the animal, threw the lasso round its horns, and held it till the first had succeeded in cutting its hamstrings.