AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. ji-j 



prosecution of agriculture ; inasmuch as the peon, if free, can never be 

 depended upon, if he gets a few dollars or shillings in his pocket, and 

 there is a place for him to gamble within from fifty to one hundred miles' 

 distance. It is to be noted, however, that, wherever Mexico comes in 

 contact with the outside world, the peon system tends to decay ; and 

 in the northern States of Mexico, where American ideas are finding 

 their way among the people, and the construction of railways has 

 increased the opportunities for employment, and raised wages, it is 

 already practically abandoned. On each estate, or hacienda, there 

 are buildings, or collections of buildings, typical of the country, bor- 

 rowed originally, so far as the idea was concerned, in part undoubt- 

 edly from Old Spain, and in part prompted by the necessities for 

 defense from attack under which the country has been occupied and 

 settled, which ai-e also called haciendas, the term being apparently 

 used indifferently to designate both a large landed estate, as well as 

 the buildings, which, like the old feudal castles, represent the owner- 

 ship and the center of operations on the estate. They are usually huge 

 rectangular structures — walls or buildings — of stone or adobe, intended 

 often to serve the purpose, if needs be, of actual fortresses, and com- 

 pletely inclosing an inner square, or court-yard, the entrance to which 

 is through one or more massive gates, which, when closed at night, 

 are rarely opened until morning. Within the court, upon one side, 

 built up against an exterior wall, is usually a series of adobe struct- 

 ures — low, windowless, single apartments — where the peons and their 

 families, with their dogs and pigs, live ; while upon the other sides are 

 larger structures for the use or residence of the owner and his family, or 

 the superintendent of the estate ; with generally also a chapel and ac- 

 commodations for the priest, places for the storage of produce, and the 

 keeping of animals ; and one or more apartments entirely destitute of 

 furniture or of any means of lighting or ventilation, save through the 

 entrance or doorway from the court-yard, which are devoted to the re- 

 ception of such travelers as may demand and receive hospitality to the 

 extent of shelter from the night, or protection from outside marauders. 

 Such places hardly deserve the name of inns, but either these poor ac- 

 commodations or camping out is the traveler's only alternative. They 

 put one in mind of the caravansaries of the East, or better of the inns 

 or posadas of Spain, which Don Quixote and his attendant Sancho 

 Panza frequented, with the court-yard then, as now, all ready for 

 tossing Sancho in a blanket in presence of the whole population. In 

 some cases the hacienda is an irregular pile of adobe buildings with- 

 out symmetry, order, or convenience ; and in others, where the estate 

 is large and the laborers numerous (as is often the case), only the most 

 important buildings are inclosed within the wall — the peons, whose 

 poverty is generally a sufficient safeguard against robbery, living out- 

 side and constituting a scattered village community. The owners of 

 the large Mexican estates rarely live upon them, but make their homes 



