346 A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY. 



But these are favors, not rights of the peon. The scanty wages supply additional food and 

 clothing for wife and family, and furnish him with chicha and tobacco, to say nothing of 

 gratifying occasionally the unquenched thirst for a game at cards, yet remaining in the few 

 drops of blood inherited from the most thorough gamblers the world ever saw the early inva- 

 ders of America ! 



Inquilinos hold ground by different tenures. They have from one to twenty, or even 

 more acres ; for the use of which they bind themselves to keep the fences in repair, the corrales 

 and acequias clean, to assist at the rodeos and trillas with their own horses, and, together with 

 a multitude of like services, on payment of small stipulated sums, to travel with letters or mes- 

 sages. Sometimes they become possessors of one or two carts, which they hire out in the neigh- 

 borhood, and are permitted to use young oxen belonging to the hacienda. In the latter case, 

 they must first break the animals to the yoke. The amount of service rendered depends on the 

 body of land treated for and the privileges granted, things variable according to the liberality 

 of one party and the character and necessities of the other. But the system throughout has all 

 the ear-marks of the old feodal times. 



On every estate there is a bodegon, or shop belonging to the proprietor, where sugar, 

 mate, candles, aguardiente, chicha, common goods, and such other articles of necessity may be 

 obtained as are in demand. These are generally sold at such moderate advance on the cost as will 

 cover the expense of transportation, loss, and distribution; the object being to remove the 

 necessity of going to a distance to the neglect of work, rather than for profit. At the same 

 time a part of the produce of the estate, its chicha and aguardiente, finds consumers at home ; 

 and these no doubt are among the most profitable. Indeed, if the liquors are of special quality, 

 it is soon made known in the neighborhood ; and the favored bodegon is thronged on Sun- 

 days by peons and guasos, with their sweethearts, from all the surrounding ranches. This 

 is their fiesta (holiday); and they spend it in dancing the zama-cueca, gambling, horse-racing, 

 and drinking, taking Monday to clear away the fumes of the debauch, if blood has not before 

 suddenly obliterated them. Unlike the wines of southern Europe in their effects, chicha, 

 instead of inspiring gayety and innocent mischief, very quickly fires the brain, producing 

 sullen vindictiveness, that calls the knife from its sheath at every fancied grievance. Occasions 

 for quarrels are rarely wanting ; jealousy, and disputes a^out their races or games, are sources 

 prolific enough. 



Like the cachucha, or any other dance common among the populace, the zama-cueca may 

 be made a spectacle of the most lascivious kind ; but, to their credit be it said, the tendency is 

 less frequent among the poor than at its occasional exhibition among their superiors in the 

 social scale. One half the time the words that form part of its slightly varying chaunt are 

 apparently improvised; and on the skill of the singer in this accomplishment depends, in a 

 great measure, the mirth of the company. Some of the chinas (girls of the lower class) are 

 famed for their ready wit, and are not slow to exercise it upon the company as well as on the 

 dancers, cutting right and left with satirical recitative, and creating shouts of applause all 

 round. These chinganas, short races on horseback, the bolas, a sort of game like billiards, 

 elsewhere described, and games with cards, are the only country diversions. The last, how- 

 ever, is positively prohibited, and can be practised only by stealth. 



They have no other surgeons for the desperate wounds often resulting from these frolics than 

 medicos countrywomen who have learned the characteristics of the herbs and simples which 

 nature has spread around them. One of these, the matico, a plant originally from Peru, is said 

 to be invaluable as a healing styptic ; and medicas have the credit of skilfully binding up 

 wounds that heal quite miraculously. An English gentleman, who had been long a resident 

 and had married in the country, told me that on one occasion a peon on his estate had his 

 abdomen ripped from side to side, so that all the entrails hung out in front. These were re- 

 placed by a medrca who was sent for in haste, the wound sewed up by her with a common needle 

 and thread, and in three weeks the man was at work again. The same doctresS had set limbs 



