LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 145 



by three brother shepherds ; far from the strife of politics 

 or party secure from hostile attack (not quite, by the 

 by), and eating, drinking, and sleeping away his time, one 

 would think that Fray Augustin Ignacio Sabanal-Morales- 

 y Fuentes had little to trouble him, and had no cause to 

 regret even the vega of Castilian Ebro, held by his family 

 since the days of el Campeador. 



One evening Fray Augustin sat upon an adobe bench, 

 under the fig-tree shadowing the porch of the Mission. 

 He was dressed in a goat-skin jerkin, softly and beautifully 

 dressed, and descending to his hips, under which his only 

 covering tell it not in Gath ! was a long linen shirt, 

 reaching to his knees, and lately procured from Puebla de 

 los Angeles, as a sacerdotal garment. Boots, stockings, or 

 unmentionables he had none. A cigarito, of tobacco 

 rolled in corn shuck, was occasionally placed between his 

 lips ; whereupon huge clouds of smoke rushed in columns 

 from his mouth and nostrils. His face was of a golden 

 yellow colour, relieved by arched and very black eyebrows ; 

 his shaven chin was of most respectable duplicity his cor- 

 poration of orthodox dimensions. Several Indians and 

 half-bred Mexican women were pounding Indian corn on 

 metates near at hand ; whilst sundry beef-fed urchins of 

 whitey-brown complexion sported before the door, exhibit- 

 ing, as they passed Fray Augustin, a curious resemblance 

 to the strongly-marked features of that worthy padre. 

 They were probably his nieces and nephews a class of 

 relations often possessed in numbers by priests and 

 monks. 



The three remaining brothers were absent from the Mis- 

 sion: Fray Bernardo, hunting elk in the sierra; Fray Jose, 

 gallivanting at Puebla de los Angeles, ten days' journey 

 distant; Fray Cristoval, lassoing colts upon the plain. 

 Augustin, thus left to his own resources, had just eaten 

 his vespertine frijolitos and chile Colorado, and was enjoy- 

 ing a post-co3nal smoke of fragrant pouche under the 

 shadow of his own fig-tree. 



Whilst thus employed, an Indian dressed in Mexican 

 attire approached him hat in hand, and, making a reveren- 

 X 



