LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 173 



petticoat, reaching about half-way between the knee and 

 ankle, displays their well-turned limbs, destitute of stock- 

 ings, and their tiny feet, thrust into quaint little shoes 

 (zapatitos) of Cinderellan dimensions. Thus equipped, 

 with the reboso drawn over their heads and faces, out of 

 the folds of which their brilliant eyes flash like lightning, 

 and each pretty mouth armed with its cigarito, they 

 coquet tishly enter the fandango.* Here, at one end of a 

 long room, are seated the musicians, their instruments 

 being generally a species of guitar called heaca, a ban- 

 dolin, and an Indian drum called tombe one of each. 

 Round the room groups of New Mexicans lounge, wrapped 

 in the eternal sarape, and smoking of course, scowling 

 with jealous eyes at the more favoured mountaineers. 

 These, divested of their hunting-coats of buckskins, appear 

 in their bran-new shirts of gaudy calico, and close-fitting 

 buckskin pantaloons, with long fringes down the outside 

 seam from the hip to the ankle ; with mocassins, orna- 

 mented with bright beads and porcupine-quills. Each, 

 round his waist, wears his mountain-belt and scalp-knife, 

 ominous of the company he is in, and some have pistols 

 sticking in their belt. 



The dances save the mark ! are without form or 

 figure, at least those in which the white hunters sport the 

 " fantastic toe." Seizing his partner round the waist with 

 the gripe of a grisly bear, each mountaineer whirls and 

 twirls, jumps and stamps ; introduces Indian steps used in 

 the " scalp " or " buffalo " dances, whooping occasionally 

 with unearthly cry, and then subsiding into the jerking 

 step, raising each foot alternately from the ground, so 

 much in vogue in Indian ballets. The hunters have the 

 floor all to themselves. The Mexicans have no chance in 

 such physical force dancing ; and if a dancing Peladof 

 steps into the ring, a lead -like thump from a galloping 



* The word fandango, in New Mexico, is not applied to the 

 peculiar dance known in Spain by that name, but designates a 

 baB or dancing meeting. 



f A nickname for the idle fellows hanging about a Mexican town, 

 translated into " Greasers " by the Americans. 



