58 ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



roam at large, he is given to solitary rambles among the 

 cliffs, and is liable to lose his way if he has once ascer- 

 tained the difference between coarse prairie-grass and 

 the aromatic herbage of the upland leas. But, like 

 other savages, the cimarron can be subdued by his vices. 

 The craving of his ruminant stomach for salt easily 

 degenerates into a fondness for stronger stimulants, 

 tobacco, cider, and aguardiente: in quest of a "chew" 

 he will besiege his master's door and button-hole 

 strangers with the persistency of a begging friar. Tip- 

 pling, however, does not improve his temper : the most 

 petulant pet I ever saw was the wether Panchito, a 

 domesticated cimarron of such intemperate habits that 

 he was repeatedly expelled by his first owner, who at 

 last presented him to the sexton of the Chihuahua 

 cathedral. I came to Chihuahua in 1873, and was 

 delayed almost forty-eight hours by the failure of the 

 stage-driver to procure relays ; the festival of Santa 

 Maria de Guadalupe had set the city agog, and all 

 horses and mules were strutting in the cavalcade pro- 

 cession bedecked with flags and orange-rosaries. On 

 the afternoon of the second day the festival came to a 

 crisis; the doors of the cathedral were thrown open, 

 and the votaries surged in and out, helped to drag 

 the ecclesiastic howitzer to the centre of the plaza, and 

 crowded around the open-air pulque-shops. The national 

 drink flowed in streams : pulque, a Mexican will tell you, 

 does not induce drunkenness, but only borracheria, a 



