90 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



hands and opening - mouth cavernously), "miicho 

 gallinas, poco gallos!" 



So many Mexicans applied for slips from my one 

 rosemary bush to keep off fhe Evil Eye that ere long 

 myself was bereft of that desirable protection. 



Not long* before I established myself in the Val- 

 ley of the Great River, our peaceable Mexican popu- 

 lation strayed unexpectedly from the straight path 

 of ecclesiastical virtue. A saint's day, on which 

 for generations it had been their pleasure to dance, 

 relic probably of some ancient rite, although but 

 few Mexicans join in the Indian dances, had been 

 interfered with by the priest. Now it is not well 

 for even a holy padre to exceed his rights. His 

 flock maintained for the nonce a passive obstinacy. 

 At night-fall, however, the priest received a press- 

 ing call to a dying bed ; but that was no dying bed 

 to which he was hurried through the deep sand of 

 the desert, through whispering cottonwood bosques, 

 under a moonless sky! When at last he was es- 

 corted homeward by a band of silent men, a very 

 sore padre climbed alone upon the porch of his 

 comfortable house and no doubt sought consolation 

 for chastisement received in a brimming goblet of 

 the wine of the country, of which it is affirmed that 

 he always keeps a sufficiency and of the best. In 

 such cases, rare as they are, the culprits are as easy 

 to find as the proverbial needle in the haystack. 



The march of progress has not infallibly proved 

 a blessing in disguise. With the Spaniard came 

 greed and corruption, though for the former vice 

 he surely paid a heavy price. The work of the 



