56 EAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



The Mexican girls are certainly pretty, but they are 

 painfully wax-dolly ; there is nothing in them, and 

 their education is frightfully neglected, to say the least 

 of it. They are capital hands at getting themselves 

 up, and are very kind and all that ; but what on earth 

 could one do with a girl who spends half the day in 

 combing her hair and the other half smoking cigarettes ? 



The sport above described frequently takes place in 

 Lower California, and sometimes the performance is 

 varied by matching a puma or Californian lion, as it is 

 called ; from what I could hear the puma always gets 

 the worst of it. Cock-fighting is quite a national sport, 

 especially among the lower classes ; and, curiously 

 enough, the Padres generally manage to get hold of a 

 good '' bit of stuff.'' 



As far as the antelopes were concerned, I did not do 

 much with them — in fact nothing. I had several sitting 

 shots, but never bowled one over; and, as for racing 

 them down, it was quite out of the question. It seems 

 queer to English ears, but it really was a dangerous 

 thing to go on foot any distance from the house, because 

 of the cattle. I had strolled out one evening to try to 

 pick up an antelope, and wandered a good distance away 

 — perhaps three miles. I crossed a large inclosed field, 

 and several cattle intently regarded me from a distance ; 

 two or three advanced slowly, with ears cocked and heads 

 in the air. I really was thinking of anything but them 

 at the time — in fact, I was reading '^ Tom Jones '' as I 

 was strolling along. When I was nearly through the 

 field half a dozen came rushing down, with tails out, 

 and tearing away at the air with their horns. I was 

 fully alive to the case then, and got off luckily without 

 having to fire. On returning, my friends could hardly 



