92 BANDIT COMPANIES. 
is impossible to distinguish them from bandit- 
ti;* so that the unsuspecting traveller is very 
frequently set upon by the very man he had 
been consorting with in apparent good-fellow- 
ship, and either murdered on the spot, or 
dragged from his horse with the lazo, and 
plundered of all that is valuable about him. 
Lhave heard it asserted that there is a regular 
bandit trade organized throughout the country, 
in which some of the principal officers of state 
(and particularly of the judicial corps) are not 
unfrequently engaged. A capital is made up 
by shares, as for any other enterprise, bandits 
are fitted out and instructed where to operate, 
and at stated periods of the year a regular 
dividend is paid to the stockholders. The 
impunity which these ‘gentlemen of the or- 
der’ almost everywhere enjoy in the country, 
is therefore not to be marvelled at. In Du- 
rango, during my sojourn there, a well dress- 
ed caballero was frequently in the habit of 
entering our meson, whom mine host soon 
pointed out to me as a notorious brigand. 
“ Beware of him,” said the honest publican ; 
“he is prying into your affairs’—and so it 
turned out; for my muleteer informed me 
that the fellow had been trying to pump from 
him all the particulars in regard to our condi- 
tion and destination. Yet this worthy was 
not only suffered to prowl about unmolested 
* Travellers on these public highways not only go ‘ armed to og 
teeth,’ but te carry their weapons xouiek Even m 
ers carried th ns and pistols swung upon the pommels of thei 
soddles Ata ht, as we generally camped out, they were 
der , or close by our sides, 
