94 MEXICAN MULE-SHOEING. 
felt very little curiosity to extend my rambles 
further. Having, therefore, made all my pur 
chases in the shortest possible time, in a few 
days I was again in readiness to start for the 
North. 
That my mules might be in condition for 
the hard travel before me, it was necessary to 
have them shod: a precaution, however, which 
is seldom used in the north of Mexico, either 
with mules or horses. Owing a little to the 
peculiar breed, but more still no doubt to the 
dryness of the climate, Mexican animals have 
unusually hard hoofs. Many will travel for 
weeks, and even months, over the firm* an 
often rocky roads of the interior (the pack- 
mules carrying their huge loads), without any 
protection whatever to the feet, save that 
which nature has provided. But most of 
mine being a little tender-footed, I engaged 
Mexican herreros to fit them out in their own 
peculiar style. Like almost everything else 
of their manufacturing, their mule-shoes are 
of a rather primitive model—broad thin plates, 
tacked on with large club-headed nails. But 
the expertness of the shoers compensated in 
some degree for the defects of the herraduras. 
It made but little odds how wild and vicious 
the mvle—an assistant would draw up his 
foot in an instant, and soon place him hors de 
combat; and then fixing a nail, the shoer 
* Some of these table-plain highways, though of but a dry 
sandy and clayey soil, are as firm asa brick pavement. In some 
places, for miles, I have remarked that the nail-heads of my shod 
animals would hardly leave any visible impression poate 
