SOCIETY. 383 
To knock down, a miner’s phrase, meaning to steal rich 
pieces of auriferous quartz from the lode. 
Manada (ma nah’ da), a herd of breeding mares under the 
lead of a stallion. 
Mecate (may cah’ te), a rope of hair, used for tying horses. 
Mochilas (mo chee’ las), large leathern flaps for covering a 
fuste. 
Plaza, a public square in a town. 
Playa, a beach. 
Pozo, a spring or well. 
Pueblo, a town. 
To pipe, to wash dirt by the hydraulic process. 
Pay-Dirt, auriferous dirt rich enough to pay the miner. 
Placer, from the Spanish, a place where gold is found in 
dirt near the surface of the ground. 
To prospect, to hunt for gold diggings; to examine ground 
or rock for the purpose of finding whether it contains gold, 
and how much. 
Prospect, the discovery made by prospecting. 
Rodeo (ro day’ 0), a collection of wild or half-wild cattle, 
made for the purpose of separating or marking them. 
Recojida (ray co hee’ da), a similar collection of horses. 
Rancho (ran’ tsho), before the Americans took California, 
meant a tract of land used almost entirely for pasturage, rare- 
ly less than four square miles in extent, sometimes as much as 
ninety-nine square miles, and in most cases not less than thirty 
square miles. Since the conquest, rancho, and its American 
derivation “ranch,” are often applied to small farms, and 
sometimes, in the way of slang, to single houses, tents, and 
liquor shops. ‘ Ranch” is sometimes used as a verb; thus a 
man who opens a farm, according to common parlance, “has 
gone to ranching.” 
Ranchero (ran tsha’ ro), a man who owns and lives upon a 
rancho. It is usually understood to mean a Spanish Califor- 
nian : 
Rancheria, an Indian hut or a village. 
