""•■"••af. COAST AND TABLELAND B:"-"" 



reached thus far. We were at fault in this, however, 

 for these people have more right to the air than 

 we. The plagiarism lies with us, for the air is an old, 

 old Spanish one, and the musical words which the 

 Mexicans use antedate by many years our frivolous 

 verses. 



An old man approached and began to imitate famil- 

 iar sounds ; a dog's bark, a cock's crow, a bird's trill- 

 ing, were excellently rendered, and cinco centavos 

 made him happy. At each small station the throng 

 was a strange, most picturesque one. Once a young 

 Mexican of twenty or thereabouts climbed on board 

 and walked down the aisle of the car, looking curiously 

 at everything, but never ceasing to knit a gaudy, red 

 sweater-like affair. This feminine occupation was 

 thrown into stronger relief by his large-calibred 

 reA'olver and embroidered belt of cartridges. 



The Mexicans ingeniously utilize the large crotches 

 of trees as receptacles for stacks of fodder, and a tree 

 thus filled to overflowing' with corn-stalks is a curious 

 sight. The fodder is, by this means, kept out of the 

 reach of hungry cattle and burros. 



A station often shows nothing but a rickety, shed- 

 like building, the to%vn being at a distance and out of 

 sigfht. In some cases the natives have reverted to cave- 

 dwellings, hewn into the rocky cliffs, the entrances 

 to which remind one of a colony of Bank Swallows on 

 a gigantic scale. 



^ 35 ^ 



