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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



dishes of food were offered for sale. 

 Behind each table sat the Indian proprie- 

 tress. 



The patrons were for the most part 

 peons, clothed in thin cotton garments, 

 pajama fashion, sometimes with sandals, 

 sometimes barefooted, threadbare blankets 

 pulled up high about their ears, their faces 

 romantically hidden beneath the brims of 

 their immense hats. 



It was our introduction to the Mexican 

 habit of eating and sleeping out-of-doors. 

 Somehow, the wind is tempered to these 

 partially shorn lambs. 



No matter in what part of the Republic 

 we might be, the flames of the candles in 

 these little open-air restaurants seemed to 

 rise straight up, as though no vagrom 

 breeze ever ruffled them. 



The night air might be cool to us in 

 our three-piece, all-wool suits, under our 

 light overcoats, but the peon is impervious 

 to discomfort. He rarely shivers. When 

 he gets ready to go to bed, he selects the 

 nearest wall and curls down upon the 

 stones of the street. 



In the Yaqui country we often saw 

 groups of Indians asleep star-fashion 

 about a fire, heads out, feet in. A light 

 blanket serves as cloak by day and bed 

 by night. 



the "cargador" is a human 

 furniture van 



The cargadorcs fell upon us in the 

 dank fog. One of the conveniences of 

 Mexico is that one never need carry any- 

 thing anywhere. When a householder 

 moves his domestic goods he does not 

 call for a van. He walks down to the 

 public square, seizes a pair of mosos, 

 walks them home and puts them to work. 



Two men will carry a piano. One man 

 will if the transaction is attractive. Very 

 large pieces are hoisted on two poles, and 

 four men dog-trot away with them, flat- 

 footed. 



We stumbled over the rutted cart track 

 that served as a street until we came to 

 the hotel. The cargador led us up a 

 flight of bare stairs, through a bare cor- 

 ridor looking upon a bare, wind-swept, 

 dusty patio, into huge, bare, high-ceil- 

 inged rooms. 



On the coast the summers are unbear- 

 ably hot, and one must have open win- 

 dows and fresh air to be comfortable. 



Rugs and curtains and doilies and tidies 

 and the other woven, knitted, hooked and 

 embroidered nuisances of life are for- 

 bidden. 



At first glance, such a hotel room seems 

 barren and cold. A bed draped with 

 mosquito netting, a chair, a racked, 

 twisted, dusty dresser, and no more. 



Then one recalls the red Brussels car- 

 pets, worn gray in spots; the dingy win- 

 dow curtains hanging awry, behind which 

 bluebottles buzz; the soot-spotted, wrin- 

 kled cloth on the stained pine dresser; the 

 lumpy chairs and the sagging bed too 

 often found in small-town hotels north 

 of the line, and ceases to be too censorious. 



SONORA A REGION OF INCREDIBLE 

 FERTILITY 



Right in front of the hotel stretched 

 the bay. Once this was a town of vision 

 and prosperity. It was one of the ports 

 from which the peninsula of Lower Cali- 

 fornia was fed, and in its fertile hinter- 

 land oranges and wheat, and corn and 

 beans, and cattle and horses grew and 

 flourished. 



Before the farms were deserted, the 

 herds killed off, and the mines shut down 

 because of war, this town was full of 

 business. Then the State of Sonora pro- 

 duced enough wheat to feed its own peo- 

 ple and export some to Lower California 

 and Sinaloa. 



One realizes that the promise of deso- 

 lation so richly made to onlookers from 

 the car windows is not always kept. The 

 valleys of the Sonora rivers — the Yaqui, 

 the Asuncion, the San Ignacio, the Mayo, 

 the Sonora, the Moctezuma, the San 

 Miguel, to name a few — are absurdly fat. 

 The adjective may seem ill chosen, but I 

 can defend it. 



The unwatered land seems infertile as 

 a concrete pavement or the bottom of a 

 gravel pit. It is bare, dusty, brown, 

 burned. Then the farmer sprinkles a 

 little seed, adds a little water, stirs it with 

 a wooden plow, and it bursts into bloom. 

 The crops possible to Sonora's bottoms 

 are incredible. 



But Guaymas told a story of war and 

 loot. The bay had been silting up for 

 years and, thanks to the stagnation which 

 followed the collapse of the Diaz regime, 

 it continued to silt up. 



