SIX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 237 



dressed with the hair on, hangs down to the 

 horses knees in front, whilst a heavy petti- 

 coat-like covering of stiff jacked leather, 

 called a Cortez shield, encloses the whole 

 hinder parts in a most uncomfortable manner, 

 as far as the haunches, where it terminates in 

 a heavy deep fringe of iron resembling a 

 bundle of jack-chains, whose jingling noise, 

 and the uneasy capers it causes the tormented 

 animal to make, seem to constitute the prin- 

 cipal felicity of Mexican dandies in their 

 perambulations through the city, or on the 

 Passea, which is the Hyde Park of Mexico. 

 Here they display their persons and eques- 

 trian skill, decorated in showy paysana 

 dresses, and armed with enormous spurs 

 similar to those used in Europe in the 14th 

 and 15th centuries, the rowels of which are 

 some of them above twelve inches in circum- 

 ference, and have a small bell attached to the 

 side of each, the music of which, joined to 



