2i6 SIX MONTHS TN MEXICO. 



graceful in their paces will often sell for 200 

 pounds, or even more. Mules bring high 

 prices, if handsome and well broken in for the 

 saddle ; the clergy generally use them, and 

 they will sell for two or three hundred dollars. 

 The ordinary kinds are used for the convey- 

 ance of goods from Acapulco and Vera Cruz 

 to the capital, and it is not uncommon to meet 

 a drove of nearly one thousand of them in 

 company, laden with bales of merchandise of 

 two or three hundred weight. Some of these 

 muleteers are rich, and it is remarkable that 

 a robbery of them is scarcely ever heard of. 

 I have seen the great square of Mexico nearly 

 filled with mules, laden with silver for Vera 

 Cruz, each mule carrying two thousand 

 dollars ; and I was told that there was no in- 

 stance known of these rich convoys having 

 ever been pillaged. 



Asses are common here, but they are not 

 so fine and large as in the south of Europe : 



