112 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



sistant to the servants, handing refreshments to the 

 ladies he had danced with in the morning. The 

 whole aspect of things was changed ; the vaqueros 

 were in dress suits, or such undress as was not un- 

 becoming at a village ball. The senoritas had 

 thrown aside their simple Mesliza dresses, and ap- 

 peared in tunicas, or frocks, made to fit the figure, 

 or, rather, to cut the figure in two. The Indian 

 dances had disappeared, and quadrilles and contra- 

 dances, waltzes and gallopades, supplied their place. 

 It wanted the piquancy of the bayle de las Mesti- 

 zas ; the young ladies were not so pretty in their 

 more fashionable costume. Still there was the same 

 gentleness of expression, the dances were slow, the 

 music low and soft, and, in the quiet and decorum 

 of all, it was difficult to recognise the gay and tu- 

 multuous party of the morning, and yet more difficult 

 to believe that these gentle and, in some cases, lovely 

 faces, had been but a few hours before lighted up 

 with the barbarous excitement of the bull-ring. 



At ten the next day there was another bull-fight ; 

 then a horse-race from the plaza down the principal 

 street to the house of Don Philippe Peon ; and in 

 the afternoon yet another bull-fight, which opened 

 for me under pleasant circumstances. I did not in- 

 tend to go, had not secured a seat, and took my 

 place in a box so full that I was obliged to stand up 

 by the door. In front was one of the prettiest of 

 the Mestizas of the ball ; on her right was a va- 

 cant seat, and next to this sat a padre, who had just 



