242 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



This over, we found that we had thrown another 

 family into confusion. The wife and a little daugh 

 ter of our carrier accompanied him to the top of a 

 hill beyond the village, where they bade him fare- 

 well as if he was setting out on a long and danger- 

 ous journey. The attachment of the Indian to his 

 home is a striking feature of his character. The 

 affection which grows up between the sexes was 

 supposed by the early writers upon the character of 

 the Indians not to exist among them, and probably 

 the sentiment and refinement of it do not ; but cir- 

 cumstances and habit bind together the Indian 

 man and woman as strongly as any known ties. 

 When the Indian grows up to manhood he requires 

 a woman to make him tortillas, and to provide him 

 warm water for his bath at night. He procures 

 one, sometimes by the providence of the master, 

 without much regard to similarity of tastes or parity 

 of age ; and though a young man is mated to an old 

 woman, they live comfortably together. If he finds 

 her guilty of any great offence, he brings her up be- 

 fore the master or the alcalde, gets her a whipping, 

 and then takes her under his arm and goes quietly 

 home with her. The Indian husband is rarely 

 harsh to his wife, and the devotion of the wife to 

 her husband is always a subject of remark. They 

 share their pleasures as well as their labours ; go up 

 together with all their children to some village fies- 

 ta, and one of the most afflicting incidents in their 



