498 CHIHUAHUA 
room, where a targe number of ladies soon after assem- 
bled to a ball. This was an afterpiece as unexpected 
to us as it was agreeable. The Mexican ladies, it is 
well known, have a great passion for balls, and are 
most graceful dancers. They kept it up incessantly, 
alternating from quadrilles to waltzes and polkas, with- 
out manifesting the slightest fatigue. ‘The music was 
very good, consisting of harps and violins. One would 
hardly expect to find in a town situated as this is, on 
the very confines of civilization, twelve hundred miles 
from the capital, and six or eight hundred from either 
ocean, so much elegance of manner and taste in dress; 
for few of the ladies had ever been from home. Many 
possessed as fair complexions as English or American 
ladies, although the brunettes predominated. The 
Mexican like the Spanish ladies have a natural grace- 
fulness of manner, which has been observed by all 
travellers, and has captivated most foreigners who 
have taken up their residence in the country.* On 
this occasion, one would imagine the most fashionable 
dress-makers and hair-dressers had been employed, and 
that Stewart had a branch of his great New York estab- 
lishment here, from which the gorgeous silks and 
satins and elegant muslins displayed in such profusion 
had been procured. I noticed one custom, however, 
which the Chihuahua ladies have not borrowed either 
* Tt is a fact worthy of mention, that every married American or 
European whom I met at San Diego, Guaymas, Mazatlan, Hermosillo, 
Ures, El Paso, and Chihuahua, had, without a single exception, a Mexi- 
can wife. Subsequently, in my visit to Parras, Saltillo, and Monterey, I 
found it to be the same ; nowhere did I meet with an American or for- 
eign lady. 
