78 MEXICO. 
Spaniard takes it with the noncJialance of eastern fatalism. Nothing dis- 
concerts, disturbs, or forces him to utter an exclamation of pleasure or a 
sigh of pain — but he sits in stoic silence receiving his ounces, if he win, 
without eagerness, or seeing them swell the bank without sorrow, if he 
lose. 
The game of 7nont6 has become part of the very nature of the inhabit- 
ants of Southern America. Accustomed in the olden times under the 
Colonial Government, to immense wealth, " wealth (as the old people 
describe it,) in which they literally swam," gold lost its value and be- 
came but a counter, by means of which they passed their idle hours in 
an agreeable excitement that never ruffled or elated them. This habit- 
ual regard for the game has descended from sire to son, and the keeping 
of a table, or its ownership, is not esteemed disreputable, as in other 
countries. On the contrary, the largest sums are avowedly furnished 
by most respectable bankers, and the sport is held to be a species of 
legitimate trade. 
Yet, great is the distress produced in Mexico by gambling. While a 
hundred establishments are opened in St. Augustin for three days, there 
are not less than huiidreds, in the city of Mexico, open daily during the 
whole year ! The consequence is, that although the wealthiest and bold- 
est betters, who venture their 200, 400, or even 1000 doubloons on a sin- 
gle card at St. Augustin, play only there, or but once or twice a year, 
yet the constant drain on the small gamblers is kept up day after day 
and night after night in the Capital. Is it to be wondered then, amid a 
nation of such habits — so prodigal, proud, and easily ruined, that persons 
who venture and lose their all on a single stake, or habitually live by 
the risks of fortune, betake themselves at last to the road, and rob with 
the pistol instead of the cards ? Both are short cuts to fortune or the 
gallows. 
We adjourned, at two o'clock, from the gambling-houses to the Cock-Pit. 
The President, General Santa Anna, and General Bravo, with their suites, 
occupied one of the centre boxes of the theatre, while the rest were filled 
with the beauty and fashion of Mexico. It is the vogue for women of 
family and respectability to attend these festivals, their great object being 
to outshine each other in the splendor and variety of their garments. The 
rage is to have one dress for mass at ten o'clock, one for the cock-pit, 
another for the ball at the Calvario, and a fourth for the ball in the 
evening. These again must be different on each succeeding day of the 
festival f 
The cocks were brought into the centre of the pit within the ring, the 
President's fowls being generally those first put on the earth. They were 
then thrown off for a spring at each other, and taken up again before the 
betting began. Brokers went round, proclaiming the amount placed in 
their hands to bet on any particular fowl. Whenever a bet was offered 
