A HACIENDA. 175 
The estate spreads over a tract of eleven leagues in length by three 
in breadth. It employs about two hundred and fifty laborers, at two 
and a half and three reals per day, who produce about fifty thousand 
loaves of sugar, of from twenty-two to twenty-four pounds, per annum. 
It is calculated that the molasses pays all the expenses of the establish- 
ment, which amount to near thirty thousand dollars. At the store of the 
hacienda, (belonging to the proprietor of the estate,) almost the whole of 
this sum is received back from the Indians, who, I perceived, purchased 
even their bread. In addition to the revenue from the sugar crop^ about 
eight thousand head of cattle feed on the premises, half of which are the 
property of its owner, the other half being strays from adjoining haciendas. 
We were received by Don Rafael, one of the brothers del Barrio, whom 
we unexpectedly met on the estate. He conducted us into a long monastic- 
looking hall, nearly bare of furniture, yet bearing traces of taste and re-* 
finement, in a well-selected library and valuable piano in one corner, while 
a hammock, suspended from the unplastered rafters, swung across the airy 
apartment. Here we were most hospitably entertained, and enjoyed a 
pleasant chat with the owner, in French, Spanish, English and German, 
all of which languages the worthy gentleman speaks, — having not only 
travelled in, but dwelt long and observingly in every country of Europe. 
It was strange, in these wild portions of Mexico, in the midst of Indians, 
to drop thus suddenly and unexpectedly by the side of a well-bred man, 
dressed in his simple costume of a plain country farmer, who could con- 
verse with you in most of the modern tongues, upon all subjects — from 
the collections of the Pitti Palace and the Vatican, to the breed and edu- 
cation of a game cock ! 
As we looked over the fields of cane, waving their long, delicate 
green leaves, in the mid-day sunshine to the south, he pointed out to us the 
site of an Indian village, at the distance of three leagues, the inhabitants 
of which are almost in their native state. He told us, that they do not permit 
the visits of white people; and that, numbering more than three thousand, 
they come out in delegations to work at the haciendas, being governed at home 
by their own magistrates, administering their own laws, and employing a Cath. 
olic priest, once a year, to shrive them of their sins. The money they receive 
in payment of wages, at the haciendas, is taken home and buried ; and 
as they produce the cotton and skins for their dress, and the corn and 
beans for their food, they purchase nothing at the stores. They form a 
good and harmless community of people, rarely committing a depredation 
upon the neighboring farmers, and only occasionally lassoing a cow or a 
bull, which they say they " do not steal, but take for food." If they are 
chased on such occasions, so great is their speed of foot, they are rarely 
caught even by the swiftest horses ; and if their settlement is ever entered 
by a white, the transgressor is immediately seized, put under guard in a large 
hut, and he and his animal are fed and carefully attended to until the follow- 
