NATIVE MUSICIANS. ^1^7 
tance around the house, which forms, by itself, a very extensive establish- 
ment. 
First, there is the dwelling, a large two-story edifice, having in the 
basement all the offices, and the store where every necessary is sold to 
the Indians ; above this are the kitchens, parlors, bedrooms, and an im- 
mense corridor on arches, looking toward the east, filled with caged birds, 
and hung with hammocks, where the family pass most of the long warm 
days of summer. In front is the corral, on the west of which are the 
store-houses and buildings to receive the crop ; while on the east is another 
huge edifice where the boilers, engines, crushing machines, cooling vats, 
moulding apartments, &c., constitute the trapiche of the hacienda. It is 
a little city in itself 
At sunset, all the Indians employed on the premises assembled under 
the corridor on the basement floor, to account to the administrador for their 
day's labor and their presence. As he called their names, each one re- 
plied with " Alabo a Bios," — " I praise God," and ranged himself against 
the wall in a line with those who had already responded. When the whole 
list had been examined, they were dismissed, and departed in a body sing- 
ing an Indian hymn to the Virgin, the sounds of which died away in the 
distance as they plodded home over the level fields to their village. 
At night we heard the sound of a clarionet, bass-drum, and flute, at 
some distance from the dwelling, and on inquiry, discovered that a band 
of musicians had been organized in an adjoining village, by the owner of 
the hacienda. We mustered a company and strolled over. The whole 
of a large hut had been appropriated for a musical hall, where the per- 
formers were just assembling; while others, who had already arrived, 
were engaged in tuning their instruments. The leader was quite a re- 
spectable-looking Indian, decently dressed, who played the violin ; the 
clarionet player was fortunate in the possession of cotton drawers and a 
shirt; the bassoon had a pair of trousers but no shirit ; the serpent was 
the wildest looking Indian I ever saw, with long dishevelled black hair, 
and eyes worthy of his instrument; the big drum was a huge portly old 
negro, who reminded me of many of our performers on it at home ; while 
the octave flute was an urchin of not more than twelve, the wickedest 
little devil imaginable, but a fellow of infinite talent and a capital per- 
former. 
The night was rather too hot to permit us to remain long in the apart- 
ment with an Indian crowd ; we therefore took our seats outside, where 
we were favored by the self-taught amateurs with several airs from re- 
cent operas, performed in a style that would not have injured the reputa-. 
tion of many a military band at home. 
It may reasonably be judged, from a scene like this, that the Indians 
have talents for one of the arts requiring a high degree of natural deli- 
cacy and refinement. If it had been the care of all Spanish proprietors 
gradually to bring forth their latent dispositions, as the Senores J. have 
done, Mexico would now present a picture very different from that of the 
