386 EPISODES OF MEXICAN LIFE. Book II. 
may be dead, but your children will be grown big, and 
who knows but their father may become Alcalde of Temo- 
sachic ? " All this is so thoroughly Mexican that I cannot 
refrain from placing it before the reader as distinctly as I 
am able. Both these men, with whom I subsequently 
travelled many thousand miles, and of whom I must 
therefore speak, are instances of the good and evil qua- 
lities of the Mexican character; and, although the first 
might be clouded by the last, yet I can truly say that later 
they were both distinguished by their perfect good will, 
their untiring activity, and irreproachable honesty. Their 
fate is typical of that of their nation, — a nation which, 
in the whole history of the Spanish race, has been in the 
worst possible position for moral development ; but which 
possesses good natural powers, which in the farther history 
of the New World will not be lost. 
But I must return to Temosachic. While we were in 
the house of our present servant, a young woman came in 
to inquire for her husband, who had gone to Chihuahua, 
and had remained longer than he had fixed. The man's 
name was Don Jose Jesus de la Luz Miramontes. What 
harmony of sound — but what empty noise in a name! 
In another country, the man would have been Dick, or 
Jack, or Bill. It is a positive misfortune for a people to 
have too beautiful a language, and the English and the 
North Americans would assuredly not have developed 
their energy of character could their language make pre- 
tension of being musical. 
The appearance of the young woman I have just men- 
tioned struck me very much. She had light hair, blue 
eyes, and a complexion as delicate and fresh as that of any 
German blonde. This type is not unfrequent in the 
" tierra fria," the higher and cooler regions of North 
