Mexican red man may aspire to become a
general, a senator, a lawyer, a landed
proprietor, a magistrate, a robber—all kinds of
grand things, in fine. But as an unadulterated
Indian, only one career is open to
him, by means of which he may raise himself
above the position of a mere hewer of
wood and drawer of water. He may enter
the church. And although he may no more
dream of becoming Archbishop of
Guadalayara than the gardener of Lambeth Palace
may aspire to become Archbishop of
Canterbury, he is suffered to undertake the ill-
paid office of a village priest. High offices,
rank, wealth, are all for the Creole
Spaniards and half-castes. With extreme
rarity do you find an Indian alcalde in some
country place, or occupying the status of a
well-to-do "ranchero" or farmer. Now and
then he is a "maguey" grower on a small
scale, but is usually found to pawn his
slender possessions in cactus plants to
wealthy higglers, who make "pulque" from
the "maguey" in large quantities. He
seldom feels any inclination to turn
guerrillero or brigand. He robs in a small
way, when he can do so without detection;
but very few real Indians are among
the professed highwayman class—into
the army he is found to enter; and a
deplorable, weak-minded, spiritless,
soldier he makes; not through any lack of
courage, but simply through a despairing
inability to discuss what the deuce he
should fight for. During the French
expeditionary campaign, the invaders were
terribly harassed by the Mexican light
cavalry—dare-devil fellows of mixed blood,
and often commanded by Spaniards or
European adventurers; but the Mexican
infantry, being mainly Indians, were usually
scattered like chaff before the wind. It was
not that they wouldn't fight; it was that
they did not perceive the utility of fighting.
Santa Anna or Miramon, Juarez or
Maximilian, it was all one to them. If they had
been asked to nominate a sovereign, they
would probably have declared for
Montezuma; but the great cacique has been
dead three hundred years and more; and
the "Noche Triste," when they strove so
hard, and with so near an approach to
success, to rid themselves of the European
intruders, will return no more. They have
made up their minds to take things quietly.
The soft, half-whispering tone of voice
habitual with them, bespeaks meek and
hopeless resignation. The Indians I saw,
from the sea coast to a distance of four
hundred miles therefrom, were neither tall
nor athletic. Numbers of them were,
even, almost dwarfishly diminutive; the
females especially. They are labourers,
and, to a certain extent skilful. Save
when they get tipsy on "pulque," they
are peaceful and affable. They are the
devoutest of Roman Catholics, as Roman
Catholicism is understood in Mexico. They
are farm-labourers or "peons," grooms,
horse-coupers, blacksmiths, mechanics,
porters, water-carriers, and especially
florists. One of the prettiest sights in
Mexico city is to see the Indian canoes
come up the canal which skirts the promenade
known as El Paseo de la Vega,
crammed from stem to stern with the loveliest
flowers. The bird-like Aztec physiognomy,
so familiar in ancient Mexican
sculptures and pictures, is exceedingly common
among the modern Mexican Indians,
and in their apparel they have nothing
of the savage. They go simply clad in
striped blankets: the men in loose drawers
of white calico or "manta:" the women in
dark-coloured skirts of cotton stuff. Both
sexes wear hats of palm fibre, or coarse maize
straw. As a whole, the Mexican Indians
reckon for nothing, and are as nothing, in
the political scheme of the country.

Rataplan, plan, plan, rataplan, plan,
plan, pla-a-a-n! Confound those drums I
To avoid the parchment thunder I fled
down a narrow "calle," which, from its
narrowness and its skirting of melancholy
stone walls, broken only here and there by
a dark doorway or a barred window,
seemed to offer some prospects of peace
and quietness.

I had not advanced many paces, however,
before more music was audible. But
it was not a drum. It was a guitar,
villanously out of tune, and seemingly
lacking at least two strings, but twanged
with a certain amount of dexterity. And
to this accompaniment came a song in
which three voices were audible—one a
gruff bass, the other a terribly shrill tenor,
both of men, of course; the third a
woman's voice, somewhat strident, but not
wholly unpleasing.

It was an old camp and barrack song
the trio were singing: a song you may
have heard among the tents at Chalons or
Boulogne, somewhat in this wise:

          La vivandiere fait d'la bonne soupe;
          Elle est L'amie des enfants de troupe;
          Dans la paix comme a la guerre,
          On a besoin de la vivandiere:
                     Blaguons la, blaguons la,
                     Et quequ' fois. embrassons la.
                                                                (Bis.)