h-American. The latter are
creatures of impulse, and lack the "nerve" for a well-planned murderous
exploit of the above nature. Nor are they capable of the lynching,
burnings of negroes, and race riots which characterise those parts of
the United States which bound Mexico on the north, and once formed part
of her territory. If, however, their crimes are smaller, so is their
power of initiative, sustained effort, and the working for to-morrow
characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American peoples. Yet the
police are much in evidence in Mexican travel. A _gendarme_ with sabre
and revolver accompanies every car on the trains which cross the great
plateau. Indeed, in former years robbery with violence was the chief
"incident" of travel in Mexico. Footpads and armed _bandidos_ infested
every highway and mountain road twenty years ago, and travel was
impossible except with an armed escort. But this was before the work of
President Diaz and his _rurales_. The conditions are now very
different, and the traveller may journey almost anywhere, except in a
few districts, without danger of molestation, with ordinary precautions
such as the characteristic conditions of the country call for. In those
places where the _peones_ are distrustful of the white foreigners it is
generally due to the influence of these, who have ingrained their own
bad habits and vices upon them. A gentleman, if he holds the demeanour
covered by the designation, ever carries respect in Mexico.

Incidents of life and travel in remote regions, among the petty
authorities and the _hacendados_, _rancheros_, and landowners
generally, are full of colour and interest for the traveller. Our
belongings are securely packed upon a couple of well-appointed mules;
we are astride passable Mexican horses, seated on comfortable saddles,
with our servant and the _arriero_ in attendance, and we have left the
last of the city streets; with our face to the open country the true
charm of travel comes upon us--the touch of Nature, solitude, and the
far horizon which nothing else can ever supply. Thus accoutred we shall
hold real converse with Nature, and with the typical people of the
land over which we pass.

Let us therefore turn our attention to the picturesque world of the
great bulk of the Mexican population, the class which earns its daily
bread by the sweat of its brow. These are the _peones_, and to their
work is due the cultivation of the ground, the working of the