l the dishes have _chile_ in them, and they make more of the Sixteenth
of September than they do of the Fourth of July. I mean in particular El
Pueblo de Las Uvas. Where it lies, how to come at it, you will not get
from me; rather would I show you the heron's nest in the tulares. It has
a peak behind it, glinting above the tamarack pines, above a breaker of
ruddy hills that have a long slope valley-wards and the shoreward steep
of waves toward the Sierras.

Below the Town of the Grape Vines, which shortens to Las Uvas for common
use, the land dips away to the river pastures and the tulares. It
shrouds under a twilight thicket of vines, under a dome of
cottonwood-trees, drowsy and murmurous as a hive. Hereabouts are some
strips of tillage and the headgates that dam up the creek for the
village weirs; upstream you catch the growl of the arrastra. Wild vines
that begin among the willows lap over to the orchard rows, take the
trellis and roof-tree.

There is another town above Las Uvas that merits some attention, a town
of arches and airy crofts, full of linnets, blackbirds, fruit birds,
small sharp hawks, and mockingbirds that sing by night. They pour out
piercing, unendurably sweet cavatinas above the fragrance of bloom and
musky smell of fruit. Singing is in fact the business of the night at
Las Uvas as sleeping is for midday. When the moon comes over the
mountain wall new-washed from the sea, and the shadows lie like lace on
the stamped floors of the patios, from recess to recess of the vine
tangle runs the thrum of guitars and the voice of singing.

At Las Uvas they keep up all the good customs brought out of Old Mexico
or bred in a lotus-eating land; drink, and are merry and look out for
something to eat afterward; have children, nine or ten to a family, have
cock-fights, keep the siesta, smoke cigarettes and wait for the sun to
go down. And always they dance; at dusk on the smooth adobe floors,
afternoons under the trellises where the earth is damp and has a fruity
smell. A betrothal, a wedding, or a christening, or the mere proximity
of a guitar is sufficient occasion; and if the occasion lacks, send for
the guitar and dance anyway.

All this requires explanation. Antonio Sevadra, drifting this way from
Old Mexico with the flood that poured into the Tappan district after the
first notable strike, discovered La Golondrina. It was a generous lode
and Tony a good fellow; to work it he brought in all the Sevadras, ev