Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/241

mostly without springs, but very highly varnished, and bedizened with extraordinary paintings in lieu of arms, in each of which were seated two or more ladies, dressed in full evening costume, and whiling away the time with a segar en attendant the approach of some of the numerous gentlemen walking or riding near. Nor were the equestrians less remarkable; for most of them were equipped in the full riding-dress of the country, differing only from that worn by the lower orders in the richness of the materials. When made up for display in the Capital, it is enormously expensive. In the first place, the hind-quarters of the horse are covered with a coating of leather, (called the anquera,) sometimes stamped and gilt, and sometimes curiously wrought, but always terminating in a fringe or border of little tags of brass, iron, or silver, which make a prodigious jingling at every step. The saddle, which is of a piece with the anquera, and is adorned in a similar manner, rises before into an inlaid pummel, to which, in the country, the lasso is attached; while the plated headstall of the bridle is connected by large silver ornaments with the powerful Arabic bit. Fur is sometimes used for the anquera; and this, when of an expensive kind, (as black bear-skin, or otterskin,) and embroidered, as it generally is, with broad stripes of gold and silver, makes the value of the whole apparatus amount to four or five hundred dollars, (about 100l.) A common leather saddle costs from fifty to eighty dollars. The rider wears a