Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/225

wretchedly lodged than the Indians. In districts where trees abound, they generally select the foot of a plantain or palm tree; and leaving an open hole for entrance and egress, they place a few canes upright in the ground; then some thatch, or a bundle of flags, is twisted round them, and the whole is completed by an exceedingly slight roof of the same material. The hut in question has, in addition, a couple of logs on each side of the entrance, and a few palm leaves mingled here and there among the thatch. The floor is of mud, of a grey and clayey kind; a block of wood, answering the purpose of a table, an apology for a bed, consisting of two beams with a dirty hide stretched upon them, and a rude furnace and plate for tortilla cakes, are the only articles of furniture it contains. On the miserable couch is laid an elderly female, from whom the exclamations of anguish from time to time proceed. It is long since any other scene has met her eyes than the obscurity of her wretched room, and she despairs of ever again seeing the sun rise above the hills, as she plods on her weary way to dispose of her maize and tortilla-cakes at the neighbouring town, as has been her wont.