are very vain; yet, upon the whole, they may be considered favourable specimens of the lower ranks of the community.
The Mexicans, especially the wild-cattle hunters, are almost unrivalled for their dexterity in the management of the lasso. It is exceedingly imprudent and dangerous, to be at large in almost any city of the republic after dusk, on account of the depredations of lassoing ladrones; and it would be still more so, if the dissolute habits of these wretches did not occasionally tend to make their aim less formidable and certain.
The market people with their panniered mules or asses, laden with turkeys, eggs, and wild fowl, fruits and flowers, vegetables and tortilla cakes, or carrying piles of dry goods, glass and earthenware, will be more particularly noticed hereafter; as also the storekeepers—whose habits of imperturbable coolness, unfailing loquacity, easy indolence, and modest assurance, are so constantly amusing to uninitiated foreigners.
Nightly watchmen, or serenos, as they are called, are occasionally to be heard in the most public thoroughfares, and near the principal archway in the several cities; but the
